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+Project Gutenberg's Women of the Teutonic Nations, by Hermann Schoenfeld
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Women of the Teutonic Nations
+       Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 8 (of 10)
+
+Author: Hermann Schoenfeld
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2010 [EBook #32776]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN OF THE TEUTONIC NATIONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Rénald Lévesque
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WOMAN
+
+VOLUME VIII
+
+WOMEN OF THE TEUTONIC NATIONS
+
+
+
+HERMANN SCHOENFELD, PH.D., LL. D.
+PROFESSOR OF GERMANIC LITERATURE IN THE GEORGE
+WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
+
+
+[Illustration 1:
+EMMA CARRYING HER LOVER
+After the painting by G. L. P. Saint-Ange
+Charlemagne had so great an affection for his children, legitimate and
+natural, that he prevented his daughters, of whom Emma was one, from
+marrying, in order not to lose their company. They were reputed to be
+very beautiful. Being debarred from marriage, they sought unlawful love
+adventures, and gave birth to illegitimate children. The romantic story
+of Emma's nightly meetings with Eginhard, and of her carrying her
+learned lover through the freshly fallen snow to conceal his footprints,
+is an unauthenticated legend.]
+
+
+
+_Woman_
+
+In all ages and in all countries
+
+VOLUME VIII
+
+
+WOMEN OF THE TEUTONIC
+NATIONS
+
+BY
+
+HERMANN SCHOENFELD, PH.D., LL.D.
+Professor of Germanic Literature in the
+George Washington University
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+PHILADELPHIA
+GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY
+Dedicated to
+MADAME CHRISTIAN HEURICH NEE KEYSER
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Adequately to write the history of the woman of any race would mean the
+writing of the history of the nation itself. There is no phase of the
+cultural life of any people that is not founded upon the physical and
+moral nature of its women. On the other hand, mental and moral heredity,
+both through paternity and maternity, determines the character and
+innermost being of woman. If we knew all the preponderating influences
+of heredity for ages, we could with almost mathematical accuracy compute
+the traits of human biology in every case. The forces of environment,
+tremendous though they are, modify, but do not alter in any way the
+original nature of man, which is established and standardized "by
+eternal and immutable laws." Anthropology is continuously progressing
+toward a firm scientific foundation, and is beginning to organize even
+the vast domain of psychology into a well-defined system. The
+interdependence between physical, mental, and moral traits is well
+recognized, but its exact determination is impossible, owing to the
+infinite complexity of the endless ancestral potencies.
+
+So much is established, however: Teutonic woman, as she appears in
+history, is the product of two groups of influences, the one group,
+inherited nature; the other, environment; she is the exact sum of these
+antecedent causes. And only so far as these causes differ does the
+Teutonic woman differ from her sister of any other race of other times
+and climes.
+
+In this book of a purely historical, literary, and cultural character
+must be excluded all that refers to the physiological and ethnographical
+characteristics of the Teutonic woman and of her Slavic sister. Nor are
+we concerned with the theory of their evolution, _i. e._, the search of
+the physical principles according to which the consequences of their
+existence are true to the laws of their antecedents. Many eminent
+scientists have tried their great faculties on this subject of universal
+interest and importance. Standard works of a scientific character, like
+Floss's _Das Weib in der Natur und Volherhunde_, abound in scientific
+and medical bibliography.
+
+Our limited task is merely to deal succinctly with the most general
+evolution of the social position and the cultural status of the Teutonic
+and, even more briefly, of the Slavic woman at the various epochs of
+their respective histories, and how far the history of civilization
+among those races was influenced by them, how far the symptoms of
+national morality and the degree of culture were shaped by feminine
+achievements, proclivities, virtues, and vices. Two thousand years of
+the richest, almost unfathomable, history had to be traversed in the
+attempt to glean the essential red thread from the enormous masses of
+facts which in their entirety would be inaccessible even to the most
+universal historical scholar. Most difficult of all the periods is
+perhaps the question of the present and actual women's movement, which
+is now in its liveliest flux and in a most variable condition both in
+the German and in the Slavic world. It is impossible as yet to
+systematize the entirety of the problems and the requirements which have
+resulted in recent times from the transformation of society with regard
+to the position of woman among the two modern peoples. Many of the
+questions belong to the domain of private and public law, of political
+economy, of sociology, of education in all its phases. The leaders of
+state and church and society, the higher schools and universities, are
+signally undecided concerning the final solution, though the mist of the
+conflict of opinion begins slowly to clear away. Even under the changed
+conditions of modern society, one party still clings to the old
+tradition of the family ideal of wifehood and motherhood, which is no
+longer possible in all cases, as of yore, and considers extra-domestic
+activity as abnormal, unhealthy, transient; the other extremists desire
+to wipe out the natural differences and the limitations prescribed by
+sex to human activity and capacity. A middle ground and a rational
+solution will certainly be found during this century.
+
+The author has strenuously endeavored to avail himself for every period
+of all the source material and the secondary works accessible to him in
+the Library of Congress and in the other libraries of the national
+capital. The chapters on the Reformation Period, the Era of Desolation,
+and on Woman Held in Tightening Bonds, a long period of dreariness so
+distressing and humiliating to German pride, were prepared with skill
+and scholarship by Miss Sarah H. Porter, A. M., at the time a graduate
+student in the author's department. Credit for the chapter on Russian
+Woman belongs to Mr. Alexis V. Babine, of the Library of Congress.
+
+The author also expresses sincere gratitude to the publishers, and
+especially to Mr. J. A. Burgan, the publishers' editor, for his careful
+revision of the English text and for the generous, vigilant aid extended
+to the author throughout the entire work.
+
+HERMANN SCHOENFELD.
+
+The George Washington University.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WOMEN OF THE PAGAN TEUTONS
+
+
+Women were valued by the primeval Teutonic race, as by all other races
+of the human family, as mere chattels means whereby the profit or the
+pleasure of man might be maintained or increased. The custom of burning
+the wife or wives with the dead master and husband was, from the
+prehistoric times until far into the light of historic days, prevalent
+in the tribes of the Teutonic family. Sacrifices of widows were
+especially prescribed in eastern Germanic law, and the low status of
+woman among the Teutons of the early times is sufficiently indicated by
+the established and quasi-legalized right and prerogative of the
+husband, as the owner of the female chattel, to bequeath, give, sell, or
+hire her person or services to strangers, guests, or friends; or even to
+kill her if she committed adultery, or if want and distress made such a
+course expedient.
+
+We must admit the harshness and cruelty to which woman, according to the
+most ancient conscience of the Teutonic race, could lawfully be
+subjected. Evidences that her status was outside of the pale of right
+and law is manifest in all historical proofs. Traces of the old status
+still abound. One lies in the present refinement of woman's actual
+position a refinement which cannot obscure its real origin from the
+student of culture and civilization.
+
+It is certain that the prehistoric Germanic community began with the
+communal use of women for pleasure or profit. This common use could be
+broken and suppressed only by marriage by capture. If the man wished to
+have exclusive possession of a wife, he had to procure her from outside
+his own community. Besides this exogamic marriage, an endogamic marriage
+was later recognized as conferring title, on the condition that the man
+reconciled the woman's blood relatives by the payment of a definite
+compensation. This system of marriage by capture survived the Migration
+period, and was found in Sweden even in the early Middle Ages.
+
+Marriage by treaty also existed even in prehistoric times. This compact
+(_Gifta_) is always between the blood relatives of the bride and the
+bridegroom. It is a presentation, a giving away (_Verschenkung_) of the
+bride. The parent or guardian gives her away, an act which requires no
+consent of the bride, but only a counter gift, or rather purchase money,
+from the bridegroom. Thus a kind of purchase, the symbolic pursuit of
+the bride (_Brautlauf_) as an imitation of the ancient marriage by
+capture, and the technical consummation of marriage (_Beilager_), for
+which the man, however, owes her a gift (_Morgengabe_), are the phases
+of marriage.
+
+Polygamy is the rule at first. The northern Teutons, especially the
+Scandinavians, practised an unmitigated polygamy down to a very late
+period, and only yielded after a most persistent struggle with the
+ethics of Christianity. As late as the eighth century the bitter
+accusations of the churchmen against Pepin of Heristal for having two
+wives, and their arraignment of Charlemagne's sins of concupiscence,
+show how ineradicable this ancient Teutonic usage was. However, as early
+as B.C. 57, Cæsar mentions King Ariovistus's marriage to two wives as an
+exception to Teutonic custom, due, perhaps, to political motives.
+Tacitus praises the Germans as those who, with few exceptions, live in
+monogamy, and though Tacitus is not an unimpeachable authority, owing to
+the fact that he wished to idealize the vigorous race as a model to the
+decadent Roman world of his time, his statements seem to prove that at
+the dawn of Christianity southern and western German tribes at least had
+the highest conception of family purity. Later on, under the teachings
+of Christianity, polygamy was first modified, then abolished; and
+marriage by capture was either suppressed or treated as a crime.
+
+Upon the status of women among the Teutonic tribes the study of
+philology sheds some light. From it we learn that the Gothic _quind_,
+woman (in general), and _queue_, married woman, signifies the
+child-bearing one, from the verb _quinan, gignere_; or _wip_ (Saxon
+_wif_, Old Norse _vif_), indicating the root of _wib_, motion, the
+mobile being; though _frouwa, frau_ (Old Norse, _freyja_), means
+originally "joyous, mild, gracious," and is used to signify "illustrious
+ladies" down to the thirteenth century.
+
+The female child was allowed to live only by grace of the father. If
+this right of the father over the life of his female child appears
+barbarous, we must understand that the valuation of life in primitive
+times is always very low. Not only among the early Teutons, but also
+among the early Romans and Slavs, a custom prevailed by which the
+children might kill their old or incurably sick parents, because of the
+conception that life is valuable only so long as physical vigor dwells
+in the body. Believing this, it is easy to conclude that when vigor
+departed death was a blessing, the bestowal of which parents could
+legitimately expect from their children.
+
+The daughter was bought from the father for marriage purposes for a
+value, and, without recourse, she was placed in the absolute possession
+of the buyer, who might be an entire stranger to her. Friendship, favor,
+or material advantage might induce the buyer to transfer his wife to
+whomsoever he chose. Nothing was left to her but resignation, and,
+obeying a stern necessity, she followed her husband and taskmaster to
+death, "not to sweeten his after-life, but to continue her dreary
+service."
+
+The Norse sources are full of tragic examples of immolation. When the
+bright sun god Baldur, the wisest, most eloquent, and mildest of all the
+Ases, is finally slain, at the instigation of the evil god Loki, by a
+twig of mistletoe in the hands of the blind god Hodur, his wife, the
+goddess Nanna, is burned with him. Likewise, the Valkyrie Brunhild, in
+the Old Norse version of the Siegfried legend, kills herself so that she
+may be burned with her beloved Sigurd. Hakon Jarl, the last great
+partisan of paganism in Scandinavia, woos in his old age beautiful
+Gunhild, but she is unwilling to expose her blooming youth to the risk
+of being burned with her aged husband.
+
+The toil and trouble of life rested upon woman's weak shoulders; the
+menial work at home and in the field was her lot. The man roved in war
+or on the hunting ground, and while at home was an impassive onlooker of
+her labors. He gave himself up to the enjoyment of his barbarous
+pleasures of drinking mead, lying idly on the skins of the wild beasts
+killed by his rude weapons, or gambling with such desperateness as
+sometimes to impel him, when all else was lost, to stake wife and
+children, nay, his own person, on the result of chance. Freedom and
+absolute liberty of life was the manly ideal, since according to the
+word of Cæsar "trained and accustomed from childhood to no business or
+discipline (outside of war and hunt, to be sure,) they do nothing at all
+against their own will."
+
+A highly important occupation of the ancient Teutonic woman was the
+brewing of beer from barley and other grain. Thus, the Edda relates that
+King Alrek of Hordaland decides the question which of his two wives he
+is to discard, in order to terminate their eternal altercations in his
+household, by the superior skill of one of them in brewing beer. Also
+the making and the care of wine, which the Teutons learned to know and
+appreciate from the Romans, belonged to the sphere of woman, for women
+not infrequently served as cupbearers to the men in their halls. It is,
+however, true that the Suevi, at least, forbade the importation of wine
+within their realm, because they believed that men by its use became
+effeminate and unfit for heavy labors.
+
+Even though we assume the menial labors of the household to have been
+done by slaves, yet we learn that royal women took an active part in
+washing. The pernicious strife between Brunhild and Gudrun breaks out in
+the business of veil washing. (In the old Norse version.)
+
+In its beginnings Teutonic family life was undoubtedly hard; it was,
+however, destined to emerge from its early barbarity and one-sidedness
+into a strong, sound, and healthy moral relation between the sexes. Only
+thus could have been produced a race now dominant throughout the world,
+and always capable, by this development, of the best and highest
+progress in political advancement.
+
+When first the light of history is shed by the two great historians,
+Cæsar and Tacitus, upon the Teutonic family eastward of the Rhine and
+northward of the Danube, woman has already conquered and appropriated to
+herself many traits of Freya and Frigg, the divine mothers of the
+Teutons. Something holy and providential is perceived and acknowledged
+in woman's nature: she has already become priestess and prophetess and a
+political power in the state.
+
+Of the sacrificing and prophesying priestesses of the Cimbri, the first
+Teutons who knocked powerfully at the gates of Italy, we shall speak
+later. When, in B. C. 58, Cæsar offered battle daily to Ariovistus, the
+Suevian king who had broken into Gaul and installed himself there, the
+latter, though a fierce and heroic warrior, did not accept it. Cæsar
+learned from Teutonic prisoners that the prophetesses, in consequence of
+lots and divinations, forbade the king, if he hoped for victory, to
+engage in battle with the Romans before the new moon. The battle was,
+however, forced by Cæsar and it ended with the total rout of the
+Teutons. Cæsar's envoy, Procillus, who had been held in chains by
+Ariovistus according to the barbarian fashion, escaped from his captors
+and related to Cæsar his terrible experiences in the camp of the king.
+It had been a vital question whether Procillus should be burned at the
+stake or kept for a future occasion, and this was thrice determined in
+his favor by the lots cast in his presence by the wise women. Here, as
+elsewhere, women interpreted the decree of fate. Tacitus mentions
+Albruna (called Aliruna by Grimm) as an ancient prophetess venerated by
+the Germans during the expeditions of Drusus and Tiberius in the
+interior of Germania.
+
+The greatest veneration, however, ever enjoyed by a prophetess, fell to
+the lot of Veleda during the heroic war of liberation waged against the
+Romans by the Batavi, a branch of the Chatti, under their great leader
+Civilis. Veleda's influence extended far beyond the theatre of the
+uprising on the "Island of the Batavi." Johannes Scherr, the historian
+of German civilization, finds in her name an allusion to Valkyrie, Vala,
+Volur, thus indicating the quasi-deification of Veleda. In reality, she
+belonged to the tribe of the Bructeri. She received embassies, formed
+alliances, and the most precious portions of the booty fell to her
+share. Her power was at its height when she correctly predicted the
+defeat of the Roman army. She dwelt solitary and inaccessible in a tower
+and was the Pythia of the Low-Rhenish tribes. Approach to her was
+forbidden in order to increase her divine prestige. On the downfall of
+Civilis, she was brought to Rome as a captive to enhance the triumph of
+the Roman conqueror, Crealis, the general of Emperor Vespasianus.
+
+There are many other such divine women mentioned in the ancient books,
+though the records of their deeds are scanty. Ganna is a prophetess
+among the Semnones at the time of Emperor Domitianus. The Langobardian
+Gambara and the Alemannian Thiota belong to a late time, probably the
+ninth century.
+
+From these few examples it appears clearly that in spite of the harsh
+treatment of woman by the more ancient Germans the veneration of her is
+inherent in the Teutonic soul. Hence prophetesses gradually become
+goddesses in the consciousness of the people; hence the depth of the
+later cult of the Virgin Mary (_Marienkultus_), and the extraordinary
+sentimental and poetic evolution of the Love Service (_Minnediensf_)
+which inspired and enriched what was perhaps, the greatest period of
+German literature and life.
+
+The oldest traces of German literature left to us are, in fact, charms
+pronounced by such deified women. The Old Saxon word _idis_ (from ict,
+ictn, work, activity, _i.e._, the working, active, skilful one) means
+originally "divine virgin," especially a goddess of fate. This is
+illustrated in the two charms found in Merseburg thus the first story
+runs: The gods Phol and Wodan rode into the forest; suddenly Baldur's
+horse sprained his foot. Sindgund and her sister Sunna uttered a charm
+over him. Volla and her sister Freya 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." Great as the art of the four heavenly women is in the
+treatment of wounds, it is yet inferior to that of Wodan. But it is an
+indication of the Teutonic conception that the curing of the sick and
+the tending of the wounded appertains to the domain of woman.
+
+It will furnish a more accurate idea of the alliterative form of this
+most ancient Germanic poetry if we place here a clever translation by
+Professor Gummere of the story just told:
+
+        "Phol and Wodan fared to the holt:
+        Then Haider's foal's foot was wrenched.
+        Then Sinthgunt besang it and Sunna, her sister:
+        Then Fryja besang it and Volla, her sister:
+        Then Wodan besang it, who well knew how,
+        The wrenching of bone, the wrenching of blood,
+        The wrenching of limb: Bone to bone, blood to blood,
+        Limb to limb, as if it were limed."
+
+The second Merseburg charm attributes to the Idisi (wise women) the
+power, on the battlefield, of loosening prisoners' bonds. This is
+apparent from its text, which runs:
+
+        "Once sat (wise) women (idisi), sat hither and thither.
+        Some bound bonds; some hindered the host;
+        Some unfastened the fetters:
+        Spring from fetters; fly from the foe."
+
+It describes the activity of the heavenly women, the Valkyries, in
+battle. They are, according to the charm, divided into three
+detachments; the first, binds prisoners in the rear of the army which
+they favor; the second, engages the foe; the third group appears in the
+rear of the enemy where the prisoners are secured, and, touching their
+fetters, utters the formula of deliverance: "Escape from your bonds,
+flee from the enemy."
+
+Though Weinhold, perhaps the foremost scholar on the position and
+achievements of early Germanic womanhood, does not concede the existence
+of a real priestcraft among the ancient Teutons, he gives, nevertheless,
+numberless examples of their great influence and prophetic mission. Like
+the above-mentioned mythological women, mortal women were supposed to
+know secret charms to make the weapons of their men victorious: some
+possessing the charm over the blade (_Schwertsegeri_). This spell was
+worked by scratching secret runes (letters) upon the handle or blade of
+the sword while calling thrice the name of the sword god Tyr.
+
+The most potent influence of Teutonic women rests upon their
+guardianship of the sacred runes, which are a primeval, Teutonic method
+of searching the future: the power of divination. The Anglo-Saxon and
+Scandinavian word _run_ signifies a letter, a writing, or literally a
+secret, mystery, confidential speech, counsel. A letter was also called
+_runstaef_. Little staffs with significant signs and symbols were thrown
+by women, as dice are cast, to the accompaniment of prayers and charms,
+and from the result of the cast prophecies were made. Odin (Wodan)
+himself taught the wise women the greatest of runes "which [in this
+connection] means both writing and magic, and many other arts of life."
+Whittier, Kallundborg Church, says of them: "Of the Troll of the Church
+they sing the rune: By the Northern Sea in the harvest moon."
+
+The _runes_ or charms are twofold. The good and wholesome ones are
+called _galdr_; the pernicious ones, carrying with them sickness,
+madness, and death, are called _soidr_. The women of magic possessed of
+the art of the _runes_ were called _volur_ or _seidkona_, and wandered
+through the land in fantastic attire, a dark cloak set with pearls
+around their limbs, a cap of black lambskin on the head, a staff with a
+brass button, set with stones, in their hand. Wherever they appeared,
+they were reverently invited to a feast and propitiated in every way,
+that they might be induced to practise beneficent magic arts during the
+night. They enjoyed an almost semi-divine veneration. There were,
+however, "_balewise_ women" against whom the Scandinavian warrior was
+warned. "The sons of men need an eye of foresight wherever the fray
+rages, for _balewise_ [horrible, hideous] women often stand near the way
+[with _baleful runes_] blunting swords and minds."
+
+A still higher, more divine and poetic mission than that of bond
+breakers is assigned to the Valkyries _i.e._, choosers of the slain or
+Walmaids. Odin, the supreme god of the Germanic Olympus, sends them out
+to every battlefield to turn the tide of battle and to make choice of
+those who are to be slain. Glittering in their armor and their waving
+golden hair, bright as the sun, they ride through the air and above the
+sea with shields and helmets and sparkling breastplates to execute the
+orders of the war god, whose handmaidens they are. With their spears
+they designate the heroes who shall fall and whom they afterward conduct
+to _Valhalle_ (Valholl), the hall of the slain, the heaven longed for by
+the Germanic warrior. This magnificent hall is in Asgard, the garden of
+the Ases, the gods of Old Norse mythology. Here Odin receives and
+welcomes the gods and all the _einherjes_, the brave warriors who died
+in battle.
+
+The hall is resplendent with gold; spears support its ceiling, it is
+roofed with shields, and coats of mail adorn it. According to the Elder
+Edda it has six hundred and forty doors, through which nine hundred and
+sixty _einherjes_ may enter side by side. The Valkyries make it a
+perfect paradise. As the servants of the divine host they bear the
+drink, take care of the mead horns and wait upon the table. Here they
+appear in the loveliness of their peaceful, housewifely mission. This
+unwarlike side of their nature should be emphasized, for it is apt to be
+forgotten when we think of Valkyries as spirits of the clouds flying
+over land and sea, driven by the wind, messengers of the storm god,
+shining in lightning, rattling in thunder.
+
+Nowhere does the poetry inherent in the primitive Germanic conscience,
+in spite of all its apparent, warlike savagery, appear in a brighter
+light than in the many sagas relative to those superhuman, semi-divine
+beings. Their conception sheds a brilliant light upon the soul life of
+the primitive German as we consider it in connection with womanhood, and
+especially with womanhood elevated to the level of the divine.
+
+In one way might the Valkyries be brought into subjection to man. A hero
+who surprised them bathing in the quiet forest lake obtained power over
+them if he succeeded in carrying off their feather garments, for he thus
+prevented them from flying away. In this respect the swan-maiden and the
+Valkyries are identical. A swan-maiden thus surprised must then follow
+the hero as his wife, until she perchance finds again her feather
+garment, for this will permit her to fly away as a swan. One of the
+loveliest passages in the _Nibelungenlied_ is the story where fierce
+Hagen, the slayer of the sunny hero Siegfried, surprises the
+prophetesses of the Danube by stealing their raiment, and thereby forces
+them to reveal to him the future fate of himself and of the Burgundians
+wandering to the court of the Hunnish king Attila, or Etzel:
+
+        "Spake one of the mere women Hadburg was her name:
+        Here will we tell you, Hagen, O noble knight of fame;
+        If you now, gallant swordsman, our raiment but restore,
+        Your journey to Hunland, and all that waits you more.
+
+        "Her words were glad to Hagen and made his spirits glad.
+        He gave them back their raiment. No sooner were they clad
+        In all their magic garments they made him understand
+        In truth the fate that waited his ride to Etzel's land.
+
+        "It was the second mere-wife, Sigelind, who spake:
+        'O Son of Aldriana, Hagen, my warning take!
+        'Twas yearning for the raiment my sister's falsehood made;
+        And if thou goest to Hunland, Lord Hagen, thou'rt betrayed.'"
+
+The number of the Valkyries varies; more than a dozen are named in the
+Elder Edda. The belief prevailed that heroic women of transcendent
+beauty could become Valkyries through Odin's choice and love. In the
+Norse sagas we find Valkyries in the suites of great kings. In the poems
+of the Edda, which deal with the _Volsungs_ and the _Hniflungs_, with
+their wonderful power, there are accounts of love between Valkyries and
+earthly heroes, ending in the premature tragic death of the hero. Best
+known and of the highest poetic value is the _Volsung-saga of Brunhild_
+(Brynhildr), the daughter of Odin, immortalized again in Richard
+Wagner's music-drama, _Die Walküre_.
+
+In defiance of the order of Odin, Brunhild chooses victory for her
+favorite, Siegmund the Volsung. At the last decisive moment of the
+battle the Father of the Universe appears. Siegmund's spear is broken to
+splinters by Odin's sword, and he himself sinks dead to the ground to
+expiate the crime against Hunding's marital honor. The disobedient
+Valkyrie tries to flee from the terrible wrath of Odin; but he overtakes
+her and decrees that she shall lie and sleep until a man discovers her
+and kisses her lips; to him shall she then belong. Moved by the sorrow
+of the proud maiden and mindful of his former love for her, Odin
+modifies his punishment by surrounding the sleeping beauty with a
+blazing fire, to frighten back every cowardly and unworthy man. Finally,
+after long, long years, Siegmund's son, the incomparable hero Siegfried
+(Sigurd), penetrates the fire and carries away the divine bride, kissed
+to life again, whose passionate outburst of delight is characteristic of
+the fallen Valkyrie:
+
+        "Hail to thee, Day!
+        Hail to you, Sons of Day!
+        Hail to thee, Night and thy daughter Earth!
+        Hail to thee, fruit-bearing field!
+        Word and wisdom give to us two, and ever-healing hands!"
+                                                      (H. S.)
+
+In her unbridled passion lies the cause of her destruction and also that
+of the beloved Sigurd. After their union, Sigurd abandons her for the
+love of Gudrun, and even inflicts upon her the disgrace of winning her
+for Gunnar, whom he impersonates. In an altercation with Gudrun, the
+Nibelung princess, she learns that it was Sigurd, not Gunnar, who
+conquered her and subjected her. Her wrath is unbounded. She causes the
+Nibelungs to murder Sigurd, but in reawakened love she kills herself to
+be united in death with her beloved.
+
+Here we have the source of the lovely fairy tales of _Dornroschen and
+Sneewittchen_. In the former, the Valkyrie Brunhild is pictured as a
+beautiful princess, and the glowing flame becomes a hedge of thorns.
+Instead of intrepid Siegfried (Sigurd), who penetrates the flames, a
+fairy prince appears, and rescues the sleeping beauty, through a magic
+kiss, from the doom of eternal sleep. In the second story, the
+metamorphosis of Brunhild is accomplished through a poisoned comb which
+is thrust in Sneewittchen's head: as Brunhild sleeps in her brilliant
+castle, so the maiden sleeps in the mountains in a glass coffin, guarded
+by seven dwarfs, until the prince rescues her.
+
+But not in all cases are the divine women thus transformed into lovely
+fairies. Under the influence of mediæval theology and scholasticism and
+their hostility toward the lingering ancient faith, they are distorted
+into malicious, hideous beings witches. _Thrud_, the name of a Valkyrie,
+is the mediæval designation for "witch."
+
+In the oldest Germanic sagas we find frequently confounded with the
+Valkyries, the _Norns_, the rulers of the fate of gods and men. It is
+characteristic, indeed, of the Germanic world conception, as, in fact,
+also of the cognate Greek and Roman mythology, that the fate of men and
+gods rests in the hands of divine women; for where the Valkyries act by
+order of Odin, the _Norns_ act independently and by their own free will.
+They weave the web of men's lives, "stretching it from the radiant dawn
+to the glowing sunset." The destiny of the world lies with them, and
+nothing that is, is exempt from their irrevocable decrees. Time and
+space are embraced in the domain of their influence: _Urd_ (the Past),
+_Verdande_ (the Present), and _Skuld_ (the Future) supervise, as it
+were, the judgment place of the gods where they meet in council at the
+sacred well, _Urdharbrunn_, at the foot of the ash tree _Yggdrasil_. It
+is interesting to note how their influence is reflected and depicted by
+Shakespeare's genius in Macbeth, where the three witches surely, though
+perhaps unconsciously, derive their origin from the Norse Norns. In the
+witches' kitchen in Goethe's Faust is brewed likewise the charm that
+controls the fateful lives of Faust and Gretchen.
+
+[Illustration 2:
+_CAPTURE OF THUSNELDA
+After the painting by H Konig_
+_It is in the period of Roman attack that we meet for the first time
+agreat royal character, Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius, the liberator
+of Germania from a foreign yoke. Her history is the oldest Teutonic love
+story. Betrothed to another man, she is by force carried away by
+Arminius from her father Segestes, the friend of the Romans. Betrayed to
+the latter under Drusus Germanicus, she is captured. Inspired more by
+the spirit of her husband than by that of her father--no tear, no
+complaint or entreaty came from Thusnelda's lips at her capture. The
+news of the capture of his wife and of her slavery exasperated Arminius
+to mad rage. But in vain he flew to her rescue. With her son and her
+brother Segimunt she adorned the triumph of Drusus, while traitor
+Segestes looked on._]
+
+Under such circumstances the elevation of woman among the Teutons was
+more of a religious than of a social character. The Teuton considered
+woman as a physically weak but spiritually strong being, who had a just
+claim to protection and reverence. Though it is true that women
+prophetesses, like Veleda and Albruna with their far-reaching influence,
+were regarded rather as semi-divine beings than as ordinary women, and
+though the legal status of woman was thoroughly subordinated to that of
+man, being in fact about equal to that of a minor child, yet her honor
+and chastity were held sacred, and her intellectual gifts were highly
+prized. Her natural physical weakness began to be her strength, and her
+lack of legal rights was compensated for by her great spiritual
+influence in family and society.
+
+The potential and inherent virtue, in the Latin sense, and the physical
+as well as moral vigor of Teutonic men began to assert itself earlier
+than among many other races further advanced in civilization. It rose
+unconsciously from the stage of crude sensuality to a free humanity. But
+we must in no wise modernize the single trait of the ancient veneration
+of woman, as mentioned above. Though harshness and cruelty were yet the
+order of the day, nevertheless, gradually the cruel tenets of primitive
+law began to be softened and modified in practice by many exceptions.
+This occurred especially in the higher levels of primitive society. The
+natural affections arising from family ties and blood relationship
+steadily transformed woman's status in fact, if not in law. What the
+dim, though growing intellect of the man, trained only for war and the
+hunt, could not compass, the natural reasoning power of woman, her
+natural womanly prudence, did accomplish. Concessions regarding the
+purchase money, which originally subjected her absolutely to the buyer,
+were made in her favor; the purchase of her body and soul became
+gradually the acquisition of the right to protect her; the husband's
+power over his wife's body became more limited; her immolation with her
+dead husband fell into disuse; the widow's right over her children, even
+her male children, arose and increased. Womanly power and influence made
+many a free man dependent, regardless of law; women began to exert a
+tremendous influence over their husbands, their tribes, their state
+formations. All the Roman sources preserved to us prove that when the
+Romans, after the conquest of Gaul, entered upon the gigantic task of
+subjugating the Germans, women played a prominent part in the political
+upheaval which then occurred.
+
+It is in the period of Roman attack that we meet for the first time a
+great royal character, a tragic type of a historical German woman:
+Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius (Hermann), prince of the Cherusci, the
+liberator of Germania from a foreign yoke. Her history is the oldest
+Teutonic love story. History, legend, and poetry have vied in idealizing
+and immortalizing her. Betrothed to another man, she is by force carried
+away by Arminius from her father Segestes, Arminius's political
+adversary, the friend of the Romans. Betrayed to the latter under Drusus
+Germanicus, she is captured. "Inspired more by the spirit of her husband
+than by that of her father no tear, no complaint or entreaty came from
+Thusnelda's lips at her capture; with her hands clasped over her bosom,
+she looked down silently at her pregnant body. The news of the capture
+of his wife and of her slavery exasperated Arminius to mad rage. But in
+vain he flew to her rescue. She was carried to Rome and there bore
+Thumelicus. With her son and her brother Segimunt she adorned the
+triumph of Drusus, while the traitor Segestes looked on, as son,
+daughter, and grandson walked in chains before the carriage of the
+triumphator." Indeed, Strabo, the celebrated Greek geographer, confirms
+the story in his _Geographica_ (vii, i, 4): "To them, conquerors of
+Varus in the Teutoburg forest, Drusus Germanicus owed a splendid triumph
+at which the foremost enemies were carried personally in triumph:
+Segimuntos, son of Segestes, chieftain of the Cherusci, and his sister
+Thusnelda, with Thumelicus, her three years' old son. Segestes, however,
+who from the beginning had not shared his son's policy, but had rather
+passed to our side, overwhelmed with honors, beheld how those who ought
+to have been dearest to him, walked in chains." Here Johannes Scherr
+makes the pertinent remark that, eighteen centuries before Napoleon had
+founded the Rhenish Confederacy, there were already in existence princes
+of that Confederacy; that is, traitors to the German cause.
+
+How long Thusnelda outlived the disgrace is unknown. It is reported,
+however, that, to accomplish the revenge of the Romans, Thumelicus was
+trained to be a gladiator at Ravenna, if nothing worse. Gottling, in
+_Thusnelda and Thumelicus, in Contemporaneous Pictures_, 1856, seems to
+have proved that the beautiful marble statue of a German woman in the
+Loggia de' Lanzi at Florence represents Arminius's wife bearing herself
+with a wonderful majesty to impress the Romans with her regality.
+
+Now, in contrast to Thusnelda's strength, we have Bissula, a picture of
+Germanic grace. Ausonius, a poet of the late Roman period, sketches the
+portrait of this German maiden a prisoner who had been captured in the
+expeditions of Emperor Valentinianus I. against the Alemanni on the
+Neckar and Upper Rhine. She fell as booty to the poet, who stood high in
+pedagogical and political offices. The beauty and grace of this charming
+Alemannian maiden contrast strangely with the majesty and heroism and
+tragic bitterness of Armin's wife. The slave Bissula becomes a queen, as
+the queen had become a slave. Ausonius speaks with enthusiastic
+tenderness of her shining countenance, her blue eyes and blonde hair.
+"Art possesses no means," he says, "to imitate so much grace."
+
+        "'Bissula, inimitable in wax or in color,
+        Nature adorned with charms, as art never succeeds.
+        Mix then, O painter, the rose with the white of the lily,
+        Choose then the fragrant blend to paint fair Bissula's face.'"
+                                                          (H. S.)
+
+The ancient Teutonic woman is, in general, represented as beautiful in
+countenance and form. Her rich, reddish-blond, flowing hair became the
+envy and imitation of the Roman ladies of fashion. Ovid and other poets
+mention how the Roman ladies tried to change their black hair to German
+blond. The _rutilce comce_ of Tacitus, became a valued Roman article of
+trade. In Heinrich von Kleist's drama, _Die Hermannschlacht_,
+Thusnelda's revenge upon the Roman general Ventidius hinges upon an
+intercepted letter of his, containing a lock of her golden hair obtained
+by ruse, and sent to his Roman princess:
+
+        "Varus, O princess, stands with seven legions
+        Victorious on Cheruscan land:
+        Cheruscan land, mind well, where those locks do grow,
+        Shining like gold and soft like Roman silk.
+        Now mindful of the word spoken in jest by thee,
+        When last thou saw'st me parting for the war:
+        I send a lock of hair destined for thee,
+        When Hermann falls, to clip from his queen's head.
+        By Styx! the trader by the capitol can't offer it:
+        It's a love token from the foremost lady of the land:
+        The Princess of Cheruscia herself."
+                                                    (H. S.)
+
+The blue eyes, described by the Roman witnesses as full of fire and
+chaste defiance, the white rose cheeks and the strong, well-proportioned
+form make almost ideal the beauty of the German woman when undefiled by
+foreign admixture. Emphatically does Tacitus state that the German
+tribes not taking in foreign blood became a genuine, unmixed nation,
+similar only to themselves (_Germanice populos, nullis aliis aliarum
+nationum connubiis infectos, propriam et sinceram et tantum sui simikm
+gentem exstitisse._)
+
+The physical beauty of the ancient German woman was heightened by the
+fashion of her garments, though Tacitus relates that these were not
+essentially different from those of man. Despite the assertion of the
+historian, we do not doubt that a touch of innocent vanity was present:
+a cloak of skin or fur, held together by a gold buckle, or, in the case
+of the poor and lowly, by a thorn, constituted the outer garment. This
+usually covered a linen, purple-edged undergarment, somewhat like the
+Roman tunic, which, by its cut, left the arms, neck, and the upper
+breast uncovered. The question of dress is so interesting and so
+indicative not only of the state of civilization of any people, but also
+of their moral characteristics and habits, that works like Weiss's
+_Kostumkunde_, and Falke's _Deutsche Trachten und Modenwelt_, with the
+object lessons of good pictures, shed a flood of light upon the
+subsequent stages of the evolution of dress. The scanty clothing of the
+early historical period was chiefly for out-of-door use; it gave way to
+absolute nakedness at the hearth-fire of home, as well as at the common
+bathing of the two sexes.
+
+Cæsar's account of the sexual life of the Germans of his time is of
+great importance to our theme. Says the imperial historian: "It is a
+matter of the highest praise to the youth of a people whose minds, from
+early childhood, had been directed to strenuous conditions and warlike
+efforts, to remain sexually undeveloped as long as possible, since this
+made the body stately and vigorous, and strengthened the muscles. It was
+a disgrace for a youth to know a woman before his twentieth year. Nor
+could such things be kept secret, since both sexes bathed together in
+the rivers, and had only furs as garments, which left the body, to a
+large part, naked."
+
+Their garments, as described above, remained, on the whole, unchanged
+for centuries; even until about the time of the Prankish kings. The
+upper body was free, though often cloaked, the lower body clothed in
+trousers, _braccce_, the genuine manly German garment, and it is thus
+clothed that we meet their men in the first historic records. In winter
+a sagum, mantle, was added, according to Tacitus and Pomponius Mela. We
+have in plastic art only two pictorial reproductions: the so-called
+_Vienna gemma_, Augustus's Pannonian triumph, and the _Parisian gemma_,
+Germanicus's triumph, to show us objectively the vestments of the
+ancient Germans.
+
+A word concerning the proper names of ancient Teutonic women may be in
+order here. Wilhelm Scherer, the eminent historian of German literature,
+divides them into two distinct groups: those which combine nature and
+beauty and tell of love, gentle grace, purity, and constancy; and those
+which apply to battle, arms, victory counselling, inspiring, tending
+men. Perhaps two different epochs in the spiritual growth of the nation
+are thus indicated. Most ancient names seem to be: _Skonea_ (_schon_,
+beautiful); _Berchta_ (shining); _Heidr_ (_heiter_, serene); _Liba_
+(living); _Swinda_ (swift); compounds like _Swanhvit_ (swanwhite);
+_Adalhert; Brunhild; Kriemhilde_ (maiden in armor, with helmet).
+
+As we proceed through the centuries with the aid of existing documents,
+we find again and again that in Germanic women chastity is the
+fundamental trait, as loyalty and good faith is in man. And this despite
+the evidences of the violation of the rule which are found in the law
+that provided that adultery by women should be punished with unmitigated
+cruelty, and that the punishment according to the ancient Germanic law
+should be left entirely to the outraged husband. In the presence of her
+relatives, her hair, the pride of a free woman, is cut; then she is
+expelled naked from the house and scourged through the village, and
+sometimes buried to her neck and left to die. There is many a Teutonic
+Lucretia, though we meet also now and then with some German Judiths. The
+Langobard king Sighart falls in love with the beautiful wife of Nannigo,
+one of his men. She rejects his wooing with contempt. The prince,
+employing the old means of tyrants since King David's time, sends the
+husband as an ambassador to Africa, and forces the wife to submit to
+him. Her heart is broken; she lays aside the vestments of a noblewoman,
+and clothes herself in sackcloth and ashes. When her husband returns,
+she bids him kill her, since a stranger has stained his and her honor.
+Though her husband tried to console her, no smile ever sweetened her
+lips again.
+
+Paulus Diaconus relates, in the _Gesta Langobardorum_, a trait of
+touching humility and modesty in a Teutonic woman, Radberg, wife of Duke
+Bemmo, in the Forum Julii. Conscious of her lack of physical beauty and
+deeming herself unworthy of her noble husband, she requests him to
+divorce her for some better wife. But Bemmo esteemed her chastity and
+loyalty higher than the beauty of others, and led an ideal life with
+her.
+
+But in spite of many such lovely traits, it cannot be denied that a
+strong, fierce atmosphere pervades woman's life in Teutonic antiquity.
+The womanly emotions for good or for evil almost surpass human measure.
+Tremendous feelings find expression in Titanic passions and actions, or,
+as Weinhold has it: "No tender tears are shed, but the flood of the eyes
+rolls, mixed with blood, over the cheeks and garments of ancient
+Teutonic woman." In a wild woe, Brunhild wrings her hands so that the
+cups rattle on the wall boards and the fowl start up frightened in the
+courtyard. The whole house shook to its foundations from her bitter
+laugh at Siegfried's death, which she had caused. Freya's diadem bursts
+because of the wrathful motion of her bosom. In the twilight between
+mythology and history love is as unmeasured as hate in Teutonic women.
+All the sagas of all the legendary circles (_Sagenkreise_), the sagas of
+_Brunhild and Kriemhilde_, of _Hildegund, bride of Walther of
+Aquitaine_, of _Gudrun_, of _Sigrun, Helgi's wife_, teach us the nature
+of the Teutonic woman's love and hate. Only the strength and power of
+the man awaken love in her bosom. She inclines toward even an unloved
+man when he proves strong and heroic; and only to the bravest is the
+Teutonic maiden willing to give her heart and hand. Brunhild stakes her
+own person as a prize for the bravest hero in the games for warlike
+honors. When she falls by fraud to the lot of the inferior and weaker
+man, her nature rebels in a terrific wrath that destroys all, the
+beloved and the unbeloved, and those connected with both. Pride, too, is
+the incentive of woman's action, thus spurring man to crime or to noble
+endeavor, as the case may be.
+
+Harald Schonhaar (Fairhair), of Norway, wooes Gyda, daughter of a petty
+Norwegian king. But she will not sacrifice her virginity to a man who
+rules over a small land. Proudly she sneers: "Methinks it strange that
+none of the princes of Norway strives to conquer the whole land, like
+Gorm in Denmark, and Erich in Sweden." This arouses Harald the wooer,
+and he begins that fight for the supremacy over all Norway that wins
+both lands and Gyda. But a still prouder maiden, Reginhild of Denmark,
+conquers him, though he has ten wives and twenty concubines. The maiden
+scornfully rejects his love, claiming that no king in the world is
+powerful and great enough for her to sacrifice her virginity for the
+thirtieth part of his love. Thereupon, Harald dismisses his thirty women
+and takes Reginhild as his sole bride.
+
+The pride of the Teutonic woman extends, however, to an anxious regard
+also for her husband's honor. The old German romance of Erek and Enite
+demonstrates that she will rather lose her husband forever than see him
+disgraced by effeminate idleness.
+
+Even the beasts succumb to the influence of Swanhild, daughter of Gudrun
+and Sigurd. On a false charge against her womanly honor, she is
+condemned to be trampled to death by the hoofs of wild horses. "But when
+she looked up at them, the horses dared not tread upon her, and Bike
+(_Bicce, Sibich_), the treacherous counsellor of the king, had a sack
+drawn over her eyes.... and so she ended her life."
+
+The noblest poetic expression of the wonderful depth of ancient Teutonic
+love is set forth in the _Helgi songs_ of the Elder Edda, the tragic
+power of which truly raises them to the standard of the Germanic _Song
+of Songs_.
+
+Helgi, a Volsung, at the age of fifteen years, avenges the death of his
+father, Siegmund, on Hunding and his whole race, whom he exterminates in
+a fierce battle. As he is about to leave the battlefield, he sees the
+train of Valkyries riding through the air in their golden armor, rays of
+light shining from their spears and helmets. Helgi invites them to his
+triumphal feast in his royal hall. Yet Sigrun, the most beautiful among
+the Valkyries, exclaims from her lofty white horse:
+
+        "'Woe is me! Other cares than feasting oppress my heart.
+        All-father has betrothed me to an unbeloved man.
+        Fierce Hodbroddr will carry me off in a few nights, if you,
+        O hero, shining in the beauty of youth, will not save me and
+            challenge him to mortal combat.'"
+
+With these words she entwines caressingly her white arms around the neck
+of Helgi, whose heart melts and inclines to her. He challenges the hated
+rival, and on the morning of the combat he stands against the countless
+host of Hodbroddr, who is aided by Sigrun's father and brothers, who are
+resentful of the bold Helgi's suit. The earth trembles and shakes under
+the onslaught, but Helgi's resistless sword mows down his enemies.
+Beasts and birds of the field hold a rich repast. When the tumult of the
+battle subsides, Sigrun rides over the field, and her lamentation for
+her slain father and brothers is heard amid the exultations of victory.
+Only one brother, Dag, survives, and he weds her to Helgi. But impelled
+by the sacred duty of blood revenge, he breaks the peace which he has
+sworn. Odin himself, wrathful against the Volsung, offers Dag his
+invincible spear. In the ensuing combat Helgi falls. Before his sister,
+Helgi's loving wife, the slayer pleads the will of Odin and the Norns,
+goddesses of immutable fate, and offers rich compensation to her. But
+Sigrun breaks out in bitter woe, cursing her brother: he shall be a wolf
+out in the forest, all joy shall be far away from him, no horse shall
+carry him, the ship which may save him from his enemies shall stand
+still under him.
+
+The tomb is piled up over Helgi's corpse. When Sigrun's maid goes to the
+grave, the dead master comes riding along and bids her ask his wife to
+soothe his wounds. Before he can lay aside his bloody armor, Sigrun
+embraces him, lamenting how cold are his hands, how wet he is with the
+dew of the night. Helgi replies: "Thine is the blame; for every tear
+which thou weepest falls as a cold and piercing drop of blood upon my
+bosom. But let us be of good cheer and drink the sweet mead, let no one
+complain of the wound on my breast, since, though dead am I, my wife is
+with me." Sigrun prepares the couch to sleep on the breast of the
+beloved dead, as she did when he was still alive. Helgi, touched by so
+much love, exclaims: "It has happened what no one ever deemed possible:
+the white daughter of Hagen, the living one, sleeps in the arms of the
+dead." At the morning dawn, before the cock crows, Helgi is obliged to
+return to Valhalla, and Sigrun returns to her solitary palace. In the
+evening she awaits him, but waits in vain, and in her sorrow her heart
+breaks.
+
+The motive of this legend lives in German literature in varied forms.
+Burger has reawakened it in _Lenore_, the greatest German ballad.
+
+But, to conclude the chapter on the Teutonic women of antiquity, it is
+necessary to return once more to the prose of history, where, for the
+first time, the women of the Teutons, in their general aspect, enter
+into the bright light of historical observation, in this instance so
+much the more valuable, since it is the observation of the enemy. In
+conformity with our other sources, the Greek-Roman historians, Plutarch,
+Dion Cassius, and Strabo, have to report regarding Teutonic womanhood
+only traits of tremendous strength, power, and love of liberty. Savage
+virtue and heroism are there, but not a single trait of grace and
+loveliness appears in their accounts. And if there is exaggeration, it
+simply proves the terror the furor Teutonicus which was inculcated by
+the Teutons into the hearts of the Romans at their very first encounter.
+The years B. C. 113-101 witnessed the first Titanic clash and conflict
+between the Cimbri and the Teutones, mere splinters of the Teutonic
+race, and the world power of the Roman Republic at the height and zenith
+of its greatness. For the first time, Teutons thundered at the gates of
+the Alpine entrance to Rome, and thus began the incessant struggle which
+continued for nearly six centuries between the two most powerful races
+in the history of the world, until the Empire finally succumbed.
+
+When one legionary army after another, led by the foremost commanders of
+Rome, had been destroyed under the onslaught of the two combined tribes,
+the Cimbri and the Teutones, it was only the military genius of Marius
+which finally succeeded in stemming the tide of the Teutonic flood, and
+then only after the tribes had divided their forces and, thus weakened,
+hurled their naked bodies against the phalanx of the overwhelming Roman
+army. When the legionaries of Rome pursued the defeated Teutones to
+their camp, Plutarch relates: "the Teuton women met them with swords and
+axes, and making a terrible outcry, drove the fugitives as well as the
+pursuers back, the first as traitors, the others as enemies, and mixing
+among the warriors, with their bare arms pulling away the shields of the
+Romans and laying hold on their swords, endured the wounds and slashing
+of their bodies invincible unto death with undaunted resolution."
+
+An account by Valerius Maximus emphasizes not only the bravery, but also
+the chastity of the Teuton women. When captured, they requested of the
+victor Marius to consecrate them to the service of Vesta's sacred
+virgins, promising to keep themselves as pure and immaculate as the
+goddess and her servants. Upon the refusal of their request they
+strangled themselves the following night. Thus ended the battle of Aquas
+Sextise in B. C. 102, with the annihilation of the Teutones root and
+branch.
+
+
+In the subsequent year Marius destroyed the Cimbri also, on the Raudian
+fields near Vercellas. Among their women were prophetesses, hoary with
+age, barefooted, clothed in white garments with iron girdles, and fine
+flaxen cloaks. Thus apparelled they went sword in hand to meet the
+prisoners of war in camp, whom, after wreathing them, they conducted to
+a large iron kettle. Then one of them mounted a high step and bending
+over the kettle, cut the throat of the prisoner who had been lifted over
+the edge, and prophesied from the blood which streamed into the brass
+vessel.
+
+During the battle they drummed on hides fastened over the wagons, and
+made a horrible noise. When the largest and most warlike part of the
+Cimbri had been annihilated, and the Romans pursued the rest within the
+wall of the camp, they were astounded by a highly tragic spectacle. The
+Cimbri women standing in black garments of mourning on the wagons,
+inflicted death upon the fugitives: one upon her husband, another upon
+her brother, another again upon her father. But their own children they
+strangled and hurled under the wheels of the wagons and under the hoofs
+of the horses. Finally they laid hands upon themselves. One, it is said,
+was hanging from the top of a wagon with her children, tied with ropes,
+dangling from her ankles.
+
+The later struggles, too, between the Teuton and the Roman offer many
+examples of the German woman's absolute contempt of a life which could
+be preserved only in shame and servitude.
+
+When Drusus battled with the Cherusci, Suevi, and Sigambri, it happened
+that their women, besieged by the Romans in their wagon fortifications
+(_Wageriburg_), instead of surrendering, desperately defended themselves
+with everything that might serve as a weapon. Finally despairing, they
+struck their children against the ground and hurled their dead bodies in
+the face of the enemy. The most perfect model of heroic stoicism in
+connection with those wars, Princess Thusnelda, whose fate we discussed
+above, was only the first woman among her equals. Teutonic women in
+those primitive times invariably followed their husbands to war,
+carrying food and encouragement to the warriors in battle, counting
+proudly the wounds of their husbands and sons, and nursing the wounded.
+Through threats or entreaties they restored many a tottering battle
+array, inciting the men to heroism.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE YEARS OF THE WANDERINGS
+
+
+Until the period of the migrations of the Teutons, the precursors of
+which were the hapless attempts of the Cimbri and the Teutones to invade
+the Roman Empire, the ancient world, as known to history, was sharply
+divided into two parts: the Roman world and the world of the Barbarians.
+The consequences of the invasion and infiltration of the Germanic
+barbarians into the northern and western provinces of the Roman Empire
+were the ethnographic combinations from which arose well-nigh all the
+nations of modern Europe. It is those barbarians who created the mixture
+of blood, of ideas and ideals, of institutions and customs, from which
+every State of Europe was born. Their influence for good, as for evil,
+was lasting and universal.
+
+The combinations of the Teutonic races during the fourth, fifth, sixth,
+seventh, and eighth centuries, until the race movement came to some sort
+of a standstill under the Carlovingian dynasty, were numberless. When we
+consider those tribes rushing one upon another, the newcomers ever
+pressing upon those before them, as waves beating upon a shore, and see
+the first germs of incipient civilization overwhelmed again and again by
+swift following surges of barbarity, or even savagery, when we observe
+newly formed states crushed and swallowed up by opposing states, we have
+great difficulty in perceiving anything but the play of the blind,
+brutal forces of nature. The changes are countless, a tremendous
+revolution endures for centuries, and everything is in a state of flux;
+and yet, such were the influences evolved from this chaos that there is
+no modern Caucasian state, however remote, where the Germanic impulses
+springing from the migration period are not to-day visible.
+
+But, in spite of the existing confusion, there was no epoch of human
+history when the influence of thought is more plainly manifest than in
+the time of the Teutonic upheaval that left no stone unturned. There was
+no German knight who did not endeavor to adopt some shred of the Roman
+Empire which he helped to tear to pieces.
+
+Christianity, too, which for centuries was but a vague longing in the
+hearts of most men, began to arise and to assert itself, at first
+indefinitely, still groping in darkness and strongly intermingled with
+the ingrained and venerated pagan conceptions, then more and more as a
+living issue. Christianity so gained in force that at the time of
+supreme need it saved humanity from sinking back into the degeneracy of
+the Roman bacchanal. Under the action of Christianity the ephemeral
+barbarian confederacy crystallizes into a permanent political
+organization.
+
+At the end of the third century of our era the Teutonic race is already,
+though indistinctly, consolidated into four large nationalities, or
+tribe leagues, with two inferior, though independent, branches. Where
+Tacitus, in the angle between the Rhine and the Main, had seen Sigambri,
+Bructeri, Chamavi, Tencteri, Chatti, there is now one great, though
+loose, confederation: the Franks. Between the North Sea, the Rhine, and
+the Elbe are the Saxons with the Angli in the north, and the Thuringians
+in the south. In the angle between the Rhine and the Danube, the beehive
+of all tribes (all man), is the confederation of the Alemanni, mixed
+with Suevi (_Schwaben_); behind them, pressing toward and beyond the
+Rhine, are the Burgundians; and following closely are the Langobards,
+who appear on the middle Danube. Near the Baltic, which derives its name
+from the Gothic dynasty of the Balti, we have the Turcilingi, the Rugii,
+the Sciri, and the Heruli who were tattooed blue. Between the upper Elbe
+and the Oder Rivers, the Quadi (in Moravia) and Marcomanni (Bohemia)
+seem to disappear gradually, and are probably merged into the Suevi.
+
+The Gothic or Scandinavian race is agitated by the same movements,
+disputing with Finnish tribes (related to the Turks and the Hungarians)
+the Danish and Scandinavian peninsulas and the isles of the Baltic:
+Gothia, Ostrogothia, Westrogothia, and the Isle of Gothland. At the same
+time they spread over the plains of eastern Europe. The Visigoths under
+the dynasty of the Balti and the Ostrogoths under the Amali occupy the
+steppes of Russia; behind them are the Gepidas. The Jutes (from whom is
+derived the name of Danish Jutland) and the Vandals, perhaps mixed with
+the Slavic Wends, occupy the Baltic for two centuries. The race of the
+Slavs, as yet existing in almost complete historical darkness, is known
+to Tacitus but dimly by the name of Wends.
+
+When brought in contact with the Romans, the purely Germanic
+individuality ceases, the tribes become Romanized; their gods change,
+their habits, their religion: a new world, undreamed in its southern
+radiance and sunny luxury, opens before their eyes, accustomed to the
+dreary north; victory itself carries with it corruption. In the third
+century Rome is no longer feared, in the fourth it is already considered
+a German prey. The infiltration goes on through the engagement of
+Teutons for Roman military service. The German soldiers, with their
+barbarous strength of body, soon reappear as Roman comites, duces,
+patricti, counts, dukes, patricians, _i. e._, supreme civil and military
+officers at the court; they enter also in masses as laborers, servants,
+_fcederati_, or auxiliaries. From such or from simple legionaries they
+rise to be dignitaries of a rank but a shade under imperial, like the
+Vandals Stilicho and Rufmus, who for a time uphold the existence of the
+Roman Empire.
+
+It is true, then, that in those centuries of upheaval the Teutons lost
+many of their racial characteristics, of their stock of primeval sagas,
+but they also gained immensely from the intellectual, spiritual, and
+cultural influence of the southern nations that furnished them with a
+stupendous stock of basic material for their future progress.
+Christianization and amalgamation instilled into their Teutonic spirit
+the germs of that Romanticism which we are wont to consider as purely
+Germanic, while in reality it is an elixir of the Christian-Roman
+fountain assimilated by the Teutonic soul. The Roman Catholic Church
+working upon the soul through the senses the only possible way to reach
+and penetrate the soul of primitive man, who is unfit for abstract
+thought, created the "divine arts" poetry, music, architecture, in the
+progressive sequence of the centuries of German history.
+
+In religious symbolism lies the root of Romanticism, the blossom of
+mediæval life: Romanticism, a Romance word in sound, is German in
+spirit. Its soul is the romantic ideal of love: woman is its centre. It
+radiates first from a fervent soul with an ecstatic, passionate devotion
+to the Christian _Allmutter_, the mother of God, the Holy Virgin, Saint
+Mary, who was from the first deeply revered by the Teutons, owing to
+their inherent veneration for woman. Among the Germans of all times,
+even the most corrupted and dissolute, this spark of veneration is not
+entirely extinct. Love is surrounded with a halo in contrast with the
+severe Oriental treatment of women by the Church Fathers. The harsh
+words of the Gospels, "Woman, what have I to do with thee!" is
+transformed into: "Pure woman, and mother mine!"
+
+Thus the picture drawn by the Edda truly called the Norse Bible of the
+Teutonic race of the doomsday of the world, the _Gotterdammerung_, is
+nothing if not a representation of the whirl of the immigration. Yet all
+that is valuable, culturally speaking, rises like a phoenix from the
+ashes. As, in the ingenious words of the poet, "Conquered Greece
+conquered, on her part, the fierce Roman conqueror and carried her
+(intellectual) arms into Latium," so conquered Rome transformed the
+fierce Germanic conqueror into a new man. The unity of the Roman Empire
+had furthered Christianity, and the complete German conquest mightily
+influenced the entire Germanic race in the direction of Romanization and
+Christianization, though the latter for long remained crude and was
+affected by the cult of the gods of Olympus as well as of those of
+Asenheim and Niflheim, and, even where not so affected, Christianity was
+divided between Arianism and the Orthodox Romanism. With the political
+conquest, however, a new order was by no means assured. The Empire was
+destroyed, it is true, but nothing firm, solid, or steady took its
+place. The wavering new political aggregates put in its stead were no
+longer purely Teutonic. They succumbed too easily to the treacherous and
+manifold, if silent, influences that on every side assailed them. The
+majority of such political groups, whether in Italy, in Gaul, in Spain,
+or in North Africa, lost their nationality and even the German language:
+they became Roman mongrels and some even turned against their old
+mother, Germania.
+
+Even at home, the Roman Christian foreign culture seemed for a time
+destined to overwhelm Germanism, but the Alemanni in the south and the
+Saxons in the north and west proved too strong for denationalization and
+carried Teutonic principles triumphantly through all the phases of the
+struggle.
+
+Having thus described the tribal existence of the Teutons in Germania
+proper, in order to give to our study of the cultural history of German
+womanhood full point, a word must be said about German colonization
+abroad.
+
+The Burgundians, after a checkered career of adventurous wanderings from
+North Germany to the Alpine mountains of Savoy, conquered southeast Gaul
+in the fifth century. In the southwest, or ancient Aquitaine, the
+Visigoths settled, and, crossing the Pyrenees, conquered a large part of
+Spain.
+
+When Odoacer, the German king of the wandering hosts, had dethroned the
+last shadow Emperor of Rome, Romulus Augustulus an ill-starred,
+diminutive reminiscence of Rome's glorious inception as kingdom and
+empire the Heruli were the dominant race. Their rule lasted but thirteen
+ominous years. The Ostrogoths, under the great Theodoric, Dietrich von
+Bern, the paramount hero of Germanic saga and song, replaced them and
+founded a more permanent government. In northern Italy, the Langobards
+succeeded the Ostrogoths and gradually extended their rule southward,
+and pressing upon the Italian domain of the Bishops of Rome, who, by
+this time, had asserted their supremacy and headship of the ruling
+church of the world, brought about that cataclysm which finally
+submerged the power of Rome under the flood of the Prankish universal
+empire. The Salian Franks had, in the fifth century, conquered northern
+Gaul from the Batavian coast to the Somme River; the Ripuarian Franks
+formed a state along the Rhine, the Maas, and the Moselle, with Cologne
+as a capital. Chlodwig, the Salian Frank, one of the most cunning and
+unscrupulous kings in history, began, in A. D. 480, the unification of
+the Franks and the adjacent German tribes into one nation. After the
+subjugation of the Alemanni, the principal role, the hegemony within the
+Teutonic race, belongs to the Franks. Christianity becomes a political
+lever by which they extend their sway from north and east and finally
+create that Carlovingian-Prankish Empire which inaugurated the Middle
+Ages proper and founded therewith a stable Germanic civilization.
+
+Up to this time, in spite of Christianity, the pagan imprint is still
+very strong. The Latin titles _rex, dux, comes,_ are applied to the
+German chiefs, as they were in Italy under Roman rule; sovereignty
+passed but slowly from the body of the freemen to individual chiefs, a
+transition finally accomplished by Charlemagne yet the old spirit of
+German liberty was not rooted out. The ancient Teutonic laws and
+traditions, though committed to mediæval Latinity, are German in spirit.
+
+The political status remains as of old. There are two great divisions of
+the people: the free men and the unfree. The former are subdivided into
+nobles (_adalinge_ or _edelinge_) and common freemen (_Gemeinfreie,
+liberi_); the unfree are either tributary (_Horige, liten or lassen,
+manumitted_), or real serfs (_Schalke, servi_). Exactly the same
+division holds true for women. The serfs, men and women, are without
+rights, and are valued as chattels, though manumission or absolute
+liberation is possible. Bravery in war creates a "nobility of arms"
+(_Waffenadel_), based upon the sword; and thus renders this species of
+nobility accessible to all in the same manner that, among the
+Carlovingians, "court nobility" (_Amtsadel_) may be obtained by the
+ministeriales, or civil servants, as the reward of merit or by the favor
+of the king. Women serfs, because of beauty or of manifest superiority,
+often become concubines, mistresses, and even wives of nobles and
+princes, and sometimes of kings.
+
+Blood relationship, family, and the rulership of the housefather are in
+this early period the base and centre of social order. So the legal
+relation between man and woman is command and obedience; protection and
+responsibility. The wife is subordinate, and has no official voice or
+vote in the community or the body politic. Woman could not be a witness
+before a court, and in most states she was excluded from rulership over
+land and people, though this rule was frequently circumvented, broken,
+or repealed, for we early meet with women rulers or ruling women, who
+will be separately treated.
+
+Though the laws in favor of woman's equality with man are still
+precarious, yet customs and traditions, as well as the ancient and
+innate veneration of German men for women, frame regulations for their
+strong protection. It is well known that every crime, including murder,
+but excluding high treason or assassination of the military chief, is
+atoned for by the payment to the family of the insulted, injured, or
+murdered person of an expiatory sum of money (_Suhngeld_ or _Wergeld_)
+or cattle, according to the valuation by the ancient Teutonic law. This
+law, among most of the tribes, attributed higher value to woman, because
+she is defenceless, than to man. The wergeld, according to Alemannic and
+Bavarian law, is double for a woman, and, according to Saxon law, the
+double wergeld applies while a woman is able to bear children. The
+Prankish law prescribes in ordinary cases a treble wergeld, namely, six
+hundred solidi (shillings) or cows (which are equal in value); and in
+the case of a pregnant woman the expiatory sum is seven hundred solidi.
+Johannes Scherr informs us how the Salian law determines accurately the
+fines for misdemeanors against womanly modesty. It says that a man who
+immodestly strokes the hand of a woman shall be fined fifteen shillings,
+and if her upper arm is stroked, thirty-five shillings, while if her
+bosom be touched he must pay forty-five shillings or cows. Many
+centuries later, in the highly polished, super-refined period of the
+Love Song (_Minnesang_), the wergeld, for an offence against a woman, on
+the contrary, sank to one-half of that inflicted for an act against a
+man, and this in spite of the increasing love service to women
+(_Fraitendiensf_), which, however, was degenerating to sensualism.
+
+[Illustration 3:
+_A TEUTONIC ALLIANCE
+After the painting by Ferdinand Leeke_ Women serfs, because of beauty or
+of manifest superiority, often became.... even wives of great leaders.
+
+A Teutonic marriage was concluded when the bridal couch was entered and
+"one cover touched both."
+
+Not until the fourteenth century did the legality of marriage become
+dependent upon the conscent of the Church; on the morning after the
+marriage, the wife received the bridal gifts from her husband;
+henceforth she enjoyed all the marital rights, but remained subordinate
+to her husband, who could chastise her of even sell her into slavery.]
+
+In the early times the housefather has the guardianship, _mundium_ (from
+Old High German _munt_, hand), over his wife, daughters, sisters, and
+also the duty of protecting them. The father has the right to sell his
+sons during their minority and his daughters until their marriage, and
+this barbarous action is common. At the death of the father, the
+guardianship passes to the next male relative, (the sword relative,
+_Schwertmagen_, as opposed to the spindle relative, _Spillmageri_). In
+case of legal marriage, guardianship passes to the husband.
+
+The law of inheritance is greatly in favor of sons, and daughters are
+frequently entirely excluded from participation in the heritage, or
+their share is reduced to one-half or one-third of the son's
+inheritance. This is, however, only in the case of real estate (_Odal_)
+probably because it needs the sword of the male protector, for the
+remaining or movable property is equally divided.
+
+The conception of caste privileges, social birthright
+(_Ebenburtigkeif_), is very strongly developed, inasmuch as women lose
+caste by marriage with inferiors and give up every claim to the
+inheritance of their blood relations (_Sippe_); and the caste
+degradation results at one period in the exclusion from the inheritance
+of a free father of the children of an unfree woman.
+
+It is but natural that, in the loosening of all the bonds of social
+order, during the wanderings, the ancient Tacitean purity and monogamy
+was, to a large extent, lost. Among the high classes, concubinage was
+the rule, since the lord had absolute power over the unfree maidens, and
+war and conquest have it in their nature to blot out all natural rights.
+We meet concubines, called _Fritten_ or _Kebse_, everywhere in the lives
+of the great kings and chiefs. The Merovingian Franks are especially
+famous, or rather infamous, for their sexual sins. Charlemagne and Louis
+the Pious held concubines. The Church, especially at the synod of
+Mayence, A.D. 851, began to thunder against licentiousness, but in vain.
+Nor did the monasteries always remain pure from the taint. Winfrid, or
+Bonifatius, the apostle of the Germans par excellence, complains of the
+Prankish _diacons_ (deacons) who kept four or more concubines.
+Frequently, however, the Church submitted, on political grounds, to a
+recognition of two or more lawful wives taken by one man. But the sense
+of dignity and self-respect on the part of the women themselves, as we
+have seen in the case of Harald Fairhair, finally forced monogamy upon
+the full blooded, semi-barbarous Teutonic warriors, as the leading
+principle of a lawful marriage.
+
+Teutonic marriage is concluded when the bridal couch is entered and "one
+cover touched both" (_eine Decke das Paar besetting_). To the very end
+of the Middle Ages the Church function is quite an indifferent matter,
+though as early as the Carlovingian time the Church prescribed a
+"confession of marriage in the Church" and "a priestly blessing." In the
+_Nibelungenlied_, Siegfried and Kriemhilde, Gunther and Brunhild, marry
+without mention of a priest, yet on the morning of the bridal night the
+two couples go to the cathedral where a mass is sung. This latter
+statement is due to the attempt of the mediæval Christian poet to color,
+from numberless constituent parts of varied antiquity, the ancient
+Germanic heroic saga, originating in paganism, to the advantage of the
+newer religion. The _Nibelungenlied_ arose about the beginning of the
+thirteenth century, and, with all its grandeur and splendor, is "like
+unto an ancient grove of the Teutonic gods forced below the roof of a
+Christian cathedral." The shining Valkyrie-patterned Brunhild, so
+magnificent in the pagan naturalness of her divinity and her
+surroundings, appears in the _Lied_ as a gloomy, hermaphroditic being
+between two different and irreconcilable worlds. She is unfit for the
+Christian frame and setting that have been given her. Thus it is with
+Kriemhilde, with Siegfried, with Hagen. Their virtues and qualities and
+passions are not yet fully infused with the light which emanates from
+the Crucifixion.
+
+During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the legality of marriage
+first becomes dependent upon the consent of the Church. On the morning
+after the bridal night the wife, whose hair is now put up, no more
+allowed to wave freely as that of a virgin, receives the morning gift
+from her husband. She henceforth enjoys all the marital rights, but
+remains subordinate to the husband. He is the administrator of her
+fortune and has, _ipso facto_, its usufruct. But at his death one-half
+or one-third of the property acquired during his married life belongs to
+the wife according to the law of the Saxon and Ripuarian Franks.
+Chastisement of the wife still belongs to the husband; he might even
+inflict death or slavery for adultery. Divorce is possible if the wife
+is barren or the husband impotent.
+
+Most interesting, historically speaking, is the circle of women
+surrounding Theodoric the Great, for the sagas have associated with him
+all the powerful women of the legendary history of the German tribes. He
+may be truly called the political forerunner of the Habsburg dynasty of
+the Middle Ages in the policy of strengthening dynasties by marrying
+royal women to powerful kings. Such marriages enhanced the strength and
+extent of Ostrogothic rule and cemented alliances with the other
+Teutonic tribes. Following, consciously or unconsciously, the rule of
+Theodoric, the Habsburgers, during the Middle Ages, built up by their
+judicious political marriages their tremendous dynastic power
+(_Hausmacht_), which finally became superior to that of the Holy Roman
+Empire itself.
+
+These marriages gave rise to the proverb: Let others wage wars; thou,
+happy Austria, get married, for what realms the God of War gives to
+others are given to thee by the sweet Goddess of Love (_Bella gerant
+alii, tu, felix Austria, nube; nam quce Mars aliis, dat tibi regna
+Venus_). Theodoric married his sister, Amalfreda, to the Vandal king
+Thrasimund; his daughter Theodicusa to Alaric; his daughter Ostrogotha
+to the Burgundian prince Sigismund; his niece Amalberga to the
+Thuringian king Hermanfrid. Political marriages, then, are as old as
+German history.
+
+Amalasuntha, one of the daughters of Theodoric, shines preeminently in
+history as the worthy daughter of the greatest German king of the
+creative epoch. Her contemporaries, the authors Cassiodorus and
+Procopius, praise her as an ingenuous, high-minded, lofty woman, an
+excellent ruler, and a noble protector of arts and sciences. Early
+widowed through the death of Eutharich, also a scion of the race of the
+Amali, she becomes, upon the demise of her great father, regent and
+guardian of her minor son, Athalarich. Reared in Græco-Roman culture,
+Amalasuntha inclined in her life and thoughts toward the Roman element
+in the state, and was to a certain extent estranged from the
+semi-barbarous Ostrogoths, who unwillingly submitted to her guardianship
+over her son, their king, and even more unwillingly to her rule over
+themselves. Though her rule was mild and wise, yet the discontent of the
+national party increased. Bitter reproaches were heaped upon the head of
+the noble queen for keeping young Athalarich removed from the company of
+the youth of Gothic race, for surrounding him with aged men, "though the
+mildest and wisest of their people," and for sending him to a Latin
+school of rhetoricians. For this was the training of a Roman emperor,
+not of a Gothic king, and their ancestors had taught them to despise
+such education. The queen was forced to yield to the popular demand, and
+the consequences of her surrender justified her fears. In the company of
+young Gothic nobles, Athalarich soon learned all the evil which the
+young barbarians had drawn from the Roman mire. His new friends had
+almost roused the youth to open rebellion against the "woman's rule,"
+when, fortunately, he succumbed to the unaccustomed life to which his
+delicate constitution was not equal. By his opportune death, history is
+spared the record of the horrible tragedy of matricide which, in all
+probability, would have been enacted by the misguided prince a tragedy
+occurring frequently in the history of the Merovingian dynasty.
+
+Amalasuntha's fate is full of tragic pathos. A great ruler and an
+extraordinary woman, she had indeed the qualities to become the
+benefactress of her nation, had not the epoch of unrest and agitation,
+the unsteadiness and the irreconcilable conflict between an overripe
+Roman civilization and Germanic barbarism, made her a victim of untoward
+circumstances.
+
+In order to strengthen her tottering throne, she elevated to the
+position of her husband and king the last prince of the race of the
+Amali, the unworthy Theodat, a man of whom Procopius says that "the
+principle of never tolerating a neighbor beside himself had raised him
+to power and riches." Immediately upon his ascending the throne, he
+openly sided with the so-called nationalist party against Amalasuntha,
+and murdered the last friends and partisans of the hapless queen. In her
+despair she appealed to the eastern Roman, or Byzantine, emperor,
+Justinian, and implored him for protection and hospitable reception. But
+she did not escape to Constantinople. Theodat seized her and sent her as
+a prisoner to a fortress on a small island in the Bolsen lake. Shortly
+after the arrival of the Byzantine ambassador, who brought her a
+courteous invitation to the court of Constantinople, she disappeared in
+a mysterious way, whether by Theodat's orders or through the intrigues
+of the Byzantine is not known; but the king hated her; and the
+ambassador, according to Procopius's narrative in his _Historia arcana_,
+had been bribed by Empress Theodora, the infamous wife of Justinian, to
+prevent by any means the appearance at the corrupt Byzantine court of
+the highly cultured, royal Gothic lady.
+
+The history of the Langobards, a Germanic race which plays a great role
+in the Migration period in shaping the fate of Italy, and, by driving
+the Popes into the arms of the Franks, in elevating that race and the
+Carlovingian dynasty, furnishes us a kaleidoscopic sequence of royal
+women, who exhibit all the vices and passions, crimes and virtues.
+
+Paul Warnefried, a Langobard noble, calling himself, in his clerical
+capacity, as an author, Paulus Diaconus, is, through his historical
+work, _De Gestis Langobardorum_, the principal source of our knowledge
+concerning his great but barbarous race.
+
+For the first time in the history of the Langobards we meet with a
+wicked woman in the person of the murderess Rumetruda, daughter of the
+seventh Langobard king, Tato, who, through her lust of blood,
+precipitated her people into a terrible war with the Heruli.
+
+Looking from the window of her palace she perceived one day a Herulian
+embassy, which, under the guidance of the brother of the king, had just
+concluded an alliance with the Langobards, and was now returning to its
+own country. The demoniacal woman sent to the prince of the Heruli a
+cordial invitation to a cup of wine. No hospitable feelings, however,
+had induced Rumetruda to send the invitation, but curiosity and scorn at
+the somewhat abnormal, heavy-set shape of the foreign prince. Soon she
+began to mock and ridicule him concerning his stature and finally
+enraged him to such a degree that he also began to upbraid her with
+insulting words. Revenge arose in the soul of the cruel woman, and,
+having conciliated him politely and forced him back upon his seat, she
+proceeded to the execution of her murderous plan. Behind the seat of her
+royal guest there was a large window covered with costly curtains,
+behind these she placed a number of Langobard warriors, bidding them
+hurl their spears against the curtain. Pierced by several lances, the
+prince of the Heruli sank to the ground; the flagitious woman had
+satisfied her revenge at the expense of the peace and the alliance
+between the Langobards and the Heruli. A terrible war was kindled by
+this violation of the sanctity of ambassadorial rights.
+
+The savagery of these times of bloodshed in the constant wars, when
+every race had to be "hammer or anvil," appears in the stirring history
+of the death of King Alboin, the Langobard. The latter had, with the aid
+of the Avars, defeated the old enemies of his tribe, the Gepidae, and
+with his own hand slain their king, Kunimund. According to a barbarous
+custom of his time, he had a drinking cup fashioned from the skull of
+the slain enemy. Rosamunde, the beautiful daughter of the unfortunate
+king, Alboin took for his wife, his former consort, the Prankish
+Clodsunda, having just died. Sometime after these events, it happened
+that Alboin at a great feast held at Verona, was seized by the desire of
+drinking wine from the skull of his dead enemy. Flushed with wine, and
+careless of the feelings of his wife, he bade her, following his
+example, drink from the ghastly cup. Rage and desire for revenge filled
+Rosamunde's heart, but of necessity she obeyed the cruel order, though
+at the same moment she resolved upon a terrible retribution for the
+horrible deed. Through her personal charms she won Helmichis, the royal
+shield bearer, and while Alboin lay sleeping upon his couch after a
+heavy repast, he was pierced by the murderer's sword. To make sure of
+his death, Rosamunde had fastened Alboin's weapon to the bedpost so that
+he might the more safely be delivered into the hands of her lover.
+Helmichis's hope to succeed to Alboin's throne was vain. He was
+compelled to flee with Rosamunde to the eastern Roman prefect, Longinus,
+at Ravenna. Tired of her now useless tool, Helmichis, the treacherous
+woman was easily persuaded by Longinus to do away with the murderer and
+to marry the prefect. She offered to Helmichis, who was arising from his
+bath, a cup of poisoned wine. While drinking it, either the taste of the
+wine or a triumphant glance in the eye of his mistress suggested his
+fate, and, sword in hand, he forced Rosamunde to drink the rest of the
+poison and thus to die with him.
+
+Turning from this ghastly tragedy, we may read the first story of
+romanticism. This is the tale of the love and marriage of fair-locked
+Authari, a successor of Alboin in the kingship of the Langobards, to
+Theodelinda, daughter of Garibald the Bavarian duke. A brilliant
+embassy, headed by King Authari himself, who was incognito, arrived at
+the Bavarian court to sue for the hand of the beautiful princess. At a
+solemn festival, King Authari besought that Theodelinda herself should
+give him a draught of wine. The lady gratified his desire, and Authari,
+charmed by so much loveliness, caressingly stroked the hand of his
+future bride; she, blushing at his boldness, modestly cast down her
+eyes. Later on, she complained to her nurse of the boldness, but the
+wise old woman consolingly assured her: "No simple Langobard nobleman
+would have dared the deed; this man can be no other but the king himself
+and your bridegroom." Having obtained the consent of the duke and the
+princess, the Langobard embassy, accompanied by a host of Bavarian
+nobles, joyfully rode homeward. Arrived at the frontier, Authari, his
+heart swelling with love, raised himself aloft in his saddle and hurled
+his battle-ax with a powerful arm deep into a tree, exclaiming: "This is
+the throw of Authari, the Langobard." Unfortunately, the romance ended
+shortly after the marriage. Authari died one year later, as the rumor
+goes, by poison. Theodelinda became a passionate missionary of
+Christianity among the German tribes; and it is a general fact that
+royal women, as we shall see later in the case of the Christianization
+of the Franks, were the most ardent propagators of the faith.
+Christianity appealed especially to women because of its spirit of
+humility, of charity, and of submission to a higher will. The Church
+showed due gratitude by canonizing many noble and deeply pious women of
+the time. After the death of Authari, Theodelinda, seeing that the reins
+of rulership were too heavy for her, looked for the worthiest of the
+Langobard princes, to whom she might offer her hand and heart. Agilulf,
+the brave Duke of Turin, was her choice. A prophetess had, on the day of
+Theodelinda's marriage with Authari, prophesied to Agilulf that he would
+become the consort of the Bavarian princess. Theodelinda now summoned
+him and offered a cup of welcome, which the duke accepted with a
+grateful kiss on her hand. Blushingly she withdrew her hand, with the
+words: "he should not kiss her hand who was permitted to kiss her lips
+and cheeks." The overjoyed vassal, who had always suppressed his love
+for his queen, saw his most secret desire fulfilled, and lovingly
+embraced her. And the queen never had to regret her choice.
+
+In strange contrast to the attractive and poetic queen Theodelinda
+stands the detestable Romilda, wife of Duke Gisulf of the Forum Julium.
+At the time of the invasions of the savage Avars, she was compelled,
+with her husband and her children, to take refuge in the fortress of the
+Forum Julium. One day she noticed, from the height of the wall, the
+handsome form of the young Avar prince Cacon, and the undutiful woman
+was seized with a violent passion for the fair barbarian. Secretly she
+sent him a message that she would open the fortress for him, if he vowed
+to take her for his wife after the conquest. The Avar consented; and
+having become master of the important stronghold, he married Romilda.
+But after the bridal night, to shame and disgrace her, he turned her
+over to twelve Avar warriors; and when they had wrought their will upon
+her, he caused her to be impaled on a pole in the open field,
+exclaiming: "This is the husband thou art worthy to have!" Paulus
+Diaconus, while condemning Romilda, praises the exemplary conduct of her
+two chaste daughters, Appa and Gaila, who, to protect their virtue,
+placed pieces of putrid meat between their breasts. This heroic measure
+drove the assailants back, but unjustly secured to the entire Langobard
+nation the reputation of a bad odor. Pope Hadrian evidently credited the
+slander, for, when he seeks the aid of Charlemagne against Desiderius,
+he writes of the "perjurious and stinking nation of the Langobards." But
+our two chaste virgins escaped and were richly rewarded for their
+virtue, as one was married to the Alemannian duke and the other, to the
+Bavarian.
+
+We find a curious lack of foresight related of another Langobard queen,
+Hermilinda, wife of Cunipert. The queen once surprised Theodata, a
+wondrously beautiful Roman slave, of patrician family, in the bath. Her
+form was exquisite, her golden hair flowed down to her very feet, and
+the queen could not help praising her charms to the king. The
+consequence was that in due course of time Theodata gave constant
+pleasure to Cunipert, and Hermilinda became an inmate of a fine
+monastery named after her, where she died in the odor of sanctity.
+
+The migration of the Teutonic peoples had been in great measure
+spontaneous, it is true, but the impetus of the avalanche had
+undoubtedly been tremendously increased by the irruption of a mysterious
+nomad people, the Huns, who broke forth from the steppes of middle Asia
+like a hurricane, hurled the Alans to the ground, overpowered the
+Ostrogoths, pushed the Visigoths over the Danube into the eastern Roman
+Empire, and, occupying the Roman province of Pannonia (Hungary), made it
+the centre of an empire which, though loosely connected, extended, more
+or less, over the length and breadth of Europe. About the middle of the
+fifth century the Huns arose anew from their Pannonian seat, and again
+threw Europe in a turmoil. The moving spirit of that commotion of
+savagery and barbarity which seemed to shake the three continents known
+to antiquity was Attila, called Etzel in the German lays and sagas, the
+"scourge of God" (_Godegisel_). His hordes were estimated at more than
+half a million warriors. His death was an event of immense political
+significance, and appears in the German saga in many romantic forms. The
+historian Jordanes relates, after Priscus, that Attila died suddenly of
+violence during his bridal night, while lying intoxicated beside his
+young wife Ildico (_HildikS_). In the morning his servants found him in
+his blood, but without wounds, beside him was the young wife with
+downcast eyes, weeping under her veil. The circumstances of his death
+were such as to throw suspicion upon the young woman. Ammianus
+Marcellinus reported as a fact that "Attila came to his death at night
+by the hands of a woman." But the legendists have tried to establish
+motives for the deed of violence, and nothing was more natural than the
+story that Ildico committed the deed out of revenge for Attila's murder
+of her relatives. According to the poet Saxo and the _Quedlinburg
+Chronicle_ she avenged the murder of her father.
+
+The famous _Nibelungenlied_, however, in its fundamental Norse form
+shapes the story as follows: Attila, the Terror of Europe, is the
+consort of the Burgundian princess Hild. He conquers and treacherously
+kills her brothers, the Burgundian kings Gundaheri, Godomar, and
+Gislahari, sons of Gibica, and afterward meets his death by the hand of
+their sister, his wife.
+
+Felix Dahn has immortalized Ildico by his genius, and made her the most
+ideal, heroic woman of the Migration period. Reared in the palace of her
+father, King Visigast, in the land of the Rugii, she gives her tender
+love to Daghar, the son of Dagomuth, King of the Sciri; but a dark cloud
+hovers over her young life. Attila has heard of her incomparable beauty,
+and is still further aroused by the descriptions of her charms given by
+Ellak, his son by a Gothic princess. The Hun resolves upon the
+possession of Ildico.
+
+Accompanied by her father and her betrothed, Ildico appears, by order of
+Attila, at the Hunnish court in Pannonia, where she is received with
+barbarous splendor and conducted into the reception hall. Here she sees
+the terrible Hun for the first time, but she was not frightened by the
+hideousness of the man; proudly erect she looked in his face firmly,
+defiantly, menacingly. He recognized in this glance such a cold,
+fathomless hate that he involuntarily closed his eyes before her: a
+slight shiver of a mysterious fear moved his frame; he dared not meet
+again her eye which pierced him, but he drank her overwhelming charms
+with the unbridled passion of the barbarian. Then the feast began,
+accompanied by the wild, discordant song of a Hunnish bard, in which he
+hurled scorn against the Germans. The bitter stanzas aroused Daghar to
+warlike poesy, which nearly cost his life at the hands of the wrathful
+Hunnish princes. Attila personally interfered so that hospitality should
+not be violated even toward hated Germans. But only for a moment is the
+protection extended, for by accident Attila obtained information of a
+mighty conspiracy of Visigast, Daghar, and Ardarich, king of the
+Gepidae, and then the full cup of his wrath is poured over the German
+princes, whom he reproaches with perjury and murderous intentions
+against himself. Foaming, he announces their punishment. The old king
+shall be put on the cross, the youth shall be impaled "behind my
+sleeping hall! Thou shalt hear his screams of agony, fair bride, while
+thou becomest mine."
+
+The night arrives; the king of the Huns orders the sleeping hall to be
+prepared. For the first time in forty-six years he has the high pitcher
+of gold filled with unmixed Gazzatine wine and placed in his bridal
+chamber. He desires to gain courage to face the glances of the
+beautiful, but terrible bride. She is locked in the bridal chamber; no
+weapon, no means of escape can be found by her despairing search. To her
+enters the "scourge of God." He tries to win her by the promise that her
+son to be born shall become the lord over the world, the successor of
+Attila. She rejects the very thought of becoming the mother of a son
+whose father should be Attila, she would rather crush the head of the
+monster at birth. To give himself courage for the struggle with the
+proud, chaste German princess, the king drinks the heavy wine in eager
+draughts, and, unaccustomed to the potion, sinks into a heavy sleep.
+Ildico strangles him with her own golden hair, as he lies in drunken
+stupor.
+
+When on the next day, after the long bridal night, the vassals of Attila
+break the heavy oaken entrance, they find their master dead on the
+floor, in a pool of blood. A loud, boisterous, barbaric mourning and
+lamentation arises in the Hunnish camp over the death of the greatest
+hero and ruler of their race. The fate of Ildico and her relatives seems
+sealed. But at the most critical moment help appears in the person of
+Ardarich, King of the Gepidae, and his retinue, who at the last moment
+save the Germans from the revenge of the exasperated Huns. The German
+tribes rise in masses and, after a few months, the liberation from the
+Hunnish yoke is accomplished.
+
+The fame and glory of fair Ildico as the liberator of her people from
+the yoke of Attila rings from tribe to tribe in epic sagas and lyric
+lays. The song of Daghar, her bridegroom, in honor of the heroine,
+immortalizes her thus:
+
+        "Hail to you, heroes in golden hair,
+        Good Goths, Gepidae, sprightly with spears;
+        Greetings to you, glorious Germans!
+        Exult rejoicing to sounding harps:
+        He failed and fell, terror of holiness,
+        Scourge of God, Etzel the Evil!
+        Sword struck him not, nor shaft of the spear.
+        No: in darkness of night, vicious viper
+        Had crushed its hideous head.
+        Woman of woe, Ildico, the mighty maid,
+        Avenged with awe the races of men
+        And holy honor with heroic deed.
+        Sing to the harp the wailing song,
+        Raise it rousing to Daghar's bride,
+        The shimmering, shining savior,
+        Guarding German men prison-bound:
+        Ildico, idol of fame,
+        Hail to thee, lofty one, hail!" (H. S.)
+
+The extensive Hunnish circle of lays throws light on the life and love
+of German womanhood during the centuries of wanderings; and so powerful
+is the influence and impression made by the Asiatic onslaught, that
+there is hardly a German saga of any importance that does not stand in
+some kind of relation to the Hunnish conquerors. To "sing and say" was
+an ancient talent of the Teutonic race, whose warlike life, with its
+bravery and heroism, inspired mightily to music and song. But the
+migrations, with their powerful changes, the contact with formerly
+unknown peoples, altered considerably the trend of the ancient
+traditions and the sagas of a world which they had abandoned. Indeed,
+many of the ancient racial sagas vanished from the memory of the
+Germanic tribes. Christianization and Romanization instilled into the
+souls of the race the germs of romanticism which rapidly overspread the
+old Germanic paganism with a luxuriant growth of new ideas founded on
+new ideals, and, great as that poetry is, it shows everywhere a contrast
+and a conflict between two different states of existence.
+
+The Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, in its original Teutonic tongue, introduces us
+to the primeval life of Germanic heroism and warlike turmoil at the dawn
+of a still mystic past. The oldest High German lay, of _Hildebrand and
+Hadubrand_, telling of a superhuman duel between father and son, reveals
+to us the Titanic fierceness of the era of wanderings. We discover,
+however, in the third great poetic remnant, the _Saga of Walthari of
+Aquitaine_, not only the same descriptions of tremendous conflicts, of
+perfidy and greed, of joy over blood and wounds, but also the new
+elements of love and the loveliness and delicacy of the relations
+between the hero and his bride. The ancient legend, however, is
+transmitted to us only in the Latin garment in which Ekkehard, the monk
+of Saint Galle, clothed it in the tenth century, when the German
+language was at its lowest ebb and ecclesiastical Latin covered
+everything. But though the garment be Latin, the spirit of the saga is
+thoroughly German.
+
+_Walthari of Aquitaine_, though composed in the tenth century, is a
+monument of love, and tells us graphically of the position of woman, at
+least in the upper stratum of ancient society, at the time of its
+composition. Attila, King of the Huns, who appears here in a very
+different light from that which throws such ghastly rays upon him in
+Felix Dahn's novel, Ildico, is represented in the epic of Walthari as
+almost a Germanic hero; and his career is pictured as a glorious
+conquest, in which he crushes all resistance. Like a torrent in flood,
+his hosts roll over the land of the Franks, the Burgundians, and the
+Aquitanians. Resistance is out of the question; hostages are demanded
+and given to guarantee faithfulness and peace. Hagen, Hildegund, "the
+pearl of Burgundy," and Walthari are taken to King Etzel's court. Here
+the romance begins. Hildegund, through the grace of her manners, her
+beauty, and her skill as a housekeeper, endears herself to Queen
+Ospirin, Attila's wife, who makes her treasurer and stewardess of her
+household. Hagen and Walthari become the heroes and heads of the Hunnish
+army. Hagen, however, seizes the first opportunity for flight on the
+news of King Gibich's death reaching him, believing himself thereby
+freed from all obligation toward Attila. Walthari, who has become better
+beloved by the Hunnish king than were his own sons, also meditates
+escape, a great longing for fatherland, parents, and friends having
+seized him. In the hope of escape, he declines marriage with the noble
+Hunnish maiden offered him by the king, under the pretext that love
+would interfere with his duties as a warrior and leader; for he who has
+once tasted the delights of love is weakened and unfit for deeds of
+valor. At this time a distant subject tribe revolts. Walthari is placed
+at the head of the army sent to crush the revolution, accomplishes acts
+of great heroism, and returns victorious. A triumphal feast is
+celebrated, and while the king and his retainers are overcome by wine
+and sleep Walthari prepares for escape.
+
+Long before, however, he had won the consent of the maiden to whom he
+had once been betrothed as a child, and whom he secretly loves, to
+follow him in his flight. Weary and thirsty, he met Hildegund and asked
+for a drink. He tenderly kissed her hand and, while drinking, held and
+pressed it lovingly. He reminded her how they were betrothed as
+children. Hildegund, however, with maidenly modesty, mistook his
+advances for scorn. Said she: "Why dost thou let thy tongue speak
+whereof thy heart knows naught? Thou dost not desire a maiden like
+myself." But he convinces her, and in humble confidence Hildegund
+declares she will follow whither her beloved one will lead.
+
+Now the occasion offers itself during the feast of victory. Well armed,
+and with horses laden with treasures, the lovers flee from the Hunnish
+court. During the day they hide in thickets; at night they ride over
+wild, almost impassable paths. Not once does an unchaste desire enter
+the heart of the hero, though he is brimming over with life and love.
+Thus they reach the Rhine, cross it near Worms, and seek a safe refuge
+in the Vosges Forest (_Wasgenwald_), to take the first rest since the
+night of their flight. Hildegund sings her hero to sleep; Walthari, his
+head in her lap, intrusts himself to the watchfulness of his love. But
+Gunther, King of the Franks, has heard of the treasures which Walthari
+carries; and despite the resistance of Hagen, who is pained by the
+necessity of fighting against his former brother in arms, he attacks the
+fleeing hero with twelve of his best warriors, including Hagen himself.
+Hildegund takes the approaching warriors for Huns, awakens Walthari,
+'and entreats him to kill her, that she may not fall into the hands of
+the enemy. No one shall ever touch her body, as she is not to be his. It
+is not our task here to describe the ghastliness of the wounds
+inflicted, and Walthari's victory at the cost of the loss of a leg.
+Hildegund, in true old German fashion, again appears as an angel of
+mercy: she tends the wounds of the warriors and mixes their wine, as
+merry jests and friendly speeches cement the reconciliation. Walthari
+and Hildegund travel on to Aquitaine, where they are received with joy,
+and celebrate their marriage. Thus, we are able to gather from the
+Walthari Saga the traits of womanly modesty, humility, faithfulness. The
+woman's watch over the sleeping hero is especially touching. Her purity
+makes her ask for death when she sees the end of her hero and her own
+shame. Chaste and undefiled, she enters the realm of her future husband.
+
+Most important among all the tribes of the German nation, and of most
+abiding value and influence for the future not only of Germany, but of
+Europe, were the Franks.
+
+The early history of that great and important people, or rather bundle
+of tribes, is wholly legendary. Their legends describe certain
+characteristics of weakness and vice of the men of that Merovingian
+dynasty which again furnishes us rich material for the study of royal
+womanhood, which, with few exceptions, was of the most depraved
+character. Our principal contemporary source is a _History of the
+Franks_ by Gregory, Bishop of Tours (A. D. 538-593). Though called the
+"Father of French History," we must confess that his honesty is equalled
+only by his credulity. The history of the Merovingian women belongs
+locally to France, but racially to Germany; it would, therefore, be
+impossible to leave it unnoticed in this volume.
+
+One of the earliest kings of the Merovingian dynasty was Childeric, who,
+owing to his luxury and vices, was driven out by the Franks. He retired
+in exile to Bisinus, King of the Thuringians, where he seduced Basina
+the wife of the hospitable king. Childeric had left behind in Frankland
+a loyal friend with whom he had divided a gold piece, the friend
+promising when times were auspicious to send his half as a signal for
+Childeric's return. Eight years passed. The gold token reached the
+wandering king and he was restored to his realm. Basina soon afterward
+joined him at his court. She followed him, she said, because he was the
+bravest man she knew, but she warned him that she would desert him if
+she could find a better and mightier man than he was. This woman bore
+Clovis, a son who was worthy of his mother. In 493, Clovis took for his
+wife a Christian woman, Clotilde, the pious and beautiful daughter of
+Chilperic of Burgundy. The importance of this marriage of Clotilde to
+the pagan Clovis is self-evident, and it may have been suggested by the
+famous bishop, Saint Remigius. Clotilde at once began earnest efforts to
+convert her royal husband, but at first without avail. Everything tends
+to prove that Clovis was exceedingly tolerant, or perhaps rather
+indifferent, toward the Christian religion. His resistance was entirely
+passive, and without prejudice. Clovis's sister, Lantechilde, was an
+Arian, so was Autofleda, Theodoric's wife; but Albofleda, another sister
+of Clovis, remained a pagan. Clovis allowed the Christian baptism of his
+first son, who died in infancy. He reproached his wife, because he in a
+measure ascribed the infant's death to the influence of baptism, yet he
+consented to the baptism of the second son, Chlodomir, who fell ill, but
+survived. There was no spirit of propaganda in the naturalistic religion
+of the pagan king; he gave his wife a free scope, but refused to adopt
+the doctrine she advocated. In the fifteenth year of his reign, Clovis
+was at war with the powerful Alemanni. During the battle of Tolbiacum
+(_Zulpich_) he sees with apprehension the ranks of the Franks giving way
+before the rage of their opponents, and vows to adopt the religion of
+Christ, if He grants him victory. "O Christ," he exclaims, according to
+Gregorius of Tours, "I invoke devoutly thine glorious help. If thou
+accord me victory over these enemies, I shall believe in thee and shall
+be baptized in thine name. I have invoked my gods, but they are not
+ready to aid me." After the victory, he loyally executed the promise he
+had made to the God of Clotilde, the queen perhaps taking good care that
+the vow should be fulfilled. Bishop Remigius, with that prudence and
+political wisdom which always guided the princes of the Church,
+proceeded very slowly in the matter until he was assured that the
+consent of the Franks had been obtained. Three thousand of them allowed
+themselves to be baptized with their king, an event of the greatest
+importance in the world's history, for thereby the advance of Arianism
+was checked and heathenism was cast down. Clotilde, a woman and a queen,
+thus inaugurates the Christianization of the Germans, for Clovis thus
+becomes a "new Constantine" and the precursor of Charlemagne, the
+unifier of the Germans, the founder of the Holy Roman Empire of the
+German Nation. The words of Bishop Remigius are fulfilled: "Bend thine
+head, proud Sigambrian: adore what thou hast burned heretofore; burn
+what thou hast adored heretofore." From this time on Clovis's life is
+but a chain of successes. It is true that all those successes of the
+most Christian king (_rex christianissimus_), a title bestowed upon him
+and his successors, were attained by atrocity and perfidy surpassed only
+in the later history of his own dynasty, and then by the female members
+of the royal line. The central point of his policy was the murder of the
+smaller Prankish kings so that he might be the sole chief of the entire
+people. He caused Sigebert of Cologne to be slain by his own son, whom
+he then assassinated, thereby securing for himself the kingship over the
+Ripuarian Franks. He dispossessed Chararic and his son and, later,
+killed both for the sake of greater security. He slew Racagnar, King of
+Cambrai, and the latter's brother, Richard, with his own hand, and,
+later on, murdered their brother, Rigomer; so that the tale of deaths is
+a long one. The manner in which the Christian religion aided Clovis in
+the execution of his ambitious plans, shows with terrible truth how
+deeply in the sixth century the ideal of Christianity had sunk from its
+lofty height. No one of his contemporaries ever reproached Clovis for
+his crimes; the Franks sang them in lays; and the pious Bishop Gregory
+of Tours having related the murder of Sigebert, adds naïvely: "Every day
+God thus felled his enemies to the ground and increased his kingdom
+because he walked with a pure heart before the Lord and did what was
+agreeable in his sight."
+
+His four sons, when among them was divided the Prankish realm, soon
+found a pretext to wage a religious war against the Arian Burgundians.
+Their king, Sigismund, after the death of his first wife, Ostrogotha, a
+daughter of the great Theodoric, took a second wife who, like a real
+stepmother, ill-treated the young son of the king. When the youth once
+bitterly reproached his stepmother for wearing the garments and jewels
+of his mother, the wicked woman persuaded the king that his son aspired
+to his throne. She attained her purpose: the youth was murdered. But
+Nemesis soon overtook the murderer of his son: he lost his throne and
+his life in battle against the Franks.
+
+Besides Clotilde, the pious wife of Clovis, we meet, among the many
+women of terrible moral depravity, with another saintly woman in the
+Prankish dynasty. Chlotar, the youngest of Clevis's four sons, after
+having conquered the Thuringians, though he had numberless wives and
+concubines, took Radegundis, the daughter of the defeated Hermanfrid,
+for a wife. But the saintly woman shrank from the touch of the immoral
+king, and threw herself on the icy stone pavement, unmindful of the pain
+it gave her body, for her soul was filled with the agitation of ardent
+religious passion, and spent her time in prayer and devotion. When she
+returned to the bridal chamber, neither the heat of the fire, nor the
+impure royal bed could restore the natural heat of her body; and the
+king declared that he possessed rather a nun than a wife. Radegundis
+succeeded in obtaining a divorce from Chlotar and retired to a cloister,
+where she obtained the dignity of a deaconess, an honor which canonical
+regulations reserved only to virgins. In the cloister founded by her in
+the neighborhood of Poitiers, Radegundis introduced a very strict
+discipline, she enriched the house with precious relics, and passed the
+rest of her life in pious devotions and expiations for the sins of
+Chlotar, who was sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of moral
+corruption.
+
+A story is told by Gregory of Tours concerning Ingundis, one of the
+concubines of Chlotar, the pious bishop calls her _uxor_ (wife),
+however, which is worth repeating. Ingundis, in the full possession of
+the love of Chlotar, begged of him to secure a worthy husband for her
+sister Aregundia, and expatiated on the physical qualities and moral
+virtues of her sister. Chlotar betook himself to her country residence,
+and as she pleased him well he married her. Then he returned to Ingundis
+and informed her that he had given her sister the best man he could find
+in the realm of the Franks, namely, himself. With bitter disappointment
+in her heart, she, according to the statement of the chronicler, meekly
+submitted, saying: "What may seem good in the eyes of my lord, he may
+do; only may thy maid live in the grace of the king."
+
+The fratricidal and internecine wars of Clovis's four sons were yet
+surpassed during the next generation by crimes and atrocities which
+overstepped all the limits and bounds of nature. Of Chlotar's four sons,
+only Sigebert's character is praiseworthy. Gregory relates that Sigebert
+was greatly ashamed of the disgraceful alliances of his brothers, who
+married daughters of the people of the lowest strata of society and
+changed them as lust and caprice prompted. Sigebert, however, married
+the daughter of Athanagild, King of the Visigoths. Her name was
+Brunehild (_Brunehaut_), a woman of great beauty and excessive vices and
+passions, whose name is linked in history with those of the greatest
+female criminals of royal blood.
+
+Chilperic, Sigebert's degenerate brother, jealous of the latter's
+alliance, asked in marriage Galswintha, Brunehild's sister, but he soon
+sacrificed her to the ambition of Fredegond, one of his concubines, who
+had the queen strangled and then occupied her place. This blond-haired
+woman of low birth, with most alluring charms and versed in all the arts
+to arouse passion, soon reduced her royal paramour to such subjection
+that he had her crowned with great pomp in his capital of Soissons.
+Beginning with this marriage, atrocities do not cease until the entire
+family becomes extinct. But to this very day to quote the words of a
+French poet "The fair, the blonde, the terrible Fredegond is unforgotten
+and sung in lurid songs from Austrasia to Perigord."
+
+Brunehild undertook to avenge her sister; the terrible struggle began
+between the Prankish slave girl and the daughter of the King of the
+Visigoths, a dramatic strife which has left an enduring memory in the
+annals of the history of crime. A son of Chilperic joins his father's
+enemy, and, with his aid, Sigebert is victorious everywhere; but when,
+in his city of Vitry, he is on the point of being raised upon the shield
+as king over the land of his brother, Sigebert is assassinated by two
+emissaries of Fredegond, who thus once more saves her husband by crime.
+The widowed Brunehild was at the time in Paris with her five-year-old
+son Childebert, and, as it seemed, at the mercy of Chilperic. But upon
+the news of Sigebert's death, Gundovald, an Austrasian chief, brought
+Childebert from Paris and had him proclaimed king. Brunehild was exiled
+to the basilica of Saint Martin's Cathedral, at Rouen. The oath of
+Fredegond upon sacred relics that she will not harm the fugitives is
+violated at once. She murders two sons of Chilperic, also Bishop
+Tractesetatus, who had solemnized the marriage. Brunehild saved herself
+by flight, and an even more sanguinary civil war ensues, in the course
+of which Chilperic too is murdered. At last the flagitious murderess
+Fredegond, at the age of sixty, equally dreaded and abhorred by friend
+and foe, dies strange to say by a natural death.
+
+[Illustration 4:
+_FREDEGOND WATCHING THE MARRIAGE OF CHILPERIC AND GALSWINTHA
+After the painting by L. Alma-Tadema_
+_Chilperic had taken a most unwilling bride, Galswintha, daughter of a
+king of the Visigoths and younger sister of Brunehild, notwithstanding
+the fierce jealousy of one of his concubines, Fredegond, who soon had
+the new queen strangled and then occupied her place. This blond-haired
+woman of low birth, with most alluring charms and versed in all the arts
+to arouse passion, soon reduced her royal paramour to such subjection
+that he had her crowned with great pomp in his capital of Soissons.
+Beginning with this marriage, atrocities did not cease until the entire
+family became extinct. But to this very day to quote the words of a
+French poet "The fair, the blonde, the terrible Fredegond is unforgotten
+and sung in lurid songs from Austrasia to Périgord"._]
+
+Her rival and lifelong enemy Brunehild, who had vied with her in crimes
+and vices, met with a far more terrible end. After many years of further
+struggle she fell into the hands of Chlotar II., a son of Fredegond, who
+inflicted upon her a terrible punishment. Having charged her with the
+murder of at least ten Merovingian princes, he caused her, though a
+matron of seventy, to be frightfully tortured for several days; then she
+was placed on a camel and led for shame through the camp. Finally, she
+was tied to the tail of a wild horse and dragged to death: the hoofs of
+the horse crushed the limbs of the sinful queen into a shapeless mass. I
+know of no poem in the whole range of German literature which gives a
+more ghastly picture of that realistic scene of atrocity than one in
+which Ferdinand Freiligrath relates:
+
+        "How once in the fields of the river Marne near Chalons
+        Chlotar, the son of Chilperic, had the sinful Brunehild
+        Tied by her silver hair to a wild stallion;
+        To drag her galloping through the Prankish camp.
+        The neighing stallion started, and the hind hoofs struck
+        The aged form, breaking and wrenching limb from limb.
+        Dishevelled flew her whitened hair about her bloody brow.
+        The pointed pebbles drank her royal blood; and shuddering
+        Beheld the blood-accustomed Franks the horror of the judgment
+        Of their wrathful king Chlotar.
+        The glow of the red fires burning before every tent
+        Fell ghastly on the pain-distorted countenance.
+        With icy shower now the Marne washed from it the dust
+        The camel which had borne her through the ranks was spattered
+        with her blood...."
+                                                               (H. S.)
+
+We gladly leave the chapter of the Prankish nation under the
+Merovingians, for it is stained with the uninterrupted tragedy of brutal
+superstition, lust, perjury, treason, incest, murder of the closest
+blood relatives, malice, and cruelty. Such scenes as the Langobard
+Alboin's deeds and death, Brunehild's end, and the countless unspeakable
+vices mentioned by Bishop Gregory of Tours demonstrate sufficiently the
+terrible corruption of which even the best races are capable, when
+released from all the bonds of legal restraint in the time of peace, and
+when torn, root and branch, from a healthy native soil.
+
+Even more characteristic is perhaps the poetic literature of the time,
+in which the unnatural vices are transformed and reflected as lofty
+virtues. What is the historian of culture to say when the contemporary
+presbyter and bishop, the pious poet, Venantius Fortunatus, glorifies
+and elevates both Brunehild and Fredegond as mirrors of virtue and
+grace? The latter, the slave girl who attained the crown through murder
+and prostitution, is to him the queen "who adorns the realm by her
+virtues. Wise in council, skilful, provident, useful to the Court;
+powerful of mind, magnanimous, excelling in all merits." Brunehild, on
+the other hand, "The ethereal Brunehild, shining more brilliantly than
+the stars, surpasses the light of the gems by the light of her
+countenance of milk and blood. The lilies mixed with roses cannot
+compare with her. She is a sapphire, a white diamond, a crystal, an
+emerald, a iaspis, nay, more, for all must yield the palm to her; Spain
+[referring to the Visigoths having occupied southern France and northern
+Spain] has produced a new jewel."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE YEARS OF THE WANDERINGS, AS REFLECTED IN THE FIRST PERIOD OF BLOOM
+OF GERMAN LITERATURE (1100-1300)
+
+
+The literary remnants of the pre-Carlovingian era are too scanty to
+permit us to form from them a perfect picture of Teutonic woman during
+the centuries of migrations. We are, however, able fairly to reconstruct
+the record by the aid of the rich treasures transmitted to us from a
+period five or six centuries later, a time epochal in the stormy youth
+of the German peoples. Though the original songs were partly destroyed
+through the antagonism of the Church and her efforts to root out the
+pagan memories and traditions, and, though these causes, to a large
+extent, made futile the strenuous efforts of Charlemagne to collect and
+preserve the ancient lays and sagas, the people continued to be
+influenced by their memories. The spirit of the "_Legend from Ancient
+Times_," of which Heine writes in his beautiful poem, _Lorelei_, never
+died out in the soul of the race. The spirit of expansion, of
+enlargement of horizon, fostered by the crusades and by the broad policy
+of the great Hohenstaufen dynasty brought about an extensive knowledge
+of the poetic, romantic, and historic materials and forms among the
+older French and Italian literatures. The old heroes of the German
+legend and history awakened from the long slumber of vague recollection
+and lived again in their influence upon the ideals of the people. The
+origin of the German heroic epic is thus closely connected with the most
+decisive period of the political birth of the nation. The heroic epic in
+its entirety, therefore, flows from, and is reflected in, the great
+revolution of power and in the changes of habitation which, for the
+first time, awakened the historical self-consciousness of the German war
+nobility and made possible a new development in the national literature.
+The hour of birth of the German heroic epic is the Migration period. In
+the heroic epic the story is clothed in a romantic garment. The epic
+poets, looking backward from their own stirring times as far as the
+formation period, symbolize the progress of history in the time when it
+may be said that ancient Europe was broken to pieces, and the Germans in
+a new formation and in a new soil came uninjured and even strengthened
+from the general devastation.
+
+The type of heroes and heroines formed in the fifth and sixth centuries,
+and the heroes grown and developed from those ancient, yet largely
+mythological ideas and ideals were adapted to the new type of chivalrous
+manhood of the eleventh and twelfth centuries by the poets and singers
+of the circles of the princes and nobles whose high culture promoted the
+first classical period of bloom. The heroic saga is then the
+crystallization of the treasure of traditions formed in the heroic
+period of the race.
+
+The saga material is divisible into the group or tribal cycles, and
+every cycle revolves around a galaxy of great, good, heroic, or evil
+women. This saga literature, in fact, furnishes us with a perfect
+portrait gallery of the German women of the two most important and
+formative periods of their race. We have mentioned in the previous
+chapter a few of the Hunnish cycle around Attila (_Etzel_). Of these
+Ildico and Hildegund are preeminent. We have alluded to the historical
+women of the Ostrogoth cycle those associated with the great Theodoric
+or, as called in the saga, Dietrich von Bern (_Verona_). Other cycles
+there are: the Norse, embracing Beowulf, King of the Jutes, and the
+Scandinavian heroes Wittich and Wieland, belongs to our theme but
+incidentally; the Langobard cycle, singing the Langobard heroes King
+Rother, Ortnit, Hugdietrich, and Wolfdietrich, and their adventures on
+the Mediterranean Sea and in a legendary Byzantine Empire, with a type
+of Oriental-Greek or Byzantine women, lies a little aside from our
+present consideration of German women. We can well confine ourselves to
+the _Nibelungen Saga_ and _Gudrun_, the German _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_,
+for these two heroic sagas of the German nation are the true exponents
+of all the characteristics of German women and men. The heroic epic in
+its germ is historical, but its growth freed it from its fetters of fact
+and decked it with ornaments from the domain of imagination. Historical
+and mythical elements are, then, strangely blended in these sagas. They
+develop exotically, scarce one that does not grow outside its original
+sphere, assimilate foreign unhistorical matter, blur all chronology, and
+anachronistically poetize the dim recollections of a historical but
+long-forgotten underground. The resultant of the convolutions and
+accretions is a complex epic cycle of sagas originating at different
+times, but always deeply rooted in the Migration period, wherein lay all
+the origins of Germanic historical existence.
+
+The _Nibelungenlied_ is the crystallization of the Burgundian Low
+Rhenish Hunnish cycle of Sagas. No more complete psychological record in
+poetic form of all the emotions, love and hate, vice and virtue, vanity
+and modesty, chastity and passion, piety and wickedness, womanly
+gentleness and virulence, is imaginable. All the phases of human
+existence are put before us in the lives of the Burgundian royal
+brothers Gunther, Gernot, Giselher; their mother Ute; and their sister
+Kriemhilde, whose character, as outlined, is the grandest and the most
+complex woman's character in the literature of the world. Kriemhilde, as
+the wife of the Low Rhenish hero Siegfried, and Brunhild, in the Norse
+version of the Saga, a former Valkyrie, humanized only to make it
+possible for her to be the wife of Gunther and to bear a deep love for
+Siegfried, are the opposite poles of womanhood.
+
+It is, however, very difficult to obtain through the epics a correct
+estimate of the status of woman at a definite period. This difficulty is
+due not only to the poetic and fictitious characterization of the
+womanly types, but especially to the constant blending of ancient
+Germanic elements and twelfth century chivalry, knighthood, and romantic
+love (_Minne_), from which results an almost inextricable web of
+mythical and historical and purely romantic threads.
+
+Siegfried wins Kriemhilde by a long wooing in the truly romantic fashion
+of the period of _Minne song_, but later inflicts upon her, in the truly
+old Germanic fashion, a severe physical chastisement for her quarrelsome
+temper. We find in the story traces of the primeval Germanic beliefs of
+the power of divination and prophecy. Kriemhilde has a momentous dream;
+she sees a beautiful falcon that she had reared with care seized and
+overpowered by two eagles. Her mother, Ute, interprets the dream
+correctly as foreshadowing the fate of her future husband:
+
+        "The falcon, whom thou cherished, he was a noble man,
+        May God in safety keep him, for no one other can."
+
+In the morning before the final catastrophe overtook Siegfried,
+Kriemhilde related to him with a sorrowful heart another dream:
+
+        "I dreamed last night of trouble, and how that two wild boar
+        Chased you thro' the thicket, then were the flowers red.
+        That I must weep so sorely, in sooth! I have full need."
+
+The magic arts and the cutting of _runes_ by women are no longer
+mentioned in the greatest epic of the Middle High German period, while
+they are yet in full sway in the Norse version of _Sigurd and Brunhild_,
+or, as she is there called, _Sigrdrifa_. The gift of healing, however,
+is attributed to women in both versions.
+
+As we have seen in ancient Germanic law, woman is under the
+guardianship, or Mundium (hand), of her nearest male relatives. So she
+is at the period of the Nibelungenlied. Of Kriemhilde it is said:
+
+        "Her guardians were three kings, rich and of noble race...
+        The maiden was their sister; the princes had her in ward."
+
+Noble women resided usually in the inner secluded rooms, called
+_hemenate_. Siegfried did not see Kriemhilde at the Burgundian court for
+a whole year. Her favorite occupation in her seclusion was to embroider
+gold and jewels on silk, fashioning splendid garments for the bridal
+expeditions and courtly travels of the heroes. Rarely, and only on
+festal occasions, women appeared to receive distinguished guests. Then
+they are surrounded by their attendant warriors, who as a symbol of
+ready protection carry swords in their hands. Any offence to a
+noblewoman is taken up by her entire following and is expiated in bloody
+fashion. Marriage by capture no longer occurs, yet traces of it can be
+found everywhere in the later bridal expeditions of Gunther and the
+Hegelings. On the battlefield, Siegfried pays no gold for his bride, it
+is true, but he has to earn her in a hard struggle against the enemies
+of her three brothers.
+
+The lot of woman is suffering and sorrow and care, as evidenced from
+such verses as:
+
+        "Whatever sufferings fall to the lot of the men,
+        All those are wept over by the women."
+
+This is the tenor of all the epic songs. The _Nibelungenlied_ has
+devoted an epilogue, _The Lamentation_, to the expression of those
+sentiments. There are constant allusions to woman's woes: here, the
+death of a hero is "lamented by many a woman;" there, "heavy heartache
+harasses the women;" "all the worthy women weep over him."
+
+We may, after this brief introduction, consider the great characters of
+the lay. A peculiar position in the Germanic heroic epic is occupied by
+Helche, King Attila's first consort. Although a pagan, the conception
+left to us of the wife of the dread Hunnish king is of a woman who has
+become almost entirely Germanized. Because of her traits of mildness,
+kindness, and purity, she appears as the ideal of a true German queen,
+just as Attila himself, with his Germanized name (attila, little father,
+from Gothic _atta_, father), appears in many lays as a good, liberal,
+kind-hearted king. Helche is especially motherly toward the numerous
+noblewomen who stay at the Hunnish court as hostages; she is a friend of
+the conquered and the helper of the miserable and the exiled. Dietrich
+von Bern, in his exile from home and throne, is under her protection.
+She obtained for him from Etzel money and men for the reconquest of
+Bern; and when the enterprise failed, she intervened for him with the
+irate Hunnish king, and even gave him her sister's daughter in marriage.
+When the king complained of the obnoxious foreign fugitives, she
+convinced him that the reception of a hero like Dietrich could only be
+of advantage to his realm and an honor to himself. At the death of
+Helche there is universal mourning throughout the land; for, says the
+chronicler, a true mother of the innocent virgins and of the entire
+people has departed.
+
+In the foreground of all the epics of the German cycles stand the two
+greatest characters of ancient womanhood, Kriemhilde and Brunhild.
+
+At Worms on the Rhine in the land of the Burgundians, the three royal
+brothers Gunther, Gernot, and Giselher guard a glorious treasure,
+Princess Kriemhilde. Many kings and heroes try to win her hand, but she
+is indifferent to the love of men. The most glorious hero of the age,
+Siegfried, hears the fame of Kriemhilde's beauty and proceeds with a
+numerous and splendid retinue from his royal father's castle at Xanten
+up the Rhine to Worms to win Kriemhilde. After a six days' sail,
+Siegfried and his escort reach their destination, and without disclosing
+their identity they ride to court. Only Hagen of Tronje is able to give
+information to the Burgundians regarding the strange heroes. He relates
+how Siegfried, in spite of his youth, has already accomplished great
+exploits, how he slew the dragon and became invulnerable by bathing in
+the blood of the monster, how he defeated the Nibelungs and seized their
+immense treasure. Hagen exhorts Gunther to receive the youthful hero
+with kindness and honor in order that he may not "earn the hatred of the
+bold prince."
+
+Hagen's advice is followed and Siegfried is received by the Burgundians
+with great honor. But before he is permitted even to look upon the
+beautiful Kriemhilde, he is invited to aid the Burgundians in reducing
+to subjection the rebellious kings Ludeger of Saxony and Ludegast of
+Denmark. Upon his triumphal return from the war his eyes are gladdened
+by the sight of the royal maid at the festive celebration of the
+victory. The princess attended by a hundred sword-bearing chamberlains
+and a hundred richly adorned gentlewomen, steps forth from her
+_hemenate_, or as says the lay:
+
+        "Then came the lovely one, as does the rosy morn
+        Through sombre clouds advancing...
+        As the bright Queen of heaven steps forth before each star
+        Above the clouds high soaring, in shine so pure and clear,
+        So shone the beauteous maiden o'er other ladies nigh."
+
+The very first glance exchanged between the princess and the prince
+betrays their mutual love. Siegfried is more than ever resolved to win
+the beauteous maiden for his wife.
+
+But the time of trial is not yet over for him. King Gunther has set his
+heart upon the war maid Brunhild, Queen of the Isenstein, and he is
+determined to win her as his wife. Siegfried's presence seems to offer a
+favorable opportunity to press his suit; he therefore agrees that if the
+hero from the Netherlands will help him to obtain the hand of Brunhild,
+he may marry Kriemhilde. With a heavy heart for well he knows Brunhild
+Siegfried consents. Accompanied by but a few warriors, Gunther and
+Siegfried sail down the Rhine, and after a twelve days' journey they
+land on Isenstein. In sight of the royal castle, surmounted by
+eighty-six towers rising in gloomy magnificence, Siegfried, in order to
+pass for a vassal, holds the stirrup of Gunther. Brunhild receives the
+dragon slayer, whose fame and glory are well known to her, with the
+words:
+
+        "'Welcome you are, Sir Siegfried, here to this my land.
+        What means your journey hither, now let me understand?'
+        Quoth Siegfried: 'Lady Brunhild, great thanks to you I owe,
+        That you, most gentle princess, should deign to greet me so
+        Before this noble hero who stands beside me here;
+        For he is my master...
+        He is by name Gunther, a mighty King and dread;
+        If he your love can conquer, his fondest wish is sped.'"
+
+Brunhild proclaims the conditions upon which she may be won. The hero
+who wishes to win her to wife must conquer her in three games: spear
+throwing, stone throwing, and leaping. If he fails in one of the three
+tests he must lose his head. Gunther declares himself ready for the
+trial though he feels that his strength is not equal to the superhuman
+power of Brunhild. Siegfried comes to his friend's assistance, and clad
+in his Tarn-cap which he had won from the Nibelung treasure, and which
+makes him invisible, he undertakes the task while Gunther merely
+executes the gesture of the action. Brunhild is defeated and with
+forebodings of evil follows the Burgundian king to Worms where a joyful
+double marriage is celebrated. Then Siegfried takes his bride to Xanten,
+his capital, where he passes ten years of peace and happiness. But the
+Norns, the Fates, have decreed that his joy shall not endure. King
+Gunther invites his friend and his sister to a great festival at Worms
+at the time of the summer solstice. On the eleventh day before Vespers,
+during the walk to church, a fatal quarrel breaks out between the
+queens. The quarrel is precipitated by a question of precedence.
+Brunhild, consumed by jealousy of Siegfried's heroic fame and
+Kriemhilde's happiness, insultingly taunts the latter that her consort
+is after all but a vassal of Gunther, an accusation which Kriemhilde
+violently rejects. The two queens part with vehement words. Kriemhilde
+threatens:
+
+        '"Since thou hast my Siegfried claimed as thy subject now,
+        So shall this very day the knights of both kings see,
+        Whether, before the Queen, the church I enter may.'"
+
+Arrived at the same moment at the entrance to the church, Brunhild calls
+out to her sister-in-law:
+
+        "'Before wife of a monarch, a subject shall not go.'"
+
+Kriemhilde, forgetting herself and all about her, breaks out in terrible
+passion:
+
+        "'Couldst thou have kept silent, 't would have been for thy good.
+        Thou hast thyself dishonored thine own body fair;
+        How could a concubine as a king's wife appear?'
+        'Whom wouldst thou a concubine?' speaks the haughty Queen.
+        'That will I thee,' quoth Kriemhild; 'thy body fair, I ween,
+        Was at first embraced by Siegfried, my dear man;
+        'Sooth was it not my brother who thy maidenhood won.'"
+
+In the agony of shame, Brunhild sank with tears on the threshold.
+Kriemhilde passes through the door of the church with her attendants,
+but
+
+        "For this must soon perish many knights, brave and good."
+
+The insulted queen swears vengeance; Siegfried's blood alone can wash
+away her shame. Here begins the work of fierce, grim Hagen, one of the
+most sombre characters in German legend. Brunhild wins for the execution
+of her revenge this knight, with his fearful record of crime and
+passion, though with, on the other hand, his tragic greatness and his
+unfaltering devotion to his king and master, to whom he is joined by the
+ties of absolute loyalty. As justified by his oath of vassalage he vows
+to slay the man who has insulted his sovereign. Gunther reluctantly
+consents to the murder of the man to whom he is so deeply indebted;
+Giselher, who decidedly rejects the murderous project, is outvoted.
+
+A treacherous plan is concocted, and to make the perfidy still more
+flagrant Kriemhilde's innocent cooperation is mendaciously engaged. As
+Siegfried, after his bath in the blood of the dragon whom he had slain,
+is invulnerable except at one point between the shoulder-blades where a
+fallen linden leaf had prevented the skin from becoming "horny,"
+Kriemhilde is persuaded by Hagen to mark the spot with red silk that he
+may protect him from harm. A hunt is chosen as the occasion for
+Siegfried's murder. While Siegfried stoops to a fountain to drink the
+limpid water, wine having intentionally been kept away from the hunting
+party, he is pierced by Gunther's vassal through the silken mark
+indicated by his innocent, loving wife. He sinks to the ground dying,
+rallies once more to face his murderer, but his strength leaves him, and
+dying he commends Kriemhilde to Gunther's care:
+
+        "'Would you ever, Gunther, on this world again
+        To any one show kindness, let it well appear,
+        In truth and in favor, to my wife so dear.
+        Let it at least speak for her that she your sister is:
+        By every princely virtue, pledge your troth in this.'"
+
+The murderer causes Siegfried's corpse to be laid before the door of his
+sleeping queen. When leaving her chamber in the morning to go to early
+mass, Kriemhilde fainted on viewing the heartrending sight
+
+        "She sank down on the ground, no word more did she say;
+        The lovely, joyless lady before them prostrate lay.
+        Kriemhild's anguish was terrible to view,
+        So loud her cries and wailing that the room echoed through."
+
+The body of the divine hero is laid on a bier in the cathedral. Then
+Kriemhilde challenges the king and Hagen to approach the shrine
+containing Siegfried's corpse and take the test that will decide their
+guilt or innocence. The ancient ordeal reveals the murderer, for at
+Hagen's approach the wound begins to bleed anew. In Kriemhilde's soul,
+that heretofore had been so filled with unspeakable love for her
+incomparable hero that other passions found no place, there arises now
+an all-destroying hatred and lust of revenge. The expression of this
+pervades the second part of the _Nibelungenlied_, and reaches its climax
+in an orgy of blood, in a cataclysm that overwhelms alike all the
+participants in the murder, her brothers and herself.
+
+Kriemhilde secludes herself at Worms, and mourns her dead for thirteen
+long years. During all this weary time no single word is addressed by
+her to Gunther her blood-stained brother. The silence becomes
+intolerable; and to reconcile her and to divert her thoughts, the kings
+send for the Nibelung treasure of red gold and precious jewels which
+lies under dwarf Alberich's guard in the land of the Nibelungs. During
+four days and nights twelve heavy wagons haul the shining treasure from
+the hollow of the mountain to the waiting ship. A truce is patched up
+between the widow and the brothers, but she hates Hagen with a deep and
+silent hate. Her only consolation lies in chanty toward the poor. Hagen
+fears the effect of her liberality. He takes the treasure away from her
+and thus adds further to her debt of hate. Upon Gernot's advice, Hagen
+sinks the Nibelung hoard in the Rhine, at a place between Worms and
+Lorsch, and there it rests, according to popular belief, to this very
+day. Those who knew where it rested swore solemnly never to betray its
+hiding place, and not one of those who knew survived Kriemhilde's hate.
+Nemesis now passes from Siegfried the Nibelung to the Burgundian
+Nibelungs. The Nibelungs' distress begins with the second part of the
+national epic.
+
+Far away in Hungary, Etzel had lost his wife, Helche, the song-famed
+queen. Fair Kriemhilde is proposed to him, and, after some doubts
+whether he should wed a Christian, he is persuaded by his great vassal
+Riidiger of Bechlarn to undertake the wooing. Riidiger himself is sent
+on the errand, and proceeds from the Etzel castle to Bechlarn, in
+Austria, where he is heartily received by his faithful wife, Gotelinde,
+and his blooming daughter. Gotelinde is deeply affected by the death of
+the good and noble Helche, and by the thought that she is to be replaced
+by another wife. At last the envoy arrives at Worms, where Hagen alone
+recognizes the hero with whom and Walthari of Aquitaine he had once
+associated at Etzel's court. The kings are not averse to the proposal of
+marriage, but Hagen, conscious of the irretrievable wrong which he had
+inflicted upon the queen and apprehensive of the effect of her
+independence and power, dissuades them: "You do not know Etzel; if you
+knew him, you would reject his wooing, even though Kriemhilde might
+accept; it may turn out disastrously to you." Gunther replies: "Friend
+Hagen, thou mayst not render loyalty; repair by kindly consent to
+Kriemhilde's happiness the sorrow which thou hast caused to her." But
+Hagen is unmoved: "If Kriemhilde wears Helche's crown, she will inflict
+upon us as much sorrow and distress as she will be able to. It becomes
+heroes to avoid harm."
+
+This anticipation of horror, this foreboding of dreadful evil, continues
+throughout the lay, until the measure of woe is full. The kings are
+unconscious of the dark clouds gathering above their heads, but Hagen,
+in spite of his ferocious bravery, seems, though defiant throughout, to
+be pursued by Nemesis of the Furies. When Kriemhilde is informed of
+Etzel's wooing, she replies mournfully: "God forbid you to mock me, poor
+wretched woman. What shall I be to a man who has already won love from a
+good wife?"
+
+Heartrending lamentations for the unforgotten and still beloved
+Siegfried break from the queen. To Rudiger, Etzel's envoy, she states:
+"He who knows my sharp pain will not ask me to love another man. I lost
+more in the one than any woman can ever gain." Still, she asks time for
+deliberation. Gernot and Giselher encourage her: "If anyone can reverse
+your sorrow, the man is Etzel; from the Rhône to the Rhine, from the
+Elbe to the sea, no king is powerful as he; rejoice that he has chosen
+thee for his partner in his glorious realm." "Woe is me, lamentation and
+mourning beseem me better than marriage; I can no longer go to court as
+befits a queen; if once I was beautiful, my beauty has vanished long
+ago." With dry eyes, in bitter pain, she awaits the morning. Nothing can
+move her to consent. At last, Riidiger vows to her under four eyes with
+a solemn oath: "And though you had in Hunland no one but me and my loyal
+kinsman and warriors, still anyone who causes sorrow to you, shall
+heavily atone for it by my hand." Instantly all the spirits of revenge
+are aroused in her breast; but Riidiger knows not the terrible thoughts
+that linger in her bosom, as he swears the solemn oath; he knows not
+that by his oath he dooms his child, his men, himself to a double death.
+Kriemhilde, with her heart thirsting for revenge, proceeds with the
+embassy to Etzel's court. Twenty-four mighty kings and princes are sent
+by her great husband to meet her. Attila's brother, Blodel, renders her
+homage; and so, too, does Havart, the Dane, and his faithful vassal,
+Iring, and of others a host. And there she notices, at the head of his
+men, whose faces shine forth defiantly from their wolf's helmets, a
+lofty, almost gigantic hero a lion-like man with his powerful shoulders
+and loins, cast as of iron; he resembles Siegfried in bright looks and
+royal brow; but in him Siegfried's serene youth is mellowed to manly
+maturity. Heavy storms have raged over the head of the hero, whose hair
+is bound with a regal diadem, whose right arm leans upon his lion
+shield. This is Theodoric the Goth, Dietrich von Bern of the saga, the
+greatest hero of the Migration period, next to Siegfried the centre of
+Teutonic epic, now an exile at Etzel's court until he returns as a
+victor to the dominions of his fathers.
+
+The strength and majesty of this heroic warrior appeal to the heart of
+Kriemhilde, but appeal only as the means to the accomplishment of sure
+revenge on the murderers of her husband, Siegfried. The marriage feast
+is celebrated at Vienna for seventeen days with profuse magnificence and
+numberless gifts to the bride; but Kriemhilde's heart is faithful to her
+first and only love.
+
+        "When now the thought would cross her how by the Rhine she sat
+        Beside her noble husband, with tears her eyes were wet;
+        Yet must she weep in secret that it by none was seen."
+
+Thus she proceeds sadly down the Danube to the Etzel castle, a stranger
+in a strange land concealing her deep woe under her royal splendor.
+After seven years she bears to Etzel a son, Ortlieb, then six years more
+pass by twenty-six years in all since Siegfried was murdered at the
+linden fountain in the Oden forest then at last the time arrives to
+quench the thirst of her revenge.
+
+Kriemhilde says to Etzel: "For long years I have now been here in a
+strange land, and no one of my lofty kinsmen has visited us. No longer
+may I bear the absence from my relatives, for already the rumor goes
+here, since no one of my family visits us, that I am an exile and a
+fugitive from my land, without home or friends." The king, ever ready to
+please Kriemhilde, sends the two singer-heroes, Werbel and Swemlin, to
+Worms as envoys to invite the Burgundian kings with their suite to visit
+Hungary at the next solstice. Kriemhilde urges all her relatives to
+come. The ever suspicious Hagen dissuades the kings from the journey.
+"You know indeed what we have done to Kriemhilde, that I with my own
+hand slew her husband. How can we dare to travel in Etzel's land? There
+we shall lose life and honor King Etzel's wife is of long revenge!" When
+his warning fails, he advises that the expedition shall be strongly
+armed and of large numbers. All the vassals are summoned, and eleven
+thousand men go joyfully forth on their dire mission. The element of
+music and song is not wanting; brave, cheerful Volker, the fiddler, an
+expert singer and musician as well as a great warrior, is of the party.
+
+Kriemhilde is informed of the success of the mission, and voices her
+grim joy: "How are you pleased with the good tidings, dear husband and
+master; what I have desired ever and ever is now fulfilled." "Your will
+is mine," replied Etzel; "I never rejoiced thus over the arrival of my
+own relatives as I do over the arrival of yours."
+
+An ill omen almost prevents the fateful expedition. The hoary mother of
+the Burgundian Kings and of Kriemhilde dreams, during the preparations
+for departure, that all the birds in the land lie scattered dead on the
+fields and groves. Hagen realizes the purport of the dream; but when
+scorned by Gernot, he says: "It is not fear that moves me; if you order
+the journey, I shall ride gladly to Etzel's land."
+
+The journey is full of adventures and novel experiences; Hagen, because
+he is well versed in the intricate roads, is the leader; his adventure
+with the mermaid-prophetesses is recorded in the first episode. Out of
+the rustling water the ominous voice of the swan-virgin is heard:
+"Hagen, Aldrian's son, I will warn thee. Return, as long as it is time
+yet; no one of your great host will return across the Danube, but one
+man, the king's chaplain." Hagen fights with the ferryman, whom he
+found, according to the warning of the mermaids, untrustworthy. He slays
+him and hurls the corpse into the flood, but, though this is done, the
+kings still see his blood streaming in the ship. Hagen himself ferries
+the entire army over the stream. On the last boat rides the chaplain.
+Him Hagen seizes, as he leans with his hand on the sanctuary, and hurls
+him pitilessly beneath the surface of the rippling water. The chaplain
+then turns and safely reaches the home bank; as he shakes in his
+dripping garments, he sees the Burgundians file into the distance. The
+first prophecy is fulfilled, and Hagen now realizes the irretrievable
+doom that awaits the kings and their followers. He destroys the ship,
+knowing well that it will serve for no one's safe return from the land
+of the Huns; but he justifies the act as a means of preventing retreat
+if a coward sought to gain safety by flight.
+
+The description of the hospitality afforded to the Burgundians by
+Margrave Rudiger of Bechlarn, in Austria, is a classical account of
+German court life. In it are welded together the customs and manners
+both of the migration period and the transition period between the
+twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the noble hostesses, Rudiger's
+wife, Gotelinde, and Dietlinde, her lovely daughter, are depicted true
+types of the loftiest German womanhood. The royal housewife receives the
+guests in true German fashion, with a kiss, thus honoring the brothers
+of her queen. The lovely maiden, too, proceeds along the ranks of the
+king's suite, offering them the kiss of welcome; but, with the intuitive
+soul of a pure German woman, she shudders before Hagen's grim features,
+and only in obedience to her father's order she offers to him her pale
+cheek for a kiss. There is hardly in any literature such a charming
+illustration of the joyous nature of a people, as shown in their customs
+and pleasures and music, as the banquet given by Rudiger. Good cheer
+prevails at the joyful table over which presided the noble and
+hospitable Gotelinde. During the afternoon, the daughter of the house
+appears with her companions to inspire Volker to song and merry jest.
+The climax of the scene is reached when the Burgundian heroes woo lovely
+Dietlinde for the youngest of their kings, Giselher. The suit is
+accepted by the parents, and the betrothal of the noble couple is
+concluded amid joyful consent and pleasurable anticipation of the
+marriage, which is to be celebrated when the Burgundians return from
+Etzel's court. When the hour of parting approaches, precious gifts are
+exchanged in truly Homeric fashion as a symbol of intimate connection
+and eternal friendship. Rüdiger presents Gernot with his own sword,
+which he had gloriously wielded in many a battle. The last blow of the
+glorious, but ill-fated, sword is, alas! to cleave the head of noble
+Rüdiger himself. Gotelinde honors Hagen with the shield of her own
+father, who had fallen in battle.
+
+Dietrich, the hero, first receives the Burgundians on Hunnish soil: "Be
+welcome, Gunther, Gernot, and Giselher; be welcome, Hagen, Volker, and
+Dankwart; are you unaware that Kriemhilde still grievously weeps for the
+hero from the Nibelung land?" "May she weep yet for a long time: he has
+been slain many years ago; Siegfried will never return; may she cling to
+the King of the Huns," is Hagen's grimly defiant reply. "How Siegfried
+fell we will not now investigate: but so long as Kriemhilde lives,
+grievous calamity is impending; do thou beware of it most of all, O
+Hagen, heir of the Nibelungs." Still more definitely Dietrich expresses
+his fears to the Burgundian kings in secret interview; though unaware of
+a determined plot of revenge, he knows that Etzel's wife raises every
+morning her loud dirge to mighty God for strong Siegfried's direful
+death. "It cannot now be helped," replies the brave fiddler Volker; "let
+us ride to Etzel's court and await what is destined to us by the Huns."
+
+When the eagle helmets and coats of arms of the Burgundians gleam at the
+gate entrance to the castle, Kriemhilde exclaims: "There are my
+relatives; let him who loves me be mindful of my sorrow." The heroes are
+received at Etzel's castle with barbarous splendor, yet a terrible gloom
+seems to overhang everything. Hagen and Volker, in the consciousness
+that death is near, join each other in a personal compact for life and
+death. They seat themselves outside on a stone bench, and are looked at
+with fear and awe. When Kriemhilde sees from the window her deadly
+enemy, she is overcome by emotion, her tears flow, and she calls upon
+her royal vassals around her to avenge her bitter woe and sorrow on
+Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried. Sixty men buckle on their armor.
+Kriemhilde herself, with the royal crown on her head, descends to the
+courtyard to obtain from Hagen's own lips the confession of his deed as
+a testimony for her men. "I know," she says, "he is so haughty, he will
+not deny it, so I do not care what happens to him for the deed." While
+the sixty hostile warriors approach, the two Burgundian heroes once more
+renew their bond for life and death. To Hagen's question whether Volker
+will stand by him "in true love as I shall never forsake you," Volker
+replies: "So long as I live, even though all Hunnish knights storm
+against us I do not yield from you, Hagen, not a finger's breadth." "Now
+God reward you, noble Volker, what more do I need? Let them approach,
+the armored heroes!" This splendid monument of German loyalty partially
+reconciles us to the horrors soon to be enacted.
+
+Kriemhilde then approaches the terrible pair. Though Volker prompts his
+comrade to rise before the queen, Hagen defiantly remains seated, and
+lays before him on his knees a shining sword with a brilliant jewel of
+green color on the handle. Kriemhilde at once recognizes Siegfried's
+saga-famed sword Balmung. Her grief is thus renewed. "Who bade you come,
+Hagen, how could you dare to ride hither? Do you not know what you have
+done to me?"
+
+"No one sent for me; three kings have been invited hither, they are my
+masters, I their vassal; where they are, I am."
+
+"You know indeed," continued Kriemhilde, "why I detest you? You have
+slain Siegfried, and for him I shall weep to the very end."
+
+"Yes," snarled grim Hagen, "I did slay Siegfried, the hero, because Lady
+Kriemhilde chided fair Brunhild, my queen. Avenge it whoever will, I
+confess, I caused you much sorrow." Thereupon, war is declared for life
+and death. However, the sixty Hunnish heroes do not dare to attack the
+two Burgundians, who rise and go to the royal hall in order that they
+may stand by their kings should they be in distress.
+
+Kriemhilde enters and salutes her brothers, but bestows a kiss and
+handshake only on Giselher, the youngest. Hagen ties his helmet more
+tightly. Kriemhilde inquires whether they had brought her property, the
+Nibelung treasure, with them.
+
+"The Nibelung treasure," replies Hagen scornfully, "has been buried in
+the deepest Rhine where it shall lie till the last day, and
+
+        "'To thee I bring the devil!
+        In this my buckler have I quite enough to bear,
+        And also in my armor this helm so fairly wrought
+        This sword my hand is holding; therefore I bring thee naught.'"
+
+Kriemhilde requests the Burgundians to give up their arms, as is
+customary, at friendly visits; Hagen refuses. She thus realizes that the
+Burgundians must have been warned.
+
+"Who has done this?" she inquires angrily. Proudly and firmly Dietrich
+replies: "It is I, I have warned them; on me, thou, terrible one, wilt
+not avenge this warning." Before his piercing eye Kriemhilde conceals
+her boiling anger and retreats, throwing hostile glances upon her
+enemies. The guests, too, retire guarded by the indefatigable Hagen and
+Volker. For the last time, Volker's music rings out into the night as he
+sings in sweet melodies the parting from life. It is the _dirge_ for the
+Burgundian kings and heroes. Kriemhilde vainly endeavors to enlist
+Hildebrand and Dietrich to aid her revenge. Both refuse.
+
+"He who will slay the Nibelungs will do it without me," says Hildebrand.
+Nor will Dietrich break faith to those who came in good faith and from
+whom he had suffered no harm. He says: "By my hand Siegfried will remain
+unavenged."
+
+At last the queen by great promises wins Blodel, Etzel's brother. He
+agrees to attack the lesser knights and the men-at-arms who under
+Dankwart's command rest in the out-houses. During the surprise,
+Kriemhilde quietly enters the dining hall of the royal castle where the
+great heroes are already assembled. Her son Ortlieb, only five years
+old, is presented by Etzel to his uncles and their favor is bespoken
+when the prince shall be sent to Burgundy for his education. Now the
+untamed fury of Hagen suddenly breaks out in a fearful explosion. The
+fierce savagery of the Migration period, regardless of the Christian
+varnish of the thirteenth century, in striking contrast to the elegiac
+traits exhibited in the departure of the kings, in Giselher's betrothal
+to Dietlinde and voiced in Volker's sweet melodies, reappears in an
+unheard of act of brutal murder. Hagen exclaims that the young king does
+not look to him as if he would grow very old; that no one would ever see
+him in Ortlieb's court. While everybody is yet stunned by the ferocious
+prophecy of the terrible man, Dankwart breaks into the festal hall and
+shouts:
+
+"Why do you sit here so long, brother Hagen; to you and to God in heaven
+do I complain of our distress. Knights and servants lie altogether slain
+in the outhouse." Indeed, Blodel had kept his word, but lost his life in
+the attempt. Not one Burgundian escaped the carnage, save Dankwart who
+succeeded in cutting his way through the press. Hagen sprang up like a
+wounded lion, the sword shone in his mighty hand, and with one blow the
+head of the innocent royal child was tossed into the lap of his mother
+Kriemhilde. This atrocious deed is the signal for a universal carnage.
+In her deathly agony Kriemhilde appeals to Dietrich, who is at once
+ready to fulfil his duty toward the queen and consort of his host and
+protector, Etzel. Dietrich demands peace for himself and his men, who
+are no participants in the strife. King Gunther bids all go who are not
+involved in the murder of his men; he will take his revenge but on the
+retinue of Etzel who are in the plot. Etzel and Kriemhilde, Rudiger of
+Bechlarn, Dietrich and his retinue, leave the hall. Then the battle
+began to rage again, until all Etzel's men were slain. Their bodies were
+hurled by the Burgundians downstairs in front of the door. Intoxicated
+by the victory, Hagen, in the doorway, reviles Kriemhilde for her second
+marriage, and the latter, exasperated, promises to fill Etzel's shield
+with gold for him who would bring her Hagen's head. It is not our task
+to describe here the battle, the blood flowing in rivulets from the hall
+to the courtyard. The attempt to obtain a free departure from the hall
+to die in open battle fails, since Kriemhilde fears Hagen might escape
+her vengeance. Yet even among those horrors a feature of love and truth
+is not missing. Giselher, who was hardly a boy when Siegfried was
+murdered, addresses his sister:
+
+"O fair sister, how could I expect this great and dire calamity when
+thou invitedst me from the Rhine. How do I deserve death in this strange
+land? At all times was I true to thee, and never did I a wrong; I hoped
+to find thee loving and gracious to me; let me die quickly, if it must
+be!"
+
+Deeply moved by his words, Kriemhilde demands only the surrender of
+Hagen. "As to you, I will let you live, for you are my brothers, and
+children of the same mother." But Gernot rejects the offer: "We die with
+Hagen, even though we were a thousand of the same race." And "We die
+with Hagen, if die we must," repeats Giselher; "we shall not forego
+loyalty unto death."
+
+At the failure of this last attempt at peace, the wrath of Kriemhilde
+knows no bounds. She orders fire to be put to the hall, and the flames
+are fanned by the wind to a roaring shower of fire. A terrible thirst
+increases the torture, until the heroes quench it according to Hagen's
+advice with the blood of the slain. When the night sets in, the
+Burgundians protect themselves with their shields from the falling
+timbers. The last morning dawns. The battle rages anew. At last Riidiger
+decides, though with a bleeding heart, that the loyalty to his king and
+queen, the faithfulness of the vassal, must prevail over his truth and
+love for his new friends, for Giselher, the betrothed of his child. In
+the ensuing struggle Rudiger splits Gernot's head, while Gernot's last
+blow with Rüdiger's own sword ends the latter's life. Both heroes thus
+mingle their blood in death.
+
+The bloody contest continues until all the Goths, with the exception of
+Hildebrand and Dietrich, are slain. In the royal hall, Gunther and Hagen
+alone stand over the bodies of their brothers and companions from
+Burgundy. Dietrich demands their surrender; the demand is rejected by
+Hagen. The last terrible duel begins. Dietrich inflicts a severe wound
+upon Hagen, seizes him with his mighty arms, chains him in his lion's
+grasp, and thus delivers him to Kriemhilde. The same fate awaits
+Gunther. Recommending the lives of the heroes to Kriemhilde, Dietrich
+leaves the court.
+
+Kriemhilde vows to Hagen that she will spare his life if he will return
+to her the hidden hoard, the Nibelung treasure. Though grievously
+wounded and lying in chains, Hagen, loyal to his masters, replies: "So
+long as one of my masters lives, I will not reveal the hiding place of
+the treasure." The queen is desperate. She causes her own royal
+brother's head to be cut off, and herself carries it by the hair to
+Hagen. The true vassal cries out with sad resolution: "Now it is
+accomplished as thou hast willed."
+
+        "'Dead is now of Burgundy the noble monarch true,
+        Giselher, the young prince, and eke Gernot too.
+        Of the Hoard knows no one save God and I alone;
+        To thee, thou devil's wife, shall it ne'er be shown.'"
+
+"Then only the sword of Siegfried, my sweet husband, is left to me." She
+draws it from the sheath, and, by the hand of the long-sorrowing wife,
+Siegfried's sword avenges Siegfried's death upon his murderer.
+
+At this moment old Hildebrand, wrathful over the breach of the condition
+imposed upon her by Dietrich when he delivered Gunther and Hagen to her,
+cuts her down. Kriemhilde, with a frightful scream, sinks to the ground,
+beside the body of her deadly enemy.
+
+        "With anguish thus had ended the monarch's revelry,
+        As love will to sorrow too oft become a prey."
+
+Kriemhilde, the German woman par excellence, with her heart filled with
+all the virtues of love and faith, outraged in her holiest feelings, and
+thus "turning the milk of human kindness to fermenting dragon's poison,"
+presents to us all the potentialities of womanhood, and withal the
+entire range of the psychology of German womanhood.
+
+When we emerge from the orgy of hate and bloodshed with which the second
+part of the _Nibelungenlied_ is filled, when we have fathomed the depths
+of the passion of which a high-minded, loving type of royal womanhood
+such as Kriemhilde is capable, we are glad to resort to the beneficent
+contrast of womanly gentleness and loveliness which we find in _Gudrun_,
+the second great mediaeval German epic, whose roots and branches are
+deeply set in the Migration period. We discover here a portrait of the
+culture of the time, its warfare, its seafaring, its discoveries, its
+geographical horizon, and, especially, its love and truth and faith. If
+we were stirred in the former epic by the gloomy and lurid background
+that overshadowed even its sunniest scenes; if the sinking of the
+noblest, purest, most affectionate Kriemhilde into demoniacal passion
+did not permit us to arrive at a serene contemplation of that gigantic
+work of art, we now celebrate the triumph of the loyalty and devotion
+and perseverance of a genuine womanly heart over long and bitter sorrow
+and humiliations. While Kriemhilde's fierce hatred immolates both
+herself and a great dynasty on the altar of revenge, in _Gudrun_ we
+celebrate the victory of self-abnegation, patience, and peace, and the
+reconciliation of two mighty dynasties.
+
+The theatre of action of this, the second greatest national epic, is the
+entire range of the North Sea, with its measureless limits extending
+into mythical infinity, with its long coast line and sea-girt isles,
+with its Viking ships storm-tossed on the watery roads of all the races.
+The North Sea did not limit the sturdiness of the Teutonic seafarers of
+the Norse race, just as the Mediterranean did not restrain their energy
+and wandering instincts. As the Lombard cycle of sagas reaches out
+beyond the confines of the Teutonic world to Constantinople, to Syria,
+to Babylon, and to the mythical lands beyond the seas, so the cycle of
+the North leads us not only to the Netherlands, the land of the Frisians
+and Ditmarsch, but over to Seeland, Normandy, Ireland, even to the
+Orkneys, and perchance to Iceland.
+
+And perhaps it may not be amiss, by way of contrast and to show the
+opposite poles of the Germanic world, to recount briefly an epic lay of
+the Lombard cycle which breathes quite a different atmosphere and
+exhibits different colors, geographically and morally speaking, from
+those of the North Sea. In the Lombard cycle there is a connection of
+the Teutonic cosmos with the fabulous Oriental world. King Ortnit of
+_Lamparten_ (Lombardy) wins by a series of stratagems the resplendent
+daughter of the heathen king Nachaol, of Muntabur, in Syria, and makes
+her his wife. Descriptions of golden armor, magic rings, and rich
+treasures of the East betray everywhere the Oriental character of this
+Langobard legend.
+
+More Germanic, though its sources lay entirely in the Byzantine Empire,
+is the saga of _Hugdietrich_ with its moral of the all-pervading power
+of love. The names of the leading characters especially indicate the
+Teutonic setting of the saga. Hugdietrich is King of Constantinople,
+and, after the early death of his father, is reared by Duke Berchtung.
+At the age of twelve an Oriental age for marriage he consults with his
+guardian concerning the choice of a wife. The choice falls upon the fair
+maiden Hildeburg, daughter of King Walgund at Salnek (_Saloniki_); but
+this princess is confined in a lofty tower, for it has been decided that
+she is never to marry. Unlike Danae, the Greek beauty, who is reached in
+her solitary tower by the love of the Olympian Zeus in the form of a
+golden rain, Hildeburg receives Hugdietrich in a more satisfactory form.
+The young king to attain his end disguises himself in the garb of a
+maiden with flowing golden hair; he learns feminine arts, among them
+that of embroidery, and journeys to Salnek, accompanied by a numerous
+retinue. Here he represents himself as Hildegund, the exiled sister of
+the King of the Greeks, and is hospitably received by King Walgund. The
+false Hildegund quickly gains the favor of the royal couple of Salnek by
+her wonderful embroideries in gold and silver; and when her position at
+the court is assured, she requests the honor of becoming an attendant
+and playmate to Hildeburg. This granted, Hugdietrich is admitted to the
+tower of the captive princess. For twelve weeks, Hugdietrich plays his
+rôle and teaches his love the art of embroidery, but he is unable longer
+to restrain his passion, and he reveals himself to her. His love is
+reciprocated, and a blissful year is passed by the loving pair. At this
+juncture, Duke Berchtung arrives from Constantinople to conduct
+Hildegund home, since the king, her brother, wishes to receive her again
+into grace and brotherly affection. Hildeburg is left in painful longing
+and sadness. Soon afterward she gives birth to a son, whom she tries to
+conceal from the sight of men. One day, however, her mother surprises
+her by an unexpected visit; and the frightened nurse lets the babe,
+wrapped in silken cloths, down among the bushes of the ditch surrounding
+the castle. When, after the departure of the queen, the child is
+searched for, he is not to be found. A wolf has carried him away as food
+for his young. But King Walgund, who, as it happens, is out hunting,
+kills the wolves, and finds the child grievously weeping. The king takes
+him under his mantle and brings him to his queen, calling him
+Wolfdietrich, as he had found him among the wolves. Hildeburg, too, sees
+him, and recognizes him as her own child by his birthmark, a red cross
+between his shoulders. She confesses everything to her parents, and is
+forgiven. Hugdietrich is sent for. He comes, recognizes the boy as his
+own, kisses him in truly Germanic fashion, wraps his golden mantle
+around him as a token of recognition, and pronounces the words:
+
+        "'Wolfdietrich, O dearest child of mine,
+        Constenople be the inheritance thine.'"
+
+The sagas of the Lombard cycle are the poetic crystallization of the
+spread of Teutonism over the world of the Orient; they symbolize the
+national thirst for adventure and strife.
+
+We now turn back from the extreme southeast of Europe to the extreme
+northwest of that continent, the ideal realm of Gudrun, the noblest type
+of German womanhood in the domain of German literature.
+
+King Hagen of Ireland, and Hilde, his wife, have a beautiful daughter,
+also called Hilde. But the king "grudges her to any man who is not over
+him," and has her suitors slain, for no one is his equal. The fame of
+Hilde's beauty penetrates also to the coast of the German North Sea, and
+King Hettel of the Hegelings desires her for his wife. Five great
+vassals of the king, Wate of Stormland (Holstein), the great hero and
+singer, Frute, Horant of Denmark, Morung of Nifland, and Irolt of
+Ortland, set out to win the cherished bride for their king. Seven
+hundred warriors are hidden in the hold of the great ship built of
+cypress wood, covered with silver plate, and brave in golden rudders,
+silken sails, and anchors forged from silver. The stratagem devised by
+the suitors lies in the tale by which they will inform King Hagen that
+they were driven out by Hettel, the tyrannical king, and that, being
+merchants, they carried away their treasures on their flight to Ireland.
+By exceedingly rich presents, they win the good will of Hagen and
+especially that of young Hilde, who persuades her father to admit them
+to the court. Horant delights all by his Orphean music, "so enchanting
+that his melodies pierced the heart, and the little birds stopped
+singing before his divine harmonies."
+
+        "The beasts of the forest forsook the fresh pasture,
+        The beetle forgot to crawl on through the green grass,
+        The fish fond of shooting through the waves of the waters
+        Arrested their path. Truly, Horant could boast of his art."
+
+Young Hilde's delight in his music prompts her to invite the sweet
+singer to her chamber, where he sings enchantingly; one of his lays
+tells of the mermaids, and this leads up to the story of the suit of his
+royal master. The princess consents to accept the suit, if Horant will
+promise to sing for her every morning and every night. The hero endowed
+with the divine art of song entices her still further by telling her
+that at the royal court there are twelve minstrels greatly superior to
+himself, the greatest and most musical of all is King Hettel himself.
+Hilde is then invited to visit the ship and see the treasures thereon.
+On the fourth day, under the pretext that their king has called them
+back and makes them amends, the visiting heroes take leave of Hagen. At
+parting Hagen is requested to pay them a visit with his queen. While the
+king and the queen are walking upon the strand, young Hilde with her
+women step upon the ship. Immediately the anchors are hoisted, the sails
+are unfurled, and the ship shoots through the waves like an arrow.
+Hagen's ships have shrewdly been made unseaworthy by the cunning
+Hegelings, who joyfully proceed homeward with their fair booty and land
+at Wales, the western boundary of Hettel's domains, where they are
+royally received by the overjoyed king. A brilliant festival is
+celebrated; in silken tents covered with flowers the heroes surround
+Hettel's beauteous bride. But before sunset the scene changes to a
+bloody _Wahhtatt_. King Hagen arms other ships and pursues the captors
+of his daughter. A terrible battle ensues on the strand of Wales.
+Lightning sparkles from the golden helmets, the spears fly like
+snowflakes in a northern winter. Hettel is wounded by Hagen, Hagen by
+Wate. As once at the very cradle of the Roman Republic, the Sabine
+spouses saved their Roman husbands from annihilation at the hands of
+their Sabine fathers and brothers by hurling their own fair bodies
+between the embittered armies, thus Hilde's loving intercession calms
+the passions of the struggling heroes. Fierce Hagen is at last
+reconciled to his daughter and Hettel, and he accompanies them to the
+royal castle where they are solemnly united in marriage. Historically,
+we see in these adventures a reminiscence of the ancient Teutonic custom
+of gaining the bride by conquest or violence.
+
+From the union of Hettel and fair Hilde sprang two children: Ortwin and
+Gudrun, who even surpasses her mother in beauty. The Hegeling daughter
+is sought by the most powerful princes, but Hettel deems none worthy of
+his daughter. Hartmut, King of the Normans, when rejected, appears
+disguised at Hettel's court and reveals himself to Gudrun, who, feeling
+pity for the beautiful youth, advises him to flee from her father's
+wrath: "His life would be done for, were Hettel to recognize him."
+Hartmut retires but to prepare for war, for once having seen charming
+Gudrun, he can no longer live without her. Meanwhile, Herwig of Seeland,
+a Frisian king, who had also been rejected, appears with three thousand
+heroes before Hettel's castle: he strikes the flaming wind from many a
+helmet. Fair Gudrun has never known such delight as that which the deeds
+of the brave heroes give; the sight of him is to her both love and
+sorrow. Herwig and Hettel meet in deadly combat, "fiery glow flamed from
+their shields, red wounds are struck," until Gudrun intercedes in
+person; peace is concluded, and Herwig is betrothed to Gudrun.
+
+The news of this engagement exasperates King Siegfried of Morland, who
+had sought vainly for Gudrun's hand. He invades Herwig's country, and
+Herwig in his extremity appeals to Gudrun, his betrothed. Her father,
+Hettel, with his men, goes to Herwig's aid. While he is thus engaged,
+Ludwig and Hartmut of Normandy, having learned through spies that the
+land of the Hegelings is denuded of men, sail with a powerful host to
+Hettel's land and soon advance upon the sunny castle of Hilde. Hartmut,
+unwilling to wrong his beloved Gudrun if she will accept his suit,
+announces his love to her, and threatens to carry her away by force if
+she resists. Gudrun replies that she belongs, body and soul, to Herwig
+and that she will never break faith with him. Ludwig and Hartmut storm
+the castle and carry away Gudrun and her sixty-two attendants, among
+them her best beloved companion, Hildeburg. Queen Hilde looks on with
+powerless tears and broken heart. She sends messengers to Hettel and
+Herwig, who conclude an honorable peace with King Siegfried, and with
+their new ally set out in pursuit of the Normans. At the mouth of the
+river Sheldt, on the island of Wulpensand, the Normans with their
+beautiful captive rest. Here they are overtaken by the Seelanders. The
+terrible battle that ensues has been sung in many lays throughout
+Germany. "You'd see the heroes' bodies with glowing blood color the sea.
+The waves flowed to the strand reddened everywhere."
+
+More and more Hegelings sink to the ground. Ludwig slays King Hettel:
+"This was sorrowful tidings to many hearts." When fierce Wate perceives
+his master's death, he begins to rage like a wild boar. Ortwin and
+Horant are beside themselves with rage and strive to avenge their fallen
+king, but night stops the carnage. The Normans succeed in reaching their
+ships under the cover of darkness and in escaping with their hard-won
+booty. The Hegelings are so reduced in numbers that no further pursuit
+can be made. Wate brings the sad tidings to Queen Hilde in the desolate
+tower: "No use to keep the calamity from you; I will not deceive you,
+they are all dead, our heroes." Revenge must be postponed, "until all
+those who now stand before us as children, have grown ripe for the
+sword; many a noble orphan will then be mindful of his father and will
+be a helper on the new journey." But poor Hilde expresses her despair of
+the distant hope.
+
+Meanwhile, the triumphant Normans approach the coast of their
+fatherland. King Ludwig, in sight of the towers of his castle, kindly
+reminds tearful Gudrun that all this beautiful land shall belong to her
+if she will marry Hartmut. This only increases her sorrow: "Ere I'll
+take Sir Hartmut, I shall rather be dead. His is not of a house that I
+could love him. I'll lose life rather than win him as my friend."
+Incensed at her bitter words, Ludwig seizes the princess by the hair and
+hurls her into the foaming sea. But loving Hartmut springs after her,
+rescues her and places her with tender care in his boat. At the landing
+Queen Gerlinde and her daughter Ortrun with their attendants hasten to
+welcome the Norman heroes and fair Gudrun, who accepts Ortrun's kiss,
+but refuses that of the old queen, knowing well that the latter is the
+source of all her misfortunes, and having a presentiment of the greater
+evils that threatened her. As she continues to cling to her betrothed,
+Herwig, and defies the advances of Hartmut, whose father had slain hers,
+Gerlinde undertakes to break her pride while Hartmut is absent upon a
+new expedition. But the young king entreats his mother before his
+departure "to instruct the poor, homeless princess in all kindness."
+This the queen attempts, but as Gudrun persists in her refusal, Gerlinde
+is enraged and exclaims: "If thou wilt not have joy, sorrow shall be thy
+share." Thereafter, she subjects Gudrun to a series of humiliations.
+First, she is separated from her noble playmates, who are condemned to
+spin and do other womanly handiwork. The royal virgin herself is forced
+to perform the most servile work, she is obliged to heat the stoves, to
+wash the linen, and to sweep the floor, this last with her silken hair;
+she is chastised by Gerlinde, she is fed on black bread and water, and
+her couch is a hard bench. Ortrun's sisterly affection for Gudrun is the
+only bright spot in her gloomy existence. Hartmut's love and the
+protection which he vowed to her at first, finally turn to impatience,
+and he abandons her to the unmitigated ill treatment of her tormentor,
+Queen Gerlinde, by whom Gudrun is condemned to perpetual servitude and
+shame. Gudrun's noble attendant, Hildeburg, by piteous entreaty obtains
+permission to participate in the grievous work of her royal mistress.
+For nearly six years they wash Gerlinde's garments in the sea, in wind
+and storm, in snow and ice. But Gudrun's pure and faithful heart remains
+unshaken.
+
+Thirteen years have now passed since the terrible events on the
+Wulpensand. The boys of the land of the Hegelings have grown to be men.
+Queen Hilde, unforgetful of the captivity of her daughter Gudrun, and of
+her duty to avenge King Mattel's death, summons her heroes and friends
+and allies, foremost among whom is Herwig, to an expedition against the
+Normans. A strong fleet is armed; some sixty thousand men follow Hilde's
+summons. Horant of Denmark is the leader of the fleet. After a stormy
+passage the coast of Normandy is reached. The allies land unnoticed
+under the cover of mountain and forest, safe from the observation of the
+spies. Ortwin, Gudrun's brother, and Herwig, her betrothed, go forward
+as scouts.
+
+Following the natural order of events, we now pass in the grand epic to
+the romantic element, the lyrical _intermettfp_ of longing and love, of
+truth and faith, to the realm of hope and consolation. All the virtues
+and charms of the Teutonic woman's nature are revealed in Gudrun:
+superhuman agencies intervene for her deliverance. One day Gudrun and
+Hildeburg stand on the strand of the sea, occupied with their customary
+menial work of washing, in strange contrast to the same womanly
+occupation of the Grecian princess Nausicaa and her noble attendants in
+the Odyssey, where everything is brightness and delight, when they
+suddenly perceive a beautiful bird swimming toward them. It is a divine
+messenger, who brings them glad tidings, pronounced with a human voice:
+
+"Be ready, homeless maid, a lofty happiness awaits thee; God sends me
+for thy comfort to this strand." He satisfies her longing questions,
+tells her that Hilde lives, and of the hosts and the fleet she has sent
+out for Gudrun's rescue, of Ortwin and Herwig and all the rest of her
+liberators. Then the mysterious bird disappears, and the two princesses
+are left in suspense. They forget their work, and must therefore at
+their return endure the bitter chidings of Gerlinde, who sends them
+forth the next morning to the same work, to which they go barefooted and
+clothed only in their shirts, though heavy snow covers the fields, and
+ice dams the waterways. Well might they then send out their longing
+glances over the sea whence are to come the messengers whom the queen
+Hilde has sent for their rescue. Suddenly they perceive two men
+approaching in a boat. Ashamed of their servile work, and still more of
+their nakedness, they flee, but Herwig and Ortwin call them back and
+offer their mantles to the unknown and beautiful servants, who tremble
+from cold, in their wet shirts, their locks flying in the sharp wind.
+Modestly they refuse to accept the mantles of the men. Ortwin inquires
+the name of the person who has subjected them to such cruel work. Herwig
+looks in silent amazement at the beautiful, the glorious, the royal
+woman in her degradation; "the hero compared her to one whom he
+cherished in true memory."
+
+When Ortwin further inquires after the noble women, especially Gudrun,
+who many years ago had been dragged into Normandy, she replies: "Gudrun
+died in sorrow," a characteristic reply which proves that in the ancient
+Germanic world, as well as in that of Greece, a cunning little lie was
+not amiss even in the mouth of a charming princess. When the tears well
+forth from the eyes of the heroes, another trait of the ancient Germanic
+past as well as of the Greek, and Herwig draws forth the betrothal ring
+of yore, Gudrun says, smiling:
+
+        "'Well do I know this ringlet, betimes it came from me;
+        Behold now this one, warriors, by Herwig sent to me,
+        When I, abandoned orphan, lived in my father's land.'"
+
+Overwhelmed by joy, Herwig clasps his beloved Gudrun in his arms to
+carry her away at once, but proud Ortwin wil! not snatch her away
+stealthily from the enemy; and Herwig promises to stand, before the sun
+rises in the morning, before the gates of the Norman city with sixty
+thousand chosen warriors. The maidens follow with their eyes the
+departing heroes till their boat vanishes in the mist.
+
+Gudrun exults over the thought of their approaching liberation. Her
+entire nature seems to change. From the patient, enduring, humble,
+martyr-like, though constant and faithful, maiden, she changes to a
+proud, self-asserting queen. Angrily she hurls the linen, the symbol of
+her humiliation, into the flood; she is too highly placed; she declares
+to the warning, anxious friend Hildeburg that she will never wash again
+for Gerlinde, for two kings have kissed her and held her in their arms.
+When, at their late arrival at the castle, Gerlinde receives them with
+harsh words, asks for the linen, and learns that Gudrun has thrown it
+into the sea, the she-wolf as she is called here in the epic orders
+thorn rods to be tied together to chastise Gudrun. But the cunning
+maiden, who, as we have seen, does not shrink from a needful little lie,
+escapes by a clever ruse:
+
+        "'Release me from chastisement, you'll gladly do it sure;
+        For whom I have rejected, I choose now for my lord;
+        As queen will I reside in the Normanish fields;
+        In power I shall perform deeds: you'll scarcely trust your eyes."
+
+Gerlinde immediately informs her son Hartmut of Gudrun's decision; but
+when he hastens to the spot to embrace her, she declines, saying:
+
+        "'O King Hartmut, leave this yet undone!
+        If people saw this action, it would be your dishonor;
+        I am a lowly servant, how would it be befitting,
+        Were a mighty king to embrace me or to touch me?'"
+
+Overjoyed, Hartmut orders Gudrun and her maidens to be clothed in costly
+garments and to be regaled royally; and for the first time in fourteen
+years Queen Gudrun laughs merrily among her Hegeling sisters, who are
+overcome by the sudden change of events. The report of Gudrun's
+merriment causes Gerlinde a presentiment of evil; she warns her son, but
+he has no eyes or ears but for Gudrun's charms. When the maidens retire
+for the first time in fourteen years to a soft couch, Gudrun reveals to
+them the fact that help and salvation are near, and promises "buroughs
+and acres" to her who will first announce to her the morning which shall
+bring to them the day of freedom and of revenge.
+
+Meanwhile, Herwig and Ortwin return to their host and relate to the
+companions Gudrun's and Hildeburg's fate. Old Wate proposes to attack
+the Normans without delay, and "to wash red the white garments which
+their white hands had washed in the sea." "Before dawn they shall stand
+as guests before King Ludwig's fortress." And, indeed, at the rising of
+the morning star, one of Gudrun's maidens sees from the window the
+fields shining with arms and the sea filled with sails. Quickly she
+awakes Gudrun, while at the same time the king's warders cry from the
+battlements:
+
+        "'Get up, ye proud heroes, get up, hosts, to your arms:
+        Brave Normans, all too long, methinks, have you slept.'"
+
+The masterly description of the terrific battle, which is worthy of the
+best traditions of the German epic, does not belong to this work. Yet
+the gathering of the Hegelings around Queen Hilde's banner, King
+Herwig's bride standing high on the battlement of the tower, while King
+Hartmut and the Norman heroes march under the arch of the gate are
+objective pictures showing that the womanly element is the pivot upon
+which the story turns.
+
+When old King Ludwig is slain by Herwig, the she-wolf, Gerlinde, sends
+out a murderer to kill Gudrun, but Hartmut generously saves her mindful
+of the beloved one even in the stress of battle. When Hartmut himself is
+on the point of succumbing under the blows of Wate, Gudrun, softened by
+Ortrun's prayer, sends out Herwig to intercede in Hartmut's behalf. Wate
+scornfully refuses, but Herwig, from his love for Gudrun, covers the
+enemy with his own body, and Hartmut is snatched away and carried into
+captivity with eighty of his knights. The contrast of this battle with
+its many traits of love and compassion, even for the enemy, of
+self-restraint and humanity, to similar scenes in the _Nibelungenlied_
+with its ruthless, merciless, savage lust of blood and revenge, is
+strikingly apparent.
+
+Gerlinde, in miserable fear of death, seeks at last a refuge with
+Gudrun. The latter is willing to save her old tormenter, but Gerlinde is
+betrayed to Wate by one of her servants. Wate, who has many of the
+traits of Hagen in the _Nibelungenlied_, seizes her, wildly exclaiming
+in fearful wrath, yet using her royal title:
+
+"Lady Queen Gerlinde, you'll never more condemn to menial servitude my
+queen's sweet daughter." With these words he cuts off her head. The same
+fate befalls also young Duchess Hergart, one of Gudrun's attendants, who
+for gifts had bestowed her love upon Hartmut and had been faithless and
+overbearing to Gudrun. Poor Ortrun, who had befriended Gudrun, and her
+other women were spared upon Gudrun's intercession. Thus punishment and
+reward are evenly balanced; the ethical element of equal justice
+prevails everywhere, leaving no bitter aftertaste to the reader of the
+glorious epic. When King Herwig enters the lofty hall of the Norman king
+with his companions, Gudrun lovingly hastens toward him, and puts her
+arms around her hero.
+
+The dead are removed, the blood-stained walls are cleaned so that Gudrun
+may dwell in the castle, and the Hegelings begin "to inspect Hartmut's
+inheritance." After the hostile fortresses are broken and justice is
+satisfied, the conquerors depart with Gudrun and rich treasures: Hartmut
+is carried away with the other prisoners. Queen Hilde receives her
+heroes on the shore, but, at first, does not recognize her daughter
+Gudrun when she is led up to her. Mother and daughter hold one another
+in a tender embrace: sorrow and pain quickly turn to joy and delight.
+Ortrun, too, is received graciously for the noble friendship bestowed by
+her upon Gudrun during the long years of captivity. Hartmut and his men,
+having pledged themselves not to escape, are freed from their fetters.
+
+Now the preparations for the festivities of love and marriage are begun.
+The epic rings out in a sweet chant of love and reconciliation. Gudrun's
+faithfulness is blessed by Herwig's marital love. But Gudrun is
+unwilling to be blessed alone. The hate between the Normans and the
+Hegelings must be wiped out: the Norman princess Ortrun is married to
+King Ortwin. Hartmut, who for so long had cherished a hopeless love for
+Gudrun, transfers his affections to noble Hildeburg, who had shared
+Gudrun's sorrowful captivity.
+
+The bridals are celebrated on one day, mourning and woe are changed to
+joy, the hostile races are reconciled and reunited by the ties of blood
+and love in an alliance for defence and offence. The end of the _Gudrun
+saga_ stands thus, in direct contrast to the end of the
+_Nibelungenlied_. The type of Kriemhilde has revealed to us one-half of
+the possibilities of the German woman's soul; the type of Gudrun, its
+other half, in its sweetness, its endurance, its martyrdom for all that
+is great and good and noble; its patriotism, love, and virtue. Within
+the range of those two natures we can differentiate all the souls of the
+millions of German women that lived and loved, hated and struggled,
+suffered and died in the dim ages of the foundation of Germanic social
+order and institutions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE CENTURIES OF SUBMERGENCE AND OF NATIONALIZATION
+
+
+Charlemagne, the man typical of Teutonic force and power, a consummator
+of ancient forces and an initiator of a new progress, stands between the
+German and the Roman worlds as a gigantic form on the boundary line of
+two nations and two civilizations. Charlemagne was the first to realize
+the political unity of western Christendom as spiritually personified in
+the Papacy. This is the significance of that mighty event, pregnant with
+tremendous possibilities for good and for evil, when on the Christmas
+day of A. D. 800, the Pope bestowed upon Charlemagne the political crown
+of the Christian world with the obligation to support the church in its
+spiritual and secular supremacy. Only by the imperial crown, as a
+continuation of the majesty of the Roman Cæsars, could Germany maintain
+even its ascendancy among the other nations of Europe.
+
+When the German races were organized as a nation and imbued with the
+Christian faith by Charlemagne, this new political formation became the
+bearer of a new civilization amalgamated from its various constituents
+and as complex as was the state itself. Though preeminently papal and
+clerical, yet it was, also, eminently intellectual and classical. The
+treasures of a new thought, of culture, of Greco-Roman refinement, and
+even of material wealth, were opened to the people of Germany. Fruitful
+as these Roman germs were, they were only a ferment for German strength
+and characteristics; for the Germans alone made Christianity a living
+issue. It was impossible for the putrid soil of the decaying Roman
+Empire to become a fruitful abode for Christianity.
+
+Men and women fled to the desert to worship God in solitary
+contemplation and far from the temptation of the world. The monks in
+spite of the faults and the degeneration which will ever cling to things
+human are, after all, the purveyors of intellectual and moral culture.
+The cloisters, too, were at first fortresses of civilization, labor,
+agriculture, artisanship, and, though with monachal limitations, they
+were yet transmitters of literary and classical antiquity.
+
+We need only recall the life of the disciples of Saint Benedict in the
+cloister of Saint Gall, so dramatically described by Scheffel in his
+_Ekkehard_, their activity in letters and missionary work and gardening,
+in the copying of the classics and in teaching, as _Ekkehard_ taught the
+Duchess Hadwig the intellectual charms of the great pagan poet Virgil,
+to realize the debt owed by civilization to these monks. Though they and
+their classics, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, etc., sunk into the
+foundations of our civilization, yet, in their fanatic zeal, they
+destroyed many priceless old German treasures, relics of antiquity,
+which are, unfortunately, irretrievably lost. Charlemagne, with his deep
+intuition, recognized the value of these relics, and, assisted by the
+staff of free-hearted and free-minded scholars with whom he had
+surrounded himself, tried to save what could yet be saved.
+
+With the advent of the monk came the nun. The great Boniface, the
+apostle of the Germans, with inflexible will and diplomatic shrewdness,
+availed himself of the especial gifts of woman to aid in subjecting
+Germany to the Holy See. Not finding sufficient aid in Germany, he
+fetched women from England. The Anglo-Saxon abbesses, Lioba of
+Bischofsheim, Thekla of Kitzingen, and Walpurgis of Heidenheim, were of
+immense utility in his missionary work, and left a saintly memory in
+Germany. They raised the female priesthood of the nuns to a lofty
+height, their cloisters were nurseries of culture. Princesses and royal
+daughters sought the veil as an honor or as a refuge from the trials of
+their high station. It is true, however, that the monasteries of the
+nuns did not always maintain their original purity. Not seldom a nun
+broke her vow and preferred excommunication to a loveless existence.
+Sometimes the nuns tried to console themselves in the cloister itself
+for the dreariness of their existence. The Capitularies of Charlemagne
+inform us of the manner in which vagrant nuns, amorous dwellers in
+cloisters, offended against religious laws. Sometimes, indeed, the nuns
+even carried on amours for money, and the natural consequences of the
+breach of the vows of chastity were removed by crime, while, on the
+other hand, the chastisements meted out for such crimes were truly
+barbarous. There are Capitularies that prescribe that nuns' cloisters be
+not too conveniently near to the monasteries of monks, and others that
+accurately define the intercourse between clerics and laymen, that set
+forth the rule that "no abbess should presume to go outside of the
+monastery without episcopal permission nor permit her subordinate nuns
+to do so, that they shall not dare to write or send love-songs
+(_winileodes_);" but it is not less true that _winileodes_ continued to
+be realistically played in the nunneries and played in earnest. That
+luxury and high living must have developed in cloisters appears from a
+capitulary which forbids abbesses to have packs of hounds, and falcons,
+and hawks, and jugglers; that they shall live "regularly," and that
+their cloisters should be "rationally" established.
+
+We prefer, however, to write of the many holy women, the nuns,
+especially the Anglo-Saxon nuns, who obtained martyrdom by cooperating
+with Winfrid, the apostle of the Germans and other holy missionaries of
+the time. The monk Rudolf of Fulda wrote a biography of Saint Lioba
+after the report of her female disciples. Lioba was educated in an
+English nunnery which had been founded at Winbrunne (to-day Wimborne
+Minster, Dorsetshire), together with a monastery. Very naively Rudolf
+asserts that in spite of the proximity of the institutions no undue
+intercourse between their inhabitants ever occurred; nay, the abbess was
+so strict that she forbade entrance to the assemblies of the nuns, not
+only to clerics and laymen, but also to the bishops. At this holy place
+did the virgin grow up, soon becoming the star of piety and wisdom in
+the cloister, and the favorite of the abbess. Thence she was sent by the
+will of Boniface to Germany and placed at the head of the cloister of
+Bischofsheim. From all parts of Germany young women went to her cloister
+to learn virtue and wisdom from the holy woman. When Boniface prepared
+himself for his last missionary expedition to the pagan Frisians, he
+commended his pious sister to his successor, exhorted her not to weary
+in her holy work, and directed that her body after death should be
+placed with his own in one grave, that they should both await the day of
+resurrection after they had served Christ in the same endeavor and
+aspiration during their lives. When Boniface had found the martyr's
+death in Frisia, Lioba worked on for many years with beneficent activity
+in the Christianization of Germany. Venerated by all she was an especial
+favorite of Charlemagne and his consort Hildegard, yet she preferred at
+all times the atmosphere of her cloister to the luxurious life at the
+court. She died A. D. 780, sanctified by the Church, and many miracles
+are related by Rudolf as having happened at her grave.
+
+There are scores of similar legends in the Latin literature of the time,
+for, from the eighth century on, Germany is filled with holy women and
+maidens, promoters of the Church, founders of cloisters. The nun's
+garment is revered everywhere; the veiled, consecrated maids of God owe
+their high appreciation to their virgin state for which as already
+especially mentioned the Germans felt a deeply ingrained veneration. The
+"Maria-cult" had constantly grown in importance since the fifth century.
+Goethe's "eternal feminine" celebrated its apotheosis in the new faith
+as it had in the old belief in Freya and the Valkyries. Mary's
+motherhood was sacred, but sacred only because it was motherhood with
+virginity, eternal virginity. Yet the ideal of womanly beauty and
+fascination is not at all lacking. Scherr translates a description given
+by the Church Father Epiphanius as early as the fourth century of the
+Holy Virgin as the ideal of pure womanhood. And, though the memory of
+Olympus is apparent everywhere in the description, Epiphanius from
+Palestine pictures Mary, the Mother of Christ, as a truly German ideal
+of beauty: a golden-haired, blue-eyed Madonna. "The most beautiful of
+women, gloriously formed, neither too short nor too long. Her form was
+white, finely colored and immaculate; her hair was long, soft,
+gold-colored. Under a well-shaped forehead and bright brown eyebrows
+shone her moderately large eyes with the lustre of a sapphire. The white
+in her eye was milk-colored and brilliant as crystal. The straight and
+normal nose as well as the mouth were comparable to snow in whiteness.
+Each of her cheeks was like a lily upon which lies a rose-leaf. Her
+well-rounded chin bore a dimple, her throat was white and ivory, her
+neck slender and well-proportioned. Fine was her gait, graceful the play
+of her features, chaste her entire attitude. Briefly, excepting the Son
+of God, none ever possessed such a beautiful and pure body as the Holy
+Virgin Mary." Indeed, the humanizing of the Mother of God was as
+complete as that of foam-born Aphrodite in Homer. Mary is the leader,
+the choregetes of saintly womanhood; solemnly enthroned in the heavens,
+she moves everything, including Christ, her Son. She is the alpha and
+omega of Christian poetry and art.
+
+No wonder that women of all states of society found high incentives
+toward dedicating their lives to the service of Christ and the Holy
+Virgin. The disappointments and trials of womanhood, too, prompted many
+to seek seclusion from the world. Scheffel, in his _Ekhehard_, describes
+such a type of holy recluse under the title of _Wiborada Reclusa_. She
+had once been a proud, unapproachable maiden, he says, well versed in
+many arts; she had learned from her priestly brother Hitto to repeat all
+the Psalms in Latin, and had not once been inclined to sweeten the life
+of a husband; the bloom of her land (_Suabia_) had found no grace before
+her eyes, and she had made a pilgrimage to Rome. There her soul must
+have been shaken to its foundation; for three days she was lost sight
+of, for three days her brother Hitto was running up and down the Forum,
+and through the halls of the Coliseum and under Constantine's triumphal
+arch, down to the four-headed Janus on the Tiber, seeking his sister and
+finding her not. On the morning of the fourth day, she came in through
+the Salarian gate and carried her head aloft, and her eyes were shining,
+and she spoke, saying that everything was vain in the world as long as
+the honor due to Saint Martin was not rendered to him.
+
+When she returned home, she bequeathed her property to the Episcopal
+church at Constance, on condition that the priests on the eleventh day
+of every October should celebrate in honor of Saint Martin. She herself
+entered into a narrow hut, where the recluse Citia had established
+herself, and led a cloister life. And when this place no longer suited
+her, she removed to a cell in the valley of Saint Gall. The bishop
+himself conducted her thither and put the black veil around her, and led
+her by the hand to the Irish hill (Saint Gall had been an Irish
+missionary in Germany) and spoke the blessing over her; with the trowel
+he made the first stroke on the stones with which the entrance was
+walled up, and pressed four times his seal upon the lead wherewith they
+closed the cracks, and thus separated her from the world, and the monks
+sang at that, mournfully and with muffled tones, as if someone were
+buried. But the people of the neighborhood held the recluse in high
+honor; they said that she was a "hard-forged mistress of holyness," and
+on Sunday they stood head to head on the meadow plain, and Wiborada
+stood at her little window and preached to them, and other women settled
+in the neighborhood and sought instruction from her in virtue.
+
+The influence of the Church was especially beneficial to the position of
+woman in married life. The Church insisted upon, and frequently
+enforced, monogamy and the sanctity of marital vows, and sanctified
+marriage by making it a sacrament. Dissolution of marriage, according to
+the law of the Church, was permitted only in case of adultery, of danger
+to the life of the one or the other party from hate or crime, the exile
+of one of the couple, impotence on the part of the man, or sterility on
+the part of the woman, and by common agreement between husband and wife
+for sacred purposes, e. g., entrance into a monastery or cloister. Yet
+while the influence of the Church, in theory, was, on the whole,
+extremely helpful in fashioning the standard of morals, there prevailed,
+nevertheless, even during the Carlovingian epoch, a terrible
+demoralization and sexual laxity a legacy from the preceding Merovingian
+period.
+
+It is historically doubtful whether at Charlemagne's birth his mother
+was married to his father, Pepin. It was no uncommon practice for the
+actual consummation of marriage to follow close upon the betrothal, and
+for the actual marriage, with the consecration of the Church, to follow
+much later, if at all. The private life of the greatest German emperor,
+who was canonized by the Church and who thus is a saint, at least in his
+imperial city, Aachen, or Aix-la-Chapelle, is by no means edifying.
+Gustav Freytag characterizes Charlemagne from the moral point of view
+with the greatest psychological truth. He describes him as greatly in
+need of woman's love. Indeed, even here his tenderness was that of a
+lion, and was felt by wife and daughters with secret awe, though
+answered by flattering caresses. When not on warlike expeditions he
+lived always with his family. He ate with them, and took them with him
+on all his journeys. This was tedious enough for his successive wives
+and daughters, since he was almost always on journeys, especially during
+the first half of his long reign. While his children were small, he had
+hardly a permanent home. His family life appeared reprehensible, even to
+his contemporaries, who were accustomed to great digressions from moral
+law.
+
+The chroniclers of the time, mostly court historians and court poets of
+the great emperor, naturally express themselves rather cautiously
+concerning his private life; and yet we can deduce strange facts from
+their reports, especially from the _Life of Charlemagne_, written by
+Eginhard, the friend and counsellor of the emperor. The latter's mother,
+Berthvada, induced him to marry Desiderata, daughter of King Desiderius
+of the Langobards; but he divorced her at the end of one year, whether
+for political reasons not to be entangled in the complications between
+the Langobard dynasty and the Papacy or for private considerations is
+not known. His next wife was Hildegard, an Alemannian duchess, who bore
+him three sons, Charles, Pepin, and Louis, and three daughters,
+Hruodrud, Bertha, and Gisela. By his third wife, Fastrada, a German
+princess of Eastern-Prankish birth, he had two daughters, Theodorada and
+Hiltrud, and by a concubine, Ruodhaid. His next wife, Liutgard, bore him
+no children. After her death he had three concubines, Gerswinda, a Saxon
+lady, the mother of Adaltrud; Regina, the mother of Drogo and Hugh; and
+Ethelind (_Adalinde_). It is characteristic, however, that this
+authentic account does not designate the mothers of all his children.
+Charlemagne desired that all the children of his mistresses as well as
+of his legitimate wives should live together at his court and be of
+equal royal rank. Without distinction of sex, he gave to all of them a
+liberal education in the sciences; and as soon as their age permitted,
+his sons were trained in arms, and his daughters instructed in the use
+of the loom and the spindle. He had so great an affection for his
+children that he prevented his daughters from marriage, in order not to
+lose their company. They are reputed to have been very beautiful, and,
+in spite of their occupation with the spinning-wheel, they found time
+for love adventures; so that, as Eginhard tells us, "though otherwise
+happy, the Emperor experienced the malignity of fortune so far as they
+were concerned; yet he concealed his knowledge of the rumors current in
+regard to them, and of the suspicions entertained with regard to their
+honor."
+
+Eginhard himself did not escape suspicion, though his amour with fair
+Emma, and the romantic story of their nightly meetings and Emma's
+carrying her learned lover through the freshly fallen snow to conceal
+his footprint must be assigned to the domain of unauthenticated legend.
+But it is a historical fact that several of Charlemagne's daughters had
+illegitimate children. Being debarred from marriage they sought unlawful
+love adventures. The oldest, Hruodrud, who had been several years
+betrothed to the Greek emperor, Constantine Porphyrogenitos, until her
+father dissolved the betrothal, left a son by Count Rorich. Bertha's two
+sons, Hartnid and Nidhard, the latter a brave warrior and a famous
+chronicler, owed their existence to Angilbert, the court poet and
+historian who was afterward Abbot of Centulum. Especially after the
+death of Charlemagne were the lives of his daughters so shameful that
+King Ludwig, the German, saw himself forced to remove some of the most
+scandalously behaving lords from the suite of the princely sinners.
+
+In spite of those moral shortcomings, Princess Bertha was especially
+brilliant as a scholar. She was called Delia, sister of Apollo, in
+Charlemagne's "Academy." She sang her teacher Alcuin's poems, which she
+accompanied by string music. Besides the emperor's wife and his
+daughters, there were two nuns in the academic circle: the elder,
+Gisela, Charlemagne's sister, surnamed Lucia, Alcuin's best friend, and
+her intimate, Riktrudis, with the academic name of Columba; also
+Gundrada, of illustrious nobility and charm, the sole secular lady at
+the court against whom no word of gossip was ever uttered by courtiers
+or clerics.
+
+So flagrant are, however, the sins of love at that brilliant court which
+did so much for classical, Germanic, and sacred learning in Germany,
+that even the saga, in dim recollection of past events, seized upon
+Charlemagne's towering figure in respect to his moral side. He is
+represented by a later legend as having been misled into grievous sins
+by a mysterious, magic precious stone in a ring which he had presented
+to his queen. As long as she wore the ring, he could not live away from
+her. At last the queen fell ill and came to die. But grudging the stone
+to any other woman and desiring that the king might not love another as
+he loved her, she concealed the ring under her tongue and died.
+Charlemagne unable to live without her did not allow her to be buried,
+but carried her with him day and night on the journey through his vast
+realm. An inexpressible sin, due to the magic ring in her mouth, ensued.
+At last, when Charlemagne was absent, the corpse of the dead woman was
+examined and the ring was found in her mouth. A knight took the ring
+away and kept it. Charlemagne had the queen buried at once. But all the
+love which he bore to his dead wife, he now transferred to the knight as
+long as the latter possessed the stone. The knight, annoyed by this love
+and the shame thereof, threw away the stone into a morass. Charlemagne
+conceived such an affection for the place where the ring lay that he
+built there the Cathedral of Our Lady at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). And,
+as a higher irresistible power had brought about the moral sins as well
+as other sins bearing the character of incest, Saint Ægidius and Saint
+Theodolin secured for him atonement, expiation, and absolution.
+
+The court life at the time of Charlemagne, loose as it was, had its
+great redeeming features; it sank, however, under his weak successors
+into the utmost decay and degradation. The dynasty perished with Ludwig
+the Child (A. D. 911). Charles the Fat, the unworthy descendant of his
+great sire Charlemagne, had given the world, during his calamitous
+reign, the melancholy spectacle of a king publicly accusing his wife,
+Richardis, of adultery with his own chancellor, Liutward, Bishop of
+Vercelli. But Richardis asserted that she was a virgin though she had
+been living with her husband for twelve years. The emperor forced an
+ordeal (A. D. 887) to free her from the terrible accusation: and an
+ordeal remained, during the entire Middle Ages, the only means for an
+accused woman to purify herself and redeem her honor. This special
+ordeal is minutely described in the so-called _Kaiserchronik_ (Chronicle
+of Emperors), how Richardis slipped into a garment made for that
+purpose, which was set on fire at all four ends, at her feet and arms,
+simultaneously. In a short hour the garment burned from her body; the
+wax dripped down to the pavement, but the royal lady remained unhurt,
+and the spectators of the cruel ordeal cried _Deo gratias!_ Richardis,
+however, retired after this disgrace to a cloister which she had
+founded.
+
+The same accusation was raised later against Kunigunde, wife of the last
+Saxon emperor, Henry II. the Pious, but she, too, was exonerated by the
+ordeal of "the hot iron" upon which she trod with impunity. Kunigunde
+has been canonized by the Church for having preserved her virginity also
+in married life, and for having forced the devil to church building.
+
+The moral life of the higher classes was duly reflected in the lower
+walks of life. The female serfs, who, as we learn from imperial decrees
+of the time, when they did not work in the fields, carried on their
+domestic labors in a separate house, called _screona_ (shrine), were
+practically helpless in the hands of their masters. Those out-houses
+were frequently used as places for gratifying lust by forcing their
+inmates to sin, though nominal fines still prevailed for rape or
+violence: he who "covered" (_belag_) a maid "without her thanks," _i.
+e._, against her will, paid a fine of three shillings; if she was a
+head-maid, or a stewardess or skilled laborer, six shillings. Thus it
+happened that as early as the time of Charlemagne the women's house came
+to have the flavor of infamy _Frauenhduser_ was the name of houses of
+prostitution during the Middle Ages. Unfree women could marry only with
+the permission of their masters; the bridegroom had, in recognition of
+this fact, to pay a tax (_maritagium_) called by different obscene names
+in different localities, as a redemption, as it were, of the bride's
+virginity. Naturally, the female serf was helpless against the lord, who
+did what he pleased: a shameful abuse, which, in the course of time,
+crystallized into a right; the infamous _jusprinuz noctis, i. e._, the
+right of the lord to the body of his unfree female serf during the first
+night of her married life. The several attempts to relegate this usage
+to the realm of legends have signally failed. Both Scherr and Freytag
+expatiate on this gloomy subject, on which a whole legal and cultural
+literature has sprung up. Passing quickly over this saddest of all the
+chapters of human subjection to shame, many a beautiful feature of the
+growth of womanhood among the lower classes may be noted.
+
+With the general improvements of agriculture under Charlemagne, there
+was a corresponding improvement in the art of building. Instead of the
+old German block-house, plastered with clay, the crevices filled with
+reed, and without windows or staircases, in which people and cattle were
+stalled together, dwellings fit for human beings were gradually evolved.
+The dwellings of unfree people (_Hdrige_) consisted of house, barn, and
+stable for cattle, while the estates and houses of landed proprietors
+comprised mansion (_Herrenhaus_), cellar house (_cellaria_), bath house,
+grange (_picarium_), stables, and a separate house for women (_genitium_
+or _screona_) in which the women handled distaff and spindle, spinning
+linen and wool, making ornaments, embroidery, figures in cloth, and
+other feminine work. There they sat, the distaff between their knees,
+the spindle in their hands, beautiful pictures of noble German
+womanhood. There they made the linen garments for themselves and their
+families, including their husbands. Royal ladies worked not less than
+peasant women or unfree maids. Later on, Luitgardis, daughter of Emperor
+Otto the Great, was so famed for being an industrious spinner that a
+golden spindle was hung over her grave. The tailoring needle and
+scissors were handled with skill, as is certified in many a mediæval
+song. The Carlovingian period, therefore, furnishes us with much over
+which to lament, but also with much over which to rejoice. Virtue and
+vice are there in abundant measure.
+
+The Christian-German civilization founded by Charlemagne was almost
+destroyed under his successors. Under Charlemagne we could treat his
+vast realm, at least so far as it covered France and the North, as
+genuinely Teutonic land; two generations later, under his grandsons,
+Charles the Bald and Ludwig the German, we must begin the separation of
+France and Germany, by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, while the middle
+land, namely, Burgundy, Alsace, and Lorraine, which fell to Lothaire
+with the already shadowy imperial crown, becomes the Eris-apple between
+the two. Germany and France, originally one, are separated by a
+territorial dispute for more than one thousand years.
+
+Side by side with the heroic figures of Henry I. (919-936), who
+refounded the shattered empire, and his still greater son, Otto I., who
+rebuilt it, we find spirited princesses, some of them, like Adelheid of
+Burgundy, foreigners, with great zeal for culture, who brought an
+appreciation of refinement and art to the German court. Otto the Great's
+son and grandson added the Byzantine culture to the Roman-Carlovingian
+substratum. The women of the tenth century played a remarkably active
+part in politics and literature. Mathilda and Editha, the pious wives of
+the first two Saxon emperors, powerfully affected the civilization of
+their time. The reigns of Otto II. and Otto III. bear most decided
+traces of the influence of two royal women, Adelheid and Theophano, who
+exercised a strong influence upon the political and intellectual life of
+the century.
+
+The period of the Ottos marks the climax of an early renaissance as
+distinguished from the great classical movement so called five centuries
+later. In art, this renaissance is expressed by churches and palaces
+built after late Roman and Byzantine models, partly even with the
+materials of those times; in literature, the renaissance blossoms in
+classical studies, Latin historiography and poetry. Indeed, Tietmar of
+Merseburg, the famous chronicler of the Saxon emperors, could well say:
+"Proud like Lebanon's cedars the Empire towered, a terror to all nations
+far and wide;" and again: "Highly blessed was the world when Otto
+wielded the sceptre."
+
+As regards the moral life of the times, Tietmar's _Chronicon_ presents
+Henry, the founder of the dynasty, as not faultless. The legend also
+weaves around Henry the wreath of romance when it reports that Princess
+Use of the Herz Mountains kissed the cares from his royal brow in her
+wondrous castle, a favor which, according to the charming Use song, she
+bestows some nine hundred years later on Heine, the darling of the
+Muses. When still very young, Henry concluded a marriage with
+Hatheburch, a distinguished widow at Merseburg, but rejected her after
+she had borne him a son, Thammo (_Thankmar_). He had fallen in love with
+Mathilda, a rich and beautiful maiden of the race of Duke Widukind, who
+had immortalized the Saxon name in the thirty years' struggle with
+Charlemagne. She became Henry's wife and bore him three sons, Otto,
+Henry, and Bruno. She seems to have steadied her great husband, though
+their married life did not remain always cloudless. An episode related
+by Tietmar, "to deter and warn the pious," may be repeated here because
+of the flavor of its time: Henry had once on the day before Good Friday
+of Easter week intoxicated himself, and, driven by the devil, abused his
+pious wife in the following night. Satan, rejoicing over the deed, could
+not refrain from telling the story to a respectable matron of Merseburg,
+adding that the fruit of that unholy embrace would undoubtedly belong to
+him. The matron betook herself to the queen and exhorted her "to keep
+constantly priests and bishops ready to wash by holy baptism off the
+newborn child all that may be pleasing on him to the devil." When the
+devil learnt of this betrayal of his confidence, he chided the matron
+violently, but added that, after all, something of the godless deed
+would ever cling to the race of the king. And the chronicler explains
+the violent feuds of the sons of King Henry and their fratricidal,
+internecine strifes by the flagitious transgression of God's
+commandment: "thou shalt keep the Sabbath holy." Tietmar, continuing,
+says: "That there is nothing which is not permitted in legal marriage,
+is proved by the Holy Scriptures. But such lawful married life obtains
+through the observation of holidays and honorable dignity, and is not
+disturbed by the storm of threatening danger." Another example of the
+same sin is quoted: Uffo, a Magdeburg burgher, while violently
+intoxicated, forced his wife, Gelsusa, to yield to his will. When the
+woman, having conceived in that night, in due time bore a child, it had
+bent and crooked toes. Terrified at that sign, she had her husband
+called and complained to him that this mark of divine displeasure was
+due to their common sin: "Behold, the wrath of God reveals itself to us
+and exhorts us that we should not act thus further! Thou hast committed
+a grievous sin in that thou commanded me what was not right; and I have
+sinned equally in that I obeyed thee." The fruit of sin, however, the
+babe, was taken from the exile of this life to the hosts of innocent
+children in heaven.
+
+Queen Mathilda outlived her consort; and though she favored the
+succession of her younger son, Henry, she saw her eldest son, Otto
+(936-973), elevated to the throne of his father. Otto married an English
+princess, Editha, the pious daughter of King Ethmund. She was to the
+great emperor a pure and faithful consort. She was endowed with
+numberless virtues, a fact which became manifest after her death by
+miracles and heavenly signs. After nineteen years of married life
+"pleasing to God and men," says the chronicler, "she died, the noblest
+foreign princess who ever adorned the German Imperial throne." She left
+but one son, Luidoulf by name, whom Otto married to the only daughter of
+Hermann, Duke of Suabia, whom he succeeded. Otto married again, his
+bride being Adelheid, widow of the Italian king Lothaire, who, hard
+pressed by Berengar, ruler of Ivrea, had called the Emperor to Italy as
+her protector and liberator. "Otto," says Tietmar, naively, "who had
+heard of her far-famed beauty, under the pretext of travelling to Rome,
+marched to Lombardy, wooed the princess, who had escaped from Berengar's
+cruel prison, and induced her, after he had won her favor by rich
+presents, to yield to his wishes." We have a life of Empress Adelheid by
+the abbot Odilo of Cluny, who was an intimate friend and closely
+connected with her during the last years of her reign. He deprecates his
+ability to write the life of the empress, to do which either Cicero
+would have to be recalled from Orcus or the presbyter Hieronymos from
+heaven. "For she deserves to be revered as the most imperial of all
+empresses. Not one before or after her was her equal, she so elevated
+and increased the Empire. She subjected defiant Germania, fruitful Italy
+and their princes to the sword and sceptre of Rome. Then noble king Otto
+won through her the imperial crown. Also the son whom she bore him, was
+the pride and ornament of the Empire."
+
+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 romance _Ekkehard_, 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
+the _Women 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS
+
+
+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 the _Minnedienst_, 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 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 but _ennui_!"
+
+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 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 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 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 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 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 wife
+        That vows her life and body sweet
+        And manners also to measure refined."
+
+Measure, like the Greek _kalokagathia_ of 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! 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 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 in _Iwein_: "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 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 French _Cour 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 The _Maid of Orleans_ described
+the nature and character of such a _Cour 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 the _kemenate_. 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
+of _Blancheflur_ may 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:
+
+        "Now came that lady bright,
+        And as the rosy morn
+        Dispels the misty clouds,
+        So he who long had borne
+        Her image in his heart,
+        Did banish all his care,
+        And now before his eyes
+        Stood forth that lady fair.
+
+        "From her embroider'd vest
+        There glittered many a gem,
+        While o'er her lovely cheek
+        The rosy red did beam;
+        Whoe'er in raptur'd thought
+        Had imag'd lady bright,
+        Confess'd that lov'lier maid
+        Ne'er stood before his sight.
+
+        "And as the beaming moon
+        Rides high the stars among,
+        And moves with lustre mild
+        The mirky clouds along;
+        So, midst her maiden throng,
+        Uprose that matchless fair;
+        And higher swell'd the soul
+        Of many a hero there."
+
+Most expressive of popular feeling toward woman is, perhaps, the ballad
+and folklore poetry of a people. Though preserved mostly without date or
+name they breathe national sentiment most faithfully. True folk songs
+would betray the nationality from which they sprang even though the
+language did not. All the characteristics of the German _Gemut_ (mood,
+soul, sentiment, and longing strangely blended) exhale from songs like
+the following:
+
+        "Sweet nightingale, thyself prepare,
+        The morning breaks, and thou must be
+        My faithful messenger to her,
+        My best beloved, who waits for thee.
+
+        "She in her garden for thee stays,
+        And many an anxious thought will spring,
+        And many a sigh her breast will raise,
+        Till thou good tidings from me bring.
+
+        "So speed thee up, nor longer stay;
+        Go forth with gay and frolic song;
+        Bear to her heart my greetings, say
+        That I myself will come ere long.
+
+        "And she will greet thee many a time,
+        'Welcome, dear nightingale! I will say;
+        And she will ope her heart to thee,
+        And all its wounds of love display.
+
+        "Sore pierced by love's shafts is she,
+        Thou then the more her grief assail;
+        Bid her from every care be free:
+        Quick! haste away, my nightingale!"
+
+Even more naïve and lovely is perhaps this gem:
+
+        "If a small bird I were,
+        And little wings might bear,
+        I'd fly to thee:
+        But vain those wishes are;
+        Here then my rest shall be.
+
+        "When far from thee I bide,
+        In dreams still at thy side
+        I've talked with thee;
+        And when I woke, I sigh'd,
+        Myself alone to see.
+
+        "No hour of wakeful night
+        But teems with thoughts of light--
+        Sweet thoughts of thee
+        As when in hours more bright,
+        Thou gav'st thy heart to me."
+
+But in whatever sense the chivalry and minnesong were conceived, they
+certainly turned toward worldliness. The struggle of the Papacy against
+the Empire was accompanied by a struggle of the clergy against the
+knighthood. The clerics attempted to turn the warlike and passionate
+instincts of the time in the direction of spiritual things. An immense
+number of holy legends of good women resulted, the ideals of which were
+humility, self-abnegation, and chastity; we have the legend of
+Crescentia, a pure woman, who, accused like Saint Genevieve, is at last
+justified and saved; others die for their virtue, and are sanctified;
+the story of Lucretia of ancient Roman memory is revived in the style of
+contemporary court life, where she appears as a white raven.
+
+This spirit of religious revival appears most strongly in a versified
+story of the thirteenth century, related by Konrad von Wurzburg in a
+work entitled _Frau Welt_ (Lady World):
+
+Wirent von Grafenberg, a Franconian knight, a romancer, and a man of the
+world, strove incessantly for worldly goods and honors. He was handsome,
+well educated, brilliant, a good hunter, player, and musician, loved by
+the ladies and ever ready to serve them; whenever there was a
+tournament, no matter how far, there he rode to win the minne-prize. It
+was love, and love alone, that filled all his senses. One day he sat in
+his chamber, passing his time in the perusal of a love romance until
+evening. All at once the dusky room brightened up in wonderful radiance,
+and a marvellously beauteous woman entered; she was more lovely than any
+earthly woman, than Venus or Pallas; she was clad with splendor, and a
+golden crown was upon her head. In spite of all her magnificence, Wirent
+became pale from fright. "Do not be frightened; I am indeed the woman
+for whose sake thou hast frequently risked life and limbs, whose
+faithful servant thou wert, of whom thou hast said and sung so much
+good; thou bloometh like a twig of May in manifold merits; thou hast
+from thy childhood worn the wreath of honor; now I have come to bestow
+thy reward upon thee." "Forgive, noble lady, if I have served thee, I do
+not know it; but tell me who thou art!" "I shall gladly tell thee; thou
+needest not be ashamed of having served me; I am served by emperors,
+kings, princes, counts, freemen. I fear no one but God, he is more
+powerful than I am. My name is Lady World. Thou shalt now have the
+reward which thou hast wished for so long: look at it!"
+
+With these words, she turned her back. It was full of snakes and vipers
+and toads, of ulcers and sores, wherein flies and ants teemed and vermin
+crept. An abominable stench arose; her rich silken dress looked ash
+pale; and thus she went hence. But Wirent von Grafenberg, the spoiled
+child of the World, perceived the perdition of the soul in the service
+of the world; he left wife and children and the pleasures of the world,
+took the Cross, fought against the heathen, atoned for his sins, and
+obtained divine forgiveness and eternal bliss.
+
+This story, evidently of clerical origin, proves the position of Church
+and clergy toward the life of chivalry and the ideals of the
+Minnesingers. They condemned the service of the world of love and power
+which, they averred, led only to eternal damnation. Earthly ideals, with
+their inner sins, were symbolized by the poetic picture of Lady World,
+which was even plastically represented on the Cathedral portals at Worms
+and Basle.
+
+As here the typical knight is turned from the joys and aspirations of
+the world, thus the women of that brilliant period were drawn from their
+delight in earthly life and love; Christ was shown to them as the
+bridegroom of their souls; ideal joys of the world beyond were depicted
+to them in attractive colors. Numberless German hymns are devoted to
+Mary, but so little was it possible to get away from the realism of the
+love of the time that the sublime glow of holy fire makes room for the
+almost frivolous ardor of the time of chivalry. The Holy Virgin becomes
+more and more an earthly queen, whose court is provided with all the
+luxuries of the time. Religious sentimentality changes into passion. The
+piety of the noble ladies by no means deprives the minstrel knights of
+their due, or, as Scherer ingeniously says, "the result of the hundred
+years' struggle of the clergy against the world ends in the triumph of
+the latter." But not entirely so, for again and again there stirs in the
+German conscience the eternally spiritual element.
+
+The Church placed in the field new troops, who did their work with
+victorious energy. Orders of beggar monks arose, and the Popes soon
+realized what a valuable instrument they were. The Dominicans and
+Franciscans had begun to settle in Germany. As preachers and confessors,
+they strove for dominance over souls. They inveighed passionately
+against the courtly life. Sinful was the tournament, sinful the luxuries
+of the table and courtly dress and fashions, sinful the dance and the
+minne, the worldly song and the service to women out of wedlock. Their
+influence upon women became very marked; many ladies began to turn from
+the world, sat like nuns, hid their bosoms and faces, and wore
+scapulars. "Instead of going with us to dance, you stand day and night
+in church," is a knightly complaint.
+
+Not only piety and mysticism, but scholarship, which also was in
+conflict with chivalry, destroyed the minnesong. The great Italian
+Dominican, Thomas Aquinas, furnished to German mystics a considerable
+part of their philosophy. The essence of mysticism, poetically
+conceived, is the conviction that the soul is a bride of Christ. Mystic
+theology described the passionate emotions of the soul, in her ascent
+to, and union with her heavenly bridegroom. Eckard, Tauler, and Suso are
+the great leaders of the mystic movement which, seizing especially the
+minds and souls of women, transfers the nature of earthly minne to
+heavenly minne.
+
+In this connection, we must mention a princely woman whose
+self-abnegating virtue rises well-nigh to the superhuman: Elizabeth of
+Thuringia. She was a daughter of King Andrew of Hungary, and in 1218 was
+married to Ludwig of Thuringia, after whose death she was treated most
+brutally by her brothers-in-law. Her confessor, the monk Konrad of
+Marburg, a dark fanatic, who tried to introduce the Inquisition the
+horrible Spanish institution into Germany, and who was killed in 1233 by
+a band of robber knights, tortured the pious princess with his gloomy
+ascetics. This princess devoted her life to charity and noble deeds for
+the poor and sick, whom she nursed and tended with her own hands. She
+died at the age of twenty-six, after having rejected the suit of the
+great and romantic Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II.; she is said to
+have earned her living during her last years by spinning wool. The saga
+has illumined the fame of that saintly royal woman with the aureole of
+glory and affection.
+
+Pious women nursed the entire mystic movement. Mathilda of Magdeburg
+(1277) describes in her fragmentary and profoundly passionate
+revelations the mingling of the soul with God. Many ecstatic women
+followed her. Visions became a fashion in the fourteenth century. The
+ecstatic state of passionate love for the divine which shook her frame
+was considered the union with God, and the blissful rapture of one nun
+wrought a holy contagion among all her sisters. All the cloisters were
+drawn into the nervous whirlpool of religio-sensuous emotions. Ladies
+who formerly found satisfaction in the charms of the minnesong retired
+to the cloisters and passed through all the stages of the emotions of
+love toward the divinity, the Creator of all life.
+
+Such was the period of the Minnesingers, and such the reaction against
+them. The cultural forces of the epoch can be expressed only by
+describing the literary trend of the events of life. They are
+correlative and interdependent. If, therefore, this chapter should
+appear to the reader to be unduly literary rather than historical, we
+can defend it by stating the fact that this was an era of song, and that
+this literature bears everywhere the stamp of truth. It is the faithful
+reflection of an infinitely rich time from which only the brilliant
+melodies of saga and song ring down to our prosaic and materialistic
+century.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE COMING OF THE MASTERSINGERS
+
+
+After the lofty house of Hohenstaufen had been overwhelmed with
+destruction, the _interregnum_, the time of anarchy, "_the emperorless,
+the terrible time_," in Schiller's words, (1250-1273), and the reign of
+Rudolf of the house of Habsburg mark the beginning of the era of the
+decline in German culture. Princes and nobles had long ago ceased to
+sing, for between arms the Muses are silent. Tenderness and refinement
+of feeling gradually drifted into the commonplace if not into downright
+coarseness. We are obliged to record a cheerless period of mediocrity
+and degradation lasting almost four centuries, though, of course,
+interwoven here and there with illuminating stars that shoot up to the
+heavens from this dreary waste, and continuing until about the middle of
+the eighteenth century, when the second classical bloom came into
+florescence and intensified strongly the classical era of the Middle
+Ages.
+
+The decline that found its perigee in the period of the Mastersingers
+went on gradually. It was the result of various political and social
+causes. The aesthetic ideals, because of which in the time of the
+Hohenstaufens women were revered, vanished. With the decadence of
+culture superstition asserted itself more strongly. Women were burned as
+witches; and the general references to them in the literature of the
+period of decline are usually vulgar, and not infrequently obscene.
+Refined deportment toward women ceased. Saint Ruffian (_Sanct
+Grobianus_) became the idol of the era of decadence, and the vulgarities
+of _Till Eulenspiegel_ furnished amusement. "Shamelessness celebrated a
+boisterous carnival." The classics alone, though diluted by pitiful
+scholasticism until rescued and raised to a higher plane by the
+Humanists of the Renaissance, became the only oasis in the dreary waste
+of the decadence.
+
+In most of the cities that were centres of intellectual life, the
+plebeians arose and replaced the formerly highly cultured patricians.
+The burghers began to tune the melodies of a new music: a banausic
+artisan song. The comic anecdote and the dramatic farce pleased the
+people best and, therefore, prevailed. There was a general delight in
+comical, farcical roles, and such elements were even introduced into
+religious plays. For example, Saint Mary complains that she has no
+diapers to protect the Holy Child from frost. Saint Joseph gets into a
+quarrel with two maids; there is a free fight; vulgar reproaches and
+blows are exchanged. Darkness begins to spread over Germany. The devil,
+stupid or otherwise, introduces his spook; sorceresses and hags
+professing magic skill are everywhere. The defamation of the grand
+institutions of the Papacy, owing to several unworthy successors of
+Saint Peter, promotes contempt and ludicrous treatment. The ridiculous
+fiction of the alleged "Papess" Joanna becomes a farcical subject, but
+is, nevertheless, jokingly rescued from the claws of the devil. Her
+story goes thus: a maiden elopes with a priest, her lover, to Rome, dons
+man's dress, becomes a doctor, a cardinal, and at last a Pope. She is
+finally ignominiously unmasked, received by the devils in hell, but
+saved by the intercession of Saint Mary and Saint Nicholas. Dietrich
+Schernberg treated this strange subject at Muhlhausen, in Thuringia, in
+his play of _Frau Jutla_. All these morality plays, mysteries, farces,
+sottises, sacred or profane, are scarcely ever edifying, and this
+whether they treat of court sessions regarding love troubles, marriage
+calamities, allegorical figures, fools of love, women, wicked monks, or
+quacks. Here, a maiden leads her lovers by the nose; there, lovers
+present themselves before Lady Venus. An immoderate coarseness and
+indecency in manner and action is part of the game; even in the presence
+of women the utmost vulgarity was permitted. Women joined in the most
+obscene conversation, and it is astonishing to what depths of immodesty
+their speech descended. Nürnberg was the centre of carnival plays. Hans
+Rosenblut and Hans Folz, authors of incredibly obscene, though very
+clever, farces, were the forerunners of the great and lovable Hans
+Sachs,
+
+        "Who was a shoe-
+        maker and a poet, too."
+
+But it is incumbent upon us to return to the beginning of the period of
+decadence and consider the decline in its sequence. During the era of
+chivalry the follies of the nobles were imitated by the peasants and
+burghers. Inter-marriages between poor nobles and rich peasants occurred
+now and then, liaisons and amours between them were much more frequent;
+the caricature of the _bourgeois gentilhomme_, whom Moliere satirized in
+his immortal comedy, was ever present. Neidhart's and Strieker's poems
+and Werner's _Meier Helmbrecht_ furnish delightful figures and
+caricatures of the upstart class which was so scorned, ridiculed, and
+snubbed by the "smart set" of the time.
+
+Yet, on the whole, it may be said that the boys and girls of the
+peasants and bourgeois led natural lives, courting and dancing and
+wooing, as long as they were kept from the influence of the chivalric
+craze. Instead of knight-errantry there were among these young people
+simple though not always platonic relations. The lords still exercised
+their harmful influence upon the freedom of the peasantry, but it
+gradually diminished. At springtide there was love and marriage, not
+always voluntarily, but in deference to the right of lords and princes
+to command their dependants to marry. In some localities a system of
+pairing prevailed, and maids were assigned as companions by lot, and
+mated couples danced together during an entire summer. Such play, very
+naturally, and not infrequently, became earnest.
+
+The nobles were mostly landed proprietors, but when the cities began to
+grow, urban patricians, proud and self-satisfied, arose. The common
+people, however, because of their number and increasing wealth, gained a
+share in the government. They formed themselves, for strength and
+self-defence, into "corporations and guilds." They won city rights. In
+the course of time, instead of the rule of the "families," or
+patricians, there came the rule of the guilds. The democracy gained
+control, though not until after hard and frequently very bloody fights
+of the factions at the polls for municipal supremacy. With the victory
+of democracy begins the industrial, commercial, and political vigor of
+the common people. This is manifested in the great and important city
+leagues: especially the _Hansa_, but also the League of Rhenish and of
+Suabian Cities unions that were at times more powerful than kings and
+emperors.
+
+Socially, nevertheless, the picture is reversed: the castes remain
+separated even in the church, as they were separated in dancing halls
+and other places of pleasure and drinking. Yet the free artisans, their
+wives and daughters, led a joyful life at their weddings, dances, and
+carnivals, though they dwelt in narrow lanes and alleys, in houses of
+wood, straw-covered and with a few windows, and these frequently with
+panes of paper or none at all. Goethe in Faust describes these abodes:
+
+        "Out of the hollow, gloomy gate,
+        The motley throngs came forth elate:
+        Each will the joy of the sunshine hoard,
+        To honor the day of the Risen Lord!
+        They feel themselves their resurrection:
+        From the low, dark rooms, scarce habitable;
+        From the bonds of Work, from Trade's restriction;
+        From the pressing weight of roof and gable;
+        From the narrow crushing streets and alleys;
+        From the churches' solemn and reverend night,
+        Ah come forth to the cheerful light."
+
+On the other hand, especially later during the Renaissance period when
+the wealth of the burghers excited the jealousy of the mighty country
+nobility, the houses of the wealthy burghers were often genuine palaces,
+with rich antique and Italian or French furnishings. Nürnberg, Augsburg,
+Strassburg, etc., were real treasure cities with their mediaeval
+architecture; so were Ulm, Frankfort, Mainz, Cologne, with their
+mansions filled with fine tapestry, rich furniture, colored carpets,
+precious art objects, painted windows, silver and gold trappings.
+
+When the _interregnum_ was over, with its political anarchy, with its
+plague (black death) that swept away hundreds of thousands, with its
+flagellants and other crazy penitents, the natural concomitants of the
+plague; when the gloomy religious fanaticism which vented its horrible
+"hatred of races and classes and masses" on heretics, Jews, and infidels
+in terrible Jew slaughters and witch burnings began to melt away under
+the radiant sun of the incipient Renaissance, there arose in western and
+southern Germany a wondrously rich and luxurious life among the city
+aristocracy. A caricature of chivalrous customs sprang up. It is
+characteristic that "a light miss" was the prize of a tournament in
+Magdeburg in 1229.
+
+In the cities, life was more refined than on the estates of the nobles
+in the country. There were sleigh riding, dances, carnivals, and
+serenades before the windows of the fair ones. Even the churches, as
+stated before, offered for entertainment "mysteries and passion plays
+that verged on blasphemy." We hear of practical jokes which the ladies
+played with illustrious guests, like Emperor Sigismund and, later,
+Maximilian I., which genial lord the ladies took from his bed half
+naked, threw a wrapper over him, and danced with him through the streets
+of the city, which pleased the debonnaire emperor immensely.
+
+Many German patrician women were already given over to the pleasures of
+society and became ladies of fashion rather than mothers, housekeepers,
+and helpers to their husbands. The nouveau-riche artisans soon began to
+imitate the luxuries of the patricians: we hear of gold bracelets, silk
+garments, gold girdles studded with diamonds; of shoes with silver
+buckles, garters embroidered with gold brocade. A chronicler relates the
+immense amount of wealth squandered at the wedding of a rich baker, Veit
+Gundlinger, in 1493. There were then consumed twenty oxen, thirty stags,
+forty-six calves, ninety-five swine, twenty-five peacocks (turkeys?),
+etc., etc.
+
+Patricians were, however, more elegant: bridegroom and bride adorned
+with rings and bracelets of gold, walked to the Cathedral surrounded by
+bridesmaids, while fiddles, lutes, pipes, trumpets made music. At the
+dancing hall, however spacious, not more than five couples could dance
+at the same time on account of the ladies' long trains which, according
+to a preacher of the time, "served the devil as a dancing place." With
+torches the newly wed couple were at last led home to the bridal
+chamber, where the maidens undressed the bride, the cavaliers took off
+her shoes, and "when one cover covered the couple" as the technical term
+ran the companions discreetly retired.
+
+But the unfree peasants, alas! continued to live in debasement; as also
+their wives and daughters. There is even documentary evidence from A. D.
+1333 that women could be sold into slavery and at a very low price,
+moreover, "with all their descendants." The free and rich peasants, on
+the other hand, sometimes lived in an unbecoming state of luxury. We
+glean the most interesting types of peasant life from the poets who
+arose among the Bavarian-Austrian race. Neidhart von Reuenthal, who
+lived till about 1240 at the Bavarian and Austrian courts, though a
+noble himself, is a rugged, old German type who neutralizes the
+sentimental minnesong. He contrasts strikingly the bizarre life of the
+lower people with the unnaturalness of the "chivalric courtoisie." All
+is depicted in strong relief, though it appears to our taste extremely
+coarse. Yet if any poet ever understood the life and actions of the
+lower classes, it was Von Reuenthal. He describes South German peasant
+life as it is, their dances and carousals; he compares satirically the
+breaking of lances at tournaments, as practised by knights, with the
+peasants' festivals that are turned into bouts of gluttony and free
+fights. His types of rustic women, however, are "courteously" dressed,
+with wreaths in their prettily arranged hair, fashionable hand mirrors
+in their girdles; they appear at the village linden tree on a Sunday,
+courting and flirting with the rustics (_Törper_) who carry swords and
+spurs in truly knightly fashion. Nevertheless, the peasant girls prefer
+their liaisons with the genuine article, and the poet reveals no idyls,
+no abstinence, no innocent play, but downright immorality. As they could
+not have the knights for husbands, they chose them for lovers.
+
+Frivolity is general also among the lower strata of society. Drastic
+pictures are drawn and overdrawn. There are dialogues in spring songs.
+Sometimes two maidens converse and open their hearts. Then mother and
+daughter commune; the mother desires to participate in the dance, the
+daughter tries in vain to dissuade her; or the daughter wishes to go and
+the mother dissuades; the daughter desires to join Neidhart, but the
+mother has a peasant ready for her to whom she is, however, indifferent;
+the mother keeps her clothing from her; the daughter takes it by force;
+the mother whips her daughter with a rake or a spindle; the other
+resists, and there are blows on both sides. In all these songs the girl
+is longing and passionate; the knight is a successful lover.
+
+In the winter songs the case is reversed. Here the knight is sighing,
+complaining, rejected. The peasant girl for whom he pines makes him
+languish. The peasants prove superior to the knight, who avenges himself
+by mocking, satirizing, caricaturing the brutalities of the peasant
+dances, their fights, their gluttony, tawdry luxury of dress, and
+drunkenness.
+
+However painful it may be to the historian of culture to record the
+mournful facts of degeneracy and demoralization of entire periods in the
+life of great and noble nations, yet he owes it to historical truth to
+conceal nothing. It is unfortunately true that entire classes of the
+German people, entire periods, entire regions, were sunk in the mire of
+immorality due to outer and inner conditions over which neither the
+nation nor its leaders had any control. Yet, such periods of moral
+depression are perhaps as necessary for a vigorous convalescence as the
+glorious periods of the moral purity, honor, and chastity of women.
+
+As there can be no life without death, no joy without pain, no good
+without evil, as no religion was ever conceived in which the principle
+of God, of immortality, and of infinite goodness remained unassailed by
+the evil forces, be it devil, demon, Loki, or Ormuz, so the history of
+the German nation is filled with evil forces, against which generation
+after generation, so far as our records go, struggled, yet finally
+conquered _per aspera ad astral_.
+
+Every German historian of culture, especially Scherr, who sought the
+truth and stated it fearlessly, has been attacked, reviled by captious
+critics, but strong is the truth and it will prevail! _veritas
+prevalebit_!
+
+In this period of German decadence the moral sense seems indeed
+frequently to have entirely vanished. In a mutual confession by a
+peasant and his wife of their moral shortcomings, which are treated
+jestingly, the demoralization appears plainly, without any apparent
+conception of its impropriety. At a peasant wedding, we hear of brutish
+drinking and gluttony, coarse speeches and actions, consummation of
+marriage before church consecration, brutal and deadly fights.
+
+The character of the peasantry of the time appears most distinctly from
+Werner's _Meier Helmbrecht_, a Bavarian village story, which depicts the
+ambitions, sorrows, and joys, and the dissatisfaction of that class.
+Young Helmbrecht, an ambitious peasant boy, who had been spoiled by
+mother and sister, proud as a peacock in knightly raiment, desires to
+play a role at the court. In spite of his father's warnings, he joins a
+robber knight. After one year of debauch and degradation, he returns
+home as a braggart, and the old and the new generation of peasants are
+contrasted. The father, who in his youth had known court life, when he
+went to the castle to sell his products, tells of knightly noble games,
+chaste dances with beautiful song and music, and the reading of the
+ancient heroic lays. The son reports heavy drinking, impure speeches,
+lies, quarrels, frauds. He replies to the exhortations of his father
+with vile threats. He induces his sister to follow him secretly, to be
+married to his comrade Lamsling; but the crisis comes at the wedding.
+The judge and sheriffs come and capture the robbers. Helmbrecht is
+blinded, driven away from home, and hanged by the peasants.
+
+In the cities the state of affairs is even worse. Pandering is a common
+and thriving business, though the laws against it are of barbaric
+severity. In Brunswick, those convicted of the heinous crime of
+fostering prostitution were buried alive. But when did laws and police
+measures ever do away with crime when moral putrefaction once
+impregnated a social structure? The clerics and monks play a prominent
+role in the literature of the sexual excesses of that time, although, or
+perhaps because, celibacy as such has now become an enforced
+institution. It is true, however, that the literature of a decaying
+time, catering to corrupt tastes, furnishes to us sensational and
+extraordinary cases of impurity, while it fails to record the numerous
+instances of virtue, self-abnegation, and nobility.
+
+An authority of first rank, Ænea Silvio Piccolomoni, later Pope Pius
+II., transmits to us a glaring picture, with little light and much lurid
+shadow, of Vienna as he saw it. We find there society of all ranks sadly
+demoralized. The burghers invite to their houses vile carousers and
+"light misses;" the common people are represented as steeped in
+immorality and drink. Wives are rarely satisfied with one husband, and
+the husbands knowing their shame are not specially pained by it. Gallant
+nobles call on married burgher women, their husbands offer wine and then
+leave them to themselves. Widows do not wait, even for decency's sake,
+the expiration of the year of mourning before they remarry; rich old men
+marry young girls, who then carry on adultery with their husband's
+valets as they did before marriage. It happens not infrequently that
+fathers or husbands who dare to disturb their daughters or wives in
+their iniquities with the nobles are killed or poisoned. Such is Æneas
+Silvio's account of Viennese society.
+
+Similar stupefying pictures of social life in many other cities may be
+gleaned from chronicles, history, and sermons. Debauch is constant and
+appalling. In the thriving Hanseatic city of Lübeck we hear of
+illustrious ladies masked by thick veils holding bestial orgies with
+common sailors in the vilest drinking resorts. Again we read of the
+great severity of the penal laws, and again we note their practical
+inefficiency. The punishment for the crime of rape was death, usually by
+decapitation, but in Suabia and Hessen the criminal was buried alive or
+transfixed. The injured woman, however, to give legal force to her
+accusation was required to announce her disgrace immediately by loud
+screams and by the exhibition of dishevelled hair and torn garments. The
+statutes vary, but all are harsh. Adulterers belonging to the lower
+classes,--in the upper classes adultery was too common to be
+punished,--when seized _in flagranti delicto_, were liable to be
+decapitated or to be buried alive together. Incest was punishable by
+confiscation of property; bigamy, by death. The penalty for infanticide
+also was death, either by decapitation or by drowning; sometimes a
+snake, a cat, or a dog was put into the sack with the victim to render
+her punishment more terrible. Shrews and evil-tongued women were
+sometimes punished by being placed backward on asses and driven through
+the streets in disgrace.
+
+Even the pleasures considered legitimate during the late Middle Ages and
+the beginning of the modern era, were decidedly equivocal or immoral.
+Public bathing which was so general that even in the country every
+well-arranged house had its own bathroom, might be considered rather a
+redeeming feature of the unclean life recorded. But excesses soon make
+it doubtful whether public baths should not be regarded as baudy houses
+of the worst kind. The city of Basle in the thirteenth century had not
+fewer than fifteen bathhouses. As in ancient Rome, the bathhouses were
+public places of amusement somewhat like the clubs of to-day. There men
+were shaved and had their toilette perfected and the ladies had their
+hair dressed. Massage was in fashion. Amusements of all kinds, gambling,
+drinking, flirting, and love intrigues made public bathing a rather
+costly pastime. At most places there was common bathing of men and
+women. The most famous water resorts were the Wildbad in the Black
+Forest, Baden in the Breisgau, and Baden in Aargau. There is gathered
+all the wealth of the surrounding country. Princes and knights, highborn
+ladies, rich merchants, prelates, and abbesses bathed, jested, and led a
+gay life.
+
+We have an intensely interesting account from the pen of the scholarly
+Francis Poggio of Florence (1380-1459) of the bathing customs of Baden.
+He had accompanied Pope John XXIII. to the Council of Constance, and had
+then gone to Baden to cure the "chiragra" from which he suffered. From a
+Latin letter written to his friend Niccolo Niccoli, in the summer of
+1417, and translated by Gustav Freytag, in his famous Pictures from
+German Life, we glean the following facts:
+
+"Baden itself affords for the mind little or no diversion; but has in
+all other respects such extraordinary charm that Venus seems to have
+come from Cyprus, for whatever the world contains of beauty has
+assembled here, and so much do they uphold the customs of this goddess,
+so fully do you find again her manners and dissoluteness, that, though
+they may not have read the speech of Heliogabalus, they appear to be
+perfectly instructed by Nature herself....
+
+"Two special baths, open on all sides, are prepared for the lowest
+classes of the people; and the common crowd, men, women, boys, and
+unmarried maidens, and the dregs of all that collect together here, make
+use of them. In these baths there is a partition wall, dividing the two
+sexes, but this is only put up for the sake of peace; and it is amusing
+to see how, at the same time, decrepit old beldames and young maidens
+descend into it naked, before all eyes, and expose their charms to the
+gaze of the men. More than once I have laughed at this splendid
+spectacle; it has brought to my mind the games of Flora at Rome, and I
+have much admired their simplicity who do not in the least see or think
+anything wrong in it....
+
+"The special baths at the inns are beautifully adorned, and common to
+both sexes. It is true they are divided by a wainscot, but divers open
+windows have been introduced, through which they can drink with, speak
+to, see, and touch each other, as frequently happens. Besides this,
+there are galleries above, where the men meet and chatter together, for
+every one is free to enter the bath of another, and to tarry there, in
+order to look about, and joke and enliven his spirits, by seeing
+beautiful women nude when they go in and come out. In many baths both
+sexes have access to the bath by the same entrance, and it not
+unfrequently comes to pass that a man meets a naked woman, and the
+reverse. Nevertheless, the men bind a cloth around their loins, and the
+women have a linen dress on, but this is open either in the middle or on
+the side, so that neither neck, nor breast, nor shoulders are
+covered....
+
+"It is wonderful to see in what innocence they live, and with what frank
+confidence they regard the men; the liberties which foreigners presume
+to take with their ladies do not attract their attention; they interpret
+everything well. In Plato's Republic, according to whose rules
+everything was to be in common, they would have behaved themselves
+excellently, as they already, without knowing his teaching, are so
+inclined to belong to his sect....
+
+"There can be nothing more charming than to see budding maidens, or
+those in full bloom, with pretty, kindly faces, in figure and deportment
+like goddesses, strike the lute; then they throw their flowing dress a
+little back in the water, and each appears like a Venus. It is the
+custom of the women to beg for alms jestingly from the men who view them
+from above; one throws to them, especially to the pretty ones, small
+coins, which they catch with their hands or with the outspread dresses,
+whilst one pushes away the other, and in this game their charms were
+frequently unveiled....
+
+"But the most striking thing is the countless multitude of nobles and
+plebeians, who gather here from the most distant parts, not so much for
+health as for pleasure. All lovers and spendthrifts, all pleasure
+seekers, stream together here, for the satisfaction of their desires.
+Many women feign bodily ailments, whilst it is really their hearts that
+are affected; therefore, one sees numberless pretty women, without
+husbands or relations, with two maidservants and a man, or with some old
+beldame of the family who is more easily deceived than bribed.... There
+are here also virgins of Vesta, or rather of Flora; besides, abbots,
+monks, lay-brothers, and ecclesiastics, and these live more dissolutely
+than the others; some of them also live with the women, adorn their hair
+with wreaths, and forget all religion.... And it is remarkable that
+among the great number, almost thousands of men of different manners and
+such a drunken set, no discord arises, no tumults, no partisanship, no
+conspiracies, and no swearing. The men allow their wives to be toyed
+with, and see them pairing off with entire strangers, but it does not
+discompose or surprise them; they think it is all in an honest and
+housewifely way." Poggio, with truly Rabelaisian irony, adds: "No baths
+in the world are more apt for the fecundity of women."
+
+But whether the Italian classicist is willing to excuse the luxury and
+debauch, refined or otherwise, which he found at Baden, or which he
+might have found anywhere in the social circles of the rich German
+cities, the truth is that the intercourse between the sexes had become
+loose, and that the prelates and their ladies, the cavaliers and their
+mistresses, the rich burghers and the "light misses," the monks and
+roving women were swarming everywhere; and that those abuses became one
+of the foremost grievances which helped to swell the ranks of those
+German patriots so that a reform in head and limbs of the social
+structure became a necessity.
+
+Indeed, "the good old time of pious memory" had reduced prostitution to
+the standard of a science; there is an ostentatious freedom in the
+treatment of the question which is quite offensive to modern ears. The
+fantastic romanticism described in the preceding chapter had really
+contributed very little to genuine morality: the theory of the
+veneration of women and the practice of unrestrained lust were
+absolutely opposed. The history of prostitution during this period is
+divided into two chapters: one treats of the women who remain stationary
+in their cities; the other of the migratory women who travel to fairs,
+church councils, tournaments, imperial diets, coronations. Scherr gives
+some statistics of the high prices paid for lust; he mentions the gain
+by one woman of eight hundred gilders on such an excursion, a sum which
+at that time represented a fortune. The armies, too, were accompanied by
+hosts of women who, with the other baggage, were under the control of
+the general provost (_Hurenweibel_). This stage of corruption, however,
+belongs more immediately to the abominations of the Thirty Years' War.
+
+The settled prostitutes lived in public houses (_Frauenhduser_) of
+which, in large cities, there were several, usually under communal
+administration. We read that entertainment in these houses was then part
+of the hospitality offered to honored guests, just as at present the
+privileges of our clubs are extended as a courtesy. The houses were
+built and maintained avowedly for "a better protection of womanly and
+virgin honor" of the burgher wives and daughters. Emperor Sigismund and
+his suite were entertained without expense in the bawdy houses of Bern
+and Ulm, in 1413 and 1434 respectively, as is proved by historical
+evidence. Such houses, under the directorship of a landlord, called
+"ruffian," were the property of the communities, nay, they sometimes
+belonged to the "regalia" of secular or spiritual princes. The inmates
+must be strangers and unmarried. Married men, clerics, and Jews were to
+be excluded, but this was only a paper law. According to the spirit of
+accurate definition prevalent at the time, everything was strictly
+regulated: payment, food for the inmates, etc. The houses were closed on
+Sundays and holidays and on the eves before these festivals. The inmates
+were treated harshly in some cities, were under the surveillance of the
+hangman, and when dead they were buried in the potter's field; in other
+cities they were privileged; in Leipzig they had even the freedom of the
+city to pass yearly in solemn procession at the beginning of the fasting
+period. A certain professional or guild pride existed among them; they
+rigidly persecuted the unlicensed, unprivileged prostitutes. Some cities
+gave them citizenship for "their sacrifice for the common good"; in some
+places donations were given to those who married, a generous way indeed
+to rescue many unfortunates from shame. To make them noticeable, their
+garments, usually green in color, were prescribed for them. Augsburg
+ordered the hood of their veil to be green and two inches wide; Leipzig
+prescribed a short yellow mantle; Bern and Zurich a red cap. Sometimes
+luxurious fashions adopted by distinguished ladies were permitted to
+prostitutes in order to bring luxury into disrepute.
+
+At the end of the fifteenth century, prostitution had assumed enormous
+proportions and carried in its train the terrible, loathsome, venereal
+disease. The Renaissance and the Reformation, it is true, had at first
+beneficent effects; disreputable houses were closed; a higher spirit
+swept over the land, but everything soon returned to its former
+condition, as we read in Erasmus's dialogues or Luther's writings. The
+brave and patriotic knight and humanist Ulrich von Hutton himself died,
+young and abandoned, of the loathsome disease; it is unknown whether he
+contracted it through his own fault, or by contagion.
+
+Catholicism performed a noble work by opening many cloisters and asylums
+to penitent fallen women, and thus saved many victims. The church
+certainly strove, on the whole, to improve the moral conditions of the
+country. The monasteries were in most cases resorts for the daughters of
+the poorer nobility, and for the pious maidens, whether highborn or
+lowly, when marriage was impossible or other motives urged them to
+retire from the world. This statement must be made and emphasized for
+the honor of the millions of pure and noble women, who lived and worked
+and suffered and sacrificed themselves for humanity in the Church and in
+the cloisters which were the female academies of the time. Women lived
+there a happy and quiet life with intellectual and spiritual
+occupations. Reading, writing, religion, sewing, weaving, and embroidery
+were taught.
+
+But it is only natural that among the thousands of women in religious
+life many failed in their mission, having mistaken their vocation. They
+became unhappy in their solitude without love, especially such as had
+been forced into the nunnery against their will and inclination. In such
+cases their conduct sometimes stands in glaring contrast with their vows
+of chastity.
+
+The centuries leading up to the Reformation are full of complaints of
+priestly debauchery, which naturally reflected also upon the nuns. The
+cloister of Gnadenzell is reported to have been a pleasure resort for
+the neighboring nobility, who there celebrated nightly orgies and
+infamous dances; Count Hans von Lupfen, A. D. 1428, chided the prioress,
+in a document of historical interest, for having failed to remove in
+time the nuns who had become pregnant, and for having thus given cause
+to the neighbors to complain that "the cloister walls were resounding
+with the cries of babies." Bishop Gaimbus, of Castell, reports to the
+Pope (June 20, 1484) of the nunnery of Loflingen, near Ulm, that, at an
+investigation for reforms, the majority of the nuns were found "in an
+advanced state of motherhood" (_in gesegneten Leibesumstanderi_).
+
+Sebastian Brant's _Ship of Fools_ (1494) gives a terrible picture of the
+sins and follies of the era; never has there been such a heavy freight
+of perverse and wicked fools from all ranks and walks of life.
+
+Thomas Murner's _Conjuration of Fools_ (Narrenbeschworung), fourteen
+years later, shows the mediaeval ideals in the caricature to which they
+had degenerated. The old conditions that had produced lofty and genuine
+ideals had died away, nothing remained but the shell, the mere form and
+outline. The satire against the dissolute world, the chastisement of it
+by stinging words and sarcastic writings, proves simply the righteous
+anger which the good and patriotic men of the time felt regarding the
+national degradation; a total reform became a dire necessity. This was a
+Titanic task indeed, for during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
+intellectual barrenness, spiritual corruption, and luxuriant debauchery
+prevailed. The worst feature was the chain of vice which, through apish
+imitation, was transmitted from the debased women of the upper classes
+to the women of the bourgeoisie, and from the latter to the peasants.
+
+The new fashions were not only hideous, but became even obscene: "What
+nature wants to be concealed, that do they expose and prostitute. Shame
+upon the German nation!" are Brant's harsh words. The famous preacher
+Geiler von Kaisersberg thunders from the pulpit words hardly expressible
+in modern language: "Women's dresses are so short that they conceal
+nothing in front or behind, the upper garments are so cut down that the
+bosom is visible. Then again the trains are as long as tails. Women
+imitate man's foolish garb: the ridiculous high pointed shoes and
+tinkling bells on their garments." The pictures of the time and the
+attempts of cities and princes to regulate these monstrosities prove to
+us that the portraits of the satirists and the preachers are not
+overdrawn.
+
+In order to illuminate a cultural epoch in the history of any nation it
+is, however, always safest to recur to the sources themselves, for they
+spring, knowingly or unknowingly, from the social soil upon which they
+thrive.
+
+One of the most characteristic, though not edifying, "human documents"
+is the collection of contemporary poetry by a female author, Klara
+Hatzlerin, who was, according to her editor, Karl Haltaus, undoubtedly a
+nun from Augsburg, and who filled her leisure hours as was customary in
+the nunneries of her time in copying songs and poems. Evidently, though
+a cultured woman, she was not a pietist. This is apparent from the
+erotic and obscene matter found in her work, which even recalls Roswitha
+of Gandersheim's plays written more than five hundred years earlier. The
+work is undoubtedly genuine. It is signed: "_A. 0.1471. Augsburg. Clara
+Hatzlerin._" The manuscript contains two hundred and nineteen poems,
+besides ditties and sententious sayings. It marks the transition from
+the Middle Ages to modern times, and is therefore of very great cultural
+value. The poems do not yet bear the scholastic, not to say pedantic,
+character of the best mastersingers; their type is, on the contrary,
+strictly popular, and frequently vulgar. The subjects of Klara
+Hatzlerin's collection of lyric poetry coincide with those of the minne:
+there are night songs and watch songs, songs of the love of the fair
+one, songs describing her virtues and her beauty, songs telling of fears
+of the light and the spies, rhythmical entreaties for slight favors of
+love, a glance, an embrace to appease the lover's sorrow or to give him
+strength to be constant.
+
+Very characteristic of the time, especially as selections by a nun,
+betraying her interests and occupations, are the rustic caricatures and
+exaggerations of the coarseness of the peasant classes.
+
+It must not be forgotten that as to material wealth the burghers and the
+peasant classes were never better off in Germany than during the two
+centuries preceding the Thirty Years' War, while the nobility had sunk
+into poverty, ruffianism, brigandage. What shall be said of a time when
+a prince of the highest rank, Duke Ernst of Bavaria, A. D. 1436,
+brutally murdered fair Agnes Bernauerin, the lawful wife of his son. To
+this very day the martyred woman is sung in German romance and poetry.
+She was the daughter of a barber and surgeon of Augsburg, where prince
+Albert, son of Duke Ernst, learned to know and to love her because of
+her almost unearthly beauty and charm. He made her in due form his
+lawful wife; but the old duke would not recognize the marriage. In the
+absence of her husband, Agnes was seized in the castle of Straubing,
+dragged upon the bridge of the Danube, and hurled into the stream. She
+drifted toward the bank, where one of the hangmen seized her with his
+hooked pole by her gold-colored hair, plunged her into deep water, and
+held her beneath its surface until she was drowned.
+
+But let us return to Klara Hatzlerin, the nun, who so frequently chooses
+scenes from the most licentious poets. _The Song of the Seven Greatest
+Pleasures_ is original, but extremely coarse. Eating, drinking, minne
+play of the most bestial kind, the natural functions of stomach and
+kidneys, sleeping, bathing (as described by Poggio), are the ideals of
+fifteenth century materialism.
+
+The most loathsome poem, however, in the collection so foul with obscene
+pictures, is the one in which a mother teaches her daughter in
+undisguised terms the arduous, though lucrative, art of prostitution. It
+is scarcely possible that any other literature should contain a poem so
+degraded.
+
+Again, a poem by Hans Rosenpliit is given entirely in the manner of
+Boccaccio. The servant of a rich man seeks the favor of his mistress and
+finds acceptance. She takes him to her chamber and hides him under the
+bed. When the husband retires to his couch, she tells him that the
+servant sought her love and that she had invited him for the night to
+the garden to have him chastised. She advises her husband to put on her
+clothing, to go into the garden, and to chastise the scoundrel with a
+heavy club. The husband does as he is bidden. Meanwhile, the wife
+bestows her favors upon the man-servant. Thereupon she gives him a stick
+with which he belabors his master unmercifully, saying he only wished to
+test the fidelity of his mistress toward his beloved master. The latter
+barely escapes from the heavy volley of blows, tells his wife the
+adventure, and finally thanks God for such a faithful servant. The poet,
+Hans Rosenpliit, composed many carnival plays which are filled with
+obscene jests, and deal mostly with the lowest peasant elements.
+
+In the same collection, Klara Hatzlerin presents rather barren encomiums
+on Saint Mary, all of which were composed by Muscatblüt. Feebly, the
+Maria-cult arose once more with a narrow and superstitious treatment,
+painfully different from the beautiful conceptions of the older periods.
+Here everything is Philistine. The statutes of the Rosenkrantz order and
+the brotherhood of Saint Ursula decree eleven thousand prayers in honor
+of the eleven thousand virgins who are still adored as saints, with
+their seat at Cologne. Spiritual songs exalt Saint Mary as equal in
+strength to Christ, nay, in the estimation of the lowly masses, superior
+to Him. There is a bombastic praise of all her material and spiritual
+perfections. The songs are scholastic in their exaggeration, artificial
+in form, and barbarous in language; in pompous terms church
+controversies are treated there: the Trinity, original sin, the last
+judgment, and other orthodox and mystic broodings, similes, allegories,
+etc. A type of the treatment is the description Muscatblüt gives of the
+Blessed Virgin when he calls her "a chest in which God himself dwells,
+the rod of Aaron, a well illuminated torch, a chaste Arc of Noah, a deep
+pond, a cask of myrrh, a reed of grace in God's field, her body a coffin
+or a castle the decadence is marked everywhere. We look back with
+longing eyes to the pure, the beautiful, the lofty, all-merciful Mother
+of God of the rich, uncontaminated past, the Holy Virgin who has
+enriched, ennobled, purified the German nation, German literature,
+German music, and, above all, the German arts of painting, sculpture,
+and architecture."
+
+Next to those bombastic, pseudo-pious songs we find hideous drinking
+songs, poems of gluttony and licentiousness, all of which are,
+nevertheless, highly valuable to the historian of culture. There are
+authentic documents revealing the tremendous downfall of national ideals
+from the pedestal of the glorious past, and the immense recuperative
+power of the nation in struggling upward again after two centuries and a
+half to the Second Period of Bloom, crowned by Lessing, Schiller,
+Goethe!
+
+A poem in the compilation of Klara Hatzlerin, _On the Nature of the
+Child_, is intensely interesting, first, as regards the popular
+physiological knowledge of the time on the mystery of gestation;
+secondly, as a cultural document on the character of Klara, the nun's,
+occupation during her leisure hours. She appeals first to her patroness:
+"Virgin Mary, I call to thee at all times for thy grace. May thy help
+point out to me thy way that I may walk on thy path, and may also begin
+anon to consider how the nature of man's strength mingles in the female
+womb," etc., and then by an extraordinary medley of truth, error, and
+fiction she describes the entire process of gestation.
+
+There are stories of shrews and of scolding, nagging women, concluding
+with: "Whoever has a nagging wife, shall rid himself of her as soon as
+possible, buy a good rope, hang her on a bough, take three big wolves
+and hang them beside her. Whoever saw gallows with worse skins? There
+the song has an end, God evil women to Hades send!"
+
+We cheerfully leave the foul atmosphere of a poetry which could not have
+sunk lower in form and spirit, and which, nevertheless, could not have
+existed but for its direct connection with the social sphere of which it
+treated and in which its roots were imbedded. And indeed we know also
+from incontestable historical evidence that while the privileges of the
+other three estates grew, a heavy slavery lay upon the fourth, the
+peasantry. When oppression lays its leaden hand too heavily upon a race
+or a class, it crushes out, gradually but surely, the divine instincts
+of the human soul. Munster, in his _Kosmography_, which appeared in
+1545, speaks of "the low and wretched life of the peasants." Their
+houses are miserable hovels of dirt and wood, placed directly on the
+ground, and thatched with straw. Their food is black rye bread, oats or
+boiled lentils and peas. A coarse upper coat, two wooden shoes, and a
+cheap felt hat are their only clothing. These people have never peace or
+rest. Their masters they must serve through the whole year; there is
+nothing that the poor people must not do. The picture is completed by
+another author, who says: "The toilsome people of the peasantry are
+everybody's footrag, heavily laden and burdened with tasks of slavery,
+hard labor, interests, taxes, duties, etc." We will not unroll here the
+endless lists of personal and property dues which were imposed upon the
+unfortunate peasants of that period. The saddest aspect of that physical
+oppression is that the unfortunate people were not even conscious of
+their frightful moral subjugation. We have already mentioned that even
+the marriage of the serfs of both sexes depended upon the consent of
+their masters, the landed proprietor or, in most cases, of his steward,
+that the marital tax (_maritagium_) had to be paid for this consent, and
+that the body of the unfortunate peasant girl belonged to her oppressor,
+at least for the first night (_jus primce noctis_). The existence of
+this infamous right has been contested by German historians, but as
+proofs Scherr adduces two authentic documents of the years 1538 and
+1543. All these facts are sufficient proof that the above literary
+remnants do not greatly exaggerate the moral and intellectual condition
+of that class, which is the basic element of every civilization.
+
+We now proceed with more satisfaction to an estimate of the bourgeoisie.
+They became more and more cultured, and took upon themselves the task of
+raising the standards of education and morality, of upholding the sacred
+flame of German spiritual and intellectual life. They began to spin
+again the thread of poetry that had broken in the brutalized hands of a
+degraded nobility. This thread was now the "_Mastersong_." Mastersong,
+though of a prosaic, mechanical style, was nevertheless an ennobling,
+purifying element of culture in the frivolous and impure life of late
+mediæval German cities. Mastersong formed the bridge between the world
+of everyday realism and the world of ideals. Mastersong alone prevented
+an entire break of the continuity of German civilization between the two
+great periods of bloom, the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries. As
+the bourgeoisie acquired a social position and a personal worth of their
+own, as the German peasantry, in the extreme North at the mouth of the
+Elbe between marshes and sea, the Ditmarschen and Stedingers, and again
+in the South between the Alpine passes, the Swiss, heroically defended
+their manhood and liberties, there began among those lowly born, but
+high-minded, vigorous, and comparatively pure classes an intellectual
+and a moral life of a higher order. The folk song of love, of warlike
+honor, of victory over the brutal squirearchy, of invigorating
+patriotism, of a national union embracing all classes, begins to ring
+through the German "poetic forest," as Uhland calls it. The loving maid
+speaks of the falcen, and means the lover; the rose garden signifies
+love's favor; flowers are maidens, like the rose on the heath that is
+plucked by the boy in spite of its thorns; the forget-me-not designates
+modesty, humility, chastity. There are little love songs describing the
+sorrow of parting, the joy of the dance, the dream of love under the
+tree from which a rain of blossoms bedews the sleeping beauty.
+
+Emperor Maximilian (1493-1519), "the last knight," the best-beloved son
+of the house of Habsburg, reigns now in Germany. It is a time of
+transition, of universal change. The world has doubled its size by the
+discovery of America, and the horizon has been enlarged accordingly. The
+printing press has revolutionized the arts. Yet poetry is dry,
+allegorical, wooden. Maximilian, aided by his secretaries, relates in a
+rimed allegorical romance, Teuerdank, his wooing of Mary of Burgundy,
+or, as he calls her in his poem, the beautiful and illustrious virgin
+Ehrenreich, only daughter of the powerful king "Glorious" (_Ruhmreich_).
+He recounts the mighty deeds which he must accomplish before he can
+possess her.
+
+The barrenness of the time, in spite of a great and varied literary
+activity which, however, bears the stamp of mediocrity, appears also in
+the translations made by several highborn ladies: Elizabeth of Lorraine,
+and Eleanor of Scotland, consort of Duke Sigmund of Austria. Princess
+Mathilda, of the illustrious Wittelsbach-Palatine house, the "Lady of
+Austria," as she is called in the folk song, fostered the first advent
+of humanism into Suabia and Bavaria, and entertained sympathetic
+relations with all those who worked in the direction of humanism and
+literary reform. Niclas von Wyle, an early Humanist, had already in
+1474, in opposition to the popular farces which contained offensive,
+coarse, and frequently obscene treatment of woman, composed an encomium
+or eulogy in her honor, in which he enumerated the manifold blessings
+which woman had brought to the world. Yet the ribald farces still
+abound, and are even stimulated by the incipient religious reform.
+_Joseph in Egypt_ is the typical subject for poems expressing the
+criminal and passionate love of woman; the monologue of Potiphar's wife
+expressing her sinful feelings for Joseph is nothing less than edifying.
+The play of _Fair Susanna_ presented wicked passion in aged men, and
+innocence persecuted, but finally saved; _Judith and Holofernes_
+characterized the clash between conflicting religions.
+
+In South Germany, Nürnberg, Luther's "eye and ear of Germany," is the
+centre of the culture of the transition period, and is the mirror in
+which the life of the time is reflected. The aesthetic culture and the
+lack of it, the status of woman in society, appear nowhere more plainly
+than in the plays of Hans Sachs, the greatest exponent of the life of
+his time. He is not stimulated by the passions of a Hutten, of a Luther,
+or of the latter's bitter foe, Thomas Murner. His soul overflows with
+peace and equanimity even where he censures and chides. His censure is
+always amiable and gentle. He even describes passions meekly. He
+touchingly represents the driving from Paradise of Adam and Eve, who
+become more closely attached to each other in misfortune; he delicately
+depicts Eve's naive anxiety concerning God, whose visit she apparently
+fears. He writes decorously of the priest and his fair housekeeper who
+has not yet attained the canonic age of safety: of the old hag who acts
+as a procuress and panderer, who is quarrelsome and hideous, and of whom
+even the devil is afraid; the faithless, cunning, amorous wife who makes
+sport of her deceived, foolish husband; the jealous and the credulous
+husband, etc.
+
+In formulating a theory of love, Hans Sachs, who, in his own long life,
+had felt love's grief and unrest, decided to employ the examples which
+he gathered from his own experience as well as from history and poetry,
+especially the Italians Petrarca, Boccaccio, and others. In his carnival
+plays, however, he avoids, from the very first, the coarseness and
+obscenity of Rosenplut and Hans Folz; but though he no doubt considered
+that he had excluded all indecency from his works, they still are, here
+and there, grievous to our modern ears.
+
+In his carnival play Vom Venusberg, the goddess speaks: "I am Venus,
+protectress of love, many a realm was destroyed through me; I have great
+power on earth over rich, poor, young, and old; whom I wound with the
+arrow mine, he must forever my servant be. I now draw my bow; he who
+will flee shall flee at once." Too late: the knight is struck, so are
+all the others, maids and gentlewomen.
+
+In 1518 Sachs wrote the _Complaint of the Exiled Lady Chastity_, a very
+bold allegory: Virgin Chastity, daughter of Lady Honor, dwelt with many
+virgins in the realm of Virginitas. In the neighborhood lived the
+frivolous Queen Venus, who frequently invaded the former's kingdom and
+tried to conquer it. In the repeated wars, Queen Venus succeeded in
+capturing almost all the virgins, and took them over to the kingdom of
+Lady Shame. Only Chastity herself, with her royal retinue, the
+allegorized twelve womanly virtues, had been saved from capture; they
+fled and wandered long from one country to the other without finding a
+hospitable reception. At last they arrived at a distant wilderness,
+where Chastity was again suddenly attacked by Queen Venus and her allied
+princesses: Pride, Frivolity, Intemperance, Idleness, Faithlessness,
+etc. The poet then warns maidens of the dangers threatening them on the
+part of Venus and her suite. After explaining the twelve virtues which
+aid Chastity, he concludes: "Beware of love, be steady, spare your love
+until you come to marriage." Sachs himself had at an early age married,
+in 1519, Kunigunde Kreuzer, an orphan of good family.
+
+The biographer of Hans Sachs described the marriage of Dr. Christoph
+Scheuerl, a famous jurist of Nürnberg, "the oracle of the Republic." The
+description of this marriage is interesting as a picture of the life of
+the high patrician families and their ceremonies and festivities. All
+the families (Geschlechter) of the city were present. The festivities
+lasted a whole week, and the ceremonies were elaborate and splendid.
+Marriage feasts of the city aristocracy took place either in the house
+of the parents of the bridal couple, or in the city hall, or even in the
+cloister. This last practice was, however, forbidden in Nürnberg in
+1485, "because the carousals and dances had become unbefitting the holy
+place." The patrician bridegroom gave the bride a ring with precious
+stones, the latter presented the bridegroom with an embroidered silken
+kerchief. There was a great display of precious garments and silk
+damask. The servants wore the colors of the family to which they
+belonged. The headgear of the patrician lady was a high diadem, while
+the bridegroom wore a silver wreath adorned with artificial flowers. The
+bride's maids and the table maidens wore the same kind of wreath and
+their hair was arranged in loose waves. The first marriage day was
+followed by an "early morning dance at the city-hall, a night-dance, and
+a wedding-assembly only for the ladies."
+
+The artisan marriages are recorded to have been similar in character,
+only the jests of the official "speaker" (_Sprucksprecher_) were
+probably somewhat rude, and the display was not so elaborate as that
+used in patrician weddings.
+
+Hans Sachs's married life was very happy. His manifold jests regarding
+quarrelsome women and their qualities, and regarding the hardships of
+married life were merely products of his humor. "My wife is my Paradise
+dear, and also my daily hellfire sheer;" and the climax:
+
+        "She is my virtue, and my vice;
+        She is my wound, and yet my balm.
+        She is my heart's constant abode,
+        Yet makes me gray and makes me old."
+
+While happily married himself, he knew enough of bad wives. Albrecht
+Durer's unhappy married life could furnish him sufficient material for
+his _Ninefold Skin of a Scold_, and _The Twelve Properties of a Bad
+Woman_, against which all the arts employed in the "_taming of the
+shrew_" came to naught.
+
+In 1560 his beloved wife died, and one year later he married Barbara
+Harscher, a charming girl of seventeen years, whose beauty he sang in
+his _Artistic Woman's Praise_, and with whom he lived happily till 1576.
+He was buried in Saint John's Cemetery at Nürnberg. The grateful city
+erected in 1874 a beautiful monument in his honor. But the highest
+monument, "more abiding than steel," the prince of poets, Goethe,
+erected to him in his _Hans Sachs's Poetic Mission:_
+
+        "An oak wreath hovers yonder in the clouds,
+        With ever green fair foliage adorned;
+        With this the grateful nation crowns his brow."
+
+Hans Sachs is the typical, the universal, the noblest, and the purest
+Mastersinger; but he is only the first among hundreds of others who
+helped to preserve in Germany the sacred fire of poetry.
+
+The bourgeoisie womanhood of the school of humanism, of the circle where
+virtue was the ideal of life, ably seconded the efforts of men like
+Sachs. But no one lofty specimen of superior womanhood arose from the
+atmosphere of feud, brigandage, and drunken intemperance among the
+so-called higher classes. Banqueting, hunting, fighting, gambling,
+carousing, and sexual excesses are recorded in plenty. _The diary of the
+Silesian knight Hans Von Schweinichen_ introduces us, in the middle of
+the sixteenth century, into a "noble" society full of poverty,
+brutality, and ignorance. He relates the slight acquirements of his
+education, interrupted by the occupation of tending the geese, his
+service as a page at the court of the Duke of Liegnitz, his early
+interest in women, his presence at weddings, "where he ate and drank his
+fill for day and night just as they wanted to have it." Of his friendly
+expedition with the Duke of Liegnitz to Mecklenburg, he says: "I have
+made for myself a great reputation with drinking, as I could never get
+enough to drink myself full." Anna of Saxony, daughter of Elector
+Moritz, wife of William of Orange, who died of _delirium tremens_,
+proves, by the way, that drunkenness was by no means uncommon with
+princely ladies. Scherr also adduces many other such princely examples.
+A festival at the Mecklenburg court is thus described in naïve fashion
+by Schweinichen in his diary: "The native squires as well as the noble
+young ladies lost themselves little by little, until finally there
+remained with me but two ladies and one knight, who began a dance. I
+followed with the other lady. It did not last long; my good friend
+slipped with his dancer to the next chamber; I followed him. As we came
+to the chamber, two squires and ladies rested in a bed; the one who
+danced before me fell also with his lady in one bed. I asked my lady
+what we should do. She said in her Mecklenburg language: I should lie by
+her. I did not have her ask me a long time, but lay down with mantle and
+garments, so did the lady, and thus we chatted till the dawn of morning;
+however, in all honor. This they call there 'to lie by a maiden on truth
+and faith,' but I do not trust such a 'lying by' for such truth and
+faith might easily become roguish." Evidently, so far as the nobility
+were concerned, delicacy and propriety were quite unknown in sixteenth
+century society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION
+
+
+Woman, it has been said, always needs a background. She has one in early
+sixteenth century Germany a splendid background of material prosperity.
+
+The great free cities were at the zenith of their power. Organized labor
+had triumphed. The guilds and the merchant corporations had done their
+work well. From the sturdy, self-respecting German handworker, modestly
+offering his own wares for sale, had been evolved the governing
+patrician. Prince, pope, emperor, even foreign potentates, bowed before
+the German patrician, for he held the purse strings of the world. Not a
+sovereign in all Europe dared enter into a campaign without permission
+of the Fuggers, the great merchant-bankers of Augsburg.
+
+In their magnificent free cities the patricians of Germany lived in far
+more than royal splendor. The chronicler, Wimpheling, writes: "It was
+not an uncommon thing to eat from gold and silver plates at merchants'
+tables as I, myself, did in company with eleven other guests at
+Cologne."
+
+Æneas Sylvius exclaims to Martin Mayer, Chancellor of Mainz: "How is it
+that even in your inns you always serve drinks in silver vessels? What
+shall I say of the knights and of the bits of their horses which are of
+pure gold, of their rings, girdles, and helmets blazing in gold, of the
+spears and sheaths studded thickly with diamonds? What riches are
+displayed in your altar decorations! How beautiful are the reliquaries
+set in pearls and gold! How magnificent your priests' vestments! What
+riches in your sacristies!"
+
+Dress received much attention. Women revelled in embroideries of gold
+and silver, plaited skirts with expensive galloon borders, mantles of
+ermine, sable and marten; crowns of gold and precious stones; pearl
+embroidered smocks and the daintiest, finest linen ever woven. Even the
+burghers' wives and daughters braided gold and silver into their back
+hair and curls and wore gems of rare value.
+
+At frequent intervals, sumptuary laws designed to lessen feminine
+extravagance were passed, but, like all such laws since the days of
+Eve's figleaf, they failed. The women invariably got the better of the
+city fathers. In Mainz one of the most beautiful young dames of the
+town, acting as the representative of a large number of society women,
+appealed, personally, to Prince Albert, Archbishop of Brandenburg,
+against a decree of the Council concerning feminine attire. That
+handsome, Lothario-priest, Prince Albert, was not the man to resist the
+pleading of a pretty woman. Dismissing his fair petitioner with a kiss
+and the gift of a beautiful jewelled bracelet, he at once ordered the
+repeal of the hateful law.
+
+But the great sociological preacher, Geiler von Kaisersberg, was no
+debonair voluptuary. The fairest woman's face could never persuade him
+to look leniently upon feminine vanity. He shouts:
+
+"The authorities ought to forbid the abominably short skirts that are
+worn! Look at the belts which encircle their waists, sometimes they are
+of silk, sometimes of gold, sometimes so costly that the jeweller
+charges from forty to fifty florins for making them. They drag long
+trains through the dirt without thinking of the nakedness of Christ
+among his poor. Some have so many dresses that, during the week, they
+have two dresses for each day, morning and afternoon. They have many
+others for dancing, and they would rather see them eaten by moths than
+give their cost to the poor. We see women letting their hair hang down
+their backs in cues like men, and wearing cock's feathers in the
+astoundingly ugly bonnets on their heads. What a shame and a sin! Do you
+not see there is no one without donkey ears on her head? It is a shame
+that women wear hats with ears. Some paint themselves many times a day
+and have false teeth and hair. O Woman! are you not fearful, with the
+hair of strangers on your heads? It may be the hair of some dead woman
+to the injury of your souls!"
+
+The Renaissance was a period of transition a liberation of mental force
+which, from Italy, spread itself, invigoratingly, over the rest of
+Europe. The modern world was rolling into light. With a gun in his
+hands, the peasant soldier was the equal, physically at least, of his
+former master. The art of printing and the invention of cheap paper had
+given wings to thought and knowledge. Trade had penetrated strange
+lands. Every returning sailor and adventurer brought back tales more
+fascinating than fairy lore of mysterious golden islands newly
+discovered in the west. Wonder and imagination were awakened. Money was
+plentiful. In the German cities a leisure class existed. Conditions were
+ripe for culture, and Humanism came.
+
+The "New Learning," as Humanism was generally called, rapidly
+overwhelmed the old, barren scholasticism and ecclesiasticism. Every
+monastery and university became a battleground where Humanism fought
+Scholasticism to the death.
+
+Under the quickening influence of the "New Learning," free Latin schools
+for boys were established over all Germany. The poorest boy might attend
+any or all of the schools. Thus arose the specifically German
+educational system of "wandering students," with its good and evil
+influences.
+
+At first little was done, educationally, for the girls. There were a
+very few small, poorly equipped public schools where daughters of
+artisans and laborers received religious teaching and slight rudimentary
+instruction in reading, spelling, and writing. Girls belonging to noble
+and patrician families were usually taught in convents. Music, dancing,
+embroidery, deportment, and, above all, the supervision of a large
+household were the studies upon which wealthy parents insisted for their
+daughters. But the brighter girls soon became curious about the "New
+Learning" of which their fathers and brothers spoke so frequently.
+Sastrow, in his biography, writes:
+
+"One of my five younger sisters, Catherine, was an excellent, amiable,
+lovely, pious maiden. When my brother, Johannes, came home from
+Wittenberg, where he was a student, she bade him tell her how one could
+say in Latin, 'This is, truly, a beautiful maiden.' He replied,
+'Profecto formosa puella.' She asked farther how one could say, 'Rather
+so.' He replied, 'Sic satis.' Some time after, three students, sons of
+gentlemen, came from Wittenberg to see our town. They had been
+recommended to the hospitality of the burgomaster, Herr Nicholas
+Smiterlow, who was desirous to entertain them well and have good society
+for them. As he had three grown-up daughters, my sister Catherine was
+invited among other guests. The students exchanged all kinds of jokes
+with the maidens, and as young fellows are wont to do also said things
+to one another in Latin that it would not have been seemly to say before
+maidens in German. At last one said to the other, 'Profecto formosa
+puella,' whereupon, my sister answered, 'Sic satis,' Then the students
+were much afraid, fancying she had also understood their former amatory
+talk."
+
+Enthusiasm for the "New Learning" quickly spread among German women of
+the higher class. Among the princesses, Matilda of the Palatinate was
+especially famed for her love of learning. She was a generous patron of
+the fine arts, and, a rarer trait among humanistic scholars, she was
+also an admirer of the literature of her fatherland. She made a
+collection of ninety-four works on the old court poetry, and delighted
+in the national folk songs orally preserved. Matilda encouraged the
+poets of her court to write poetry after the ancient methods. She
+ordered many valuable works translated into German. Through her
+influence the university of Tubingen, in Wurtemberg was established.
+
+The "New Learning" stole into the convents and made many proselytes
+among the nuns. Aleydis Raiskop, of Goch, to whom Butzbach dedicated a
+book, was renowned for her classical scholarship. She composed seven
+homilies on Saint Paul and translated a work on the mass from Latin into
+German. In the same convent with Aleydis lived an artist nun, Gertrude
+von Buchel, to whom Butzbach also dedicated a book, Celebrated Painters.
+Richmondis von der Horst, abbess of the convent of Seebach, corresponded
+in Latin with Trithemius who highly praises her various writings. Of the
+nun Ursula Canton, one of her admirers exclaims: "Her equal in knowledge
+of theological matters, of the fine arts and in eloquence and belles
+lettres, has not been seen for centuries."
+
+Among German Humanists, Charitas Pirkheimer, of Nürnberg, stands
+preeminent. Through her brother, Willibald Pirkheimer, the friend and
+generous patron of Albrecht Durer, Erasmus, and a host of lesser
+Humanists, Charitas corresponded with many renowned men. Christopher
+Scheurl, "The Cicero of Nürnberg," said that in all his life he had
+known only two women, the pious Cassandra of Venice and Charitas of
+Nürnberg, who, "for their gifts of mind and fortune, their knowledge and
+high station, their beauty and their prudence could be compared with
+Cornelia, the mother of Laelius and Hortensius." In a letter to
+Charitas, Scheurl praises her for "preferring the book to the wool and
+the pen to the spindle."
+
+These literary preferences, however, did not spoil Charitas Pirkheimer
+for practical life. As abbess of Saint Clare's she showed great
+administrative ability. Her annual reports of receipts and expenditures
+are models of clearness and accuracy. To manage, without serious
+friction, a large nunnery composed wholly of aristocrats (only the
+daughters of Nürnberg patricians and nobles were eligible as members)
+was no easy task. But Charitas seems to have made herself beloved and
+respected by every sister. She kept her nuns busy with such good result
+that Saint Clare tapestries became famous throughout Europe, and orders
+from private and civic patrons poured in faster than they could be
+filled.
+
+No more splendid fight was ever made by any woman for conscience' sake
+than that of Charitas Pirkheimer to preserve the integrity of her
+convent after the storm of the Reformation broke over Germany. And in
+the fight she conquered. The Lutherans succeeded in closing the houses
+of every other conventual order, both male and female, in Nürnberg; but
+Saint Clare's, through the valor of its abbess, remained intact until
+the last nun died late in the century. But it was a long, a bitter, and,
+often, a humiliating fight that Mother Charitas waged. Persecution was
+continued for years. The abbess and her nuns were denied the sacraments
+and confession. Three Lutheran preachers in turn, one of them a coarse,
+vile man, were installed at Saint Clare's. Spies were placed in the
+convent to see that the nuns "did not put cotton into their ears to shut
+out the preaching." The convent school was broken up and all revenues
+ceased. Poverty sorely pinched the women of the convent. Insulting
+rhymes and obscene pictures were flung over the walls of the garden. The
+maids sent out to buy bread were hooted and even roughly handled by
+brutal men and fanatical women. A letter which Charitas wrote to Jerôme
+Emser, thanking him for his Defence of the Faith, was printed with
+scurrilous marginal notes. The day had not yet dawned when a woman
+could, "with seemliness," said Willibald Pirkheimer, "enter the field of
+public disputation." Pirkheimer told his sister, in somewhat brutal
+language, that she had "better have held her woman's tongue."
+
+Just when the future looked most dark for Saint Clare's, Philip
+Melanchthon sweetest, calmest, sanest spirit of the Reformation came to
+Nürnberg. He visited his old friend, Charitas Pirkheimer, in her
+convent. "Would to God," Charitas writes afterward, "that every one were
+as discreet as Master Philip. We might then hope to be rid of many
+things that are vexatious." Melanchthon quietly put a stop to the
+persecutions of the convent. From the date of his visit Saint Clare's
+remained comparatively undisturbed.
+
+It is easy to understand how the "Evangelist of Art," Albrecht Durer,
+and Charitas Pirkheimer could be, as they were, the closest of friends.
+But Conrad Celtes, the Heine of the Renaissance, and the stately, pious
+abbess of Saint Clare's would seem, at first sight, to have little in
+common. Nevertheless, a warm and long-continued friendship existed
+between these two.
+
+The ethical note of the Renaissance was first struck in Germany. Even
+Conrad Celtes (the one Humanist in the Italian the Lorenzo de' Medici
+sense of the term that Germany has ever produced) could not quite deaden
+the Teutonic conscience. Celtes's writings are full of questionings that
+are almost startlingly modern. "Is there, really, a God?" "Will the soul
+live after death?" "What is the nature of the force that produces
+lightning?" Then, in the very next line perhaps, the poet lapses again
+into sensuality. "There is nothing sweeter under the sun than a pretty
+maid in a man's arms to banish care." "This," says Bezold, "was Celtes's
+heart-confession, and he lived up to it." Bezold adds: "In spite of his
+voluminous correspondence with them, Celtes did not appreciate good
+women. He really knew only alehouse wenches." In the light of Celtes's
+letters to Charitas Pirkheimer, it is hard to accept this harsh judgment
+unreservedly.
+
+The Renaissance and the Reformation in Germany are so closely allied
+that it is difficult to separate one energy from the other. Mental and
+spiritual forces are not easily anchored to dates. For convenience,
+however, we may say that the German Renaissance lasted from 1450 to 1519
+as a distinct movement, while the Reformation largely an outgrowth of
+the Renaissance fell between the years 1519 and 1560. With the beginning
+of the Reformation the brotherhood of humanistic scholarship was
+disrupted. To German women the national unrest brought heartache and
+soul bewilderment.
+
+Charitas Pirkheimer was not the only woman to "forget her sex and mix in
+an unseemly manner in disputes about which only men are properly
+qualified to express an opinion." Argula von Grumbach, friend of
+Spalatin and wife of an officer at the Bavarian court, also brought much
+sorrow upon herself by writing a spirited letter, which was printed by
+her friends and rejoiced in by her enemies.
+
+Seehofer, a young Lutheran master at the university of Ingolstadt, was
+accused of proselyting the students. He presented to his classes
+seventeen propositions which he had deduced from the writings of
+Melanchthon. The rector of the university, by imprisonment and by
+threats of the Inquisition, compelled the too zealous young Lutheran to
+recant. At this point, Argula an emotional, warmhearted, and talented
+woman took a hand in the affair. She wrote the rector an impertinent
+letter, in which she spoke of Seehofer as a "mere child of eighteen,"
+and, with refreshing confidence in her own powers of oratory, offered to
+come to Ingolstadt to defend, publicly, both the young master and his
+theses. The university authorities ignored this offer, but the Catholic
+cartoonists of the time made the most of it. From every quarter of
+Germany Argula was assailed in mocking rhymes, to which she replied in
+counter rhymes. The verses on both sides are rather bad, though the
+plucky little baroness holds her own fairly well. For her
+"indiscreetness" Argula was banished from court; and her husband, "for
+not controlling his wife properly," was dismissed from his lucrative
+position at the palace.
+
+The real strength of Protestant women, however, lay not with its
+excitable Argulas, but with firm, steady, sensible women like Catharine
+von Bora, who became Luther's wife. It seems almost unjust that a girl
+possessed of sufficient spirit and courage to propose to the man she
+loved should, for posterity, be forever submerged under the appended
+title, "his wife." Catharine von Bora's individuality was marked. Her
+wise management, as wife and mother, seems phenomenal when we remember
+how suddenly she was transplanted from conventual to secular life, but
+no healthy young tree ever better stood removal from shade to sunlight.
+
+Catharine von Bora was descended from a noble but impoverished family.
+At the age of ten she was placed in the convent of Nimtsch, near Grimma.
+At sixteen she became a nun. In 1523, under the influence of Luther's
+preaching, she, with eight of her sister nuns, left the convent secretly
+by night and fled to Wittenberg. For her apostasy, Catharine's family
+cast her off. Luther found her a comfortable home and did his best to
+provide her with a husband. But Catharine, who, says Erasmus, was "a
+wonderfully pretty girl," would not accept either of the two suitors
+Luther recommended. Amsdorf, Luther's envoy, argued with her upon her
+stubbornness. Whereupon, Catharine replied, calmly, "I will not marry
+Glatz, but I will marry either you or Luther, if you want me." She meant
+that she would marry Martin Luther, for she well knew that Amsdorf's
+affections were already placed elsewhere. Luther, though somewhat
+surprised at the turn things had taken, accepted Catharine's proposal
+and the nuptials were duly celebrated amid the remonstrances of the
+Reformer's friends and the derisive howls of his enemies.
+
+"Antichrist only can be born from this unholy union of priest and nun,"
+was the scandalized cry of the Catholics. To which Erasmus made
+sarcastic reply: "Then there must have been a good many Antichrists born
+before now."
+
+An indisputable testimony to Catharine's kindly nature is the affection
+which old John Luther and his wife felt for their son's wife. Catharine
+bore good, as evil fortune, with dignity. Her head was never in the
+least turned by the popularity of her husband. When princes visited the
+humble home at Wittenberg, she received them with simple, well-bred
+courtesy. When beggars came she welcomed them with equal cordiality. She
+had much to contend against. They were poor and her husband was over
+generous, not only in hospitality, but in constantly giving away
+household effects which his family could ill afford to spare. Martin
+Luther, too, was a man of storms. A woman less firm and tactful than his
+beloved "Kathie" could hardly have lived peaceably with him.
+
+In the evil days that fell after Luther's death, his widow did not lose
+her courage. She struggled nobly to support herself and children. She
+followed the usual heart-breaking course of poor widows in trying to
+make a living. She sewed; she kept boarders; she turned her hand,
+patiently, to any honest labor that offered itself. War, flight from
+pestilence, and then sudden death so runs the record of the last bitter
+years of Catharine von Bora's active, helpful, noble life.
+
+While a handful of earnest women were studying, thinking, praying,
+fashionable women in Germany were doing just what fashionable women
+always have done everywhere in all ages, just what they were doing long
+ago in Athens when Aristophanes made clever sketches of them, they were
+eating and drinking sumptuously; riding, visiting, backbiting, getting
+their daughters married, and trying to outdo each other in giving costly
+entertainments. It was this mode of life that necessitated the pretty
+dresses, "as many as two a day" against which Geiler of Kaisersberg
+railed.
+
+Every little German principality had its court, and in nearly all these
+courts corruption reigned. The Italian or the Frenchman may be
+gracefully, even captivatingly wicked. But in a German sensuality is
+invariably coarse, pronounced, and revolting. There is something
+fiercely Titanic in a German's embrace of evil. The student, who,
+leaving the doings of kings and queens, untangles thread by thread the
+biography of lesser men and women connected with these old German
+courts, has before him entertainment for a lifetime. In each of these
+small court circles he will find stories of sin, passion, and remorse,
+beside which the tales of a D'Annunzio, a Balzac, or a Zola seem mere
+inchoate records of childish bravado.
+
+The enormous effect of vice upon the women of the Renaissance and
+Reformation periods cannot be ignored in any true picture of the time.
+Man's lust was an accepted factor of everyday life. Very early, as we
+have noted in a preceding chapter, houses of prostitution were
+established and regulated by law. The woman superintendent put in charge
+of such a house was required to swear formally that she would "serve the
+best interests of the city" loyally; _i. e._, she must increase the
+revenues. She swore to "induce to come in as many girls as possible."
+The inmates of a house of prostitution continued to wear a distinctive
+dress whenever they appeared on the streets. This uniform served a
+double purpose. It was a convenience to the men, and it prevented the
+girls from escaping easily. When a distinguished visitor came to town,
+he was, even during the Reformation period, sometimes taken, soon after
+his arrival, to one of these houses by the chief magistrate, and the
+prettiest girls sometimes richly dressed, sometimes naked were brought
+before him for choice. Even in some private houses a similar form of
+hospitality was shown to male visitors, the prettiest maids of the house
+being detailed to "attend" such visitors.
+
+The lot of a German workingwoman in the fifteenth and sixteenth
+centuries was very hard. Her hours of work were from sunrise to sunset.
+If she lived in the country, she did all the ordinary housework for a
+large family; she planted and harvested, she attended to the cattle, she
+sheared the sheep, gathered the flax, spun and wove the linen and wool,
+bleached or dyed the finished cloth, and with her needle fashioned it
+into garments for her husband, her children, and herself. In the
+country, grand ladies often had workrooms where as many as three hundred
+girls were employed. A city workingwoman was shut out by the guilds from
+any remunerative labor. She could seldom earn more than her board, no
+matter how hard she might work. Women's wages, except for sin, were
+pitifully meagre. That the majority of German workingwomen did remain
+chaste in spite of the ever present temptations toward vice speaks
+volumes in praise of the German feminine character.
+
+In both city and country, spinning was looked upon as woman's natural
+occupation. "She was pious and spun" is a common epitaph upon sixteenth
+century tombstones in Germany. "Let men fight and women spin," preached
+Berthold von Regensberg. Almost as soon as a girl baby could walk she
+was taught to spin. Little Gertrude Sastrow, at the age of five, asked
+one day what the princes at the Diet did. Her brother replied: "They
+determine what shall be done in the empire." "Then," her brother
+relates, "the little maiden at her distaff gave a deep sigh and said
+dolefully, 'Oh, good God, if they would only decree that little girls
+should not spin!"
+
+Luther bitterly resented the accusation that his teachings were
+responsible for the Peasant's War. He declared, truly enough, that the
+peasants, long ground between the upper and nether millstones of an
+oppressive nobility and a greedy merchant monopoly, had again and again
+revolted long before he was born. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that
+Protestantism, as representing individualism, had much to do with the
+social upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Both the
+Renaissance and the Reformation, or rather, the underlying force which
+produced both, made tremendously for Democracy.
+
+The peasant woman's lot was doubly hard. The horrible outrages committed
+upon her during war make one's blood run cold even now, after centuries
+have passed. In time of peace, too often, she was considered little
+better than a beast of burden. Men of the peasant class gathered hazy
+notions of the world and its doings at the alehouses. But the cat or dog
+upon the hearth was not more dumb, intellectually, than the average
+peasant woman. One searches the records of history in vain to find,
+during the Renaissance and Reformation periods, a single peasant woman
+anywhere in Germany who rose notably above her class.
+
+The influence of Marguerite of Austria, aunt, guardian, and closest
+adviser of Charles V. upon the destiny of Germany was incalculably
+great. That Charles, instead of his rival, Francis I. of France, was
+chosen emperor was mainly due to Marguerite's persistent efforts in
+behalf of her nephew, whom she idolized. Marguerite kept the Fuggers
+constantly on Charles's side a stroke of wisdom that carried the
+election. The life story of Marguerite of Austria, daughter of
+Maximilian and granddaughter of Charles the Bold, is almost unknown to
+English readers. It is worth telling at some length for it illustrates
+an important phase in the history of German womanhood the way in which
+royal girls were disposed of in marriage.
+
+Storms in the life of Marguerite began long before the Reformation. At
+the age of two years she lost her mother, beautiful Mary of Burgundy,
+daughter of Charles the Bold. The young queen's last words were spoken
+to her "Daisy." "Farewell, farewell, my sweetest little daughter," she
+murmured. "Thou art too soon left motherless." At the age of four,
+Marguerite, for political reasons, was married to the Dauphin of France,
+afterward known as Charles VIII., who was ten years her senior. The
+marriage was solemnized with great pomp at Amboise. After the ceremony
+the tired, bewildered baby was returned to her good governess, Madame
+Secrete.
+
+Marguerite, up to her twelfth year, was educated wholly with a view to
+her future position as Queen of France. But the pride of Charles the
+Bold ran in the little maid's veins. She never forgot that she was the
+"daughter of Cæsar." Cæsar himself "Our Max," "Beggar Max," "Spendthrift
+Max," "Mayor of Augsburg," "Hunter Max," as he was variously called by
+his people, but always with a "God bless him!" added could, and a
+hundred times a day did, easily throw off the imperial dignity; but
+stately little Marguerite never laid hers aside, even in her childish
+games with the French royal children. She is described as possessing
+"set will, affectionate nature, and unusual zeal for study."
+
+At the age of twelve, a crushing blow fell upon this proud little
+daughter of Cæsar. To gain a province, her husband divorced her and
+married Anne of Brittany. The latter maid was kidnapped during a journey
+through France and held prisoner in a castle until she agreed to the
+marriage, which was then speedily effected. Marguerite haughtily refused
+to resign the title, "Queen of France," which she had borne for eight
+years. For seventeen months there were, therefore, two Queens of France
+Anne at Paris, and Marguerite holding her court at Amboise. Even the
+annals of royalty have never shown a more complicated situation. Anne of
+Brittany was, legally, for she had been married by proxy to Maximilian
+Marguerite's stepmother. Now, by her enforced marriage to Charles, Anne
+found herself the rival of her nominal stepdaughter.
+
+Maximilian, doubly furious against France, demanded that Marguerite's
+dowry be returned and that she be sent back to him with regal honors. It
+was a hard journey for a high-spirited girl. Every town along the route
+held fetes and was brightly illuminated as she passed through it. These
+municipal displays, either from stupidity or malice, were mostly in
+execrable taste. On every hand, blazoned in fire, Marguerite saw her own
+name sometimes even her own portrait coupled with that of the king who
+had cast her off. But she exhibited few outward signs of inward shame.
+Once at Cambrai, when the crowd shouted "Noel, Noel;" she called in a
+clear, far-reaching tone "Say not 'Noel,' but cry, 'Long live
+Burgundy!'" Once, at dinner in a French town through which she passed,
+lament was made that the vintage had been blighted; and she said: "Small
+wonder that the grapes wither in a country where oaths are broken!"
+
+But Marguerite or, rather, her wealth was not long without suitors. Don
+Juan of Austria, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, offered himself and was
+accepted by Maximilian. There was a brief delay in the negotiations and
+Don Juan, exasperated thereby, impudently reminded the emperor that a
+divorced princess ought to come cheaper than either a widow or a maid.
+At about the same time Marguerite's brother, Philip the Handsome, was
+betrothed to Don Juan's sister, Juana. The two girls travelled together
+from Brussels as far as Liege, where Philip was to be married. There was
+a great contrast between the two Marguerite calm, stately, fair, was
+ruled always by reason; and Juana dark, intense, was governed by
+emotion. Upon this journey, however, youth and common interests must
+have made the two girls companionable to each other. No prophetic sign
+warned either of sorrows which the future held in store. The following
+letter, lately printed in _Secret Memoirs of the House of Austria_,
+gives the story of Juana's tragedy. Another letter, to which we shall
+refer later, proves that Marguerite's love passion, though free from
+crime, unlike Juana's, was no less deep and real than that of her
+hot-blooded southern sister. The letter was written by one of Philip's
+generals. An extract from it says: "The good King Philip was suspected
+by his Queen of an amour, and that without reason, as was afterward
+discovered, but she took it so much and so grievously to heart that she
+at last resolved to kill her lord and husband in revenge for it. As
+women are so easily moved and impelled, according to the old adage 'they
+have long robes but short counsels,' she got so utterly beside herself
+as to poison her good husband, although it was to her own loss. Shortly
+after, she found out that she had been wrong, and that she had allowed
+her quick temper to get the better of her. Then she began to rue what
+she had done, and found no rest, tormented as she was by the furies of
+remorse; and as she had her husband no more and could not get him back,
+she began to love him twice as well as before, and grieved and fretted
+so violently that at last she went out of her mind altogether and became
+quite childish."
+
+For months Juana kept Philip's embalmed body in her room, frequently
+embracing it in an agony of grief. When, at last, it was buried she
+could not rest until it was exhumed. Then she travelled with it at night
+by the light of torches all through Spain. Curiously enough, a
+soothsayer had once told Philip that he would make longer journeys
+through his kingdom after his death than he had ever taken while living.
+
+Philip the Handsome had one strong trait in his otherwise weak nature.
+He was devotedly attached to his sister Marguerite. He loved her better
+than anything else on earth except himself. She loved him, and his
+children after him for his sake, with no thought of self. When
+Marguerite left the Netherlands for Spain where her marriage with Don
+Juan was to take place, Philip went with her to the seacoast. The ship
+in which Marguerite and her suite sailed was threatened with
+destruction. Marguerite calmly dressed herself in her richest robes and
+jewels in order that her body, if washed ashore, might be easily
+identified. Then under one of her splendid bracelets she slipped a band
+of oiled silk containing an epitaph written by herself:
+
+        "Cy gise Margot, la gente damoysella,
+        Qui eust deux maris, et si morut pucelle."
+
+This has been roughly translated thus:
+
+        "Beneath this tomb the highborn Margaret's laid,
+        Who had two husbands and yet died a maid."
+
+In this epitaph we get one of the few hints of the fact that Marguerite
+had inherited her father's whimsical sense of humor. Her letters and her
+papers generally seem written under the shadow of court etiquette. Her
+acts, however, and many of her recorded conversations, show a quick
+appreciation of ludicrous or grotesque situations.
+
+But the young poetess's epitaph was premature. The ship made the coast
+of England in safety. The princess was invited to visit Henry VII. of
+England; which invitation she accepted with the result that she was,
+says the old historian, "much caressyed by the whole Court." Whether
+Marguerite at this time met Charles Brandon (afterward the Duke of
+Suffolk) who was destined secretly to play an important part in her love
+affairs, is unknown, but it is probable that she did. Shortly after, her
+marriage a magnificent ceremony took place at Madrid.
+
+Once more a crown glittered before the ambitious girl's eyes, and again
+it was dashed from her. Six months after their marriage, Don Juan
+suddenly died. Marguerite returned to Germany. Again she married, this
+time Philibert of Savoy, who seems to have loved her deeply; he, too,
+soon died. Twice a widow and once divorced, Marguerite at the age of
+twenty-five returned to her father's court, declaring that no political
+exigencies should again force her into matrimony. About this time, she
+adopted her strange, sad motto: _Spoliat mors munera nostra_ (Death ever
+destroys what is granted to us). A pathetic little poem it loses much in
+translation written by Marguerite at this time is still preserved:
+
+        "Must I thus ever languish on?
+        Must I, alas, thus die alone?
+        Shall none my tears and anguish know?
+        From childhood, I have suffered so!
+        Too long it lasts this weary woe."
+
+As Thackeray said long afterward of the work of another poet-princess:
+"These plaintive lines are more touching than better poetry."
+
+Still another sorrow was in store for Marguerite. Her beloved brother,
+Philip the Handsome, died. The manner of his death we know. It was his
+dying request that his sister Marguerite, then regent of the
+Netherlands, should have the guardianship of his five children, Charles,
+Leonora, Isabel, Marie, and Catalina. The maternal instinct never beat
+more strongly in any woman's heart than in that of the royal Marguerite.
+Faithfully, wisely, lovingly, she fulfilled her brother's trust.
+
+Another crown was offered Marguerite: Henry VII. of England sought her
+in marriage. Her father wished her to accept this suitor, but Marguerite
+persistently refused. Much correspondence passed between Maximilian and
+his daughter at this time. From it we learn little of Marguerite's inner
+life, but the glimpses of Maximilian are charming. Had he not been sure
+that his daughter would appreciate his humorous allusions and his
+nonsensical fancies, he would never have written as he did. In regard to
+his plan for settling the difficulties between Church and State by the
+startling expedient of making himself Pope, he writes:
+
+"VERY DEAR AND MOST BELOVED DAUGHTER:
+
+"We send the Bishop of Greece to-morrow to Rome, to the Pope, to find
+some means of agreeing with him to take us for a coadjutor, so that
+after his death we may be sure of having his papacy, and of becoming a
+priest, and you will be obliged after my death to worship me, of which I
+shall be extremely proud. I have also begun to sound the cardinals, with
+whom two or three thousand ducats will do me great service, considering
+the partiality which they already exhibit.
+
+"P. S. The Pope has intermittent fever. Cannot live long."
+
+No better business woman ever lived than royal Marguerite. Her first act
+as regent was the abrogation of several of her father's unwise,
+self-cheating treaties. She encouraged trade, secured financial
+stability in her realm, always kept on good terms with the Fuggers, the
+money kings of the world, and increased the revenue from all sources. A
+marriage was planned between her nephew, Charles, and Mary Tudor, the
+youngest daughter of Henry VII.
+
+When Henry VIII., in the war between France and England, led an army to
+the battle of Guinegatte, Marguerite invited him to visit her at Lille.
+Did Marguerite know when she sent her letter of invitation that with
+Henry was one whom she had met at the English court and had never
+forgotten? The following letter, written her from Henry's camp by her
+confidential messenger, would indicate that she did know. "The Grand
+Equerry, the second king," mentioned in the letter was Charles Brandon,
+then Viscount Lisle and later ennobled by Henry for Marguerite's sake,
+gossip said Lord Suffolk. The messenger, Philippe de Brigilles, writes:
+
+"MADAME:
+
+"The Grand Equerry, my Lord Lisle, has been to me to beg of me that I
+would convey to you his most humble respects and the hearty desire which
+he had to do you service. I think you know sufficiently well that he is
+the second king and it is only proper that you should write him a
+gracious letter, for he it is who does and undoes all. This knoweth God,
+who give you, Madame, what ever you most desire. From the camp before
+Therouanne, this Wednesday last.
+
+"Your most humble and most obedient slave,
+
+"PHILIPPE DE BRIGILLES."
+
+Marguerite was now thirty-three. A portrait of her at Hampton Court
+shows that she was a fine-looking, if not, strictly speaking, a
+beautiful woman. The face is oval, the hair, showing from underneath the
+rather picturesque widow's headdress of the sixteenth century, is brown,
+the eyes are dark and expressive, the nose Grecian, the lips somewhat
+full. The hands, resting upon a balcony, are beautiful, with long,
+tapering fingers.
+
+Brandon is described as "a large man, tall and elegantly proportioned,
+with dark brown eyes and hair: he was handsome in his countenance,
+courtly in his manners, and extremely prepossessing in his address."
+
+For the next few months, the soul of Marguerite of Austria was
+struggling in deep waters. The facts, as clearly as they can be made out
+through the misty perspective of centuries, seem to be these: Marguerite
+loved Charles Brandon, then Viscount Lisle and afterward the Duke of
+Suffolk. He asked her hand in marriage, wooing her passionately. The
+young and powerful king, Henry VIII., favored Suffolk's suit, even to
+the point of making several personal appeals to Marguerite, whose pride
+and her fear of causing a political catastrophe made her hesitate to
+accept Suffolk. Gossiping rumors concerning the love affair were spread
+broadcast, and Maximilian, hearing them, became enraged. Marguerite drew
+back. Henry VIII. pretended to the emperor that he knew nothing about
+the matter except by hearsay. Brandon accepted the situation and later
+consoled himself by marrying the youngest sister of the king, the bride
+first selected for Charles, Mary Tudor.
+
+To give reality and color to the above bare outline of a story that once
+throbbed with life, a few descriptions and quotations may be permitted.
+
+Henry VIII., with his suite, including Brandon, visited Marguerite at
+Lille. She in return "accompanied by her young nephew Charles and divers
+other nobles," visited Henry in his camp at Tournay. Henry met them
+outside the gates and "brought them in with greate triumphe." The
+chronicler adds: "The noys went that the Lord Lysle made request of
+marriage to the Ladye Margurite, Duchess of Savoy, and daughter to the
+Emperor Maximilian. But whether he proffered marriage or not, she
+favored him highly."
+
+An evening banquet following, a day of tournaments is thus described:
+
+"This night the King made a sumptuous banket of a. c. dishes to the
+Prince of Castell and the Lady Margarete, and to all other Lords and
+ladies and after the banket the ladies daunsed; and then came in the
+king and a XI in a maske, all richly appareled with bonnettes of gold,
+and when they had passed the time at their pleasure, the garments of the
+maske were cast off amongst the ladies, take who could take."
+
+That handsome Charles Brandon and stately Marguerite of Austria "took"
+each other is proved by the following extracts, made from two letters
+signed "M" among the Cottonian manuscripts now in the British Museum.
+The epistles are evidently translations from French originals. They are
+addressed to "Sir Richard Wingfield, Ambassadour," and are labelled on
+the outside, in Sir Richard Wingfield's handwriting: _Secrete Matters of
+the Duke of Suffolk_. The letters were delivered to Wingfield by
+Marotin, a confidential servant, whom it is known Marguerite dismissed
+for having "evile kept" her secrets. As Marotin was at once taken into
+Maximilian's service it is probable that he was the emperor's informant
+concerning the Suffolk love affair. For nearly a year afterward,
+intercourse between the emperor and his daughter was confined to the
+coldest formalities.
+
+In the case of a few words, liberties have here been taken with Sir
+Richard Wingfield's spelling in order to make the letter intelligible to
+modern readers:
+
+"The Archduchess Marguerite to Sir Richard Wingfield.
+
+"My Ladye began this wryting before the koming of Marrotin, who came to
+Lavoyne on Sundaye last."
+
+"MY LORDE AMBASSADOURE:
+
+"Sythe that I see that I may not have tydynges from the Emperor so soon,
+it seemeth me that I shulde do welle no longer to tarry to depeche this
+gentleman. And for that my lettres addressyed to the King and the Duke
+of that I dare not aventure me to wryte on to them so at lengthe of thys
+bisyness I fear me to be evile kept, I me determine to wrythe to you at
+lengthe that you may the better advertise them of myne intent."
+
+She then explains that her intent is to put a stop to the whole matter.
+Fear of endangering the prospects of her idolized nephew, Charles,
+should she make a mesalliance, was probably Marguerite's main reason for
+disobeying the dictates of her heart. Marguerite was a politician,
+clear-headed, keen, cool, calculating; but she was also a very human
+woman. She wished Sir Richard to think well of her she desired the king
+to know that she did not blame him in the matter. Above all, she wished
+Suffolk to understand that while she rejected him she still remained
+true to him. She told Wingfield how "at severall occaysions" the king
+pleaded for his friend and favorite courtier:
+
+"He sayde that I was yet too young for to abide thus, and that the
+ladyes of hys contree dyd remarye at fifty and three score yeeres." But
+Marguerite was firm. She says: "Whereupon I answered hym that I hadde
+never hadde wylle so to do and that I was too muche unhappy in
+hosbondes, but he wolde nott beleve me."
+
+Throughout the letters, Suffolk (Brandon) is referred to by Marguerite
+as the "Personnage." Again the king told her that his friend was most
+unhappy, fearing she would marry someone else.
+
+"Wyche I promised to hym," says Marguerite, "I schulde not do." But the
+"Personnage," who appears to have been present at this interview, was
+not satisfied. Marguerite says: "He mayde me promyse in his hands that
+how soever I shulde be pressed by my father, or otherwyse, I should not
+make alyance of maryage with Prynce off the worlde."
+
+The king was sometimes discreetly absent when the two met.
+
+"At the head of a koppboorde," a few days later, Suffolk made Marguerite
+renew her promise to him. Marguerite refers also to certain "gracyewse
+letters" that passed between herself and her English suitor. The report
+had got abroad in the court that Suffolk had in his possession a diamond
+ring known to belong to the archduchess. She confesses the truth of the
+rumor:
+
+"One night at Tournaye, being at the bankett, after the bankett, he put
+hymself upon hys knees before me, and hym playing, he drew from my
+finger the rynge, and put it on hys finger, and sythe shewed it me. And
+I took to Lawe, and to hym sayde that he was a theefe, and that I thowte
+not the King hadde wyth hym ledde theeves out of hys contree." Somehow,
+one feels glad of that half-hour "after the bankett" in Marguerite's
+hard life.
+
+Brandon behaved well in the matter when he found that Marguerite had
+fully made up her mind to end their friendship. His daughter by his
+first wife and an adopted daughter were both under Marguerite's care at
+her court, and Suffolk offered to remove them if the archduchess wished
+him to do so. Another young English girl also was under Marguerite's
+charge, Anne Bullen, better known to history as Anne Boleyn. Suffolk,
+about this time, adopted for his shield the singular motto: "Who can
+hold that will away?"
+
+The affair with the Duke of Suffolk being over, Marguerite plunged into
+politics, straining every nerve to secure the imperial succession for
+Charles against the new claimant who had arisen, Francis I. of France.
+When her help was no longer needed by the young emperor, Marguerite
+retired to her favorite spot, Malines. There she held a quiet court,
+devoting herself to study. When remonstrated with upon the score of
+health for confining herself too closely to books, she replied: "When
+the mind has congenial employment, the body will always take care of
+itself." At the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and also at Cambrai, where
+the "Ladies' Peace" treaty was arranged by herself and Louise of Savoy,
+Marguerite again met her old lover, the Duke of Suffolk. If history
+holds any records of that meeting, they are still hidden in her secret
+archives.
+
+The Renaissance and the Reformation both touched Marguerite of Austria
+closely. Toward the Renaissance she was kindly and even gratefully
+inclined. For Protestantism, however, she had only scorn and hatred. Her
+natural benevolence kept her from the cruel persecutions which darkened
+the reign of another Marguerite--Marguerite of Parma--in the
+Netherlands. But Marguerite of Austria, nevertheless, was openly
+committed to "the extermination of the Lutherans." That her niece Isabel
+died in the new and hated faith was a source of great sorrow to her.
+Isabel, with her last breath, committed her children to her aunt
+Marguerite's care; and Marguerite, whose life had been largely spent in
+rearing other women's children, took these little orphans also to her
+heart.
+
+When the Reformation came, even the gay, profligate courts of the German
+principalities were sobered. At first, in certain cases, the sudden
+seriousness caused by Luther's ringing call took the form of attempted
+evasion of the consequences of sin. Philip of Hesse, a big, handsome
+prince into whose material nature a bit of the new leaven had fallen,
+asked "Pope Luther" to let him marry a second wife while his first was
+living. He did not propose to put the first away; he would provide for
+both. In extenuation of this suggested bigamy he pleaded truly enough
+that Christine, his spouse, was addicted to over-indulgence in strong
+drink, and, also, was personally repulsive. He wished to marry Katharine
+von Saal, one of the court ladies. It was a crucial moment for
+Protestantism. Philip's powerful aid would perhaps save the new faith.
+Long ago, Luther had twice given it as his opinion that the Scriptures
+sanctioned plural marriages. The dispensation was granted. The second
+marriage took place, Christine agreeing placidly. Katharine von Saal
+made Philip a good wife, and the three Christine being left in
+undisturbed enjoyment of her daily dram lived, it seems, harmoniously
+enough.
+
+A very different story is that of another court. Joachim, Elector of
+Brandenburg, bitterly opposed the new faith, but his wife became a
+convert. The latter partook of the sacrament in both kinds, and then
+fearing vengeance from her angry lord and master fled from his court to
+a refuge near Lotha. Her husband refused to take her back, but he
+allowed her children to visit her. Carlyle, in his Frederick the Great,
+tells the story.
+
+The vexed question, Which has done more to advance the world, the
+Renaissance or the Reformation? will probably never be satisfactorily
+settled. At the best, 'tis rather a shallow question, born of provincial
+intelligence. Without the Renaissance there could have been no
+Reformation. Without the Reformation, the Renaissance, contenting itself
+with past culture, would never have become the active force it is in the
+world to-day. To both, the twentieth century woman owes much.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AN ERA OF INTELLECTUAL DESOLATION
+
+
+War! War! War! From that pregnant day in 1521 when Luther, at Worms,
+cried: "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me!" Germany, for
+nearly three centuries, was never, long at a time, free from bloody
+strife. In some districts of the empire men and women were conceived in
+time of war, born in time of war, lived to the Scripturally allotted age
+of threescore years and ten in time of war, died, and were buried,
+leaving war to rage for years to come above their unquiet, desecrated
+graves.
+
+In these disintegrating centuries, women of all classes suffered to the
+uttermost. The lowest became beasts, like the men who debauched them. By
+thousands, and tens of thousands, women followed the armies. Every
+soldier, from the private to the highest officer, was allowed to take
+with him into the field his wife or mistress frequently both and as many
+other female relatives as he pleased. Even grandmothers were frequently
+seen in camp. Schiller's picture of the old marketwoman in Wallenstein's
+Camp is not overdrawn.
+
+Women in the army cooked, washed, mended, and, more or less skilfully,
+nursed the sick and wounded. They were not taken to the field, however,
+as ministering angels. The bald truth is that women were kept in the
+army for the sole purpose of gratifying man's lust. With every newly
+recruited regiment that started for the front went hundreds of
+respectable young girls torn unwillingly from their humble homes. After
+every decisive battle, women formed a large part of the spoils of war
+borne off by the victors. Children, mostly born out of wedlock, swarmed.
+Gustavus Adolphus made a vain attempt to keep women out of the army. He
+established tent schools for the children. Women in the field were under
+martial law. Frequently, for minor offences they were stripped, flogged,
+and drummed out of camp. The discipline of the field schools was very
+severe. Once, it is related, a cannon ball crashed through a school
+tent, killing half a dozen children. But the survivors, more afraid of
+their schoolmaster than of death, kept on with their tasks as if nothing
+had happened.
+
+For woman there could be, there was, but one outcome of this army life,
+moral degradation. Grimmelshausen, in his _Simplicius Simplicissimus_,
+one of the greatest satires ever written, gives a horribly revolting
+picture of women in camp during the Thirty Years' War. There is no doubt
+that the picture is a true one, for Grimmelshausen, a nobleman and a
+powerful writer, was an eyewitness of the horrors which he describes in
+this life story of a vagabond adventurer in the long and terrible war.
+
+Neither wealth nor high birth could screen women from the anxieties, the
+sorrows, and the miseries of war. Philippine Welser, of Augsburg, was
+probably the last patrician woman in Germany to receive Renaissance
+training. The Welser family of burgher-merchant origin, ennobled by
+royal favor was famous for its upright men and its pious, scholarly
+women no less than for its enormous wealth. The story of Philippine
+Welser and her lover--husband,--Prince Ferdinand, son of Emperor
+Ferdinand I. and favorite nephew of Charles V., contrasts pleasantly
+with the cruel, coldly selfish treatment of most princely lovers in that
+war-brutalized age.
+
+According to legend, Philippine Welser first saw "Prince Ferdinand of
+the Golden Locks" as he rode past her father's house in old Haymarket
+Square, at the head of a glittering procession. Philippine, a vision of
+pink and white girlish beauty, stood at a long, open window, looking
+down on the gorgeous pageant. The prince saluted her. Their eyes met,
+and straightway, after the old fashion which never quite goes out of
+date anywhere in the world, either in war or in peace, they fell in
+love.
+
+At the public ball that evening, in Augsburg's new hall of gold, the
+prince showed the merchant-banker's fair daughter marked attention,
+dancing with her often. In the weeks that followed, Prince Ferdinand's
+intimate friend, Count Ladislaw von Sternberg, was seen almost daily
+going back and forth between the old Welser house and the archducal
+palace near the Cathedral.
+
+At last the prince left Augsburg. A few days later Philippine Welser
+also disappeared down the street which now bears her name. Henceforth
+her native city knew her no more. She was in Bohemia, with her aunt
+Katharine, wife of the knight George von Loxan. An imperial castle
+crowned a neighboring height. Prince Ferdinand suddenly discovered that
+affairs in his Bohemian inheritance needed his immediate personal
+attention. He resided at the castle for several weeks, making frequent
+visits to the Loxan estate. A formal betrothal took place in the
+presence of a priest, Philippine's aunt, and other witnesses. Through
+nine years of betrothal and twenty-three of married life, the archduke
+was true to Philippine. War separated them for years at a time, but
+their love suffered no diminution. The archduke Ferdinand was a genuine
+scion of an impetuously loyal race. From Maximilian I., whose heart, by
+his own command, was placed in the tomb of fair Mary of Burgundy, down
+to Don John and to unfortunate Rudolph in the nineteenth century,
+Habsburg princes have ever been ready to cast aside rank, wealth, and
+power for love.
+
+Sometimes, hiding under the soiled robe of politics, love actually slips
+into a state marriage, as in the union of Elizabeth Stuart of England
+with Frederick, Prince of the Palatinate, better known to history as the
+"Winter King" of Bohemia.
+
+Though not German by birth, Elizabeth, through good and through evil
+report, so thoroughly identified herself with her husband's interests
+and people, and became the ancestress of so many famous rulers, among
+whom are Frederick the Great, Queen Victoria, and Emperor William I.,
+that her story properly deserves a place in any history of German
+womanhood.
+
+Elizabeth possessed the grace, beauty, and charm of manner common to the
+Stuarts. To these gifts were added wit, a kindly sense of humor, and an
+honest loyalty of spirit peculiarly her own. The title she won in
+Germany, "the Queen of Hearts," seems to have been a spontaneous and
+well-deserved tribute. Between Elizabeth Stuart and her elder brother
+Henry, the beloved and manly Prince of Wales, who died at the age of
+eighteen, the closest love and sympathy existed. Out of many suitors for
+his sister's hand, Frederick, Prince of the Palatine, was Prince Henry's
+choice. The two young men loved and respected each other. Together they
+had ridden, hunted, played tennis and other athletic games, Elizabeth
+often being an interested spectator of their friendly contests. The
+dying prince's last words were half-delirious ramblings concerning his
+sister's marriage to Prince Frederick.
+
+Political exigencies were pressing. As usual, war loomed. Prince Henry's
+death, therefore, delayed the marriage but a few days. Frederick
+possessed a sweet and lovable nature. His letters, to this day,
+strangely win the reader's heart. To the stricken sister, mourning the
+loss of her idolized brother, the tenderness of Prince Frederick was
+balm. Her bridegroom had been her dead brother's friend. To
+loyal-hearted Elizabeth Stuart that memory was far more precious than
+the diamond rose-wreath crown which her lover brought her from the
+Palatinate. Yet the glittering coronet it may be seen to-day in Munich
+was very beautiful. Clear, sparkling, as if made of ice shot through by
+sunlight, it seems a fit ornament for a young "Winter Queen."
+
+The bridal journey to the Palatine was a triumphal progress. Elizabeth
+and Frederick were like two children newly escaped from school. They
+cast convention to the winds. The court chamberlain was in despair. But
+the two happy lovers only laughed at him and his "precedents." They said
+they would make new precedents, and they did. In Nörnberg they invited
+themselves to a burgher wedding. The bride was a Welser, a distant
+cousin of Philippine Welser. Both Elizabeth and her husband danced at
+this wedding until after midnight. Prince Frederick, indeed, danced so
+heartily, says an old chronicler, "that he did twirl some of the maidens
+with him clean out into the street."
+
+About this time died the Emperor Matthias, successor of Ferdinand I. The
+Protestant Union earnestly wished to prevent the election of the
+Catholic Ferdinand, King of Bohemia, as emperor. An opportune uprising
+of Protestants in Bohemia served as a pretext for placing Frederick of
+the Palatinate, head of the Protestant Union, upon the throne of
+Bohemia. The whole world knows the story of that brief, brilliant,
+winter reign of Frederick and Elizabeth in Bohemia.
+
+The Stuart "Queen of Hearts" was more popular in Bohemia than her
+Calvinistic husband. Rich presents of money and plate were made to her.
+A delegation of the wives of the most prominent citizens waited upon her
+in Prague. Behind them slowly moved nine large wagons loaded with gifts.
+Among other presents was a baby's entire outfit, including a stately
+cradle made of ebony and ornamented with gold and precious jewels. The
+cradle was needed, for Elizabeth bore thirteen children.
+
+The king and queen were too unconventional to please the stiff Bohemian
+nobility. The young royal couple gave mortal offence once to the entire
+court by coasting down hill with a lot of school children. The
+conspicuous costume worn by his majesty on that unfortunate day seems to
+have been an added injury to court etiquette. He wore, we are told, "a
+satin fur-trimmed pelisse and a large white hat with long, floating
+yellow plumes."
+
+But days of childish gayety were well-nigh passed for Frederick and
+Elizabeth. Sorrow, humiliation, poverty awaited them. Ferdinand II. was
+triumphantly elected. One of the new emperor's first acts was to
+confiscate Frederick's principality of the Rhine Palatinate and make it
+over to a Bavarian Prince. His next act was to send a force under Tilly
+to regain the Bohemian throne. Frederick made no resistance worthy of
+the name. Instead, he fled with his family.
+
+Never was royal fall more humiliating. Landless, penniless, almost
+friendless, Frederick and Elizabeth suddenly found themselves the
+laughing-stock of Europe. It was a brutal age, a vulgarly coarse age.
+Minor incidents often show most clearly the progress of civilization.
+To-day a woman dragged down by her husband's fall is screened.
+
+Not so in Elizabeth Stuart's time. The press of that day lampooned her
+more unmercifully than it did her unfortunate consort. Cruel cartoons,
+picturing her in a beggar's dress were scattered broadcast. King James
+I. offered his daughter an asylum in England, but she answered proudly:
+"My place while I live is by my husband's side. I shall never forsake
+him."
+
+So intense was Elizabeth's love for her husband that it practically
+crowded out all other love except the love for her dead brother. Even of
+her children she said: "I love them more because they are his than for
+themselves or for my own comfort." For three days after Frederick's
+death Elizabeth neither spoke nor ate nor wept. To the day of her own
+death, her room, sometimes a pitifully poor room for a king's daughter
+and a king's wife, was draped in black in memory of her husband.
+
+The eldest daughter of Elizabeth and Frederick also an Elizabeth was a
+diligent student of philosophy. Descartes honored her with his
+friendship. For many years she corresponded with the great philosopher.
+In youth, this Elizabeth was very pretty a vivacious, black-haired,
+brown-eyed beauty, with a slender aquiline nose which tried her sorely
+by turning unbecomingly red at times. The poverty-stricken Palatine
+princesses, living as poor relations, first at this court, then at that,
+kept up courage by sharpening their wits on one another. One day when
+the annoying nose was blushing, Elizabeth's next younger sister, Louise,
+said: "Come, it is time to attend the audience of our cousin, the
+Queen," and Elizabeth answered aggrievedly: "Do you expect me to go with
+this nose?" To which quick-witted Louise replied: "Do you expect me to
+wait until you grow another one?"
+
+Elizabeth, perhaps to gain leisure to study her beloved subject,
+philosophy, entered the Lutheran convent at Herfort, becoming later its
+abbess. Louise became abbess of a Catholic convent at Naubisson, and a
+very lively and comfortable, if not exactly moral, abbess she made. A
+third sister, Henrietta, took to preserves instead of either philosophy
+or religion. She married, and lived happily ever after among her sticky
+pots and kettles. Not the least blessed of the three, to judge from her
+letters, was the lot of practical Henrietta.
+
+At the end of the Thirty Years' War, Germany lay prostrate, bleeding at
+a thousand wounds. The condition of the peasant women was not greatly
+improved. They had more cows to milk, it is true; but, on the other
+hand, they were furnished with fewer books from which to draw mental
+nourishment. The public schools had gone to ruin. Even the boys were not
+properly taught. "Our wenches learn nothing," an exceptionally
+interested father complains.
+
+The old manufacturing interests, like weaving by hand, in which women
+formerly aided, had declined. Workingwomen in the cities found it hard
+to earn a living. By losses resulting from the war, many of the genteel
+poor, ladies born and bred, had been forced into the ranks of the
+workers. These timid unfortunates became nursery governesses in families
+of the impoverished nobility, day teachers, court ladies without salary,
+and the like. The personal secrets of the children of labor are kept
+only in the archives of solitary human hearts; else, many a story of
+tragedy, love, and brave self-denial might be written from the bitter
+experiences of these pioneer women workers. In considering the condition
+of workingwomen during this unhappy period, the word "Vice," written
+large, must be constantly kept in mind. It was not a question of
+temptation to vice; the problem, instead, was how a respectable
+workingwoman could possibly escape being driven into sin by man's
+physical force.
+
+The counter reformation, set in motion by the wonderful intellect of
+Ignatius Loyola, had a mighty influence upon women in certain parts of
+the empire. "In the year 1551," says Steinmetz, "the Jesuits had no
+fixed position in Germany. In 1556 they had overspread Franconia,
+Swabia, Rhineland, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Bavaria." This rapid
+but quiet growth of the Society of Jesus was due largely to the
+influence of a comparatively few rich, intelligent Catholic women, like
+Maria of Bavaria.
+
+The relation between women and early Jesuitism bears out the old
+assertion that kicks and beatings increase both canine and feminine
+affection. Ignatius Loyola himself compared woman to the devil. He
+writes: "Our enemy imitates the nature and manner of a woman as to her
+weakness and frowardness. For, as a woman, quarrelling with her husband,
+if she sees him with erect, firm aspect, ready to resist her, instantly
+loses courage and turns on her heel, but if she perceive he is timid and
+inclined to slink off, her audacity knows no bounds, and she pounces
+upon him, ferociously. Thus the devil," etc.
+
+Ignatius Loyola was magnificently in earnest. He remembered the Medician
+Papal courts and their scandal. He would have his order endangered by no
+looseness of priestly morals. His rules were of iron strictness.
+Moreover, and this greatly to his official advantage, he knew women.
+Especially well he knew, too, the sentimental, introspective,
+hero-worshipping woman. The spiritual direction of three such women for
+a short time gave him more trouble, he afterward declared, than the
+government of his whole world-spread order. Accordingly, he decreed:
+
+"No woman shall come twice to confession in one day."
+
+"If the female penitents pretend to scruples of conscience, the
+confessors are to tell them 'not to relate tales and repeat trifles.'
+Sometimes they must be silenced at once, for if they are truly disturbed
+by conscience there will be no need of prolixity."
+
+"Consolation and advice to women are to be given in an open part of the
+church."
+
+Visits to women were also severely restricted. They must be confined to
+women of rank and consequence. The women visited must be those who have
+rendered signally important service to the order. Visits must be
+agreeable to the husband or other ruling male relative of the woman
+visited. Confession by a woman was always to be witnessed by another
+priest, stationed near the confessor.
+
+A Jesuit of advanced age and ancient probity once infringed this last
+order and listened to a woman penitent without witnesses. Loyola called
+eight priests together and made the old Jesuit scourge himself on his
+naked back till each of the priests had repeated one of the penitential
+psalms.
+
+To do all things vehemently has always been a German trait. According to
+Hasenmuller, a German Jesuit turned Lutheran, many of Loyola's disciples
+in Germany exceeded their chief in their expressed contempt for women.
+Some Jesuit priests, he says, expectorated whenever a woman's name was
+mentioned. Others would eat no dish prepared by a woman. One cried:
+"When I think of a woman my stomach rises and my blood is up." Another
+exclaimed: "It grieves me and I am ashamed that a woman brought me into
+the world."
+
+The emotional element in Jesuitism appealed strongly to women. The
+general contempt for their sex expressed by Jesuit priests made special
+notice all the more valuable. No modern woman of fashion who has secured
+for her drawing room the first appearance of a social lion is more
+elated thereby than were the few queens, princesses, and women of wealth
+who, in the early days of the order, were honored by the notice of
+Jesuit priests. Add to this the fact that the Jesuits were, in general,
+a picked body of young, strong, handsome men of gracious manners and
+fascinating address, and we have the secret of their power over women.
+Small wonder that women worked indefatigably to advance the interests of
+the new order.
+
+Allied to the Jesuits only by the smarting, chafing tie of persecution
+were the Jewish women. After the Thirty Years' War there were many of
+these in Germany. Their descendants, even when Christians, were debarred
+from entering the Society of Jesus. The babes of Jewish mothers were
+often forcibly baptized. Freytag quotes a pathetic story told in an old
+pamphlet written by two Jesuit fathers, Eder and Christel.
+
+One Samuel Metzel was converted to Christianity. His wife refused to
+forsake her ancestral faith. Her four children were taken away from her
+and placed in Christian families. She was about to bring a fifth child
+into the world. In terror lest she should lose this one too, she hid
+herself in a retired spot. Her oldest little girl unconsciously betrayed
+the mother's hiding place. When the babe was born the father and the two
+priests sent a Christian midwife to baptize and kidnap it. Three "pious
+ladies" accompanied the midwife.
+
+When the Jewish mother saw that the midwife baptized her newborn babe,
+she "sprang frantically from her bed and with vehement cries tore the
+infant from the woman's arms." The "pious ladies" sent for masculine
+help. The city judge, with armed men, entered the room and "tried to
+separate the now little Christian son from his mother. But as she, like
+a frantic one, held the child so tightly clasped in her arms, they
+desisted, fearing to stifle the babe, and the judicious judge contented
+himself with strictly forbidding the Jews in the house to try to make a
+Jew of the child." The Lord Count of the empire, when appealed to,
+decided that the child must be delivered to its father. The priestly
+historians add, with evident pride and satisfaction: "Not long after,
+the mother who had so stubbornly adhered to Judaism gave in and was
+baptized."
+
+When the plague swept Germany, the Jesuits and their women coadjutors
+were magnificent in their self-forgetfulness and unremitting work of
+succor. Splendidly, too, as a rule, did they stand by one unfortunate
+class of women the so-called witches of the seventeenth century. It was
+a Jesuit priest, the noble Frederick von Spee, who, when asked by the
+Elector of Mainz why his hair had turned white at the early age of
+forty, replied: "Sire, it is because I have accompanied to the stake so
+many women accused of witchcraft not one of whom was guilty."
+
+The persecution of so-called witches grew to fearful proportions in the
+seventeenth century. No ugly old woman who had village enemies was safe
+from arrest and execution on a charge of witchcraft. The following
+statistics from the small district of Drachenfels are typical, as in
+every other town of the empire similar conditions prevailed.
+
+Between July, 1630, and December, 1631, and between November, 1643, and
+May, 1645, ninety-two out of the eight hundred inhabitants of the
+district were executed for witchcraft. Every second house furnished at
+least one victim. Sometimes four or five out of a single family were
+accused. The youngest woman burned was twenty-nine years of age. The
+others were between fifty-five and eighty. Confessions were secured by
+the use of the rack and other horrible tortures. The confessions were
+always similar, a mere echo of the stories told around every village
+hearth on winter evenings. The alleged witch had sickened cattle. She
+had sought at midnight the woodland dancing place of evil spirits or had
+ridden through the air on a broomstick. She had made a compact with the
+devil, etc., etc.
+
+But confession was not considered evidence enough. Accomplices must be
+declared. Just here, sometimes, splendid heroism came in, as in the case
+of Frau Merl of Drachenfels. Neither the rack, the thumbscrew, nor
+ice-cold water poured over her could induce her to name as co-witch any
+but dead women. Through three courts they dragged her case. There was
+even a chance of saving her own life if she would implicate certain
+other suspected persons. Instead, however, she went alone to the stake.
+One wishes that Von Spee might have walked beside her, whispering words
+of consolation.
+
+A minor cause of woman's degradation in this unhappy age of her history
+was the prevalence of drunkenness. An official map was once issued that
+showed drinking districts, places being marked as "ever drunk," "mostly
+drunk," "half drunk," etc. "No drunk" did not exist even as an imaginary
+geographical line.
+
+From the lowest strata of society to the highest women were made
+miserable by this evil of intemperance. The intoxicated peasant knocked
+his wife down and kicked her. The cultured prince, inflamed by wine and
+anger, slapped my lady's face at the royal dinner table before the whole
+court.
+
+Riehl, in his _History of the Physical Development of the German
+People_, devotes one chapter to the gradual "Divergence of the Sexes."
+He makes the interesting suggestion, which reflection and observation
+seem to confirm, that three hundred years ago woman was far more
+masculine in her personal appearance, even in her anatomy and physical
+strength, than now. He calls attention to the almost manly expression
+and cast of features shown in the portraits of bygone famous beauties
+like Marie Stuart and others.
+
+Louisa of Orange-Nassau, wife of the great elector, Frederick William
+(1640-1688), was a remarkable woman. She was self-poised, loving,
+earnest, virtuous, pious in a helpful, practical fashion, founding
+girls' schools, hospitals, and similar institutions of ethical and civic
+value, and interested in every department of her husband's manifold
+activity. When he travelled, she journeyed with him, carefully watching
+to keep away from him both draughts and bores. On a long military march
+of four hundred miles from Berlin to the relief of Konigsberg she
+accompanied him, sharing all his hardships without a complaint.
+
+Frederick William built for his wife a pretty country place north of
+Berlin, which they called _Oranienburg_ (Orange Burg). Louisa made this
+place a genuine Dutch homestead. Much of Frederick William's youth was
+spent in Holland, where he wooed and won his bride. Theirs was a true
+love marriage. Louisa bore him two sons; the elder died young, the
+younger, Frederick, became the first king of Prussia.
+
+Frederick William was often in a state of ebullition, and many women
+would have found life with him a hell upon earth. But Louisa of Orange
+had love, patience, and great good sense. She was happy in his love, and
+he in hers. "At the moment of her death," says Carlyle, "when speech had
+fled, he felt from her hand, which lay in his, three slight, slight
+pressures. 'Farewell!' thrice mutely spoken in that manner, not easy to
+forget in this world."
+
+Reasons of state compelled the elector to contract another marriage. His
+second wife, Dorothea of Holstein, was a most practical housewife and
+gardener. Under her energetic direction the palace shone like a new pin.
+She took a great interest in the planting of trees. Unter den Linden,
+the now fashionable avenue of Berlin, was, primarily, a project of
+Dorothea's. Her dairy was wonderfully remunerative, and it was even
+rumored that she held a controlling interest in a brewery. Thrifty
+Dorothea certainly was; comfortable to live with, either as wife or
+stepmother, she evidently was not. She never filled the vacant place in
+Frederick William's heart. "Ah! my poor Louisa," the great elector, now
+growing to be the old elector, often exclaimed; "I have not my dear
+Louisa now. To whom shall I turn for help and comfort?"
+
+Between Dorothea and her stepson, the crown prince Frederick, a constant
+state of warfare existed. Political enemies even accused Dorothea,
+without a shadow of truth, of attempting to poison him. At last
+Frederick withdrew entirely from his father's court, leaving his
+stepmother and his four stepbrothers in possession of the field. This
+wearing domestic friction, combined with much political opposition,
+embittered the last years of the elector's life. He died in 1688; but he
+had not lived in vain. His private life was honorable; his morals were
+above reproach. In his conjugal fidelity, he stands a solitary figure
+upon the threshold of a new and still more debased age.
+
+War was not the sole cause of woman's degradation in this unhappy
+period. French influence, proceeding from the brilliant, evil court of
+Louis XIV. (1643-1715), debased her incalculably. Like a moral miasma,
+this influence permeated every stratum of German society. Upon the
+innocent and the guilty woman alike its effect was deadly. This
+destructive conquest over the brain and soul of Germany was not made in
+a single generation, for, in the beginning, men of the stamp of the
+great elector and women like his beloved Louisa fought against the
+subtle, poisonous influence.
+
+For half a century a German princess lived at the very fountain head of
+corruption, the court of Louis XIV., and remained pure. Elizabeth
+Charlotte of the Palatinate was a granddaughter of Elizabeth Stuart. Her
+father was Carl Ludwig, Prince of the Palatinate, to whom had been
+restored a part of his paternal inheritance the Rhine Palatinate. She
+was educated by her father's sister, Sophia, Electress of Hanover, whom
+she loved devotedly. To this aunt, through fifty years of life in a
+corrupt and foreign atmosphere, which to the end she hated, the exiled
+German princess poured out her heart in letters that, to the historian,
+have proved of priceless value. Ranke says: "Nowhere else is the
+uncleanness of French and German national spirit during this epoch so
+perfectly photographed as in the correspondence of Elizabeth of Orleans
+with her aunt, the Electress of Hanover."
+
+At the age of nineteen, in the year 1671, Elizabeth Charlotte was
+married to Philip, Duke of Orleans, only brother of Louis XIV. It was a
+loveless marriage. Louis XIV. brought about the union for the sake of
+securing the neutrality of the Prince of the Palatinate in an
+approaching war between France and Holland. At the time of her marriage
+Elizabeth was a bright, wholesome, companionable girl. Her husband, a
+widower of thirty-two, was commonly suspected of being at least
+accessory to the poisoning of his first wife, Henrietta, a sister of
+Charles II. of England. In the correspondence of Elizabeth and her aunt,
+the Duke of Orleans is always referred to as "Monsieur."
+
+Elizabeth's ideal of manhood was the older German ideal, an honest,
+fearless man, an enthusiastic hunter, a skilful horseman, a sturdy
+drinker, and, withal, a stout-handed Christian, ready at a moment's
+notice to knock down an old church and build a new one on its site, or,
+if his faith lay the other way, to fight to the last ditch for the old
+church against the new. Therefore, there must have been bitterness at
+the young wife's heart when she penned the following very accurate
+description of her bridegroom:
+
+"Monsieur has extremely ladylike manners. He cares for nothing so rude
+as horses and hunting. He cares for nothing, in fact, except the Court
+receptions, for dainty eating, dancing, and fine toilettes. In short,
+his tastes are all effeminate."
+
+She gives an equally merciless picture of herself: "I must be very ugly.
+I have little eyes, a short, thick nose, and a flat, broad face. I am
+little and thickset. Naturally, I hate mirrors and never injure my
+self-esteem by looking into one if I can help it." Though Elizabeth was
+not beautiful, she must have possessed the charm of a thoroughly honest,
+humorous, and impulsively kind nature. Her boy-cousins and young friends
+in Germany called her "Comrade" and "Bub." Louis XIV. was very fond of
+his German sister-in-law. She walked, rode, and hunted with him
+frequently. Except when he persecuted Germany, she liked the king
+extremely well.
+
+Although no love existed at any time between the Duke of Orleans and his
+wife, one point, remarkable in that universally loose age, must be
+noted. They were true to each other. She writes in later years: "I never
+had any reason to complain of Monsieur in respect to his behavior so far
+as other women were concerned." She had no "love affair" in all the
+years she lived with him. A cabal, seeking to fasten scandal upon her in
+connection with the Chevalier Sincsanct, utterly failed to produce proof
+against her, or even to cast public suspicion upon her. She had three
+children, two boys and a girl. The oldest boy died at the age of three
+years. The struggle of Elizabeth's life was to preserve her two
+remaining children from the impure influences around them, and it was a
+long and bitter fight. Her daughter she saved. Her son, afterward Regent
+of France during the long minority of Louis XV., owed all that was good
+in him and that was much, in spite of his excesses to the prayers, the
+love, the admonitions of his mother. In her efforts to train the
+children rightly Elizabeth was constantly thwarted by her husband.
+Philip was entirely controlled by two bad men, the Chevalier de Lorraine
+and the Marquis d'Essiat. Both hated Elizabeth because of her moral
+influence over the king. By her efforts, many of their iniquitous plots
+against women were frustrated. The only way they could punish her was
+through her children. Madame de Maintenon, whom Elizabeth treated
+disdainfully, was believed by the duchess to have been an accomplice in
+the plan to remove her children from her influence.
+
+Madame de Maintenon loved the children of the king's former mistress,
+Montespan, as if they were her own. Two of these children, Mademoiselle
+de Blois and the Duke of Maine, were still unmarried. It was now
+proposed, ostensibly by the king, that Elizabeth's son, the Duke of
+Chartres, should marry Mademoiselle de Blois. Also, it was planned, that
+her daughter Charlotte should at the same time become the wife of the
+young Duke of Maine. Elizabeth was furious. She refused her consent.
+Saint-Simon, in his Memoirs, says of her at this time:
+
+"She belongs to a nation which abhors bastards and mesalliances.
+Moreover, she has a determined character which forbids all hope that she
+may ever consent."
+
+The Duke of Chartres a boy of eighteen promised his mother to refuse to
+contract the alliance. Then, the Abbé Dubois, who had great influence
+over him, secured a contrary promise. When the king himself urged the
+duke to marry Mademoiselle de Blois, the youth became confused and said
+he would leave the decision to his parents. Whereupon, his father,
+without more ado, had the engagement announced that evening at the court
+dinner. Elizabeth wept throughout the meal. Louis XIV., it is said, made
+awkward attempts at consolation by passing her the choicest dishes. At
+the circle which followed, her son came up to kiss her hand. The memory
+of his broken promise was fresh in her mind. To the astonishment of the
+polished French court, she boxed the boy's ears soundly. An awful
+silence followed this impulsive piece of maternal discipline. The young
+duke, scarlet with mortification, stood abashed. His poor little pale
+bride-elect grew whiter than ever; Elizabeth, hardly making a reverence
+to the king, left the room. The people of Paris sided with the duchess.
+They threatened the life of Madame de Maintenon if the other proposed
+marriage, between Elizabeth's daughter and the Duke of Maine, was
+insisted upon. "I am very grateful to my friends, the Parisian mob,"
+Elizabeth writes to her aunt.
+
+From this time the breach between Elizabeth and her husband was
+complete. She was also estranged from her son. Her daughter was kept at
+a long distance from her amidst the most corrupt surroundings. Elizabeth
+became very lonely. The king, because of her opposition to the seizure
+of the Palatinate, now ignored her. Her husband seldom spoke to her. Her
+daughter was away but had been happily married. Her son, at this time,
+was very dissolute and avoided meeting her. She writes:
+
+"Here in this great court I live, a hermit. Day after day I spend alone
+in my library. If visitors come I see them a few minutes, speak of the
+weather or the newspaper, then back again to my solitude."
+
+In 1701 her husband died. By her aunt Sophie's sensible advice,
+reconciliation followed with the king and also with good-natured Madame
+de Maintenon. Her son, after one or two successful campaigns in Spain,
+returned to France loaded with honors. He turned again to his mother
+with the old affection of his boyhood. Much may be forgiven the Duke of
+Chartres because of his sincere, even if tardy, goodness to his mother.
+Her old age was made happy by him. To others he might seem a heartless,
+dissipated roué, to her he was the eighth wonder of the world the
+strong, tender, manly son on whom she leaned. Her daughter, too, by
+frequent, loving letters brought her comfort.
+
+The Duchess of Orleans died December 8, 1722. Beside her coffin her son,
+then Regent of France, clasped his sister in his arms and the two wept
+bitterly for their German mother.
+
+Few women have been more loyal to their native country than Elizabeth of
+Orleans. A day or two before her death she said: "In everything I am
+now, what I have been all my life, wholly German. I despise those
+Germans who, from choice, speak and write habitually in a foreign
+tongue. Such sycophants are not worth a hair."
+
+More fully than any other woman of her day, Elizabeth of Orleans
+represents the nobler side of German womanhood in a period of national
+debasement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WOMAN HELD IN TIGHTENING BONDS
+
+
+Vice was the keynote of the first half of the eighteenth century in
+Europe. The moral miasma rising from that sink of iniquity, the late
+court of Louis XIV., and, infinitely more, that of Louis XV., enveloped
+Germany. Every little German court imagined itself a Versailles. Each
+German princeling esteemed himself a "Sun god." Mistresses were
+considered as necessary furnishings to every palace as tables or chairs.
+Augustus the Strong, of Saxony, is said to have been the father of three
+hundred and fifty-four illegitimate children. Vice spread through all
+ranks, often blighting the innocent no less than the guilty woman.
+Everywhere woman was man's toy. Faded, broken, ruined, she might be cast
+aside at his caprice. Without semblance of law, he might hold her
+captive, as in the case of the beautiful Baroness Cosel, a discarded
+mistress of Frederick Augustus of Saxony, who was kept in prison for
+fifty years by his majesty's command. Later, as we shall see, the wife
+of Prince George Louis of Hanover afterward George I. of England
+suffered a similar fate.
+
+War continued. There were no long intervals of peace. Drunkenness, if
+possible, increased; certainly it did not decrease. Obscene practical
+jokes were constantly played. Ordinary conversation was interlarded with
+indecent words and the most vulgar phrases. Society was rotten to the
+core.
+
+In a dumb, sub-conscious sort of way, the coarse eighteenth century felt
+that its balance wheel was badly out of gear, and it attempted, though
+futilely, to remedy the lawlessness born of vice and war by hedging in
+each class, almost each individual, of the social order by a thousand
+petty ceremonials. The eighteenth century was the age of etiquette. Rank
+was cringingly worshipped. Titles became of paramount importance in the
+eyes of the middle classes. Borne satirizes this title worship:
+
+"I divide the Germans into two classes those who are Aulic Councillors,
+and those who would be so if they could. Were I a German prince, it
+would be quite otherwise. I would make all my subjects happy. I would
+make them all Aulic Councillors, without discrimination of rank, title,
+property, family, sex, or age. Then we should read in the Frankfort
+Weekly Advertiser, 'On the 13th inst. died Mr. Aulic Councillor
+Schinderhannis, after a few struggles, by hanging, in the thirty-sixth
+year of his active life. How powerfully this would inflame our
+patriotism.'" Women received the full benefit of their husband's titles.
+Borne says:
+
+"At a dinner we sat in this order. Myself, Mrs. Upper Criminal
+Councilloress, Mr. Finance Councillor, Mrs. Upper Paymistress, Mr.
+Court-theatre Director, Mrs. Privy-Legations Councilloress, Mr. State
+Councillor, Mrs. Salt-mines Inspectoress. I was placed, happily, between
+two lovely women. Mrs. Upper Criminal Councilloress was one of the
+mildest, sweetest creatures in the world and Mrs. Tax-Gatheress was very
+captivating. I fell in love with them both. As for my host and hostess,
+I could hardly look at them without bursting into tears when I
+recollected that two such amiable persons were the only individuals
+present without titles."
+
+In the general corruption of early eighteenth century society the single
+resource for a woman of fine feeling was to turn to God. Small wonder
+that, when Mysticism revived under the name of Quietism, it found
+thousands of followers among German women. During that shameful, or,
+rather, shameless, half century it would seem that the only pure men,
+the only happy families, left in Germany must be sought for in the ranks
+of the despised Quietists. Certainly, from no other class did woman, as
+woman, receive the slightest consideration or respect. Of the Quietists'
+attitude toward women, Freytag says:
+
+"For the first time since the ancient days of Germany, with the
+exception of a short period of chivalrous devotion to the female sex,
+were German women elevated above the mere circle of family and household
+duties. For the first time did they take an active share, as members of
+a great society, in the highest interests of humankind. Gladly was it
+acknowledged by the theologians of the Pietists that there were more
+women than men in their congregations, and how anxiously and zealously
+they performed all the devotional exercises, like the women who remained
+by the cross when all the apostles had fled. Their inward life, their
+striving after the love of Christ and light from above, were watched
+with hearty sympathy, and they found trusty advisers and loving friends
+among refined and honorable men. The new conception of faith, which laid
+less stress on book-learning than on a pure heart, worked on women like
+a charm."
+
+Jacob Spener was the great apostle of Quietism in Germany. He introduced
+and practised a refined mysticism that won him hosts of followers among
+women. Personal holiness was the constant theme of Spener's teaching.
+
+Just as the marvellous subjective songs of Keats and Shelly were born of
+emotional Methodism in England, so, also, lyric poetry in Germany sprang
+from Quietism. The soul struggles of individual seekers after God
+ripened into a rich literary harvest by which the world will long
+continue to be nourished.
+
+Two autobiographies of Quietists, by Johann Peterssen and his wife
+Johanna (born Von Merlau), are of extreme interest.
+
+As in the case of all children in that militant age, Johanna's earliest
+recollections are of war. One day her mother was alone in the house
+except for her three little children a girl of seven, a babe, and
+Johanna, aged four. Suddenly a regiment was heard marching down the
+road. The mother knew, only too well, what horror that might mean for
+herself and her little girls. Very hastily she knelt and prayed that
+they might be saved. Then she led her little ones to a tall field of
+corn near the house, bidding them lie down between the rows and to keep
+quite still. Suckling the babe, she, too, lay down in the corn. They
+were not discovered. When the last military straggler had passed, mother
+and children hurried to the nearest town for safety. As soon as they
+were well within the gates, Frau Merlau bade the children kneel down and
+thank God for their deliverance. The oldest girl objected to the delay.
+She wanted her supper. "What is the use of praying now?" she asked. "We
+are safe here." At that moment Johanna's religious experience began. She
+writes: "Then was I grieved to the heart at this ungrateful speech of my
+sister, that she would not thank God. I rebuked her for it."
+
+From that day the little maid thought and dreamed almost wholly of
+spiritual mysteries. Soon after, believing that the midwife brought
+babies from heaven, she sent by that functionary a greeting to Jesus. At
+the age of nine Johanna lost her good mother. Her father, a stern,
+saturnine man, hired a housekeeper, a captain's wife.
+
+"But she was an unchristian woman and did not forget her soldier
+tricks," writes Johanna. For once when she saw some strange turkeys on
+the road she seized the best of them. To cook this stolen roast the
+housekeeper sent Johanna up into a high tower to throw down some loose
+dry boards. The child fell and lay stunned for a long time. When she
+regained consciousness and returned to the house she was well scolded
+for her clumsiness. Johanna refused to go to the table. "I sat apart,"
+she writes, "because I would not eat any of the stolen fowl. It appeared
+to me truly disgraceful, though I was too timid to say so." It makes a
+pathetic little picture this baby's martyrdom for conscience' sake.
+
+At the age of twelve, soon after her confirmation, Johanna was sent as
+maid of waiting to the court of the Countess of Solms Roedelheim. The
+countess was partially insane. "She imagined I was a little dog and
+often beat me," Johanna writes. "Whenever we rode over the flooded
+meadows, she would push me out of the carriage, bidding me swim." Prayer
+was the lonely, unhappy child's only solace. The countess grew so
+violent that, at last, Johanna was transferred to the court of the
+Duchess of Holstein. She accompanied the stepdaughter of the duchess on
+her bridal journey to Austria, and, in spite of her ever nagging
+conscience, had an agreeable time.
+
+"The drums and trumpets sounded beautiful on the water," says she; "only
+I could not help being worried to think I was going to a popish country.
+Whenever we stopped at an inn I sought a solitary place, fell on my
+knees and prayed God to prevent my good fortune from working injury to
+my salvation."
+
+The Duchess of Holstein loved Johanna like a daughter. Johanna laments
+her own fancied worldliness in girlhood: "I practised myself in all
+kinds of accomplishments, so that I excelled in these vanities. They
+were dear and pleasing to me. I had also a real liking for splendid
+dress because it became me well. People considered me Godly because I
+liked to read and pray and went to church and could always give a good
+account of the sermon. I even knew what had been preached upon the same
+text the preceding year. I was looked upon as a Godly maiden, but I was
+not really a true follower of Christ."
+
+Nevertheless, Johanna was not worldly enough to suit the bridegroom a
+gay young lieutenant-colonel to whom her friends had affianced her. He
+broke the engagement because he complained, "though pretty and
+well-born, she is altogether too pious."
+
+Johanna was glad to be free. She writes: "I always felt that among the
+nobility there were many evil habits that were quite contrary to
+Christ's teaching lust, drinking, and many idle words for which an
+account must be given to God."
+
+Upon a journey by a slow boat to the baths at Emser, a great thing
+happened in Johanna's life. Among the passengers, she noticed a studious
+looking man with a pleasant voice and refined manners. She writes:
+
+"By God's special providence, he seated himself by me, and we fell into
+a spiritual discourse which lasted some hours, so that the four miles
+from Frankfort to Mainz seemed to me only a quarter of an hour's
+journey. We talked without ceasing, and it seemed just as if he read my
+heart. Then I gave vent to all concerning which I had hitherto lived in
+doubt. Indeed, I found in this new friend what I had despaired of ever
+finding in any man in the world. Long had I looked around me to discover
+whether there really were in the world any true doers of God's word, and
+it had been a great stumbling block to me that I had found none. But
+when I perceived in this stranger such great penetration that he could
+see into the very recesses of my heart, also such humility, gentleness,
+holy love and earnestness to point the way of truth, I felt that I
+desired, above all things, to give myself wholly up to God." The man
+whom Johanna met on the boat was Jacob Spener. Johanna's conversion was
+complete. She withdrew from court gayeties, dressed simply, lived
+plainly. At first she was remonstrated with, then ridiculed
+unmercifully, and, finally, let alone.
+
+Johanna's marriage with Johann Peterssen was most happy. Together they
+worked for God and for what they believed to be his cause Quietism.
+Persecution, poverty, sorrows were theirs. But these crosses, though
+hard to bear, they believed to be God's revelation of Himself. An
+apocalyptic vision, too, they declared, had been vouchsafed them.
+Sustained by the unseen bread of faith, they lived to a great age, true
+to one another, to their fellowmen, and to God.
+
+Very different is our next picture, taken from the court of Hanover.
+From the moment of her arrival, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia and
+Princess of the Palatinate, had felt herself at home in Germany. But her
+youngest daughter, though born in Germany, was never at home there.
+Sophie, Electress of Hanover, was thoroughly English. Mistress of five
+languages, she loved only English, and, from choice, would have spoken
+that alone. She knew more English history than the English ambassadors
+accredited to her husband's court. To gain, through her remote claim,
+the English throne either for herself or her descendants, Sophie of
+Hanover all her life saved, and gathered, and schemed, and relentlessly
+crushed human obstacles. At the age of eighty, her old eyes gleaming,
+she said: "I could sink into the grave perfectly happy if I knew that
+the words 'Queen of Great Britain and Ireland' would be inscribed upon
+my tombstone." She died within sight of the promised land, only a few
+weeks before Anne Stuart.
+
+An intellectual woman, an energetic woman, a virtuous woman, using the
+word "virtue" in its narrower sense of chastity, a wonderfully able
+woman, was Sophie of Hanover. An amiable woman, a lovable woman, a
+generous woman, except occasionally for policy's sake, she most
+certainly was not. But the hardness of her life should in some measure
+extenuate the hardness of her heart.
+
+Sophie possessed a keen analytical intellect that saw, without the
+slightest tinge of emotion, clear down to the bottom of things. She
+passed an almost loveless childhood in a royal nursery far away from her
+mother, whom she never understood or cared for, and a sunless girlhood
+as governess in the household of her brother Carl Ludwig, to whom the
+Rhine Palatinate had been finally restored. Prince Carl and his wife
+lived a cat and dog life. Disgraceful scenes were continually occurring
+between them, sometimes even at the court table. The only member of the
+Palatine household in the least congenial to Sophie was her quick-witted
+niece Elizabeth Charlotte, afterward Duchess of Orleans.
+
+Even bridal joys unalloyed were not to be poor, plain Sophie's. Duke
+George William of Hanover, to whom she had been affianced, refused her
+after seeing her, and, as if she were no more than a horse, foisted her
+upon his younger brother Ernest Augustus, at that time Bishop of
+Osnabrueck, but later, through Sophie's clever scheming, Electoral
+Prince of Hanover.
+
+Delving into the records of the court of Hanover, during the reign of
+Ernest Augustus and Sophie, is like working in a sewer; the worker is
+sickened by filth. A part of the time the electress escaped from the
+court's noxious atmosphere into the purer, higher, colder regions of
+philosophy. There was no courtier's flattery in the praise Leibnitz gave
+to Princess Sophie's intellectual ability.
+
+But Sophie of Hanover by no means dwelt continuously on Alma's heights.
+Much of the time she was down among the sewer filth, contemptuous of it
+always, but using it, for lack of more durable material, as a temporary
+foundation for the steps which she meant should lead her and hers up to
+the English throne. If Sophie of Hanover had been a different kind of
+person, a gentle, timid, pious woman, or a gay, pleasure-loving,
+lust-responding woman, the two characteristic types of her age, Edward
+VII. would not be ruling in Great Britain to-day. Neither, for that
+matter, would the present German emperor, descended from the electress's
+daughter, the gifted Sophie Charlotte, be seated upon the throne of the
+Hohenzollerns.
+
+The attitude of the Electress of Hanover to her unhappy daughter-in-law
+Sophie Dorothea was unfortunate for both women. Poor little Sophie
+Dorothea! In passing judgment upon her, the historians all seem to
+forget her extreme youth at the time of her marriage. Of this petted,
+spoiled, beautiful child of sixteen, even Thackeray says: "She was a bad
+wife;" and he sneers at her even while he is relating facts that should
+go far to justify her in any missteps she may have made in trying to
+escape from a boorish husband whom she found odiously cruel and selfish.
+The girl lived in hell; and she sought, through passionate,
+disinterested love, to gain what to her seemed heaven.
+
+Sophie Dorothea was half French. Her mother, Eleanor d'Olbreuze, one of
+the very few pure women connected with the court of Hanover in the
+eighteenth century, was a Frenchwoman of good family. Eleanor d'Olbreuze
+was legally married to Duke George William of Celle, elder brother of
+Ernest Augustus of Hanover, although the Electress Sophie did all in her
+power to prevent the marriage of her former fiance with the beautiful
+Frenchwoman. Sophie Dorothea was a brunette of the most perfect type,
+with vivid color and a charming rosebud mouth. Her neck, bust, and arms
+were beautiful. By nature she was happy, lively, witty, and
+affectionate.
+
+On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Sophie Dorothea awoke in her
+pretty yellow and white chamber with the pleasant consciousness of a
+happy day before her. Her betrothal to a neighboring young noble of the
+house of Wolfenbuttel was to be celebrated. The girl was not wildly in
+love with the youth accepted by her parents. But she was satisfied. She
+had known him all her life, and she liked him well enough, in
+neighborly, frank, girlish fashion.
+
+It was somewhat late, for Sophie Dorothea was rather an indolent little
+princess. As she lay there dreaming, with her beautiful dark eyes wide
+open, her mother, pale and agitated, entered the chamber. The Duchess of
+Celle hurriedly informed her daughter that there had been a complete
+change of plans. Early that morning, after travelling all night in her
+haste, the Electress Sophie had arrived at the castle. It was the wish
+of the reigning house, the electress said, that Sophie Dorothea should
+marry her cousin, George Louis of Hanover, son of the Elector Ernest
+Augustus and his wife, Sophie. The proposed marriage with the Prince of
+Wolfenbuttel had therefore been hurriedly abandoned.
+
+Now Sophie Dorothea knew her cousin George well. She hated and despised
+him. Fastidious to a degree, she called her cousin a lout, and declared
+amid a storm of tears and sobs that she would never marry him. Duke
+George William was called in to persuade or command his daughter. He
+came, bringing with him as a gift from the Duchess of Hanover a picture
+of George Louis set in diamonds. Sophie Dorothea did not receive this
+love token prettily. She threw it against the opposite wall with such
+force that the miniature was hopelessly smashed, and the precious stones
+were scattered on the floor.
+
+But Sophie of Hanover gained her point, as she did always. The marriage
+was consummated, and the immense fortune of Sophie Dorothea was tightly
+secured to the reigning electoral house of Hanover. Sophie of Hanover
+never made a pecuniary mistake. In the present instance the wily
+electress figured so closely that little Sophie Dorothea was practically
+left without a penny.
+
+The pretty, lively young bride found the court life of Hanover, with its
+interminable rules of etiquette, stupid and tiresome. Of her bridegroom
+even his mother said:
+
+"Sophie Dorothea will find her match in him. A more obstinate, pigheaded
+boy than my son George never lived. If he has any brains at all they are
+surrounded by such a thick crust that nobody has ever been able to
+discover what is in them." He did not want to marry this girl, but was
+tempted by her ten thousand pounds a year.
+
+Two children, a boy and a girl, were born to George Louis and Sophie
+Dorothea. The electress superintended the babies and interfered at every
+turn to thwart her daughter-in-law's wishes concerning them. The prince
+was harsh, cold, and sullen toward his young wife. The elector was
+always kind, but Sophie Dorothea found his conversation wearisome and
+his gallantry distasteful.
+
+The beautiful little princess was very homesick. Nobody cared. She was
+unutterably lonely. Nobody cared. She was very dull. Nobody tried to
+entertain her. Then Koenigsmark came. Koenigsmark, the dashing,
+Koenigsmark, the handsome, with whom she had played in childhood when he
+was a page in her father's palace. Koenigsmark cared. Koenigsmark loved
+her. In some respects, Koenigsmark may have been the villain some
+historians have painted him, but he was genuinely in love with his old
+playmate, now the neglected, unhappy wife of Prince George Louis of
+Hanover.
+
+Into this, her first real love experience, Sophie Dorothea threw
+herself, body and soul. She writes to Koenigsmark:
+
+"I belong so truly to you that death alone can part us. No one ever
+loved so strongly as I love you. Why am I so far from you? What joy to
+be with you, to prove by my caresses how I love and worship you! If my
+blood were needed to ransom you from danger I would give it gladly. I
+cannot exist without seeing you. I lead a lingering life. I think of our
+joy when we were together and then of my weariness to-day. Ah, my
+darling, why am I not with you in battle? I would gladly die by your
+side. Once more, good-bye. I belong to you a thousand times more than to
+myself." The woman who wrote these passionate words was a mother. In
+name, at least, though less well treated than her husband's mistresses,
+she was a wife. But she was also a starving woman, hungering and
+thirsting for expressed affection.
+
+Koenigsmark and Sophie Dorothea planned an elopement. Discovery
+followed. Koenigsmark was secretly murdered by agents of old Countess
+Platen, one of the Elector Augustus's mistresses. Sophie Dorothea was
+consigned to the dreary castle of Ahlden a prisoner for life, and there
+she lived almost half a century. There, while her husband sat on the
+English throne, she ate her heart out, slowly. Her son grew up and
+became, after her death, George II. of England. Her daughter married the
+Crown Prince of Prussia and became the mother of Frederick the Great and
+of Wilhelmine, Princess of Baireuth.
+
+Sophie Dorothea was constantly making plans to escape. But all such
+plans proved futile, for she was surrounded by spies. Her one true
+friend through life, her mother, died. Soon after, an official in whom
+she had placed implicit confidence betrayed her almost accomplished plan
+to escape and live quietly in a distant country. This last blow
+shattered her mind. She wrote one last, madly cursing letter to King
+George challenging him to meet her before a twelvemonth and a day at the
+judgment bar of God. A few days later she died of brain fever. A
+soothsayer had once told King George that he would not outlive his
+divorced wife a year. Therefore, the superstitious king did his utmost
+to keep the captive in good health. Physicians were ordered to visit her
+frequently, and she was permitted daily exercise, both riding and
+walking, in the open air.
+
+Soon after Sophie Dorothea's death, King George's health began to fail.
+He started for his beloved Hanover. Just outside Osnabriick a folded
+paper was thrown into the royal carriage. It was Sophie Dorothea's last
+maledictory letter. After reading it the king fell down in a fit from
+the effects of which he died.
+
+As every human emotion of love in princely marriage was crushed out by
+reasons of state policy, so religion was subjected entirely to
+expediency. When the Electress of Hanover was asked concerning her
+daughter, Sophie Charlotte: "Of what religion is the princess?" she
+replied: "The princess is of no religion, as yet. We are waiting to see
+what faith the man whom she marries may prefer her to profess." When it
+was decided that the Prince of Brandenburg should marry her it was found
+by the politicians that the princess "of no religion at all" suited him
+exactly. Sophie Charlotte remained true to her early training, or rather
+to her lack of training. She was a vigorous freethinker to the end of
+her days. She was much more worthy the name of philosopher than her
+mother. "She insists, always," wrote Leibnitz, her lifelong friend and
+admirer, "in knowing the Why of the Why." At Berlin, Sophie Charlotte
+held a genuinely intellectual court. She gathered around her the
+foremost scholars of the day. Where scholarship was concerned, the first
+Queen of Prussia ignored race, creed, and even social station. She
+cordially welcomed to the circle of her friendship any man or woman with
+brains. The queen had inherited the grace and tact of her grandmother,
+Elizabeth Stuart. She was immensely popular. Sophie Charlotte possessed
+an ever ready sense of humor. She dearly loved to set an infidel and a
+court chaplain arguing against each other. She delighted in doing things
+incongruous to the occasion. At her husband's magnificent coronation,
+during the most solemn and impressive moment, she calmly took a pinch of
+snuff, thereby drawing down on her careless head the displeasure of her
+royal consort. Up to the hour of her death, Sophie Charlotte jested.
+When dying she is said to have declined religious consolation on the
+very true ground that she knew exactly what the parson would say, and it
+was, therefore, not worth while to trouble him. "My funeral will give
+the king a grand opportunity to enjoy a magnificent display," she
+whispered. It did. Splendor-loving Frederick buried his wife with the
+utmost pomp.
+
+Sophie Charlotte left a son, afterward Frederick William I. of Prussia,
+who married unfortunate Sophie Dorothea's daughter, also named, for her
+mother; Sophie Dorothea. The world knows well through Carlyle and, also,
+though one-sidedly, through the memoirs of Wilhelmine, sister of
+Frederick the Great, the story of this union.
+
+This second Sophie Dorothea was not a happy woman. The fate of her
+imprisoned mother weighed heavily upon her. Secretly, she corresponded
+with her mother, and did her best to set her free. Again, as in the case
+of the Electress of Hanover, England furnished the life ambition of a
+German princess. Sophie Dorothea ardently wished to effect a double
+marriage between her two children, Frederick and Wilhelmine, and the son
+and daughter of George II., then crown prince of England. Disappointment
+at the failure of this project, embittered and shortened her life.
+
+The tall grenadiers, the royal cane and the parsimony of Frederick
+William and their effect upon his thoroughly subjugated family are
+well-known. The intense brotherly and sisterly love that existed between
+Frederick and Wilhelmine was cemented, verily, by a bond of affliction.
+Hunger and blows were often the portion of these sensitive royal
+children. Wilhelmine writes of their "summer vacation":
+
+"We had a most sad life then. We were awakened at seven every morning by
+the King's regiment, which exercised in front of the windows of our
+rooms on the ground floor. The firing went on incessantly, piff, puff,
+and lasted the whole morning. At ten we went to see our mother and
+accompanied her into the room next the King's, where we sat and sighed
+all the forenoon. Then came dinner time. The dinner consisted of six
+small, badly cooked dishes, which had to suffice for twenty-four
+persons, so that some had to be satisfied with the mere smell. At table
+nothing else was talked of but economy and soldiers. The Queen and
+ourselves, too unworthy to open our mouths, listened in humble silence
+to the oracles which were pronounced. After dinner the King slept in his
+armchair for two hours, and we had to keep as still as mice until he
+awoke. Then we read with the Queen. When, at last, the King went to his
+tobacco parliament we were free for a little while."
+
+That Frederick and his sister grew up, under this repressive system,
+into nothing worse than a pair of neurasthenics seems almost a miracle.
+
+During the eighteenth century there were two distinct types of
+history-making men in Germany the Frenchified-German, fond of pageants
+and rich raiment, and the rugged, harsh, yet true-hearted, fighting men
+of the Dessauer stamp.
+
+The Prince of Anhalt-Dessau was the field-marshal of Frederick William
+I. To Dessau the science of warfare owes an enormous debt. When a young
+man, this impetuous prince fell in love with the daughter of an
+apothecary named Fos. In spite of all obstacles of birth and wealth, he
+determined to marry the girl of his choice; and because he was, says
+Carlyle, "perhaps the biggest mass of inarticulate human vitality",
+certainly, one of the biggest then going about in the world, marry her
+he did. In spite of Dessauer's being, to quote Carlyle again, "a very
+whirlwind of a man," the marriage was most happy.
+
+During the first half of the eighteenth century French practically
+superseded German as the language of polite society. The virile German
+language largely owes its rehabilitation to a woman, Luise Gottsched,
+wife of Johann Christopher Gottsched, the famous scholar. As usual, fame
+has been unjust: the husband has received all the credit, while the wife
+did all, or nearly all, of the work. Luise Gottsched was one of the
+brightest women of the eighteenth century. She wrote, exceedingly well.
+But after her husband began his Dictionary of the German Language and
+his Model Grammar, Luise was obliged to do what a clever woman whose
+husband writes a dictionary is always obliged to do, drop all her own
+literary work to assist him. Morning, noon, and night, year in and year
+out, Luise Gottsched toiled at this verbal drudgery; and when she was
+sick, worn out at the age of forty-seven, her husband whined, publicly,
+because she did not always "answer pleasantly" when he called her from
+her invalid's couch to copy his interminable manuscripts. She died at
+the age of fifty-nine. One happy time, though, Luise Gottsched had
+before she died. She saw Maria Theresa at Vienna. If the following
+extracts seem somewhat servile, it must be remembered that the letter
+was written in an age in which royalty worship was a part of life. In
+fact, Luise Gottsched's delighted description is mainly valuable as a
+true reflection of the popular feeling about royalty in the eighteenth
+century. The glimpse it gives of that noble woman, Maria Theresa
+(1740-1780), is also interesting. The good empress's simple, friendly
+reception of the husband and wife, her divination of what this visit to
+Vienna meant in their narrow lives, her kindly desire that they should
+see all there was to see of interest these things are charmingly
+illuminative. They make one understand the enthusiastic shout of her
+Hungarian subjects: "We will die for our King, Maria Theresa." This is
+what Luise Gottsched wrote:
+
+"To Fraulein Thomasius, of Troschenreuth and Widersberg, at Nürnberg.
+
+"VIENNA, September 28, 1749.
+
+"MY ANGEL:
+
+"First, embrace me. I believe all good things should be shared with
+one's friends. Hence must I tell you that never, in all my life, have I
+had such cause to be joyfully proud as on this day. You will guess at
+once, I know, that I have seen the Empress. Yes, I have seen her, the
+greatest among women. She who, in herself, is higher than her throne. I
+have not only seen her, but I have spoken with her. Not merely seen her,
+but talked with her three quarters of an hour in her family circle.
+Forgive me if this letter is chaotic and my handwriting uneven. Both
+faults spring from the overwhelming joy I feel in the two delights of
+this day the privilege of meeting the Empress and the pleasure of
+telling your Highness of the honor.
+
+"This morning at ten we went to the palace. We took our places where
+Baron Esterhazy, who procured us admission, told us to stand. He
+supposed, as we did, that we, with the hundreds of others who were
+waiting, might be permitted to see her Majesty as she passed through the
+apartment on her way to the Royal chapel. After half an hour we had the
+happiness of seeing the three Princesses go by. They asked the
+Court-mistress who we were. Then, on being told our names, they turned
+and extended their hands for us to kiss. The eldest Princess is about
+ten years old. As I kissed her hand, she paid me a compliment. She said
+she had often heard me highly spoken of. I was pleased, of course, and
+very grateful for her remarkable condescension. Forgive me if this
+sounds proud. Worse is to follow. I cannot tell of the incredible favor
+of these exalted personages without seeming to be vain. But you well
+know that I am not vain.
+
+"About eleven o'clock, a man-servant, dressed in gorgeous livery, came
+and told us to follow him. He led us through a great many frescoed
+corridors and splendid rooms into a small apartment which was made even
+smaller by a Spanish screen placed across it. We were told to wait
+there. In a few moments, the Mistress of Ceremonies came. She was very
+gracious to us. In a little while, her Majesty entered followed by the
+three Princesses. My husband and myself each sank upon the left knee and
+kissed the noblest, the most beautiful hand that has ever wielded a
+sceptre. The Empress gently bade us rise. Her face and her gracious
+manner banished all the timidity and embarrassment we naturally felt in
+the presence of so exalted and beautiful a figure as hers. Our fear was
+changed to love and confidence. Her Majesty told my husband that she was
+afraid to speak German before the Master of that language. 'Our Austrian
+dialect is very bad, they say' she added.
+
+"To which my man answered that, fourteen years before, when he listened
+to her address at the opening of the Landtag, he had been struck by the
+beauty and purity of her German. She spoke, on that occasion, he said,
+like a goddess.
+
+"Then the Empress laughed merrily, saying, ''Tis lucky I was not aware
+of your presence or I should have been so frightened that I should have
+stopped short in my speech.' She asked me how it happened that I became
+so learned a woman. I replied, 'I wished to become worthy of the honor
+that has this day befallen me in meeting your Majesty. This will forever
+be a red-letter day in my life.'
+
+"Her Majesty said, 'You are too modest. I well know that the most
+learned woman in Germany stands before me.' My answer to that was,
+'According to my opinion, the most learned woman, not of Germany only,
+but of all Europe, stands before me as Empress.'
+
+"Her Majesty shook her head. 'Ah, no,' she said, 'my familiar
+acquaintance with that woman forces me to say you are mistaken.'"
+
+Maria Theresa's husband joined the group and chatted most affably. Some
+of the younger children were called in and properly reverenced. Then the
+empress asked the visitors if they would like to see her remaining
+babies, upstairs. Of course, the Gottscheds were enchanted at the
+thought. Following the mistress of ceremonies, they went upstairs "to
+the three little angels there," whom they found in the not exactly
+celestial act of "eating their breakfast under the care of the Countess
+Sarrau."
+
+After kissing "the little, highborn hands," the happy visitors were
+conducted through the private rooms of the palace, "an honor," Frau
+Gottsched writes, ecstatically, "not vouchsafed to one stranger out of a
+thousand." Not the least pleasant part of the whole visit naturally was
+the return to the waiting room, now full, where all "congratulated them
+upon the unusual honor shown them."
+
+Luise begs her friend, a bit insincerely perhaps, to "burn this letter
+and tell no one of its contents lest people may accuse us, hereafter, of
+being proud."
+
+In the eighteenth century the peasants of Germany were fairly well off.
+Some of the most cruel political disabilities of the peasant class had
+been removed. Agriculture, in consequence, had made great strides. In
+the towns the condition of the workingwomen was about the same as in the
+seventeenth century. To escape man's lust was still the main problem of
+any virtuous working girl who was unfortunate enough to possess a pretty
+face.
+
+The chief diversion of rich and poor, alike, was the theatre. Acting was
+the first profession, except teaching, opened to German women. Dramatic
+art in Germany, when about to expire from sheer vulgarity, was saved by
+a woman. She died a martyr to the cause of purity in art.
+
+Frederica Caroline Weissenborn was born in Reichenbach. Her father, a
+physician, was a man of Calvinistic sternness. Caroline had a lover,
+Johann Neuber, an actor. Her father, learning of his daughter's
+infatuation, determined to "whip it out of her." In those days all
+fathers whipped their grown-up daughters, and their wives too, if they
+felt like it. But Caroline did not propose to be whipped. She jumped
+from a two-story window and, with no bones broken, landed in a hedge.
+Young Neuber, the actor, seems to have been strolling near the hedge
+that day, for he appeared promptly upon the scene and took Caroline to a
+neighboring town, where they were speedily married. Fate led the couple
+to Leipzig. Both Neuber and his wife played there. They became friends
+with the Gottscheds. Gottsched was deeply interested in the restoration
+of the German drama. Caroline Neuber was the one woman in the world to
+carry out, to improve and broaden, the pedant's plans. Upon Luise
+Gottsched, of course, fell the immense labor of translation and
+arrangement. The three worked enthusiastically. Neuber kept the accounts
+and did the marketing.
+
+But the heart and soul of the new movement to improve the German stage
+was Caroline Neuber, keen-sighted, energetic, sympathetic. Caroline
+Neuber organized a theatrical troupe upon moral lines hitherto unknown
+in the history of the stage. All unmarried actresses of the troupe lived
+with her. She watched their conduct closely and insisted upon decorum.
+The unmarried actors of the company were obliged to dine at her table.
+No tavern temptations were to be put in their way. Madame Neuber began
+by presenting only classic tragedies, but public demand forced her to
+alternate tragedy with farce. From Hamburg she wrote: "Our tragedies and
+comedies are fairly well attended. The trouble we have taken to improve
+taste has not been thrown away. I find here various converted hearts.
+Persons whom I have least expected to do so have become lovers of
+poetry, and there are many who appreciate our orderly, artistic plays."
+
+Of Caroline Neuber, Lessing says: "One must be very prejudiced not to
+allow to this famous actress a thorough knowledge of her art. She had
+masculine penetration, and in one point only did she betray her sex. She
+delighted in stage trifles. All plays of her arrangement are full of
+disguises and pageants, wondrous and glittering. But, after all, Neuber
+may have known the hearts of the Leipzig burghers, and put these
+settings in to please them, as flies are caught with treacle."
+
+For a while, Madame Neuber scored a brilliant success in Saxony. Then
+the public, following a corrupt court, grew tired of classical poetry
+and virtue on the stage, and clamored for its old diet of buffoonery and
+immorality. Neuber refused to lower the standard of her plays. In 1733
+her contract with the court theatre expired, and the king refused to
+renew it. He placed a Merry Andrew at the head of the court theatre. In
+Hamburg and Saint Petersburg, Madame Neuber received similar treatment.
+But this true artist would not give up her fight for a pure stage. She
+wrote:
+
+"We could earn a great deal of money if we would play only the
+tasteless, the obscene, the cheap blood-curdling or the silly,
+fashionable plays. But we have undertaken what is good. We will not
+forsake the path as long as we have a penny. Good must continue good."
+
+Caroline Neuber and her husband were growing old. They were bitterly
+poor. They played subordinate, but never immoral, parts now in any
+troupe that would take them. They had broken with Gottsched, whose wife
+was dead. One good friend, Dr. Loeber, remained, however. Dr. Loeber
+gave the old couple a room, rent free, in Dresden. In the war of 1756,
+Prussian soldiers, quartered in Dresden, slept in the same room with the
+Neubers. But the soldiers treated the aged actress with the greatest
+respect. Not an indecent word was ever uttered by them in her presence.
+Not a pipe was ever laid upon her poor little writing table. When her
+husband died in that over-crowded attic, Prussian soldiers bore him,
+tenderly and reverently, to his grave.
+
+In 1760 the city was bombarded. A shell crashed through the roof of the
+room where old Madame Neuber lay ill. Dr. Loeber carried her for safety
+to a suburban village. But the owner of the house to which she was
+taken, when he found out who she was, refused to let an actress die
+under his roof; so she was moved again, this time to a room in a cottage
+nearby. From her bed she could see the vine-covered slopes of Pillnitz.
+Dying, she folded her withered hands, and murmured: "I will lift up mine
+eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help."
+
+Her final exit from the troubled stage of earth was accomplished with
+difficulty. The village pastor, determined that no actress should be
+buried in the consecrated ground over which he held sway, locked the
+churchyard gates and refused to yield up the key. Madame Neuber's coffin
+was therefore hoisted over the wall and lowered into the grave by two or
+three old friends. No prayer was spoken; no hymn was sung. But Caroline
+Neuber's influence for good lives. She performed two great services: she
+purified the German drama, and she introduced Lessing to the world.
+
+In every time and clime, belles have danced and flirted and laughed and
+chatted and been happy. Madame Johanna Schopenhauer, the famous mother
+of her more famous philosopher son, Arthur, has left a pleasing
+description of fashion's whimseys in the eighteenth century:
+
+"We had no thin ball dresses, for the simple reason that thin varieties
+of woven material had not then been invented. And yet we danced in our
+cumbrous company gowns made of heavy silk we were passionately fond of
+dancing. We were courted, admired, nay, even as much admired as our
+granddaughters are now in their cloudlike, treacherously diaphanous
+garments. How it happened, in our hideous disguises, I cannot, at this
+distance of time, pretend to explain. How well I remember my first ball!
+
+"At least an ell was added to my stature by a monstrous tower of hair
+which was built up on a wire and horsehair frame, and which was crowned
+with flowers, feathers, and ribbons. The high heels of my white ball
+slippers, which were adorned with golden ties, contributed to
+counterbalance the disproportion in my little person at the other
+extremity. Though my shoes fell far short of the preposterous height of
+my hair, they raised my heels so far from the ground as to pitch me on
+the tips of my toes. A pair of stays with whalebones close together, of
+a thickness sufficient to turn a musket ball, forced back the arms and
+shoulders and threw the chest forward. Down toward the hips the corset
+was laced so tightly as to make one's figure resemble that of a wasp.
+These stays restricted all freedom of motion. They had only one sensible
+thing about them, and that was a rather stout iron which kept them from
+pressing on the breast.
+
+"And now, the hooped petticoat over which was worn a silk skirt with
+flounces and all kinds of indescribable trimmings up to the knees. Over
+this was worn a robe of the same material, with a long train. In front
+this robe was open, sloping on each side from the waist. The sides of
+the robe were ornamented with the same kind of trimming as adorned the
+skirt. The neck and bosom were considerably exposed. The whole was
+completed with an immense bouquet of artificial flowers. The sleeves
+reached only to the elbows, and were richly trimmed with blond lace and
+ribbons to the shoulders.
+
+"This, however, was the dress of young ladies only. Our mothers were
+splendid in stiff brocades and ruffles of blond or point lace. Long
+sleeves were not worn at all, even for everyday dresses, summer or
+winter. Hardened by habit, we did not suffer more than we do now. Our
+mothers dressed much more richly than we did. They were heavily loaded
+with jewels.
+
+"The fashions were obtained from Paris, but only when they had become
+rather obsolete there. Though disfigured by exaggeration, they were
+eagerly sought after. One exception only was made, in our part of the
+country at least: the French habit of using rouge was not adopted. The
+few ladies who dared be so heterodox as to paint themselves did it with
+fear and trembling and with the greatest secrecy, for they ran the risk
+of being publicly reprimanded from the pulpit. Our Lutheran shepherd was
+very strict with his flock.
+
+"Another fashion, however, found universal favor with our elegant
+ladies. A fashion so senseless that I should, certainly, have doubted
+its existence if I had not, as a child, often played with my mother's
+mother-of-pearl box of patches. All ladies wore patches, and my mother
+always kept her box handy, its lid being provided with a small
+looking-glass, so that if a patch fell off she might at once replace it
+with another. These little ornaments, made of English court-plaster,
+were cut in the shape of full, half and crescent moons, stars, hearts,
+etc., and were stuck on the face with much forethought and ingenuity to
+heighten the charms of the wearer, and to add a graceful expression to
+the countenance. A row of tiny moons, gradually increasing in size from
+the crescent to the full, at the outer corner of the eye, was supposed
+to make that organ look larger, and to heighten its brightness. A couple
+of small stars at the corner of the mouth was thought to impart an
+enchantingly roguish expression to it. A patch on the cheek was thought
+to bring out a dimple to advantage. There were, besides, patches of
+larger size doves, cupids, suns, and others known by the general name of
+'assassins,' probably because of their killing effect on masculine
+hearts."
+
+In the last analysis, the position of woman in any given period depends
+upon the currently accepted philosophy underlying that period. The
+philosophy of the seventeenth century that of Descartes and Leibnitz
+maybe condensed in one word mechanism. Woman, with her emotional nature,
+her wayward, irregular fancies, her insistence upon personal love
+instead of rigid law, her lack of logic, and her perplexing, often
+keenly puncturing intuitions, had no place in the well-arranged system
+of Descartes and Leibnitz. It was even questioned, satirically in
+France, but seriously in Germany, whether or not woman was a human
+being. If not, said the learned divines who argued the question in their
+pulpits, she could not be eligible to salvation. The conclusion, not
+unanimous, however, finally reached was that women ought to be looked
+upon as human beings, lower, of course, than man, but a grade or two
+higher than the beasts of the field.
+
+Of seventeenth century philosophers, Spinoza, "the God-intoxicated man,"
+alone met any of the conscious higher needs of woman. Hence, women, by
+thousands, accepted the philosophy of Spinoza under the name of
+Quietism.
+
+Seventeenth century philosophy made woman nothing. Eighteenth century
+philosophy, springing from the English utilitarians, Hobbes, Locke, and
+Hume, made woman a mere adjunct, a tool of man. Above all things else,
+an Englishman loves his home. A good wife makes a man more comfortable
+in his home than a bad one. "Therefore," said eighteenth century
+philosophy, "'tis the part of worldly prudence to train women toward
+virtue." This thought is the substance of Locke's Treatise on Education,
+so far as it concerns women. "A husband of high social standing may be
+the reward of persistent virtue," added Samuel Richardson, the man
+through whom Locke's philosophy became potent over women of all ranks in
+all civilized countries.
+
+For more than half a century Locke's philosophy, filtered through
+Richardson's novels, colored feminine ideals almost as deeply on the
+continent as in the author's own country. Rousseau was a third link in
+the chain a very strong, a mighty link.
+
+Richardson's first novel was Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. Clarissa
+Harlowe and Sir Charles Grandison soon followed. Each of these books,
+translated into German, passed through many editions. French renderings
+of Richardson's novels also flooded German book stores. This author's
+books struck both new and old chords in the heart of German womanhood.
+They dealt with heroines who moved in the humbler walks of life. Before
+Richardson and Rousseau wrote, the memoirs of highborn dames may be
+searched in vain for a single expression of sisterly feeling toward
+women in a lower rank of society than their own. Compassion and
+almsgiving were not lacking, but the "put yourself in her place" feeling
+seems never previously to have been awakened. Richardson emphasized
+chastity a virtue which the early eighteenth century world most sadly
+lacked. He made the hearthstone once more an altar.
+
+Out of the sentimentalism of the Locke-Richardson-Rousseau school was
+evolved a type of womanhood which, during the second half of the
+eighteenth century, made the world purer and better.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THROUGH STORM AND STRESS TO CLASSICISM AND HUMANISM
+
+
+About the middle of the eighteenth century, after long and weary years
+of unfruitful struggle, disappointment and desolation, there begins
+faintly to glimmer, and then rapidly to shine in broad illumination, a
+stupendous cultural movement the impelling force of which was the
+humanizing thought which sprang from the fertile brains of great
+literary and philosophical thinkers; preeminent among whom were Lessing,
+the greatest critical genius of the German nation, and Kant, Germany's
+greatest philosopher. Enlightenment mental liberation from the shackles
+of tradition and orthodoxy became the watch-word of the time. Through
+the dominating personality of Frederick the Great (1740-1786), even
+despotism was made to feel this influence, the scope of which was still
+further extended, though less successfully, by the reforms of Joseph II.
+(1765-1790), Maria Theresa's son. The message sounded from beyond the
+seas in the American Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution
+spread through the hearts of the nations of Europe, proclaiming the
+gospel of human rights and equality before God and the law. The French
+Revolution was its most direct fruit. In Germany, the liberation of
+thought, of science and art, the emancipation of man and woman alike,
+had to precede political freedom which, in its full development, could
+be evolved only by blood and iron.
+
+It is true, however, that, though the idea of humanism then became the
+ideal of the present, there remained enough of the social and political
+vices and errors of the past to make this epoch perhaps the most complex
+and complicated in German history. Divine thought and
+mystic-sentimental-pseudo-science, the grossest lust and the highest
+idealism, the most abject servility and the most liberal political
+views, cynical scepticism and childlike faith, true patriotism and
+nationalism on the one hand, national treason and anti-national
+cosmopolitanism on the other, meet and conflict at every step.
+
+But whatever were the conditions of the time, woman was the _causa
+movens_, the underlying force of the cultural life of the nation and of
+all its leaders. Women contributed to the progress of the storm and
+stress evolution toward classicism and emancipation; women inspired the
+bloom of literature; women gave Germany a stage and adorned it with
+their genius as actresses; women fostered the arts; women on the throne
+ruled Germany; a German woman, withal the greatest and vilest, Katharine
+the Great, raised Russia to the rank of a world power; women dominated
+the nobility and the courts; women elevated the bourgeoisie to higher
+standards of living and thinking; women strove to emancipate themselves
+and their peasant husbands from servitude.
+
+The movements of the women of the burgher classes were much more
+restricted than are those of the women of to-day. They might not walk
+abroad, or visit theatres, concerts, or public places, without their
+natural male companions; their chambermaids accompanied them even to
+church and to stores. Their natural field of activity, their world, was
+the house. The reading of novels was held in low esteem. Book learning
+was of a rather elementary kind, but there was plenty of good sense and
+home happiness, and sensible rearing of large families. It is a painful
+fact that from Bavaria, a country which was under the fullest sway of
+the Church, quite different testimony comes to us. We may realize,
+however, from the base tone of characteristic sermons, communicated to
+us in Nicolai's works, how low must have been the standard of the clergy
+of that time. The author and traveller Risbeck describes the degradation
+of the burgher classes in Bavaria, "where all vie in drinking and
+immorality, where next to every church stands a tavern and a base house.
+There a priest touches a fair maiden's bosom, which is half-covered with
+a 'scapulier.' There one inquires whether you are of her religion, for
+she will have nothing to do with a heretic. Another discusses during her
+debauch her spiritual sodalities, her pilgrimages and absolutions, etc.,
+etc."
+
+Owing to their gradual enfranchisement by Frederick the Great and Joseph
+II., the peasantry had mightily progressed from the brutal feudal
+oppression. The French Revolution also had some beneficent results for
+the German peasantry. After the terrible downfall of Prussia and Austria
+because of Napoleon's onslaughts, a great step forward was taken through
+the reforms of the statesman Stein, and the Revolution of 1848
+accomplished the rest. Therewith the elevation of the women of the
+peasantry went hand in hand. The many and varied popular festivals of
+the German peasantry, with their peculiar customs and gaieties, reveal
+the fact that there was no lack of those harmless social pleasures which
+are the delight of woman, inasmuch as they give scope to characteristics
+peculiarly feminine. The festivals of singers, riflemen, and gymnasts,
+which were then and are to-day observed in nearly every little German
+town and village, also contributed to the enrichment of the life of the
+lower classes.
+
+The chapter of wealth and poverty, of overwork and enforced idleness,
+belongs but incidentally to our theme, in so far as it affects the life
+and morality of German womanhood. While the record is, on the whole,
+favorable for the time, yet we cannot conceal the fact that with the
+pauperism of certain sections of Germany, due to wars, drought, princely
+maladministration, and unjust taxation, the female vices and crimes
+which are instigated by poverty attained terrible proportions. The great
+romantic authoress Bettina von Arnim has given us painful insight into
+the lives of the poor women in the "family-houses" of Berlin, a sad
+anticipation of our tenement houses. The female youth of the
+God-forsaken proletariat then, as to-day, fell almost irretrievable
+victims to the blasting, soul-consuming vice of prostitution. The
+numberless examples of the brave, courageous, noble self-sacrifice of
+hundreds of thousands of pure women of the poorest classes, who through
+overwork staggered into an early grave, are not statistically reported;
+but the statistics of prostitution of German cities, which are
+conscientiously recorded, reveal a terrible state of affairs, not worse
+than that of other great civilized nations, yet painful enough for the
+historian of culture.
+
+But let us return to the shadow of the thrones of the second half of the
+eighteenth century. Under Maria Theresa's father, Charles VI.
+(1711-1740), the last Habsburger, French morals had been domesticated in
+Vienna. The monarch officially kept a mistress, maitresse en Hire. Lady
+Montague, a distinguished British peeress, reported that "every lady of
+rank in Vienna had two men, one who gave her his name, the other, who
+fulfilled the duties of the husband." These alliances were so general
+that it would have been a grievous offence not to invite the two men
+with the lady to a feast. It is true that with Maria Theresa's ascent to
+the throne a different morality was forced upon the unwilling court
+circles. The empress was virtuous and religious in the extreme, an
+admirable wife and mother, and maintained toward vice an unrelenting
+attitude.
+
+The political greatness of Empress Maria Theresa does not belong to our
+theme. To characterize her, however, in a nutshell, we cannot forgo
+quoting her famous note to Prime Minister Kaunitz, with which she
+accompanied the treaty of the first partition of Poland in 1772: "When
+all my States were assailed and I did not know where to bear my child, I
+insisted upon my right and the help of God. But in this affair, in which
+not only manifest justice cries to heaven against us, but also right and
+common reason is against us, I must confess that I have never in my life
+felt such an anguish and such a shame to allow myself to be seen.
+Consider, Prince, what an example we give to all the world when, for a
+miserable piece of Poland or of Moldavia and Wallachia, we throw to the
+dogs our honor and reputation! I notice well that I stand alone and am
+no Longer _en vigueur_, therefore I let things take their course, though
+not without my greatest grief."
+
+The moral example of Maria Theresa did not, however, in any great degree
+affect her gallant husband, Francis of Lorraine. His mistress, Princess
+Auersperg-Neipperg, had all the noble vices of her exalted position. The
+prime minister, Kaunitz, was utterly immoral, and even dared to take
+with him in his equipage his mistresses, who waited till his audience
+with the empress was over. When the latter once ventured to remonstrate
+with him, he replied: "Madam, I have come here to speak with you about
+your affairs, not about my own." The so-called chastity commission
+established by the empress to supervise the morals of Vienna succeeded
+in compelling those who persistently indulged in vices at least to
+exercise more caution and discretion; for she remained inexorable
+against scandalous debauch and inflicted ignominious chastisement upon
+the offenders, according to the Draconic code of the time. The result
+was that Vienna had its "Messalinas in toned down colors," as the
+British traveller Wraxall says, and that "the superstition of Austrian
+women, though it be traditional and immense, is by no means an obstacle
+to excesses; they sin, pray, confess, and begin anew."
+
+The brilliant court at Vienna found its counterpart in the frugal,
+economical bourgeois court of Berlin, while that of Dresden, as
+mentioned in the foregoing chapters, was sunk in a mire of moral
+corruption. The memoirs of Marquise Sophie Wilhelmine of Baireuth,
+sister of Frederick the Great, describe, with humor and sometimes with
+ingenuous malice, the condition of the court at Dresden. The wife and
+children of the coarse soldier-king were treated with great harshness
+and almost deprived of the necessities of life. The marquise tells of a
+visit to Dresden in 1738, where Frederick fell in love with Countess
+Orzelska, a natural daughter and mistress of August the Strong. The pen
+refuses to record the history of the incest practised at that court with
+and among the three hundred and fifty-four "natural" children of August.
+August was jealous of the Crown Prince of Prussia, and therefore
+substituted for Countess Orzelska the beautiful Italian Formera, who
+became Frederick's first mistress. Later, however, at the return visit
+of the Saxon court to Berlin, as Scherr reports, Frederick again met the
+Countess Orzelska, a meeting which did not remain without consequences.
+Other details of the court life of the time cannot be put on paper: we
+must refer the reader to Scherr's discussion of Eighteenth Century Court
+Society, to Lessing's Emilia Galotti, in which in Italian disguise the
+great classicist chastises German princely rape, and to Schiller's
+drama, Cabal and Love, which proves that, unfortunately, the victims of
+princely lust were not always the willing courtesans; but frequently
+victims chosen from the people.
+
+The court of Berlin is said by some to have assumed a higher standard of
+morality when Frederick ascended the throne. His consort, Princess
+Elizabeth of Brunswick, though a noble and pure woman, had never won his
+love, for he had been forced into the marriage by his father; she did
+not reside with her royal husband, whose life was now filled with his
+world-stirring military and political deeds and, for recreation, with
+music, history, and philosophy. On the other hand, from the report of
+the British ambassador, Lord Malmesbury (1772), it seems that the great
+king had not succeeded in raising the standard of morality among the
+inhabitants of his residence, as the ambassador, perhaps owing to
+splenetic exaggeration, writes that "there is in that capital neither an
+honest man nor a chaste woman. An absolute moral corruption prevails
+among both sexes of all classes, to which must be added a general
+impoverishment due to the fiscal oppressions of the actual king,
+Frederick the Great, and their love of luxury since the times of the
+king's grandfather. The men are constantly occupied with limited means
+in leading an immoral life. The women are harpies who have sunk so low
+more from want of modesty than anything else. They sell themselves to
+him who pays best, and delicacy or true love are to them unknown
+things." The great traveller and naturalist George Foster confirms that
+statement at least as regards women, whom he describes as "generally
+corrupted."
+
+Though Frederick of Prussia and Joseph II. of Austria lived purely, at
+least after their respective accessions, and were, politically, epoch
+makers in history, they were both succeeded by rulers who were morally
+and politically decadent. Leopold of Austria (1790-1792) died after a
+reign of but two years, his death being caused by sexual excesses and
+debauchery with his German and Italian concubines. His private cabinet
+was, after his death, found to be a true "arsenal of lust."
+
+Still more disastrous to Prussia proved the sovereignty of Frederick
+William II., nephew of the great Frederick; for during his calamitous
+reign of eleven years (1786-1797) this monarch disorganized the solid
+forces of the realm to such an extent that, a few years later, at the
+battle of Jena (1806), Napoleon succeeded, as it were with one blow, in
+overturning the proud structure of Frederick's state.
+
+His court was the abode of an indescribable dissoluteness. As crown
+prince, he had been married to Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick, who,
+though not of good moral repute herself, nevertheless declined
+intercourse with her dissolute consort. We must waive the responsibility
+for the following report given by Scherr upon the authority of
+Dampmartin, the well-informed courtier. "Frederick the Great, desiring
+the succession to the throne to be ensured before his death, ordered an
+old chamberlain to communicate to the princess that he, the king, wished
+she should admit to intimate intercourse the lieutenant of the royal
+guard N. N. (Von Schmettau), who had impressed the king by the beauty of
+his form, his conduct, and his bravery. But no eloquence prevailed upon
+the princess to yield to the shameless demand, whereupon the king
+resolved upon the divorce of his nephew." Frederick William II. later
+married Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, who bore him an heir to the
+throne, the pure and honest Frederick William III. (1797-1840).
+
+It must be said, however, that lawful marriage was but an episode in the
+life of the immoral king Frederick William II., while favorite after
+favorite divided his affections. Wilhelmina Encke, nominal wife of the
+chamberlain Rietz, later raised to the rank of Countess of Lichtenau,
+maintained her position with the king during his whole life, not only
+through the influence of her own charms, but by means of immoral
+services in connection with other beautiful women. Other ladies of noble
+birth, Julie von Voss and Countess Sophie von Donhoff, exacted almost a
+formal marriage from the king while the queen was actually alive, and
+the Evangelical Consistory was compelled submissively to sanction the
+royal bigamy. Rich payments to the families of the royal pseudo-wives
+are on record, and prove the accumulation of a debt of forty-nine
+million thalers at the death of the king, who had had at his disposal
+the treasure of Frederick the Great.
+
+It is with relief that we leave the pages stained with the depravity and
+moral bankruptcy of the era of Countess Lichtenau.
+
+One royal woman, shining in the lustre of purity, genuine nobility, and
+self-sacrificing patriotism, dispels the moral darkness around her as
+the sun purifies and warms the atmosphere of the world. Princess Louise
+of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, consort of Frederick William III., mother of
+Emperor William I., great-grandmother of the actual German emperor,
+William II., is one of the purest and noblest of women of all times, and
+is rightly sanctified in the hearts, not only of all Germans, but of
+all, whether friend or foe, who have ever contemplated her life, her
+motherhood, her martyrdom, and her early death. From her pure bosom
+sprang, to a large extent, the present greatness of Germany.
+
+Truly, were not the age too far advanced, Queen Louise deserved to be
+canonized. As if fate dared no relapse, no unworthy woman has succeeded
+her in the house of Hohenzollern. To offset the instances of the
+degradation of womanhood related for the sake of historical truth, let
+us twine a wreath of the laurel of fame, the myrtle of chastity, and the
+lilies of purity for her noble and beautiful brow.
+
+A biographer well says of Louisa Augusta Wilhelmina Amelia, the fair,
+blue-eyed princess who was born on March 10, 1776, and baptized in the
+Church of the Holy Ghost, that the child was as sweet and fair as a lily
+unfolding in the genial sunshine of early spring. When the summer season
+of her life had run its course, when autumn's winds began to whisper
+that all bright things on earth must die to be renewed, the lily was
+gathered and taken away to bloom on in the Paradise above. Many eulogies
+were written in honor of Queen Louisa; one of the most pleasing is Jean
+Paul Richter's poetical allegory: "Before she was born, her Genius stood
+and questioned Fate. 'I have many wreaths for the child,' he said; 'the
+flower garland of beauty, the myrtle-wreath of marriage, the oak and
+laurel wreath of the love for the German Fatherland, and a crown of
+thorns; which of all may I give the child?' 'Give her all thy wreaths
+and crowns,' said Fate; 'but there still remains one which is worth all
+the others.' On the day when the death-wreath was placed on that noble
+forehead the Genius again appeared, but he questioned only by his tears.
+Then answered a voice 'Look up!' and the God of Christians appeared."
+
+As a maiden of fourteen, Princess Louisa, through a providential
+circumstance, became with her sister Friederika the guest of Frau Rath
+Goethe in Frankfort on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor
+Leopold. Goethe's famous mother considered herself highly honored in
+being chosen as hostess to entertain the princesses. The occasion
+furnishes some very interesting glimpses of the character of both those
+famous women. Frau Goethe found the highborn sisters so simple-minded,
+so unaffected in their manners, that she was delighted with them. Frau
+Goethe, young with the young to the end of her days, entered into their
+enjoyment of scenes and circumstances invested with the charm of novelty
+for the light-hearted princesses. She never forgot the meeting with the
+future Queen of Prussia, and often used to tell a story about the pump
+in the rear of Goethe's house. When Louisa once espied the pump from the
+back room, she exclaimed roguishly: "I wonder if we could make the water
+rush out; how I should like to try." Upon a consenting wink, they rushed
+to the back yard and pumped to their hearts' content. The highborn
+lady-in-waiting was shocked and objected to their plebeian occupation,
+but Goethe's mother threatened to turn the door key rather than permit
+interference with the sport of her princely guests.
+
+Bettina von Arnim, who was on terms of great intimacy with Goethe's
+mother, amusingly described in a letter to Goethe a meeting with the
+brother of the princesses, who had invited himself to eat bacon, salad,
+and pancake at Frau Goethe's house.
+
+After the unfortunate campaign of the allies, Prussia and Austria
+against France in 1792, while the princes of Mecklenburg were with the
+army, Louisa and her three sisters were with their grandmother at
+Hildburghausen, comforting and cheering one another in those days of
+political desolation. Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, the poet, enjoyed the
+distinction of the friendship of the princesses of Mecklenburg. Louisa,
+at the age of sixteen, is thus described. She was like her sister
+Charlotte, had "the same loving blue eyes," but their expression changed
+more quickly with the feeling or thought of the moment. Her soft brown
+hair still retained a gleam of the golden tints of childhood; her fair
+transparent complexion was in the bloom of its exquisite beauty, painted
+by nature as softly as were the roses she gathered and enjoyed. The
+princess was tall and slight, and graceful in all her movements. This
+grace was not merely external; it rose from the inner depths of a pure
+and noble mind, and therefore was full of soul.
+
+On their return to Darmstadt, the capital of Princess George of Hesse,
+Louisa's grandmother, the princesses met the King of Prussia and his
+sons at Frankfort. It was an eventful day. The crown prince, later
+Frederick William III., whose "age was in sorrow, whose hope in God," as
+his motto runs, was captivated by the loveliness of Louisa. Long years
+after her death he revealed his feelings at that momentous hour to
+Bishop Eylert, his spiritual friend and comforter in sorrow, referring
+to Schiller's words in The Bride of Messina:
+
+        "So strangely, mysteriously, wonderfully
+        Her presence seized upon my inner life;
+        'Twas not the magic of that lovely smile,
+        'Twas not the charm which hover'd o'er her cheek,
+        Not yet the radiance of her sylph-like form;
+        It was the pure deep secret of her being
+        Which held and fettered me with holy might.
+        Like magic powers that blend mysteriously,
+        Our twin souls seemed without one spoken word
+        To spring together, spirit stirred to blend
+        As we together breathed the air of heaven.
+        Stranger to me, yet inwardly akin,
+        Beloved at once I felt graved on my heart
+        'Tis she, or none on earth."
+
+On April 24, 1793, the double betrothals between the two royal sons of
+Prussia and the two Mecklenburg princesses were celebrated at Darmstadt.
+At the encampment of Mainz, Goethe saw the royal brothers and their
+fiancées walking through the canvas streets. Hidden in his own tent he
+was entranced by their charms: "Amid all the terrible and tumultuous
+memories of the war, the recollection of those two young ladies rises up
+before me like a heavenly vision, which having been once seen can never
+be forgotten." Princess Louisa may not even have known of Goethe's
+presence in the camp, but she knew his works well and admired especially
+his shorter poems. She certainly cherished the recollection of her stay
+in the great poet's house at Frankfort, in recognition of which Prince
+Charles Frederick of Mecklenburg had presented to Frau Goethe, as a
+token of thanks, a beautiful snuffbox which was to her almost a sacred
+relic.
+
+On December 21st, Prince Charles Frederick, with his daughters and their
+grandmother, arrived at Potsdam, where they were awaited by the
+impatient bridegrooms. It was a day of universal joy, and every window
+of the city was illuminated when the royal visitors passed under the
+triumphal arch. Two days later there was a solemn entrance into Berlin.
+Universal was the admiration excited by the uncommon beauty and
+unaffected grace of the princesses. The foundation of Queen Louisa's
+popularity was laid. On Christmas eve, 1793, all the members of the
+royal family assembled in the apartments of the queen, where the diamond
+crown of the Hohenzollerns was placed upon Louisa's head. The entire
+court then betook themselves to the apartments of Elizabeth Christine,
+the unfortunate widow of Frederick the Great. What a contrast between
+this happy union of love, and that of the poor Princess of Brunswick who
+had been forced upon the unwilling Frederick! We learn from the court
+records that Louisa's bridal dress was entirely of silver lace, simply
+made, but that her corsage glittered with diamonds corresponding to
+those of the crown on her head.
+
+This is not the place to dwell upon the home life of the royal couple,
+their happiness, their seclusion from the atmosphere of that corrupted
+court, Louisa's studies, especially of Shakespeare and the German
+classics, and the unconscious influence of purity that emanated from her
+presence. A sad time was approaching, and forebodings of political evil
+were not wanting. The king, whose private life had undermined his
+health, was slowly dying; but before the crown prince ascended the
+throne Louisa bore him two sons, both of whom were to be kings of
+Prussia, the second son was to be even Emperor of Germany and the
+restorer of the ancient glories of the empire. Louisa's husband,
+however, gentle, honest, upright, and his noble queen, the best beloved
+that ever ruled over Prussia, paid politically the penalty for their
+private happiness. The great statesman Von Stein rightly deemed him
+inadequate for the gigantic mission of reforming the decadence that had
+been going on steadily since the death of Frederick the Great: "I love
+him," he said, "for his kind, benevolent nature, his well meaning
+character; but I pity him for living in this iron age, in which to
+enable him to maintain his position, but one thing is necessary:
+commanding military talent, united with that reckless selfishness which
+can crush and trample everything under foot, and is ready to enthrone
+itself on corpses."
+
+Nevertheless, the queen loyally aided her consort in his effort to
+improve the condition of the realm. Their travels through the provinces
+and the newly acquired Polish territories had a good effect. The
+domestic life of the royal family was a model one and made for morality
+in the lives of their subjects. The royal couple were patrons of arts
+and letters, and Queen Louisa was particularly enthusiastic in support
+of culture. But soon the wheel of fortune turned; the king, pacific in
+the extreme, did not recognize in time that, unless he would join in the
+coalition against the overweening pride and power of France, Prussia
+would, single handed, be compelled sooner or later to meet that power.
+The battle of Austerlitz prostrated Austria completely, and the doom of
+Prussia approached.
+
+In the years of threat and war Queen Louisa lost a beloved son, Prince
+Ferdinand, and the sorrow alarmingly aggravated her previous
+indisposition. The waters of Pyrmont restored her somewhat, and as for a
+time painful political events were kept from her, the change of scene
+and the affections of her relatives and dearest friends brought to her
+once more a glimpse of happiness, the last that was to come into her
+brief life. Yet her constitution had been shaken by the harassing
+anxieties of the situation, and added sorrow was soon to fall upon
+unhappy Prussia. The army was repeatedly defeated, and blow after blow
+fell upon the unhappy country. The queen and her children fled to the
+confines of the realm, to Konigsberg, the coronation city of the
+Prussian kings. There her third son, Frederick Charles, fell ill with
+typhoid fever. The child recovered, but his mother contracted the
+disease and again went down to the brink of death. The famous physician
+Hufeland describes the anxieties of the crisis: "The queen was in the
+utmost danger, and all night long the wind howled terrifically. . . .
+The wind was so strong, it blew down a gable of the old castle. By the
+blessing of God the queen passed over the crisis of the fever, and was
+beginning to rally, when suddenly came the news that the French were
+approaching. It was feared that the queen was not strong enough to bear
+removal, and it was therefore put off as long as possible, but she
+begged to be taken away, quoting the words of King David:
+
+'I am in great straits: let us now fall into the hand of the Lord, for
+his mercies are great: and let us not fall into the hands of men.' In a
+blinding snowstorm and a heavy wind the queen and the delicate prince
+travelled for three days along the strand of the Baltic to Memel on the
+Russian frontier on their tedious, painful journey to exile, knowing not
+whether they would ever return. Hufeland reports in his diary: "The
+queen spent the first night in a miserable room with a broken window,
+and we found the melting snow was dropping on her bed. We were very much
+alarmed on her majesty's account, but she was full of trust and courage,
+and the fortitude with which she suffered, gave us strength to act. I
+cannot say how thankful we felt when we came within sight of Memel, and
+just at that moment the sun burst gloriously through the clouds for the
+first time since we had been on this journey, and we hailed it as a
+happy augury." In Memel the queen recovered, though living under the
+most distressing circumstances.
+
+After the retreat of the French from the frontier the Prussian court
+repaired again to Konigsberg; the queen and Madame de Kriidener, the
+wife of the Russian ambassador, the religious friend of Czar Alexander,
+formed a lasting friendship. They attended frequently to the sick and
+wounded in the hospitals, and strengthened their faith in a bright
+future, at least for the unhappy country. After their separation, Louisa
+wrote to Madame de Krüdener: "I owe a confession to you, my good friend,
+which I know you will receive with tears of joy. You have made me better
+than I was before. Your truthful words, our conversations on
+Christianity, have left an impression on my mind. I have thought with
+deeper earnestness upon these things, the existence and value of which I
+had indeed felt before, but I had thought lightly of them, rather
+guessed at them than felt assured of them. These contemplations brought
+me nearer to God, my faith became stronger, so that in the midst of
+misfortune I have never been without comfort, never quite unhappy. You
+will understand that I can never be perfectly miserable while this
+source of purest joy is open to me...." And in spite of the loss of
+one-half of her realm, and in spite of all humiliations, joy was indeed
+vouchsafed her in the development of her noble children, whom she thus
+describes to her father: "Our children are our most precious treasures,
+and we look on them with happiness and hope.... Now you have my whole
+gallery of family portraits before you, my dear father. You will say
+they are painted by a foolish mother who sees nothing but good in her
+children, and is quite blind to their faults or failings. But really, I
+am watchful, and I do not notice in the children any dispositions or
+evil propensities which need make us painfully anxious.... Circumstances
+educate people, and it may be well that they learn to know the serious
+side of life in their youth. Had they been brought up in luxury they
+might think it was the natural course of things, that it must be so...."
+
+When we consider that Louisa speaks of the future king and the future
+Emperor of Germany, many things in the after history of Germany become
+clear to us! She truly estimated the unfolding dispositions of the
+future rulers of Germany. Posterity does not agree with her first modest
+words: "Posterity will not place my name among those of celebrated
+women, but when people think of the troubles of these times they may
+say: 'She suffered much and endured with patience,' and I only wish they
+may be able to add 'She gave birth to children who were worthy of better
+times, and who by their strenuous endeavors have succeeded in attaining
+them.'" Queen Louisa is the most famous and the best beloved woman who
+ever sat on a Hohenzollern throne. Even to-day her portrait adorns
+nearly every Prussian home, and her beautiful form in Grecian attire, as
+a symbol of pure and noble womanhood, is found in thousands of American
+homes where the prototype may not even be known by name.
+
+She died as she had lived. In the agonies of a painful death she
+preserved her patience and loveliness. When free from pain she lay very
+tranquil, looking like an angel, and now and then repeating to herself a
+few words of a very simple hymn which she had learned in her childhood.
+The unhappy king said at her death: "Oh, if she were not mine, she might
+recover." The king gazed on her dead form for a moment with a look of
+anguish which wrung the hearts of all who witnessed it; then he left the
+room, but soon returned with his sons. Her countenance was beautiful in
+death, particularly the brow; and the calm expression of the mouth told
+that struggle was forever past.
+
+Sixty years later, in July, 1870, on the day of her death, William I.
+(1861-1888) visited her Mausoleum, and prayed before the recumbent
+statue of his great mother, as he did frequently, this time with a heart
+burdened with hopes and fears, for again a war of tremendous
+proportions, the national question of "_to be or not to be_," was
+pending with the same country under an emperor of the same ominous name
+"Napoleon." Before Louisa's statue the aged monarch received the
+inspiration and the strength which nerved him for the last gigantic
+struggle.
+
+Leaving the saintly Louisa, an entirely different type of royal
+womanhood demands our consideration, a type rendered noteworthy by sheer
+intellectual force. Catherine II., the Great, was the greatest woman,
+politically speaking, ever produced by the German nation; but her genius
+benefited, or rather raised to world power, a foreign and rival state,
+namely, the Russian empire (1762-1796). Born at Stettin in 1729, and the
+daughter of the petty Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, Catherine was married to
+Peter of Holstein-Gottorp, heir to the Russian throne, whose blind
+admiration for the great Frederick of Prussia alienated from him the
+affections of the Russian people; while Catherine identified herself
+with the Russians, whose future she was destined or determined to rule.
+Even as crown princess she led a notorious life, at first with Count
+Soltikof, and later with Count Poniatowski, afterward the ill-fated king
+of dying Poland; but she never forgot to strengthen herself, all the
+while, politically, and to secure all the instruments of power against
+her hated and despised husband. Peter was deposed, imprisoned, and
+strangled by Gregory Orloff, Catherine's paramour, certainly not without
+her knowledge (July, 1762). As empress, she forcibly obtained for Russia
+a controlling influence in the councils of Europe, while civilizing her
+people and mightily fostering the arts and sciences. Her literary and
+epistolary works and correspondence with the greatest men of her time
+prove her to have been a woman of extraordinary genius and literary
+capacity. As all her talents seemed to be out of proportion to womanly
+limitations, so were her immorality and passion. She ruled with an iron
+hand, through a succession of favorites or recognized lovers who, it
+must be confessed, had nothing to recommend them but the physical
+advantages of form and animal strength. The brutal Orloff, whom she
+raised from a low station, maintained himself longest in her favor,
+until his aspiration for the hand of his imperial mistress worked his
+undoing. Other men, selected partly from the ranks of the common
+soldiers, followed in rapid succession; finally, Gregory Potemkin became
+the most powerful of all of them, until he was banished from the court
+for trying to win Catherine in lawful marriage. Potemkin endeavored,
+though with barbarous methods, to build up southern Russia, and remained
+Catherine's favorite, at a distance, till his death. Meanwhile, she
+chose her later lovers merely for personal gratification, so as not to
+endanger her autocracy by the presumption of powerful men. She had
+brought about the election of her favorite Poniatowski as King of
+Poland, but she tore the kingdom to pieces when she recognized that the
+conquest of Poland alone could make her beloved Russia a civilized
+European or Western power. The domestic reforms which she instituted
+along all the lines of political, economic, and sociological endeavor
+are stupendous, and, compared with them, the deeds of Elizabeth of
+England appear insignificant. Only the Titanic success of pushing
+forward the boundaries of the empire in all directions, adding to it the
+Crimea, the country as far as to the Dniester, with Courland and Poland,
+as well as the beneficence of her rule in the reform of justice,
+administration, and sanitation, the establishment of schools and
+hospitals, the building of canals and fortresses, and the improvement of
+the conditions of the peasants and of the lower bureaucracy, can
+compensate, in the minds of historians and publicists, for her private
+moral corruption and the gigantic immorality which she carried on
+without restraint and in open defiance of civilized moral order. She
+died of an attack of apoplexy in November, 1796. History remains
+doubtful which was greater, her boundless energy, ambition, and genius,
+or her superhuman immorality.
+
+Returning to Prussia, we find weakness to contrast with Russia's
+strength. Fifteen years after the death of Frederick the Great, we have
+seen that Prussia was politically in a state of decadence. As of
+politics, so of morals; and even the good example of the royal family
+was unable to redeem society from the demoralization that had seized
+upon the higher classes, and especially upon a great number of the
+officers of the army. Regarding them a credible report of a contemporary
+states: "The ranks of officers, already for a long time given over to
+idleness and estranged from science, are farthest sunk in debauch. They
+those privileged disturbers trample under foot everything which was
+formerly called sacred: religion, marital faith, all the virtues of
+domesticity. Among them their wives have become common property, whom
+they sell and exchange and seduce mutually. The women are so corrupted
+that even ladies of noble birth degrade themselves by becoming
+procuresses and panderers, to attract young women of rank in order to
+procure their seduction. One finds in the public houses true Vestal
+virgins as compared with many distinguished ladies who are the leaders
+in society. There are women of high rank who are not ashamed to sit in
+the theatre on the benches of public women, to procure for themselves
+lovers to go home with them. Many dissolute women of rank even unite and
+hire furnished quarters in company, whither they invite their lovers,
+and celebrate without restraint bacchanalia and orgies which would have
+been unknown even to the regent of France. Since Berlin is the central
+point of the monarchy from which all good and evil spreads over the
+provinces, the corruption has gradually expanded even thither."
+Forsooth, the ignominious defeat of Jena was indeed quietly preparing
+many years before it took place.
+
+Prince Louis Ferdinand, a cousin of the king, a chameleon-like
+character, composed of some good and many evil qualities, who is still
+sung in German folklore, owing to his heroic death on the battlefield
+against Napoleon, was an exponent of that frivolous life. Like his
+prototype, the Athenian Alcibiades, he was a devotee now to wine, woman,
+song, now to the strenuous life of a brave soldier and heroic patriot.
+One woman of wonderful beauty and of the temper of a Messalina, to use
+Scherr's words, Pauline Wiesel, held him under her demoniacal sway of
+never satisfied passion. But a woman of an entirely different type, the
+extraordinary Jewish authoress, and ingenious, spirited
+conversationalist and epistolographer, Rahel Levin, served him as a true
+Egeria in pure friendship and intellectual affinity. Rahel Levin is a
+great factor in the later time of restoration and one of its foremost
+personalities. Rahel, as the wife of Varnhagen von Ense, and Bettina von
+Arnim are the leaders of those women who exercised such a tremendous
+influence in the evolution of German womanhood during the first half of
+the eighteenth century. Their influence is enduring and makes even
+to-day for good.
+
+It is incumbent upon us to retrace our steps to give a more orderly
+account of the literary, intellectual, and artistic woman. The
+initiators of that class, the Gottschedin and the Neuberin have been
+mentioned. Since the day of Frau Caroline Neuber, the status of the
+German stage had risen considerably. The theatrical companies of
+Schonemann, of Koch, of Ackermann had attained fame through their
+liberation from French types. Simplicity and naturalness became the
+ideal of playwrights. Friederike Hensel won the reputation of being the
+greatest German actress of her time, as Konrad Eckhof became foremost
+among the actors. These two, and Ackermann, with his daughter, Frau
+Lowen, and others, became so to speak the charter members of the newly
+founded National Theatre of Hamburg, for which Lessing was appointed
+dramaturgiste. After two years the enterprise failed, but nevertheless
+the ideal of what a German national theatre ought to be, was created and
+expressed. Gifted women and Lessing an extraordinary combination indeed!
+had founded it!
+
+Female literary work began more modestly. While a great poet like
+Lessing celebrated the great era of Frederick, while Ewald von Kleist
+sang his king and the Prussian army and of death for the fatherland
+which glory fell to his share at the battle of Kunersdorf, there arose
+also a female poet, Anna Louisa Karsch, of the newly won province of
+Silesia, who, in spite of her mediocrity, was celebrated as a Prussian
+Sappho. The experiences of her life, springing from abject poverty, or
+rather misery, her service as a stable maid, her marriage to a brutal
+old husband, and yet her constant endeavors to improve her mind under
+the most trying circumstances of menial labor and want, her divorce and
+remarriage with a drunken, lazy tailor, Karsch, who sold even the
+clothing of her children to indulge in his vice of drunkenness, read
+almost like a terrible nightmare. But the hour of salvation came. When
+her good-for-nothing husband was obliged to go to the Seven Years' War,
+the Silesian Baron von Kottwitz noticed her talent and took her to
+Berlin. In Berlin she soon became the fashion; she was received in
+literary circles, and her poetry was encouraged. The "German Horace, the
+thought-singing Ramler," informed her that Gleim, the poet of Prussian
+war songs, desired to know "his sister in Apollo." She hastened to write
+to the "Apollinian brother." Her friends secured her even an interview
+with Frederick the Great, who promised to take care of her, a promise
+which he forgot, however, in spite of her repeated rhymed exhortations.
+Later, he sent her a royal present of two Prussian thalers, which she
+promptly returned by mail. Frederick's successor directed "that a house
+should be built for her adorned with all the allegories of the Muses."
+In this she lived until 1791.
+
+The estimate of her poetic gifts cannot be very high. She was a ready
+rhymester of a rather mechanical sort, but she was the first of the line
+of Germanic poetesses of the modern time, and as such her work deserves
+study and, it may be, praise.
+
+Woman's love is the mainspring of action in poetry. But the sensuous and
+sensual side of woman's life not alone influenced the character and
+nature of I may boldly say all the German poets of the storm and stress
+period as well as of the great classical era. Their religious and
+ethical being was also powerfully moved by intellectual women. Goethe
+had become alienated from dogmatic religion, especially at the
+University of Leipzig, and when he returned sick and despondent to his
+native city, a friend of his mother, Fraulein von Klettenberg, by her
+"presence soothed his stormy, divergent passions at least for moments,"
+and even won him over for a time to pietism. The mystic notions of the
+German Quakers, the Herrenhut brotherhood, besides studies in cabalistic
+alchemy, took, at least for a time, deep root in his soul. In his prayer
+he betrays an almost irrational longing for the union with God and
+separation from earthly things: "O that I could for once be filled with
+thee, Eternal One," and again: "Alas, this anxious deep torture of the
+soul, how long does it last on this earth!" Although after his recovery
+he was saved by his strong healthy nature from sentimental religious
+weakness, he always preserved a genuine toleration for the religious
+beliefs and errors of others, and his portrait of Fraulein von
+Klettenberg in his Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, will always remain a
+psychological masterpiece.
+
+It was an intellectual woman, too, who succeeded in winning the poet
+Fritz Stolberg over to the Roman Catholic Church. Princess Amalia
+Galitzin, called the Christian Aspasia, in Miinster, the centre of
+Westphalian Catholicism, gathered the North German Catholics as well as
+the Orthodox Protestants around her, and exercised for a time a powerful
+influence.
+
+As women at all times affected the hearts and souls of the great poets,
+there is not one who was not moulded by womanly affections, so they in
+turn were remoulded by the respective lovers. This is proved by the
+entire literature of the period. The great ballad poet Burger, scorning
+the tenets of morality, leads a dissolute life; and this life is
+reflected even in his best work. He marries Dorette Leonhardt, while he
+already loves her younger sister Molly, and his passion for the latter
+grows more impetuous during his married life. As Molly returns his
+criminal love, the lawful wife resigns herself to a relation which
+destroys the lives of all three. After having lost both his wives in
+rapid succession, he commits the error of marrying a third wife, Elise
+Hahn, who, carried away by his poetry, offers herself to Burger, whom
+she has never seen, and who romantically accepts her hand. But "the
+delusion was short, repentance was long." Elise's fickleness, frivolity,
+and manifest infidelity soon brought about a divorce. Broken in heart
+and spirit, the great poet, whose life had been wrecked by "the eternal
+feminine," which, instead of uplifting him, dragged him into the mire,
+died, solitary, wretched, and reduced to poverty and self-contempt. His
+poetry bears the traces of his ruined life.
+
+On the other hand, the simple, virtuous and idyllic, pastoral life in
+Germany is charmingly portrayed in Voss's _Luise_, and is illuminated by
+Goethe's poetic genius in _Hermann and Dorothea_. Goethe, however, not
+only depicted idyllic life in poetry, but actually lived it in his
+student days in Strassburg with Friederike Brion, the pastor's daughter,
+of Sessenheim. The art of painting has immortalized in numberless
+pictures the charming idyllic forms of the lovely shepherdesses, the
+Luises, the Mariannes. Miller's Siegwart, a _Cloister Story_, is one of
+the many picture books of the feminine soul of that complex period of
+simplicity and enlightenment. Chodowiecki, the great painter, is perhaps
+the best delineator of those typical figures of German womanhood.
+
+Sophie La Roche, who had in her youth revolutionized the mind of the
+great poet Christoph Martin Wieland, was one of the most remarkable
+women of her time. Wieland, in his youth, conceived a passionate love
+for Sophie, whom he introduced into the treasure house of poetry, but
+his enthusiastic love for her did not terminate in marriage. She
+remained, however, during all her life his intimate friend, though
+Goethe's overwhelming genius made Wieland's star pale in her later
+estimate. As the wife of Maximilian La Roche, councillor of the Elector
+of Mainz, she turned to French literature, especially to Voltaire and
+Rousseau, and made her home "the place of spiritual pilgrimage on the
+Rhine for German authors. Young Goethe was received there, and according
+to his disposition, against which he was quite helpless revered the
+mother for the sake of her two beautiful daughters, who were just
+approaching womanhood. When her husband lost favor with the prince,
+Sophie supported her family by her writings as "the teacher of Germany's
+daughters." Her novels, written in the spirit of Richardson, are
+valuable records of the many-colored court life and of the activities of
+the social personages of her time. A modern author, Ludmilla Assing, has
+described the life of this extraordinary woman, who is to be remembered
+not only for her own merit, but as the grandmother of Clemens and
+Bettina Brentano; because of whom Sophie La Roche may be called the
+grandmother of German "Romanticism."
+
+It is impossible to give even the most cursory account of the remarkable
+German women of this later period, for at every step we meet with such
+an _embarras de richesse_ of extraordinary women, of whom voluminous
+biographical accounts have been written, that we can only select typical
+characters.
+
+Besides Caroline Neuberin, the pioneer and founder of a respectable
+German stage, only one important woman played a role in the life of the
+grand Lessing. A great love awoke in his heart for Eva Konig, "the only
+woman with whom he would venture to live." To realize his desire, he
+accepted a poorly paid position as librarian at Wolfenbiittel. He was
+forty years old when the betrothal took place, but six years later his
+circumstances for the first time permitted him to marry. His happiness
+lasted but a short time. On Christmas eve, in 1777, a son was born to
+him, who died at birth; and two weeks later, to his inconsolable grief,
+he lost his beloved wife. His literary references to this great sorrow
+belong to the most pathetic passages in literature, just as his
+correspondence with Eva Konig, edited by Alfred Schone, furnishes the
+most charming portrait of a great man.
+
+Lessing's correspondence with Eva Konig is but an additional proof that
+among the most valuable documents adduced for the characterization of
+German womanhood are love letters to and from German women. Such letters
+are accessible to us from the thirteenth century. During the fourteenth
+century they become more numerous: a nun corresponds, perchance, with
+her father confessor; presents are exchanged, and sentiments, not always
+of a purely religious nature. Now and then the tender phrase is wanting,
+but is replaced by a crude picture of a heart pierced with an arrow.
+Later on we find an address like "lovable, subtle, beneficent,
+well-formed, overloved woman." Luther greets his "friendly, dear 'lord,'
+Frau Catherine von Bora, Doctor Lutherin in Wittenberg" with teasing
+endearments, as he complains of the fare at the court of Saxony and
+expresses his longing for home: "What a good wine and beer have I at
+home, besides a charming wife, or should I say 'lord!'" An attractive
+originality shines forth from the letters of Duchess Elizabeth Charlotte
+of Orleans, and from those of Goethe's mother. Naturalness was the ideal
+in letter writing of the late eighteenth century, as artificiality had
+been that of the preceding era. Frau Gottsched, in her letters, reveals
+a roguish grace that contrasts with the stilted style of her tyrant
+husband. Goethe's letters of love and longing in Werther will stand as a
+model as long as literature shall be esteemed in the world, although
+there is a realistic and totally indefensible sentimentality in
+Werther's love of Lotte, the wife of another man.
+
+Werther, beautiful of form, spiritual, and highly gifted, had,
+naturally, frequently aroused love without returning it; now Nemesis
+seizes him; he loves, loves to madness the wife of another man. The
+loveliness of Lotte (by the way, she is a real person, Charlotte Buff;
+while the lover is a composite of Goethe himself and young Jerusalem,
+who had actually shot himself at Wetzlar for the love of another man's
+wife), as we see her in pictures of German artists, feeding her numerous
+brothers and sisters, who cling to her, fans Werther's love, which is
+stronger than all the other forces of his heart. Unable to resist his
+passion, he chooses death as an inevitable necessity. The romance
+presented in the letters of the hero only concentrates the sequence of
+events forcibly upon the tragic climax. Lotte is the passive instrument
+in bringing about Werther's suicide. As to Werther he is Goethe himself,
+the novel is simply a fragment of a great confession.
+
+Goethe's numberless works, touching upon universal interests, are among
+the most profound and most exhaustive treatises on womanly nature ever
+written. Women accompany him through his long life and influence him at
+every step of his career as poet, philosopher, and statesman. His
+extraordinary mother, of a patrician Frankfort family, spirited,
+natural, poetic, with a melodious, beautiful soul, instilled into him
+the sense of the beautiful and perchance gave him creative force.
+
+Cornelia, Goethe's only sister, also powerfully influenced and inspired
+him. She was to Goethe what Frederick the Great's favorite sister,
+Wilhelmine, was to her brother. Goethe delineated the characteristics of
+his charming mother in the character of Elizabeth, wife of Goetz von
+Berlichingen. Poor abandoned Maria is, according to Goethe's allusions,
+the martyred Friederike. Sister Cornelia inspired the play.
+
+The abiding effect of woman's love upon Goethe becomes manifest when we
+realize that an unhappily ending early love affair with Gretchen, a
+young girl of Frankfort, remained imprinted upon his soul for more than
+forty years, and served him as a prototype for his greatest, most
+complex, and most pathetic heroine, Gretchen in _Faust_. It is true that
+after the unfortunate ending of that romance at Frankfort he found
+sufficient compensation in his love for Käthe Schonkopf, the daughter of
+a wine dealer in Leipzig, at whose restaurant he boarded when a student
+of seventeen at the university. According to the portrait taken from the
+gallery of Goethean women, Käthe was a fascinating, round-faced girl.
+She gave up her ardent lover when he tortured her too much with his
+jealous whims, and the pain of that separation was dramatized by Goethe
+in his earliest play, _The Caprice of the Lover_.
+
+We have briefly mentioned Goethe's return, broken in health and spirit,
+from Leipzig to Frankfort, the influence exerted upon him by Katherine
+von Klettenberg, his transfer to the University of Strassburg, and his
+idyl with Friederike of Sessenheim, which the most eminent
+German-American literary critic Julius Goebel calls, however, more
+fittingly "a tragedy." His famous poem, _The Rose on the Heath_, in
+which the rose is passionately broken by the wanton boy in spite of her
+protest, sums up in charming symbolism the sad story of Goethe's love
+for the unfortunate Friederike. What this charming flower of the
+parsonage had been to his youth, how he left her, the pangs of
+conscience which tormented him for a long time, his unfailing memory of
+her who never forgot him, and who died unmarried in 1813, all this
+Goethe's genius characterized with psychological delicacy in his
+autobiography: "Fiction and Truth".
+
+Perhaps even more profound was the storm aroused in Goethe's soul
+somewhat later by his love for Lili Schönemann, who inspired many of his
+most beautiful songs and reminiscences. The daughter of a rich Frankfort
+banker, highly educated by her French mother, young and very beautiful,
+blond and graceful, in the enjoyment of all the social advantages of her
+position, she keenly aroused Goethe's emotions, while she also was
+deeply stirred to see that extraordinary man at her feet. She succeeded
+absolutely: Goethe became hers with life and soul, while, at the same
+time, he enjoyed with young Countess Auguste von Stolberg, sister of the
+two poets, a deep romantic friendship which survived all the storms of
+his eventful life. He never saw the countess, whom he nevertheless
+addresses familiarly as "Gustchen" and "thou." His correspondence with
+her sheds a wondrous light on his soul, especially with reference to his
+love for Lili. Lili tried to win him, now paining him by jealousy, now
+soothing him by love. At last a formal betrothal was arranged, which was
+but the beginning of the end. He tried "whether he could live without
+Lili," and went on a journey to Switzerland with Count Stolberg. But he
+never forgot her. In a letter to Gustchen he calls her "the maiden who
+makes me unhappy without any fault of hers, she with the soul of an
+angel whose serene days I sadden!"
+
+Lili Schonemann became later the wife of the Alsatian Baron von
+Turckheim, with whom she lived in happy marriage till her death in 1817.
+She confessed to her daughter as the true reason of her broken betrothal
+to Goethe the revelation made to her by her mother of Goethe's former
+relation to Friederike Brion and of his conduct toward her. Lili, though
+pure and true to her husband, never forgot Goethe; while the latter, in
+his age, confessed to Eckermann that "he had loved her deeply as no one
+before or afterward." Lili's biography, _Lili's Portrait_, written by
+her grandson, Count Turckheim, is an important chapter in the history of
+a cultured, high-minded, energetic, and exquisite womanly character,
+loved and lost by the poet-prince of Germany. It is not accidental that
+Goethe, distracted by the loss and not knowing where to turn, plunged
+into and translated just at that time Solomon's Song of Songs, which he
+described in a letter to his friend Merck as "the most glorious
+collection of songs of love God ever created." It is also almost
+providential that he received, even at that period of regret and
+despair, the renewed invitation of Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar, who
+had recently ascended the throne of his fathers, and who was destined to
+become the greatest Mæcenas of the century and, as it were, the sponsor
+of Germany's greatest intellectual bloom, to establish himself at
+Weimar. There he arrived on November 7, 1775, at the age of twenty-six,
+received with universal rejoicing and enthusiasm. "New love, new life,"
+arises for him in Weimar, and with his new love and new life a new era
+for Germany the era of Goethe, or Classicism proper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+EMANCIPATION OF GERMAN WOMEN
+
+
+We have shown at length how the cultural, literary, and artistic
+grandeur of Germany during the Minnesong period was a direct consequence
+of the high elevation of woman, and due to the worship accorded to her
+on account of her lofty station. Just so woman was one of the strongest
+impelling factors in bringing about well-nigh all that was great and
+good in the second period of Classicism. The world-famed Court of the
+Muses at Weimar, presided over by Duchess Amalia, "as unique in her way
+as Frederick the Great was in his," and her circle of noble women,
+aroused all the poetic power of the genius of Goethe, and later that of
+Schiller. All the courtliness and elegance of their art, which had been
+evolved in storm and stress, sprang from their intercourse with noble
+women, a fact which Goethe again and again frankly confessed, and from
+which Schiller derived the loftiest inspiration. The ancient
+Minnesingers' glorification of ennobling love was renewed by Goethe,
+whose highest ideal of feminine perfection was one illustrious woman, in
+whom he discovered "all the lofty happiness that man in his earthly
+limitations calls with divine names," Frau Charlotte von Stein alas! the
+wife of another man at the same court. She and Shakespeare a strange
+combination gave Goethe the incentive and stimulus by which were
+produced his immortal works. This is proved by his statement: "Lida,
+happiness ever present, William, star of loftiest height, to you I owe
+all that I am." Goethe's relations with this extraordinary woman, says
+Scherer, developed in his nature all the tenderness of which he was
+capable. She was frank and true, not passionate, not enthusiastic, but
+full of spiritual warmth; a gentle earnestness gave her majesty; a pure,
+correct feeling, combined with a thirst for knowledge, enabled her to
+share all the poetic, scientific, and human interests of Goethe. In his
+numberless letters and fleeting notes to her we find strewn broadcast a
+thousand germs of the grandest poetry. Her spirit hovers around him
+everywhere; she possesses him entirely, body and soul; his feelings are
+expressed constantly in inexhaustible lyrical, frank, and caressing
+terms, more concise and natural than those in Werther. But the impetuous
+lover in Werther's Sorrows is here a brother and true friend. He becomes
+helpful, noble, and good, his own words, eager to cherish his friend, to
+smooth her pathway through life; his extraordinary and extravagant
+genius is calm and tempered. Frau von Stein brings forth the pure and
+religious forces of his nature. His hot blood becomes chastened; he
+himself calls the higher inner life that grows and strengthens itself
+within him "Purity," and his poesy, too, becomes Purity realized. The
+ethereal, ethical world in which his love for Charlotte forces him to
+live is reflected in his lofty creations of immortal beauty, in his
+superhuman contemplation of the universe, which is subject to change, it
+is true, but a change according to firm, logical, and eternal laws. Such
+is the influence of Frau von Stein upon Goethe, such her influence upon
+the loftiest expression of German thought and feeling, or, briefly, upon
+supreme German Classicism. Thus the dramas of the soul arise: _Iphigenie
+and Tasso_. In the former, a pure priestess, though of an accursed
+house, brings liberation, purification, happiness, not only to her
+family, her race, but also to the barbarians, to the world at large. In
+the latter, women are again the guardians of culture and morality: in
+the character of the princess Leonore d'Este, who had learned toleration
+in the hard school of sorrow, who saves the poet Tasso from false and
+impure instincts, "as the enchanted man is easily and gladly saved from
+intoxication and delusion by the presence of the divinity," Goethe has
+united the traits of his guardian angels, Charlotte von Stein and
+Louise, Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, daughter of the Landgravine Caroline of
+Hesse, a great woman, of whom Wieland said, she would be queen of Europe
+if he once were ruler of the Fates.
+
+But such exaltation, such freedom from passion could not last forever.
+That soul which Goethe knew so well, which "with tenacious organs holds
+in love and clinging lust the world in its embraces," in the course of
+time began to assert itself. And his intense need of sensual love was at
+last satisfied by Christiane Vulpius, a woman strangely inferior to the
+other women who had possessed his love, yet handsome, good-hearted,
+cheerful, natural, physically desirable, and devoted to him body and
+soul. Since the summer of 1788 she was really his wife, though the
+Church was not called upon to consecrate their union until October 19,
+1806. In the high circles in which he moved, a storm of indignation was
+aroused by this union, which also lost for him the friendship of Frau
+von Stein, a loss which he deeply regretted. However, Christiane Vulpius
+gave him a calm and ordinary happiness that compensated him somewhat for
+his ideal losses; she was sufficiently dear to him to move him to the
+characteristic simile: "On the bank of the sea I wandered and looked for
+shells: in one I found a pearl, it remains well guarded in my heart;"
+and again the beautiful allegory of the sweet flower, brilliant as the
+stars, which he dug out with all the roots and carried home, where it
+continues to blossom.
+
+Women's love bore, from the first, quite a different character in the
+case of Schiller. He also had a good mother who believed in his genius
+and his future greatness, but born and raised in needy circumstances,
+and struggling with poverty all her life, she stood at an immense
+distance from the patrician and associate of princes, Frau Aja, the
+mother of Goethe.
+
+Three widely differing women especially affected Schiller's life and
+works. The influence upon his youth of Charlotte von Kalb, an
+extraordinary, demoniacal woman, was, according to his own confession,
+not beneficent. In later years, this highly gifted and unhappy woman had
+the misfortune of affecting the lives of two other great poets: Jean
+Paul and Holderlin. The former escaped from the grasp of the "Titanide"
+whom he immortalized, nevertheless, in his "_Titan_"; the latter, the
+God-gifted poet of "Hyperion," the singer of the passionate,
+soul-stirring lyric poems in honor of another love, Diotima, died early
+in the darkness of insanity. Schiller's love for Caroline and Charlotte
+von Lengefeld, the former of whom was married to Wilhelm von Wolzogen,
+presaged a terrible danger, similar to that to which Burger succumbed,
+but which was averted by Caroline, who saved Schiller by smoothing the
+path to a lawful and happy marriage with her young sister. The
+correspondence between the three, Schiller and the Lengefeld sisters,
+published by Schiller's daughter Emilie, Baroness von Gleichen-Russwurm,
+sheds much light upon the thought and life of Germany's greatest
+dramatist and of two noble women. Caroline's biography of Schiller,
+which appeared in 1830, collected from reminiscences of the family, his
+own letters, and information furnished by his friends, still breathes
+her love and admiring affection for her immortal friend. The greatest
+record, however, of the powerful influence women exerted upon Schiller
+is to be found in his works, not only in the dramas, but especially in
+the lyric poems, wherein a wonderful galaxy of noble women appear, and
+in which there is not one chord untouched that ever vibrated through
+man's heart.
+
+Romanticism, the reaction against Classicism which had become icy and
+petrified in the "epigons," or weak successors of the great classical
+poets, entered upon its victorious course at the beginning of the
+nineteenth century. The group of women-authors, who stand, as it were,
+in the second zone from classicism, Amalie von Hellwig, Elisa von der
+Recke, Louise Brachmann, Agnes Franz, Helmina von Chezy, Johanna
+Schopenhauer, all authors of considerable talent and grace, are
+nevertheless far surpassed by the versatility and poetic impressiveness
+of the literary women of Romanticism. They are the inspirers and
+coworkers of the founders of the movement, the brothers Schlegel, Tieck,
+Novalis, Brentano, Arnim, Kleist, and others. It is true that the "blue
+flower of Romanticism" was not conducive to virtue in love. Romanticists
+respected marriage the least of all sacred things, and a marriage _à
+trois_, says Theobald Ziegler, was quite a common thing, and the
+question only remained whether a marriage _à quatre_ was not even a
+pleasanter thing. In this, however, Romanticism was but a reaction
+against the Philistinism and prudery of the opposite pole of
+civilization at that period, where woman was oppressed, and a different
+standard of morality, and even of religion, was demanded from her than
+from man. Frederick Schlegel is not far wrong when he says that in the
+ordinary wedded life of the time both parties "live on, side by side, in
+a relation of mutual contempt." As, at the time of Pericles the great
+and superior hetaira, Aspasia, raised the social status of woman in
+general, and succeeded in elevating her in culture to the standard of
+the most intellectual men, so, during the first decades of the
+nineteenth century woman was raised to a higher plane through a long
+series of moral aberrations. Emancipation was frequently misunderstood,
+and liberty degenerated into the license of the will of the flesh. It
+would be impossible to absolve Romanticism from the reproach of license
+in thought and life. We owe it to Caroline Schlegel and to Dorothea
+Schlegel not to unveil their antecedents, and the way in which they
+became the wives of the two romanticists. Their share in the movement of
+liberation and in the work of their respective husbands is very
+considerable, and, mayhap, is meritorious enough to cover their sins.
+Tieck's sister Sophie wrote perhaps the finest novel of the
+romanticists, Evremont (published in 1836 in Breslau), and his daughter
+Dorothea was a classical translator of Shakespeare.
+
+Bettina von Arnim (died 1859), Brentano's sister, is one of the most
+ingenuous of poets. She possessed a rich imagination, but upon her was
+the common curse of womanly genius, eccentricity, and inconstancy. These
+frustrated her intense desire to attain a lasting fame. Her daughter,
+Gisela von Arnim, wife of Hermann Grimm, is a notable writer of fairy
+tales, and a dramatist of considerable merit. Another romanticist,
+Caroline von Gunderode, who evinces much talent in her Poems and
+Fancies, had no time for the development of her genius. An unhappy love
+caused her to commit suicide at an early age. Such was also the end of
+Heinrich von Kleist, the greatest romanticist, who died with Henriette
+Vogel, the wife of another man, whom he killed at her own desire, in
+1811. Theodor Korner, the patriot and soldier-poet of _Lyre and Sword_,
+died young, on the battlefield, with a pure and noble love in his heart
+for Toni Adamberger, a charming actress in Vienna, who was worthy of him
+in every respect. Körner's letter of 1812 to his father, Schiller's
+friend, characterizes this noble type of German womanhood: "I may
+confess without blushing, that without her I should indeed have perished
+in the whirlpool beside me (_i.e._, in Vienna). You know me, my warm
+blood, my strong constitution, my wild imagination; imagine this
+impetuous soul of mine in this garden of delight and intoxicating joy,
+and you will understand that only the love for this angel helped me to
+be able to step forth boldly from the crowd and to say: Here is one who
+has preserved a pure heart."
+
+In spite of the many eminent women who arose during the first third of
+the nineteenth century, there is nowhere in Germany anything like the
+salon which has made French society so brilliant, the literary circles
+and centres so compact, and the great French authoresses and
+epistolographers so world-famed.
+
+Schleiermacher, the philosopher-theologian of that transition period,
+said once that society on a grand scale could at that time be found only
+in the houses of the Jews. Though still disfranchised in many respects,
+their admission to all the rights of citizenship being accorded first in
+1812 on account of Stein's reforms, some eminent Jewish families
+possessed sufficient wealth and aspirations for culture to form such
+social and intellectual circles. Marianne Meyer became the wife of
+Prince Reuss, and as such assembled an aristocratic literary society in
+her house at Berlin. But the climax of a German salon was realized by
+two brilliant women of Jewish origin, Henriette Herz and Rahel Levin.
+The former, wife of the famous physician and philosopher Marcus Herz,
+formed the first Goethe community in Berlin and scattered his fame
+broadcast through Berlin society. Without original talent, she
+exercised, nevertheless, great influence by her beauty, her social
+skill, and her ability in presenting the intellectual treasures of
+others. She was attractive to all. Jean Paul and Schiller came to her
+salon when in Berlin; famous foreigners, like Mirabeau, Madame de Staël,
+etc., visited her; the celebrities of Berlin were her constant guests,
+e.g., the brothers Humboldt, the poet Arndt, Prince Louis Ferdinand of
+Prussia, the Duchess of Courland; foremost among all, Schleiermacher,
+who had a fantastic devotion and friendship for her; and Borne, who for
+a time loved her passionately.
+
+The same personages and many others, especially foreign diplomats,
+artists, and noblemen, enlivened also the house of Rahel Levin, who in
+1814 became the wife of the author Varnhagen von Ense. Rahel was not
+beautiful, or especially scholarly, but she was noble, helpful, and
+good; she was original, attractive, had the charm of "Attic salt" in her
+conversation, and understood how to listen as well as how to talk. As
+she had in her youth studied the poet Novalis and the
+patriot-philosopher Fichte, so later she studied Hegel's philosophy. She
+won the friendship of such men as Ranke and Prince Puckler. Her
+attractiveness did not depend upon her youth, for, according to the word
+of a lady of highest nobility, Jenny von Gustedt, "she touched with her
+philosophy life itself, her thought became deed, as she aroused with her
+spirit the spark of soul-life in others, as she tried to destroy
+pettiness in all hearts, as she awakened great things in the hearts of
+men without abandoning the delicacy of womanliness, thus she stood with
+full practical knowledge in the midst of practical life, helping,
+counselling, comforting, careless of thanks or ingratitude, the genuine,
+pure, German woman."
+
+Such was the origin of the modern German salon, and its origin explains
+its complex character. The German salon became a permanency; and even
+though it never attained the brilliancy of the French salon, yet it was
+more intellectual and had greater literary effect. The house of Amalie
+von Hellwig was a centre for courtiers, scholars, and artists, one of
+whom, A. B. Marx, wrote an interesting account of social life in Berlin.
+Other distinguished circles are reported, in which music, a never
+failing charm in Berlin, was the principal attraction. The opera passed
+through a period of bloom. Spontini's and Weber's masterpieces were
+performed by excellent singers, like Anna Milder-Hauptmann, who, in
+Berlin, created the rôle Of _Fidelio_. The theatre brought into popular
+prominence the works of the great German dramatists; great actresses
+arose, like Sophie Muller, who played in a masterful way Emilia Galotti
+and roles from the works of Calderon and Shakespeare; Amalie Wolff,
+trained in Goethe's school, a masterly exponent of Iphigenie; Louise
+Rogee, later Holtei's wife, the incomparable performer of Kleist's
+Katchen von Heilbronn; Charlotte von Hagen (1809-1891), a beautiful
+woman and true artist, who celebrated immense triumphs, and was adored
+by the great and beloved by the women. The greatest of all, however, was
+Auguste During (1795-1865), who for fifty years ruled the German stage,
+"in the world of boards that signify life." Henriette Sonntag
+(1803-1854) was considered the most beautiful and most gifted singer. By
+the charm of her voice and the perfection of her acting she conquered
+all hearts. In no other fields has Germany produced so many and so great
+women as she has in those of the stage, of music, and of song.
+
+To appreciate, however, the ethical character of German woman we must
+return once more to the years of Germany's greatest political
+degradation.
+
+At no time did the character of German womanhood shine in a more
+glorious light than in the sorrowful years of political upheaval and the
+trials of the years of humiliation at the beginning of the nineteenth
+century. When Germany lay prostrate under the heel of Napoleon, the
+standard of national honor was upheld by princely women, like the never
+forgotten Louisa of Prussia, and the other Louisa of Saxe-Weimar,
+Goethe's friend, who changed Napoleon's plan of crushing out the
+existence of her duchy, and concerning whom Napoleon himself confessed
+to his suite: "This is a woman whom our two hundred cannons could not
+frighten!" The years of trial, distress, and again the rising of the
+nation, the struggle for liberation, saw genuine heroism, superhuman
+sacrifices by German women of all estates and of all classes. Nothing
+but the enthusiasm and the patriotism of the women at that epoch could
+have inspired the men to their heroism, self-abnegation, and suffering.
+Niebuhr, the great historian, calls the conduct of the German women
+admirable. All pleasures were given up, tender and distinguished women
+exposed their lives to the lazaretto, washed, cooked, mended, laid down
+their money, their jewels, nay, even their beautiful hair on the altar
+of the fatherland. Mothers sent their sons, sisters their brothers,
+brides their bridegrooms, to the holy war. Many, forgetting their sex,
+seized rifle and sword, and fought against the oppressor. Scherr gives
+many names: Johanna Stegen, Johanna Luring, Lotte Krüger, Dorothea
+Sawosch, Karoline Petersen, and the heroine Prohaska, who, in male
+attire, bravely fought in Lutzow's famous corps of volunteers. Lutzow
+and the heroic Prohaska were severely wounded in the victorious battle
+of the Gorde (September 16, 1813). When she was to be bandaged on the
+battlefield, she for the first time revealed her sex so that her modesty
+might be spared. She died three days later, and was buried amid a
+concourse of citizens and maidens in the town of Danneberg, where a
+monument was erected at the church in her honor.
+
+That deeds of heroism were done by German women outside of the
+battlefield, appears from many sources and particularly from Goethe's
+song of praise for the glory of Johanna Sebus, a maiden of seventeen
+years, who, during the flooding of the Rhine, January 13, 1809, saved
+first her mother, then returned to save a neighbor and her children, and
+then was herself swept away by the flood.
+
+In the face of such proofs of heroism, we count but lightly against
+German womanhood a number of degraded women of noble, even princely
+birth, who helped to make such courts as that of Jerôme of Westphalia
+abodes of licentiousness. In German cities, especially in Berlin, where
+the conquerors were quartered, German ladies conducted themselves "with
+much dignity, and such reserve as was becoming them toward the enemies
+of their fathers, husbands, and brothers." Only the dregs of society
+were at the disposal of the invaders. Voss reports that "the
+frequentation of the temples of lust was so great that the number of
+Venus's priestesses was found to be too small." The shamelessness of
+vile women became intolerable. Unnatural vices arose, and continued
+despite the severity of the law, which the police strove to enforce
+rigidly.
+
+During the years of reconstruction, however, which carried with them the
+social liberation of the peasant-serfs and the Jews, the autonomy of the
+communes unavoidably produced a mighty advance in the emancipation of
+women. The frivolity and immorality of Romanticism, which appeared
+barefaced in Schlegel's Lucinde and in the lives of almost all the
+romanticists in their intercourse with women, was indignantly rejected
+in those troubled times, and a return to simple virtue, chastity, and
+housewifely qualities was preached and inaugurated. German youths began
+to yearn for pure and pious women, such as had fought in male attire for
+the fatherland, or healed the wounded patriots in the hospitals, or
+worked, suffered, and sacrificed fortune, comfort, and personal
+interests for the holy cause.
+
+In the thirties of the nineteenth century, however, there was again, in
+the so-called Young-German movement, a retrogression to the lax morality
+of the first romanticists. The moral code of abstinence was represented
+as an antiquated conventionality, and the emancipation of the flesh was
+preached. Naturally the emancipation of woman became a principle of the
+new doctrine. Again Rahel Levin, the spirited Jewess, and Bettina
+Brentano (wife of Arnim), the free patrician, led the campaign, and
+added to arts and letters the fields hitherto alone accessible to women
+politics and religion. Freedom from the bonds of convention, liberation
+from social limitations, was the aim of the advanced women. They
+preached the extreme cultivation of their own individuality. They
+recognized only the perfection of love and beauty. The most earnest
+exponent of that exaggerated doctrine was Charlotte Stieglitz, who, to
+arouse her weakling husband from his indifference, committed suicide. By
+her voluntary death she wished to elevate him to activity, to heroism;
+desiring greatness for him, she thought she must inflict upon him a
+profound pain. Such exaltation and unnaturalness proves what an abyss
+threatens even the noblest woman when she once leaves the path of the
+normal. But to the Young Germans Charlotte Stieglitz became the heroine
+of the movement in which she had part. Theodor Mundt (died 1861) became
+the principal exponent of that unsound movement in Berlin. He was an
+author of repute, but is to us more important as the husband of the
+celebrated authoress Luise Muhlbach, a serene, active, inspiring
+hostess, whose house became in the forties a centre of literary
+sociability in Berlin. She was also the writer of many historical
+novels, all of which are of great interest, though some are of doubtful
+value.
+
+How confused the moral code of that time was appears, for instance, from
+Gutzkow's recommendation of a reform. He says: "Be not ashamed of
+passion, and do not take morality as an institution of the State!... The
+sole priest who shall bind the hearts, shall be a moment of rapture, not
+the Church with its ceremonies and well-groomed servants...."
+
+Saint-Simonism carried those licentious maxims to the extreme. Thus, the
+legitimate aspirations of woman to be freed from the fetters of the
+Middle Ages were, from the beginning, severely injured by lack of
+moderation. Instead of a claim for a systematic raising of the standards
+of education, impossible demands were made: immediate admission of women
+to the universities (without preparatory training), political equality
+with men, participation in the administration of the state, and even
+abolition of the fetters of marriage. Of course, opposition arose
+everywhere, and has neutralized or delayed even rightful claims to this
+day. The aspirations for material independence on the basis of free work
+succeeded to a certain extent: women entered many walks of life hitherto
+closed to them.
+
+The most thoughtful and impressive champion of a reasonable emancipation
+of woman was Fanny Lewald. High moral earnestness and a clear
+intelligence pervade her writings, which are, however, lacking in poetic
+feeling. But she is a truly patriotic German woman who sees the need of
+a practical evolution of woman's education and activity in the interest
+of the entire nation. Her doctrine is the assurance that the spread of
+culture will wipe out all artificial differences of caste, religion, and
+sex, and thus solve all the questions of a genuine, legitimate
+emancipation.
+
+Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn illustrates an opposite tendency in the
+emancipation of woman. Born in a high sphere and miseducated by a
+perverse father in the prejudices of her station, she has a perverted
+view of her sisters of the people, of their struggles and desires and
+possibilities. Only the "noblesse," which is free from the cares of
+physical needs, is to her worthy of higher endeavors. The world of
+highborn womanhood alone attracts her attention. Her study of this world
+culminates in her opposition to marriage, which is to her an oppressive
+fetter, handicaps the enjoyment of life, and, therefore, is in almost
+all her novels the object of ridicule, and its abolition is recommended.
+Her heroines are, therefore, sensuous egotists who according to her own
+words seek nothing, wish for nothing, desire nothing but their own
+satisfaction, without regard to others. Thus, her novels, with their
+gospel of barefaced selfishness, are frequently offensive, but the
+atmosphere of "high society" has never been depicted with such masterly
+and many-colored vivacity as by Ida Hahn-Hahn.
+
+The revolutionary year of 1848, which shattered many cherished idols
+which she had formerly deemed eternal, made a profound impression upon
+her. Under the influence of the eloquent Baron von Kettler, later Bishop
+of Mainz, who explained to her the great social questions of that
+stirring time, she became converted to Catholicism. The haughty spoiled
+child of the world became an expiating Magdalena; her work From Babylon
+to Jerusalem (Mainz, 1851) presents a wonderfully interesting revelation
+of a forceful and original heart. Instead of liberating woman from the
+yoke of man, she now endeavors, through the influence of the Catholic
+Church, to liberate sinful, passionate mankind from earthly shackles.
+When she died, in 1880, she left an immense amount of literature, more
+or less valuable, but always intensely interesting to the searcher of
+woman's soul and achievements.
+
+Ida von Duringsfeld was a poet and novelist of considerable force. Her
+novels present strong characters and fine descriptions of landscape and
+architecture; her translations of Czech and Italian popular songs are
+excellent; her work on _Proverbs of the Germanic and Romance Peoples_,
+published by her in collaboration with her husband (Leipzig, 1875), is
+very meritorious. What type of woman she must have been appears from the
+fact that when she died suddenly on a journey, her husband, unable to
+live without her, killed himself the next day, to be buried beside her.
+
+The poisonous plant of the exaggerated emancipation movement appears in
+the works and life of Luise Aston, who impetuously demanded that all the
+barriers which custom, tradition, and artificial social contracts had
+erected should be broken down, for woman could fulfil her mission only
+in free love. When she tried to turn her theories into practice, she was
+successively exiled from seven German cities, and finally emigrated to
+Russia in 1855.
+
+Besides this academic propaganda for woman's emancipation, a practical
+agitation of the question was carried on by a great number of
+pure-hearted and clear-headed women. They strove only for the possible.
+They began to teach that woman cannot emancipate herself by opposing
+natural laws, by becoming a _Mann-weib_ (man-wife), as it is adequately
+expressed in German; but that she must retain all the peculiarly womanly
+traits, charms, and qualities, adding to them some art or science, trade
+or profession, by which she can support herself independently without
+being absolutely forced into marriage, good or bad, with or without her
+will. The leaders of this movement are consequently no fantastic
+dreamers or theorists, but energetic, earnest women. The novels of Julie
+Burow, Louise Otto, and others of their school, greatly influenced and
+aided the movement. Since their day the agitation has become universal:
+thousands and thousands of strong and earnest champions have arisen; we
+stand in the midst of the movement, in the smoke of the battlefield;
+yet, great things have been achieved; able women, like Luise Büchner,
+Lina Morgenstern, Hedwig Dohm, have not striven in vain. Breaches have
+been made in the walls of the sanctuaries heretofore reserved for men.
+Incited especially by American and Russian women, the women of Germany
+knock, and knock successfully, at the doors of the universities and
+academies. Even though they do not yet occupy academic chairs in German
+universities, as they do in America, they will do so in time. A Swedish
+university was the first to appoint a woman, Sonya Kovalevski, the great
+Russian mathematician, to a full professorship of this manliest of all
+sciences.
+
+Thus far the outcome of the entire movement, however successful it has
+been, is yet undecided, especially owing to the modest reserve and
+conservatism of millions of women. This conservatism seems to be deeply
+rooted in the hearts of the vast majority of German women. They are,
+after all, happy in the old, primeval, original royalty of wifehood and
+motherhood, in the sweet leaning upon their complement, the beloved
+husband. Do they fear, perchance, lest their warlike sisters might drag
+them to the front, to unnatural battle, deprive them of their sweet,
+foreordained inheritance of man's love, protection, and fostering care?
+Has not their quiet, calm, and holy circle of activity, upon which all
+that is eternal in creation rests, which has been sanctified by custom,
+tradition, morality, and experience for thousands of years, blessed
+thousands, nay, millions of women, generation after generation? Had
+Saint Mary any other mission on earth or in heaven but love, infinite
+love, for the Christ, her Son? Has art ever been able to produce
+anything more beautiful, more divine, more touching, more powerful, than
+the Mother of God and the Christ-child, the symbol of every mother and
+every child? Do not the heavens in glorious constellations perpetuate
+the memory of great women? Is not the galaxy of women saints rich
+enough, and can it not be enriched still further for generation after
+generation to the end of the world? Is not well-nigh all the poetry that
+flows directly from the heart founded upon love, and indeed upon that
+love which is spontaneous, original, eternal? Forsooth, if there must be
+a change, it is a sorrowful change, due to the unnatural, complicated
+conditions of modern social life, but by no means due to the unanimous
+will of German women. The demon "physical hunger," the fear that there
+are not enough good men to go around, are the true motives of the
+emancipation movement with the masses of German women. The motives of
+the Ida Hahn-Hahns and the like are potent only with a few of the vast
+number of the women of Germany.
+
+Thus it is but natural that the dangers of premature and ill-conceived
+emancipation soon aroused great and good German women who loved the best
+in the glorious past of Germany, the many models of German virtue,
+sacred simplicity, and blissful womanhood and motherhood, from Thusnelda
+to Queen Louisa of Prussia, and who were not eager for untried
+innovations. The very sight of the habits and nature of the new
+prophetesses, all of whom were abnormal in some respect, gave food for
+reflection. The strongest opposition to the movement was formed among
+women. It was women who warned against the modern gospel, who tried to
+divert attention from the loud and boisterous street, rostrum, and salon
+to the innermost recesses of the heart where woman's happiness secretly
+dwells, and to the bosom of family life where the children enliven the
+little world which is, after all, the great world in nucleo.
+
+Foremost among the intellectual guardians of the noble traditions of old
+German life was Annette von Droste-Hiilshoff. Simplicity and an ardent
+religious feeling permeate her poetry, which she produced in abundance
+in spite of many obstacles put in the way of her intellectual pursuits
+by a prejudiced, bigoted, aristocratic family. Her poetry is rooted in
+the desire to induce the new "stormers" to cling to the old and tried
+German traditions of morality, faith, and patriarchal institutions.
+"Cling to thy friend, cling to thy word, cling to thy faith, cling to
+thyself," is her creed. "Who would exchange his blood for strange ichor
+(even though it were the blood of the gods)! Do not reject the Cherub of
+thy cradle; his wing will rustle to thee from every leaf! Do not suck
+dry the blood of thy heart, to animate therewith a bastard of thy soul."
+
+Next important in her noble mission is Betty Paoli (Elizabeth Glück).
+Her thesis was: Church and society, fame and honor are the proper domain
+of man; woman can find her supreme happiness only in true, faithful,
+pure love for one man, and only once in life. Betty Paoli writes: "God
+has not sent me out, and has not given me the strength to aspire
+gloriously with a consecrated hand for the palm of victory. Let him be
+immortalized in marble and in brass who won them: I am nothing but a
+heart that has loved much and suffered much; and all my poetry is but an
+audible revelation of all the quiet pains of which a woman's soul is
+capable." According to her it is woman's destiny to subject her life to
+the magic charm of love, to sacrifice all her desires and inclinations
+to love: "My proud head defied boldly the lightning of the storm; but
+when thou saidst: 'I love thee!', I sank quiet and weeping at thy feet
+How weak am I!" In reality her happiness in love was short; the beloved
+one betrayed and deserted her; the deep sorrows of her heart find
+eloquent expression in touching and passionate melodies.
+
+Luise Hensel's poems are simple and melodious, and are filled with a
+childlike humility. God and heaven are the motives of her song. There is
+a long series of women poets and novelists, who are defenders of the old
+faith, and whose works, though frequently insignificant, are yet noble
+monuments for German women of our own time who have offered a bold front
+to emancipation gone mad.
+
+The impossibility of mentioning even the most eminent names of the
+German authors and poets is manifest when we consider the vast array of
+German women writers of the first quarter of the nineteenth century,
+catalogued by Schindel in a biographical work, published in Leipzig in
+1823-1825; and in the two volumes of a Lexicon of German Women of the
+Pen by Sophie Pataky, which was issued in Berlin in 1898. A. Ungherini's
+Biography of Famous Women (Turin and Paris, 1892), also furnishes
+thousands of names of famous German women.
+
+The inexhaustibleness of our theme leads us thus to abandon, even in the
+most general manner, the attempt at defining the impulses given by women
+to the poetry of the pure Suabian school of poets, to Uhland's
+veneration for woman, to Justinus Kerner's idealization of his wife
+Rickele, a model type of German hostess in whose vine-covered cottage
+many a weary poet's soul rested, as the deeply gifted, but profoundly
+unhappy Nicolaus Lenau. We forego to discuss the return of Mysticism
+which appears in Friederike Hauffe, the Seer of Prevorst; in the lives
+and loves of Heine, who was tossed on the storm waves of life by woman's
+love and hate, of Platen, of Immermann, whose passionate love for Elisa
+von Lutzow was finally converted to an almost ideal and platonic
+friendship; in the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who, though an atheist
+himself, was led by his argumentation well-nigh to Saint Augustine's
+doctrine of woman being the vessel of sin.
+
+We have to descend to the lower grades of society, and observe woman in
+poverty and degradation, to learn of the need of the endeavors to
+elevate her, to free her, and to put her on her own feet intellectually,
+socially, and morally. When the Revolution of 1848 knocked at the gates
+of absolutism in Germany, German women began to assert their inalienable
+rights. The struggles of men in higher domains were shared by many
+women, among them Frau Struve and Frau Herwegh, the wife of the
+passionate poet of the revolution. Johanna Kinkel, wife of the excellent
+poet and university professor Gottfried Kinkel, who was incarcerated as
+a revolutionist and clad in the striped clothing of a criminal, until
+rescued by his faithful student Karl Schurz, now a great American
+statesman, endured with her husband the martyrdom of want and exile.
+Johanna Scherr, wife of the historian of culture Johannes Scherr, is
+also one of the noblest types of able and modest women and heroines, who
+are strong in endurance and even in encouragement of their husbands.
+
+The changes in industrialism which began in the middle of the nineteenth
+century began to produce the mass misery of machinery with which the
+state was unable to cope. Crises were inevitable. The workingmen,
+grouped in industrial circles, deprived of the right of association for
+common protection, were often abused by employers, who had them entirely
+at their mercy. Wages were entirely insufficient; Hungerlohne became a
+technical term; women and children were forced to work in the factories
+to supply the deficit in the amount needed for the support of the
+family. Acute misery led to outbreaks like that of the Silesian weavers,
+whose misery inspired the modern social drama of Hauptmann; typhoid
+fever and diseases of starvation raged among the sufferers.
+
+For the first time women entered the arena of the political movement.
+Societies of women were formed in many German cities. Names of gifted
+women sprang up everywhere. The social and political struggles of the
+time are reflected in the memoirs of an idealistic woman, Malwida von
+Meysenbug. Though reared in narrow aristocratic prejudices, she
+struggled through them to a democratic association with her suffering
+sisters of a lower social status. She bore the painful breach with her
+family which, owing to her liberalism, became inevitable. She demanded
+economic independence for woman, not only because labor ennobles, but
+because only the economically independent woman is free to live
+according to her convictions, "liberated from the threefold tyranny of
+dogmatism, convention, and the ignoble bonds of forced marriage." Woman
+is to cooperate in the great work of the regeneration of the nation.
+"How could," says she, "a nation regenerate itself and become free, if
+one-half of it is excluded from the careful, all-around preparation
+which true liberty demands for a nation as well as for individuals." An
+institution was already founded which was to accomplish this ideal. A
+university for females, at Hamburg, was to give to young women the
+necessary preparation for a higher mission than had been theirs.
+Energetic Emilie Wustenfeld was the soul of the foundation, Professor
+Karl Froebel its head. Its aim was to embrace "all the sciences which
+practical, social, and intellectual life in its highest spheres may
+require on the part of cultured women." It is a matter of regret that,
+owing to the lack of material support, the enterprise failed. Fraulein
+Meysenbug was, after the dissolution of the university, exiled from
+Berlin, whither she had turned, and went to England. Yet all traces of
+her influence are not lost in Germany. Small, slow, and painful
+attempts, an advance measured by steps, interposition of legitimate and
+illegitimate obstacles, appear everywhere in the movement.
+
+Another eminent woman, Luise Otto, of Meissen, Saxony, a strong and able
+champion in prose and poetry for woman's rights, developed a definite
+programme for the movement: she demanded a profounder, a more national
+education, a closer connection of the German maiden with the affairs of
+the fatherland, through instruction in history, her education in schools
+of a high order, if possible leading up to the university standard, a
+training giving "solid moral strength, a religious mind, German depth of
+feeling." And these qualities must be instilled in the maidens of the
+people, of the proletariat as well as in those of the middle and upper
+classes. Luise Otto demanded that education to the very highest point be
+given to those able to receive it; that woman be raised to economic
+independence, that she may escape the necessity of a degrading marriage
+"for material caretaking only," or downright shame, to which so many
+daughters of the people have fallen. In a similar way did Luise Btichner
+attempt the solution of the all-important question of woman's
+independence. The active Central Union for the Welfare of the Working
+Classes, under Lette's presidency, was founded to extend the field of
+female activity, but it excluded explicitly the aims of political
+emancipation and equality of woman with man. The Universal German
+Woman's Association, founded in Leipzig, proposed to itself a broader
+scope, namely, the raising of the moral status of the sex. Admission to
+the universities and participation in communal or municipal service were
+first mooted upon the initiative of Frau Henriette Goldschmidt, Marie
+Calm, Auguste Schmidt. Hundreds of other collective societies followed,
+and entered upon the discussion of the entire range of sex problems with
+marked results.
+
+To protect the poor, especially the women and children, whose supporters
+went to the wars, the so-called "popular kitchens" (Volkskucheri) were
+founded. This great service was rendered to Berlin by Frau Lina
+Morgenstern, aided by noble men like Virchow, Lette, and Holtzendorff.
+
+Intellectual needs came to be supplied by excellent schools of a high
+grade: the Victoria School for higher studies, presided over by Frau
+Ulrike Henschke; the Victoria Lyceum, founded by a Scotch lady, Miss
+Georgina Archer, in 1868, to give courses parallel to those of the
+university. These institutions derive their names from the late empress,
+then Crown Princess of Prussia, who was their protector.
+
+It was a matter of course that the woman's movement, which was rooted in
+liberalism, and which combined the aspects of psychological,
+physiological, ethical, and sociological problems, aroused many and
+varied opponents, especially in the conservative camp. The greatest
+names appear in opposition, even that of one important woman, Mathilde
+Reichardt-Stromberg. The discussions of the medical faculties of Germany
+for and against (mostly against) the admission of women to the study of
+medicine, which would be "an insult and sin against nature," would
+"destroy delicacy, modesty, shame" in woman, are to-day, now that women
+have attained their desire, of high value to the student of cultural
+history. On the basis of "the right to work, the right to free
+personality," the privilege was demanded, especially by Hedwig Dohm, who
+says: "Woman shall study, because she wants to study, because the
+unlimited choice of a vocation is the main factor of individual liberty,
+of individual happiness."
+
+The contest for the intellectual and economic advancement of women went
+on, almost side by side, with the contest for the moral regeneration of
+society. The fight against the cancer of prostitution, the darkest and
+sorest spot in the movement, was most arduous and discouraging. The
+demand of an equal morality for man with that incumbent upon woman was
+tacitly resisted. The puritanical regulations, issued by the German
+Culture Alliance, against alleged immorality in art, literature, and
+fashion conflicted frequently with the legitimate rights of artistic
+presentation. Frau Gertrude Guillaume, née Countess Schack, was the soul
+of the movement for social purity, and she boldly attacked the true
+cause of prostitution; she accused the authorities not only of
+indifference to the social evil, but of direct connivance with it. She
+came into conflict with the police, who considered her activity
+pernicious and accused her of socialistic tendencies, into which she was
+forced in 1885 by the chicaneries of the police. The fact of the matter
+is that her mission is diametrically opposed to that of socialism,
+which, according to Bebel's Woman and Socialism, considers "prostitution
+a necessary institution for civic society, as police, army, and church."
+It is the misery which wrecks so many families of the lower classes that
+drives thousands of hungry girls into the arms of prostitution. The
+statistics of the Berlin police authorities of a few years ago prove
+that of 2,224 registered prostitutes, 1,015 (47.9 per cent) came from
+petty artisan families, 467 (22 per cent) from factories, 305 (14.4 per
+cent) from poor clerks. In the Union for the Interests of Working Girls,
+founded in 1885, the alpha and omega of the discussion of the girls was
+again and again "the correlation between hunger-wages and prostitution,
+and the necessity of raising the economic condition of the working girls
+as a _conditio sine qua non_ for the elevation of morality." Efforts to
+abolish prostitution, then as now, were the objects of bitter opposition
+on the part of the civil authorities. Frau Guillaume-Schack, unable to
+continue her work unhampered by constant police interference, emigrated
+to England.
+
+The reactionary spirit which in 1851 prohibited by ministerial decree
+Frobel's kindergartens of Prussia as socialistic and atheistic exists
+even to-day in the German parliament, especially through the
+conservative and clerical parties. These stigmatize many of the most
+legitimate aspirations of women as "unwomanly." The word of Saint Paul,
+"woman shall be silent in church matters," is applied to her most
+appropriate activities. Yet, superior women, foremost among them Frau
+Henriette Schrader, Frau Marie Loeper-Housselle, and the eminent
+sociological writer Helene Lange, against great odds, forced the
+government to make provision for the higher education of girls. Not that
+the Ministry of Public Instruction was favorable to the demand, but that
+the extensive discussion by the daily press, the interest taken by the
+Crown Princess Victoria in the movement, and the formation of the
+Universal Women Teachers' Association, which has more than sixteen
+thousand members, compelled the powers that be to consider the movement
+as elemental and irrepressible. The first public "gymnasium" (Latin
+school) for girls was founded in Carlsruhe, Baden, in 1893; later
+another was established in Leipzig, and the higher courses for girls
+that had been established in Berlin by Helene Lange, were also
+consolidated into a gymnasium.
+
+On the other hand, the Bavarian ministry refused its consent for such a
+school in Munich, and Dr. Bosse, former Minister of Public Instruction
+in Prussia, rejected a similar petition from the Breslau magistrate.
+Upon an interpellation in the Prussian Diet (Landtag) he declared
+himself "against any step in the direction of the modern woman's
+movement; the aspirations of women to appear as rivals of men are wrong;
+this was the opinion of the entire Prussian Ministry of State."
+Elsewhere the movement was branded as a mere "matter of fashion." But
+the aspirations of women are too genuine and deep-rooted to be disposed
+of by ridicule and abuse. New fields of labor open before women, the
+domains of letters and sciences lie before them, even though the honor
+of state recognition is withheld from the treasures of knowledge and
+thought which they have acquired. Reformers of both sexes, who have the
+influence and the will to bring the issue to a successful conclusion,
+are not wanting. All the divisions and sections of the movement for
+morality, temperance, legal protection, right of coalition, girls'
+homes, march separately, but fight with a united front in the campaign.
+The Society for Ethical Culture, led by the late Professor von Gizycki
+and his wife Lily, of Berlin, realized within the society the idea of
+absolute equality of the sexes. Excellent women, as Jeanette Schwerin,
+Minna Cauer, and many others worked for woman's economic improvement as
+a basis for their enfranchisement; others, like Frau Hanna Bieber-Bohm,
+for the protection of young homeless girls by the foundation of homes,
+and by assistance in cases of need. Several periodicals edited by women
+for women also carry on a lively and successful propaganda for
+enlightenment and progress. That the various religious denominations
+participate in the movement more or less successfully, according to
+their various dogmatic or liberal standards, goes without saying. That
+there is frequently a painful exaggeration on the part of the women who
+stand in the midst of the struggle is but natural. Revolution is
+preached instead of evolution. Passionate cries too often are heard
+against men in general, as if the war were raging between brutal and
+oppressive men and oppressed and abused women. The ridiculous Utopia of
+emancipation from men, the foundation of a "manless" Amazon empire is
+being preached by some radical women crazed by their mad prejudices.
+Womanliness is lost all too often; manly garb imitated, the customs of
+male students, which are not always aesthetic, and which are downright
+disgusting in woman, are aped. Some women try to force their way by
+elbow power, by loud screaming for their alleged rights; some "literary"
+women without tact, training, or moderation, create prejudices against
+their judicious sisters who try to win their way by the peculiarly
+womanly, refined and aesthetic qualities in literature. No wonder that
+thousands of the very best women instinctively shrink back from the
+movement, and thus withdraw their support from what is legitimate and
+needful and desirable to woman.
+
+In similar circles, with equal difficulties and drawbacks, moved the
+progress of women in Holland and the Scandinavian countries. Multatuli
+(pseudonym for E. Douwes Dekker, 1820-1887), through his genius and
+originality, attained in Holland well-nigh the importance of a Goethe
+for his nation. He considered the prevailing opinion regarding the
+inferiority of woman as the result of her long oppression, and preached
+her self-determination to the point of free love. He is the father of
+the movement for the liberation of woman in conservative Holland, and
+Mina Kruseman and her friend Betsy Perk, the first champions of the
+woman's movement, are his direct disciples. Frau Storm van der Chijs
+(1814-1895) attempted to introduce educational reforms and higher
+scientific culture into Holland. Fraulein W. Drucker sought and obtained
+the support of the Dutch women in the agitation against the abuse of
+woman, and child labor in the factories, as hod-carriers; for the
+protection of illegitimate children, and for a higher training of women
+for skilled labor. Frau Klerck, née Countess Hogendofp, profoundly
+touched by the social misery of fallen women, founded with the aid of a
+number of noble women, the Woman's League for the Elevation of Morality.
+About five hundred societies are scattered through the kingdom and exert
+their beneficent influence in all the domains of female activity. The
+Netherlandish universities opened their doors wide to female students
+after the graduation of the first woman, Alletta Jacobs, as "M. D." in
+1879. Many Dutch women are active and successful in arts and letters;
+Minka Bosch Reitz is favorably known as a sculptor, Theresa Schwarze as
+a painter, Fraulein Oosterzee as the composer of an oratorio, and
+Catharina van Rennes as a composer of children's songs.
+
+An exposition of the works of Dutch women at The Hague in 1898, planned
+by Frau Pekelharing-Doijer, presided over by Frau Goekoop, gave an
+admirable survey of the entire domain of the activity of Dutch women.
+The exposition aroused the feeling of solidarity among women, which
+resulted in the formation of associations composed wholly of women; the
+nation, the government, and the queen took a lively interest in the
+achievements of the Dutch women, whose enfranchisement, though just
+begun, is moving rapidly to completeness.
+
+The same progress is visible everywhere in the other Teutonic countries,
+Denmark, Sweden, Norway. Excellent abstracts of that progress are given
+by Kirstine Frederiksen, Maria Cederschioeld, and Gina Krog,
+respectively, and in Helene Lange and Gertrude Baumer's admirable
+_Handbook of the Woman's Movement_ (two volumes, Berlin, 1901). We must,
+however, regretfully forego the pleasure of enumerating even the
+foremost of the thousands of women with their varied talents, many of
+the highest order, who belong to the knighthood of the spirit, and who
+labor bravely in the realm of advancement of the human race in general,
+and of the Teutonic family in particular.
+
+This chapter would, however, be incomplete and unsatisfactory were we to
+conclude it without mentioning a few German women who, preeminent and
+royal, have wielded an immense influence, and in whom, as it were, are
+crystallized German virtues, German qualities, and German intellect.
+
+The first German empress, Augusta, the daughter of Carl Frederick of
+Saxe-Weimar and of a Russian princess, was reared in the atmosphere of
+the Court of the Muses at Weimar; so that the image of Goethe hovered
+around her throughout her life, and influenced her artistic, literary,
+and humanistic tastes. At the age of eighteen, in 1829, she was married
+to Prince William of Prussia, little dreaming at that time of the great
+future in store for Germany and for herself. By her intellectual
+qualities, her humanity, and her charity, she soon acquired a highly
+privileged position at the Prussian court. It was she who inculcated
+into the soul of her only son, later Emperor Frederick III., those
+qualities which secured for him the historic title "Frederick the
+Noble." After her consort ascended the throne in 1861, and especially
+after the great wars, she became the soul of the great charitable
+movements of Germany. She took an active part in bringing about the
+establishment of the Geneva Convention, a most beneficial event in its
+effects upon the humanization of war and its consequences. She was an
+angel of mercy to the wounded soldiers of both friend and foe, and to
+their widows and orphans, and was active in the Society of the Red
+Cross, founded in 1864, and the Patriotic League of Women, founded after
+the Austrian war in 1866. The Augusta Hospital, the Langenbeck House in
+Berlin, named after the great surgeon of that name, and the Augusta
+Foundation in Charlottenburg, were created by her. She was deeply
+religious and broadly tolerant; so that the so-called Kulturkampf, _i.
+e._, the struggle between the Prussian state and the Roman Catholic
+Church, was profoundly distasteful to her, a fact which precipitated a
+silent, but bitter, feud between the empress and her party, on the one
+hand, and Prince Bismarck, on the other. While her political influence
+cannot at all times be considered to have been beneficent, her
+cultivation of the arts certainly enriched the national life of Berlin,
+and indeed of Germany. She was a cultured musician, and composed several
+marches, an overture and the music to a ballet _The Masquerade_. She
+died in January, 1890, in Berlin, and was buried beside her great
+consort in the Mausoleum of Charlottenburg. Beautiful monuments have
+been erected in her honor at Baden-Baden, at Berlin, and at Coblenz, her
+favorite resort. The memory of the noble empress is engraved upon the
+hearts of her people.
+
+Victoria, princess royal of England, born November 21, 1840, daughter of
+Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort Albert, became eighteen years
+later the wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, finally, for ninety-nine
+days, Emperor Frederick III. (1888). She came to Prussia when the dawn
+of its future greatness was scarcely visible. The king, Frederick
+William IV., was hopelessly ill, his mind affected; her father-in-law,
+Prince William of Prussia and in 1861 king, was regent for him. The
+times were gloomy: constitutional conflict, political struggles
+threatening the monarchy itself, then a seven years' war as it were with
+Denmark, Austria, and France until 1871, agitated the country and tried
+the soul of its rulers. This was the time when Victoria appeared
+greatest and dearest to the German people. From the royal palace to the
+poorest cottage, there was no household then that had not sent its best
+and bravest to defend hearth and home and fatherland. The heir to the
+throne, following the traditions of his race, had gone forth ready to
+yield up his life, if need were, for the safety and honor of his
+country. The princess, waiting wearily in her home, shared the anguish
+of every German woman during that autumn and winter. With her clear
+insight into political complications, she could realize more vividly
+than those who were less well informed the frightful contingencies that
+might arise. She felt deeply her obligations toward the support of her
+countrywomen. The crown princess as such, in her own name, addressed an
+appeal to Germans all over the world, in behalf of the families that
+sacrificed their supporting fathers, brothers, sons:
+
+"Once more has Germany called her sons to take arms for her most sacred
+possessions, her honor, and her independence. A foe, whom we have not
+molested, begrudges us the fruits of our victories, the development of
+our national industries by our peaceful labor. Insulted and injured in
+all that is most dear to them, our German people for they it is who are
+our army have grasped their well-tried arms, and have gone forth to
+protect hearth, and home, and family. For months past, thousands of
+women and children have been deprived of their bread-winners. We cannot
+cure the sickness of their hearts, but at least we can try to preserve
+them from bodily want. During the last war, which was brought to so
+speedy, and so fortunate a conclusion, Germans in every quarter of the
+globe responded nobly when called upon to prove their love of the
+Fatherland by helping to relieve the suffering. Let us join hands once
+more, and prove that we are able and willing to succor the families of
+those brave men who are ready to sacrifice life and limb for us! Let us
+give freely, promptly, that the men who are fighting for our sacred
+rights may go into battle with the comforting assurance that at least
+the destinies of those who are dearest to them are confided to faithful
+hands.
+
+"VICTORIA, Crown Princess."
+
+A truly German woman and princess indeed! She was worthy to be the
+consort of Frederick the Noble, and the mother of William II., who has
+imbibed her genius, her versatility of mind, her fine artistic feeling.
+Politically she was broad-minded and strictly constitutional; in her
+home, a true German housewife and mother. She loved the arts, sciences,
+and letters, and was herself no mean painter. Charity was her chosen
+domain; the education of the lowly her passion. The Pestalozzi-Froebel
+House is her monument; the Museum of Industrial Arts in the Koniggratzer
+Strasse is perhaps more representative of her artistic efforts than any
+other institution in Berlin. It is said that the princess chose, if she
+did not design, each of its sculptured groups, its metal castings, its
+fine mosaics and ornaments. Hans Holbein the Younger and Peter Visher,
+the famous brass founder, stand at its portal; life-sized figures round
+the building represent the mechanical arts: the loom, the printing
+press, the potter's wheel, the student's desk; the frieze above
+represents the great epochs of art and sculpture. The Victoria Lyceum,
+which we have mentioned above, testifies to her great interest in the
+higher culture of women. Space forbids us to follow the years of peace,
+of achievements, of joys and griefs in the princely household, the loss
+of the beloved young Prince Waldemar; the political controversies which
+followed the princess's disapproval of many measures, in the inner
+policy of Prussia, taken by Bismarck; and at last the long and hopeless
+illness of her consort, her touching sympathy and devoted care of him
+until his death on June 15, 1888, and certain medical altercations that
+disturbed her years of sorrow and mourning.
+
+It would hardly be proper to speak at length of Augusta Victoria, the
+present Empress of Germany, who stands now in the prime of her life and
+activity for her nation and her own family. She is a princess of
+Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, who became the consort of
+the ruler of the German Empire instead of becoming a ruling princess of
+a petty grand duchy, the rightful inheritance of her house, which became
+part and parcel of the empire by two great wars. Married in February,
+1881, to the present emperor, she is the mother of six sons and one
+daughter, all of whom are worthy scions of the Hohenzollern race, which
+has furnished the world with more great rulers than perhaps any other
+dynasty that ever ruled over the fate of a great nation. The empress is
+the crystallized type of a noble German wife and mother on the throne.
+She is profoundly religious and especially active in the duties of a
+devout Christian; she has built many churches; she is the protectress of
+the Elizabeth Children's Hospital, of several great Evangelical
+missions, and of the Patriotic Women's League. It is difficult to
+emphasize sufficiently the great influence upon the morality of the
+entire nation of an empress so womanly and pure in her simple greatness,
+just as we cannot estimate the influence for evil by bad examples on the
+throne on every woman in the land during the eras of the Catherines of
+Russia, the Pompadours and the Dubarrys in France, the Lichtenaus in
+Prussia.
+
+In contrast to the happiness of the present Empress of Germany stands
+the fate of the late martyred Empress of Austria (1837-1898). A daughter
+of Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, she became the consort of the
+present Emperor of Austria under the happiest auspices. Exceedingly
+beautiful and intelligent, a Greek scholar of a high order, a lover of
+nature and of all that is beautiful, fond of horseback riding and of
+every sport tending to produce that symmetry of intellectual and
+physical beauty called by the Greeks _kalokagathia_; the happy mother of
+daughters and of one son, the ill-fated crown prince, Rudolf, she
+adorned the Habsburg throne with beauty and brilliancy instead of the
+ancient formal etiquette and Spanish grandest. But sorrow came to her in
+its most terrible form: the tragic and mysterious death, while on a
+hunting expedition, of her son Rudolf and Countess Vetsera, whom he
+loved, though he was married to Stephanie of Belgium, broke her heart.
+Her entire life changed, she hid herself in her Greek palace on the
+Island of Corfu, or travelled restlessly through Europe. On a visit to
+Geneva, while walking from her hotel to the ship, she was assassinated
+by a miscreant Luccheni, an Italian anarchist (September 10, 1898). One
+of the vilest deeds in the history of criminology ended the brilliant
+life of the greatest woman martyr on a throne since the Austrian
+archduchess Marie Antoinette who shed her royal blood on the guillotine,
+as Queen of France in 1793, for the crimes of preceding royal
+generations.
+
+Among the German women authors of the last quarter of the nineteenth
+century who are really gifted with great poetic talent we meet with a
+poetess, a German princess on a foreign throne: Princess Elizabeth of
+Wied, Queen of Rumania, famous under the name of Carmen Sylva. She
+belongs to a family which for many generations has produced remarkable
+men. Her great-grandmother, Louise von Wied, was a poetess of
+considerable talent; other members of her family had excelled as
+naturalists, poets, and painters; three of her granduncles fell during
+the Napoleonic wars. The genius of her family seems, however, to have
+been concentrated in Carmen Sylva. She was exceedingly beautiful in her
+youth, and is charming to-day at the age of sixty. As a child of seven
+in Bonn, she frequently sat on the lap of the aged patriot-poet Ernst
+Moritz Arndt, who inspired the little princess with his patriotic tales.
+Her youthful sorrows, the loss of a beloved brother and of her father,
+and the protracted illness of her mother had a deep and melancholy
+influence upon her. Extended journeys to the south, to Sweden, and to
+Russia widened her poetic horizon. In 1869, Prince Carol of Rumania
+wooed the "Forest Rose," as she was called poetically; in 1870, all the
+wondrous feelings of a happy mother and a great poet were opened to her
+by the birth of a daughter; four years later she lost her child, and
+then she sings the words of despair: "For what purpose the great royal
+castle, we are but two!" She translated into German verses the Rumanian
+songs that had pleased her child, and later she translated many of the
+great Rumanian poems. There is in them the wild melancholy and
+simplicity of true popular ballads; there is the ring of a poetic
+sympathy with nature. They come straight from the heart of the people,
+and the translation is full of the same poetic feeling. Her _Thoughts of
+a Queen_ (Paris, 1888) are worthy of a Pascal in their depth and
+earnestness and wide range, covering life, humanity, love, happiness,
+sorrow, pain, spirit, and art. She is of a wonderful intellectual and
+spiritual fertility. She wrote _Pilgrim Sorrow_, which has reached its
+fifth edition, and has been translated into English by Helen Zimmern.
+_Sappho, Hammerstein, Storms, Some One Knocks_ (translated into French,
+prefaced by Pierre Loti), _From Two Worlds_, and _Astra_ are universally
+recognized.
+
+It is indeed a strange phenomenon that the two most gifted German poets
+are a queen and a peasant woman: Johanna Ambrosius. It is true that the
+refinement, the melody and sweetness of Carmen Sylva contrast with the
+painful plaints of poor Johanna, who suffered physical want many times
+during her life. Yet both have been in their way chastened in the school
+of pain and sorrow, only it was in one case the sorrow of the hut, in
+the other the sorrow of the royal palace.
+
+Of the other women who have excelled in letters in recent times, the
+great majority exerted their influence through novelistic literature:
+Wilhelmine von Hillern, spirited, though somewhat too sensational;
+Louise von Francois, who skilfully characterizes higher sodety; Adelheid
+von Auer (pseudonym for Charlotte von Cosel), who depicts the social
+sins of the higher classes; Emmy von Dincklage, the painter of the life
+and nature of the low-lands on the Ems; E. Vely, Helene von Hiilsen,
+Fanny Arndt, Eudemia von Ballestrem, and scores of others whom in the
+evolutionary process of the present time we must not attempt to describe
+prematurely.
+
+Indeed, life wells forth with ever increasing strength from the
+inexhaustible fountains of women's hearts, leaving the problem in the
+mind of the observer where all this activity is to end, and reminding us
+of the _Earth-spirit's chant_ in _Faust_ with reference to the "Creative
+Power" which eternally works and weaves:
+
+        "In the tides of Life, in Action's storm,
+                A fluctuant wave,
+                A shuttle free,
+                Birth and the Grave,
+                An eternal sea,
+                A weaving, flowing
+                Life, all-glowing.
+        Thus at time's humming loom 't is my hand prepares
+        The garment of life which the Deity wears."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WOMEN OF RUSSIA
+
+
+In the dawn of recorded history woman on the great plains of eastern
+Europe shared the lot of her western sisters. She was purchased into her
+husband's family or carried away, she was sometimes only one of his many
+wives, she took care of the household and helped him in the field,
+participated in his manly sports, accompanied him in his military
+expeditions, enjoyed full social freedom, was treated with respect,
+ruled the state, and was sometimes burned on the funeral pyre with her
+husband's body.
+
+Russian annals have preserved for us a picture of one of the most
+wholesome women of early, heathen Russia Princess Olga Igor. The Prince
+of Kief, Olga's husband, lost his life while collecting tribute on the
+upper Dnieper and left her a widow with a child in her arms. She avenged
+her husband's death on his slayers in true heathen fashion. She
+destroyed their ambassadors by burying alive some of them and burning
+others. She besieged their capital, took it, and laid a heavy tribute on
+them. Having thus performed her last duty toward her husband, Olga, as
+princess regent, travelled over all her country and made every effort to
+introduce a good system of government.
+
+She defined the amount of taxes to be paid by the different provinces,
+left her fiscal agents behind her, and established courts of justice.
+Before her death Olga visited Constantinople and returned home a
+Christian.
+
+To the deep respect for Olga's wisdom a Russian annalist ascribes a
+preponderating influence in the introduction of Christianity into Russia
+from the Byzantine Empire rather than from Rome. The Christian clergy
+immediately began a struggle against polygamy, deeply rooted in the
+early Russian society, and endeavored to prevent the excess of parental
+authority in the arrangement of marriages against their children's
+wishes. Valuable civil rights were secured for women, such as the right
+to inherit property and to bequeath it to their children at pleasure.
+But together with the praiseworthy efforts of the clergy in regard to
+women, there came, too, an undesirable influence. The Greek priests,
+full of holy zeal, considered it their sacred duty to combat idolatry in
+all its forms, and proscribed all ancient religious and semi-religious
+observances as unholy and coming from the evil one, who deluded the
+simple-minded and the uncautious into sinful practices and thus led them
+to eternal damnation. The clergy put an end to many games and pastimes,
+which formerly brought together persons of both sexes, and little by
+little the church removed woman from male society. To eastern as well as
+to western monks of ascetic aspirations woman was a source of evil, and
+therefore had to be kept out of man's way.
+
+[Illustration 5:
+_PRINCESS SOPHIA AND THE OLD AND NEW SCHOOL RELIGIONISTS
+After the painting by V. G. Peroff._
+_The disorderly and unruly standing army of the Russian tsars, the
+Strelets, sided with Sophia. Having secured the regency of Russia during
+the minority of her brothers, Ivan and Peter, she soon acquired almost
+absolute power. Slighting custom and tradition, she lost no opportunity
+to appear in public. In the matter of religion, her advanced ideas led
+her to support the orthodox or reform party. The conservatives or "old
+believers," having challenged to a discussion the orthodox prelates,
+Sophia convened a meeting, to be held in the Palace of Facets, on which
+occasion she presided. The discussion was of such a stormy character
+that violence was used, and the leader of the "old believers," Nikita
+was afterward executed by order of the empress._]
+
+During the epoch of troubles and confusion which followed the years
+marked by the introduction of Christianity, the woman of the higher
+class of Russians became more and more isolated from her former
+surroundings. The Tartar invasion and domination only contributed to the
+separatist tendencies in Russian society. Formally, woman retained her
+old right of being her husband's friend, companion, and adviser; she
+owned property in her own name, disposed of her dower at will, and was
+entitled to a share of her husband's property on his death. But as a
+matter of fact, the Russian woman was her husband's slave. She was
+excluded from that part of the house where her husband received his men
+friends.
+
+Domostroi, the Russian domestic code, compiled in the sixteenth century
+confines woman to the kitchen and to purely domestic occupations.
+Woman's virtues are said to lie in silence and humility. She was to
+speak only when spoken to. She was to ask questions and advice with
+utmost deference. She was to have no secrets from her husband. Her
+husband's will was her law and her guide in life. Her aim in life was to
+save her soul, to please God and her husband. Her husband could even
+apply the rod to her in case of a serious transgression on her part. In
+her harem-like seclusion, Russian woman acquired a taste for luxury in
+apparel and house decoration and developed many varieties of fine
+handiwork.
+
+This seclusion of woman and her separation from her husband's company
+had as their result a general coarsening of social tastes. Men amused
+themselves with bear hunting, pugilism, and other rough sports. When
+engagements were arranged between persons totally unacquainted with each
+other, when a wife was purchased, when another girl was substituted in
+the place of the one bargained for, and when the engaged parties could
+not see each other until the very wedding ceremony, marriages were often
+a failure, and led to a mutual deceit, secret immorality, and not
+infrequently to crime. Even one of the most enlightened Russian writers
+and educators of the seventeenth century, Simen Polotski, advised that
+woman should be kept like a slave or a wild beast. We read of many cases
+where men chastised their wives with heavy whips.
+
+One Russian woman is reported to have frequently cried over the fact
+that her husband, a German by birth, would not whip her, which to her
+was a sign of indifference. Men got rid of their wives by sending them
+to a convent, or by poison. The code of Alexis Mikhailovich does not
+even punish a husband for disposing of his wife in a criminal way. But
+if a woman destroyed her husband, she was buried in the ground up to her
+neck, and everybody had a right to abuse her until she died.
+
+There was no education to be had for woman, and she grew up, lived, and
+died in ignorance and superstition. The Russian Middle Ages have left to
+posterity the memory of only one woman who took an active part in
+history Martha Boretskaia, the wealthy _posadnitsa_ (mayoress) of
+Novgorod the Great. The steady growth of the power of the Moscow princes
+in the fifteenth century began to be dangerous to the independence of
+the ancient northern republic. The intelligent, energetic, and
+freedom-loving Martha became on her husband's death an active leader of
+a powerful political party advocating union with Poland, a union which
+was to save Novgorod from being subjugated by Moscow. Conscious of her
+power, Martha often offended the Moscow representative in Novgorod, and
+was slow to give satisfaction to Ivan III., whose life work it was to
+unite all Russia under the sovereignty of Moscow and to throw off the
+Tartar yoke.
+
+In 1471 there was a stormy town meeting in Novgorod in connection with
+the election of a Moscow partisan to the office of the Archbishop of
+Novgorod. The adherents of Martha found themselves in a majority. An
+embassy was immediately sent to the King of Poland, offering him the
+supreme power over Novgorod if he consented to rule according to the
+ancient liberties of the republic. Ivan III. tried to conciliate the
+city by entreaties, but these failing with the proud posadnitsa, he
+moved his army toward Novgorod, defeated the troops of the republic in
+several engagements, laid a tribute on the conquered, exacted a promise
+to discontinue all relations with Poland and Lithuania, and extorted an
+oath from the Novgorodians by which they recognized him as their supreme
+judge. Ivan did not dare as yet to meddle with Novgorod's local
+self-government and political freedom. But Martha could not be subdued,
+and soon the parties renewed their struggle. The sympathizers of Moscow
+were persecuted and complained to Ivan. Under a flimsy pretext Ivan
+again led his army to Novgorod, was admitted into the city without
+resistance, and joined it to his domain. Martha was arrested and exiled
+to a convent in Nizhni-Novgorod. Her spirited though unsuccessful
+resistance to the growing power of Moscow gave her a lasting name in
+Russian history. With the accession of the Romanoffs to the throne a new
+and more promising era began for the Russian woman. Matveyeff, the
+favorite _boyar_ of Alexis Mikhailovich, was an admirer of the culture
+of western Europe and treated the women of his family with marked
+consideration, freely admitting them into the society of his friends.
+His clever ward, Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina, attracted the widowed
+tsar's attention and became tsarina and mother of Peter the Great.
+
+In the palace of Alexis women enjoyed almost modern freedom. They were
+allowed to go out of the palace, and to go to the theatre. A daughter of
+Alexis by his first wife, Sophia Alexeyevna, received as complete an
+education as could be had at that time in Russia. She grew up to be a
+woman of unusual intelligence, energy, and ambition, and on her father's
+death began a struggle with her stepmother, Natalia Kirillovna, for
+political predominance. The disorderly and unruly standing army of the
+Russian tsars, the Strelets, sided with Sophia. Having secured the
+regency of Russia during the minority of her brothers, Ivan and Peter,
+she soon acquired almost absolute power. Slighting custom and tradition,
+she lost no opportunity to appear in public. In the matter of religion,
+her advanced ideas led her to support the orthodox, or reform, party.
+The conservatives, or "old believers," having challenged to a discussion
+the orthodox prelates, Sophia convened a meeting, to be held in the
+Palace of Facets, on which occasion she presided. The discussion was of
+such a stormy character that violence was used, and the leader of the
+"old believers," Nikita, was afterward executed by order of the empress.
+She made peace with Poland and China. In 1689 Peter decided to rule
+independently. The chief of the Strelets, being unable to raise his
+troops in defence of Sophia's interests, decided to assassinate Peter.
+The plot did not succeed: its instigators lost their lives, and Sophia
+was immured in a convent. She caused a revolt of the Strelets during
+Peter's travels abroad, but they were again subdued; many of them were
+hanged under the very windows of Sophia's retreat. Sophia died in 1704,
+leaving the memory of a rare intelligence and an indomitable energy,
+overmatched only by that of her great brother.
+
+Peter the Great found the Russian woman a painted doll, hung over with
+pretty ornaments and trinkets, eating fattening foods and sleeping all
+day long in order to get stout, for stoutness at that time passed for
+beauty. Peter forbade the clergy to marry persons against their will,
+and required a formal engagement six weeks previous to the wedding, so
+as to give persons a chance to become acquainted before they were bound
+to each other for life. He introduced public theatres, and compelled
+persons of both sexes to attend them. Social intercourse of the sexes,
+under modern and civilized restrictions, was forced not only upon the
+Russian nobility, but upon the merchant class. Receptions were
+compulsory functions; these were attended by both men and women. At
+these receptions, and generally in public, Russians, particularly women,
+were required to wear western European dress in public. This movement
+toward the social emancipation of the Russian woman inaugurated by Peter
+found a powerful support and development during the reigns of Peter's
+female successors. During the eighteenth century, Russian women were
+taking part in all the court revolutions. During that time, too, social
+morality was at a low ebb, owing to a lack of moral restraint.
+
+Peter died in 1725. After the weak reign of Anna Ivanovna (1730-1740)
+and the unpopular one of her foreign successor, the supreme authority
+passed into the hands of Peter's daughter, Elizabeth Petrovna
+(1741-1762). She was skilfully kept in the background by the family of
+her predecessor, spent all her time in amusements, and apparently took
+no interest in state affairs and politics. As Peter's daughter, she was
+adored by the people and by Peter's Old Guard, whom she attached to
+herself by constant kindness and attentions. She was an embodiment of
+unaffected simplicity, warmth, and sunshine, and her apparent
+light-heartedness and gayeties put to sleep all suspicion of seeking to
+gather the reins of power in her own hands. But on the night of November
+25, 1741, after a prayer and a solemn oath never to sign a death
+sentence, Elizabeth put on a cuirass, went to the barracks, led the
+grenadiers to the palace, had the reigning family and their supporters
+arrested, and was proclaimed empress in the morning, amid general
+rejoicing.
+
+Though not inheriting all her father's gifts, Elizabeth possessed a high
+degree of intelligence and showed much wisdom and insight in the
+selection of her assistants in the work of governing Russia. She was
+deeply interested in state affairs, and established a special council
+whose sessions she often attended. The people called her their "little
+mother," and in her soul Elizabeth remained a thorough Russian, though
+into her court a splendor equalling that of the French king was
+introduced with her accession to the throne. She faithfully adhered to
+her father's rule in life to do everything for Russia and through
+Russians. The leading positions in all departments of government were
+given to Russians, and Elizabeth consented to the appointment of
+foreigners even to places of secondary importance only when no Russian
+could be found with the necessary qualifications for the office. Peter's
+reforms and the work of civilizing Russia by the introduction of western
+culture and education were continued by Elizabeth. A new Russian
+literature and a higher learning had their birth during Elizabeth's
+reign. It is true that her wars weakened Russia, but they gave training
+to Russian generals, and prepared the ground for Elizabeth's successors.
+The favorites and assistants of the empress were mostly men of ability
+and broad aims. They encouraged popular education and native literature,
+fought indolence and corruption, which were deeply rooted in the
+government, endeavored to do away with the abuses of the provincial
+authorities, and to increase the government revenue, not by fresh
+taxation, but by developing the natural resources of the country. A
+better system of taxation was introduced, and Peter's idea of taking a
+census of population from time to time was revived. The burden of the
+compulsory service in the army was made lighter. A higher value was set
+on the workingman, and capital punishment was entirely dispensed with.
+Pioneer settlements were encouraged in the eastern part of European
+Russia, beyond the lower Volga. Mines were opened and worked.
+
+Russian commercial caravans began to reach Tashkent. Government banks
+were established which lent money to merchants and landowners on easy
+terms. A special "commerce commission" was created to look after the
+welfare of the trading class. A general government survey put an end to
+many territorial disputes among landowners. The internal custom duties
+were abolished. A new system of public instruction was being gradually
+built up. The first Russian university was founded in Moscow in 1755,
+and the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg two years later. Two
+high schools were established in connection with the university, and
+public schools were opened even in Orenburg and in far southern Russia.
+Young men were encouraged to enter foreign universities. Efforts were
+made to raise the intellectual attainments of the Russian clergy and to
+make use of it toward the enlightenment of the people. The national
+consciousness awakened. A new literary language took form and shape,
+Russian satire began to deride the foibles and the shortcomings of
+society. Lomonosoff acquired reputation as a scientist and a man of
+letters even in western Europe. A national historian appeared in the
+person of Tatishcheff. The first Russian daily paper, the _Moskavskiia
+Vedomosti_, was published in 1756, and the first Russian monthly
+appeared in the same year.
+
+Elizabeth did not succeed in all her efforts to raise Russia to the
+level of her western neighbors. There was much conservatism to overcome.
+There were wars to pay for wars which exhausted Russia's resources. But
+Elizabeth was preparing the way for her energetic successor, Catharine
+II., who always held Peter the Great as an example before her eyes and
+who continued his work of reform. During Catharine's reign a woman,
+Princess Katerina Romanovna Dashkova, was put at the head of the Russian
+Academy of Science. The princess was a phenomenal woman. She was an
+accomplished linguist, an enthusiastic reader, an admirer of Bayle,
+Montesquieu, Boileau, and Voltaire. She travelled abroad, made the
+acquaintance of many great writers and philosophers, and became one of
+the most enlightened women of her time. She early manifested a taste for
+politics, and Catharine owed her a debt of gratitude in connection with
+the revolution which overthrew the unpopular rule of Peter III. (1762).
+The most important service, however, was rendered by Princess Dashkova
+to her country not in the field of politics, but through her connection
+with the academy. It was her aim that arts and science should not be the
+monopoly of the academy, but "should be adopted by the whole country,
+take root and flourish there." The public lectures established by her in
+connection with the academy became very popular and drew large
+audiences. She increased the number of fellowships given by the
+institution and sent Russian students to Gottingen. A "Translator's
+Department" was established which enabled the Russian society to read in
+their own tongue the best productions of foreign literature. Several
+periodical publications were started under the impulse given by the
+princess, and the best Russian writers, even the empress herself, sent
+literary contributions to them. One of the most important undertakings
+of the academy was the publication of a dictionary of the Russian
+language to which the princess copiously contributed. She wrote for
+magazines, and translated from foreign languages. Among her works we
+have poems in Russian and French, a number of speeches made before the
+academy, one comedy, one drama, and interesting memoirs.
+
+The great drawback to the social and intellectual progress of woman in
+the Russia of Dashkova's time was the general lack of educational
+facilities. In the early Russia only daughters of princes and of the
+higher nobility could obtain instruction even in reading and writing,
+though the importance of educating women was always appreciated. At the
+end of the eleventh century a princess-nun founded a girls' school in
+Kief. A Russian metropolitan bishop of the sixteenth century spoke in
+his sermons of the value of the education of women. Beginning with the
+first tsar of the house of Romanoff, the tsarevas were instructed in
+reading, writing, and church music. The six daughters of Alexis
+Mikhailovich received a good education. Peter the Great fully
+appreciated the importance of schools for women, but did not establish
+them. During his reign, however, as during that of Elizabeth, there
+began to appear private schools, to which girls were admitted. A ukase
+of Catharine II. laid the foundation of an Educational Society for noble
+young women, and in connection with it a high school for the daughters
+of town residents. The chief aim of Catharine's institution was the
+formation of character, the development of good habits, good social
+manners, and self-reliance in the pupils. Many other schools were opened
+in Catharine's time, not a few of which were under her patronage, to
+which children of both sexes and of all social classes were admitted,
+though it was considered improper for girls to attend public schools.
+Catharine sought to create a "new race" of men, as well as of women, by
+offering the latter all possible advantages of education. The policy of
+Catharine was dominated by her desire for the aggrandizement of Russia
+and the extension of the central rule. One of the most striking results
+of her active government is the extraordinary exodus of Kalmuck tribes
+in 1771. These people are of Central Asian origin. Their incursions led
+them early in the seventeenth century into Russian territory, where they
+secured a foothold in the region east of the Volga. Other immigration
+followed till the Kalmuck population and power became considerable.
+Generally nomadic in their habits, they dwelt in circular felt tents,
+and were impatient of government, but about the middle of the eighteenth
+century they came into voluntary subjection to Russia. Their splendid
+horsemanship and hardy character made the Kalmucks a most valuable
+auxiliary force to the Russian army. But Catharine's measures proved
+irksome to the independent spirit of some of the tribes, and an immense
+number escaped from Russian despotism and resumed subjection to the less
+active tyranny of the Chinese ruler.
+
+After Catharine's death, the Empress Maria Teodorovna, wife of Paul I.
+(1796-1801), continued her educational work, though abandoning the "new
+race" idea, confining herself to more practical problems, and
+recognizing the different needs of different classes of children. A
+large number of schools was founded by the empress, the management of
+which was after her time given in charge to a special department of
+government bearing her name. The schools rapidly increased in number,
+variety, and character, and gradually the ground was prepared for the
+present system of public and high schools for girls, which, under the
+auspices of the Department of Education and of the ecclesiastical
+educational establishments, are to be found throughout the vast Russian
+empire.
+
+Long before public schools existed, and long after they were in
+operation, there was another educational agent to which Russian woman
+owed most of her accomplishments and to which Russia is indebted for
+many of her most accomplished women. This is the private instruction in
+the home, which was conducted by French, German, and English governesses
+and tutors, when a family could afford them. This method has brought and
+is still bringing the culture and the polish of western Europe to
+Russia. It has made accomplished linguists of so many Russians, and has
+opened to them the treasures of the world's literature.
+
+The field of letters was the first in which Russian women distinguished
+themselves. One of the brilliant women of the first half of the
+nineteenth century was Princess Zenaide Alexandrovna Volkonskaya, who
+devoted herself to literature. Having received a fine education at home,
+she spent many years abroad, in Paris, Vienna, and Verona, during the
+time of the famous congresses which met there to settle the fate of
+kingdoms and empires. Returning home, the princess devoted herself to
+the study of Russian antiquities. At one time her studies were treated
+with such scorn among her circle in Saint Petersburg that she retired to
+the more appreciative atmosphere of Moscow. She was much admired by the
+leading men of letters of her time. To the life of the primitive Slavs
+she devoted two of her most important works. A poet and a musician, she
+wrote cantatas and composed music for them. She spent about one-half of
+her life in Rome, where she died, a devout Catholic.
+
+Beginning with the year 1860, women began to appear in the lecture rooms
+of Russian universities. The attitude of universities to the presence of
+women within their walls was not always the same, but their attendance
+was generally discouraged. Finally, a lack of social and political
+discretion and tact on the part of some women legally closed the
+university doors to all, and Russian women were forced to seek higher
+education abroad. A movement was started at home in favor of
+establishing schools of higher learning for women, and resulted in the
+so-called "higher courses for women" in Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kasan,
+Kief, and Odessa, which were conducted by the university professors of
+those cities. The "courses" were not uniformly successful. Those of
+Saint Petersburg have shown the greatest strength and vitality, having
+been conducted with skill and having met with strong moral and financial
+support on the part of Russian society. Professional schools for women,
+medical schools, normal schools, and the like, have had a more uniformly
+successful career. The status of education for woman is not so advanced
+in Russia as it is in some countries, but the future is promising.
+
+About the time of the emancipation of Russian peasants by Alexander II.
+(1855-1881), Marko-Vovchok (Maria Alexandrovna Markovich) attracted much
+attention by her stories picturing Russian life and advocating the
+liberation of the serfs. Among the large number of Russian women who
+have acquired reputation in Russian literature, special mention should
+be made of Khvoshchinskaya. She received a fine preparatory training at
+home; then in 1867 she began to study law in German universities, and
+took her doctor's diploma in Leipzig. She spent several years studying
+the Common Law of the Southern Slavs, and made several original
+contributions to legal literature. In 1885 she began to publish a
+magazine, _Severnyi Vestnih_ (The Northern Messenger), which had many
+women among its contributors. It remained five years under her editorial
+management.
+
+During the nineteenth century many Russian women distinguished
+themselves in the field of arts and science. Madame Kochetova may be
+mentioned as one of the many gifted actresses. Madame Esipova has
+acquired a world-wide reputation as a pianist. Marie Bashkirtseva found
+her way to the French Salon, and left to the public a diary vividly
+picturing her striking individuality. Born in Southern Russia,
+Mademoiselle Bashkirtseva, when ten years old, settled with her family
+in Nice. She began at an early age to show her gifted nature, her love
+of knowledge and her lofty ambition. When only thirteen, she made out a
+programme of her studies, in which were included mathematics, physics,
+chemistry, Greek, and Latin. She spoke English, German, and Italian from
+her childhood days. French was the language in which she did her
+thinking and writing. She, too, was an enthusiastic student of music. In
+1877, Mademoiselle Bashkirtseva settled in Paris and began to study
+painting. After eleven months' work she received, at a general
+competition in her school, a gold medal awarded by Robert-Fleury,
+Bouguereau, Lefevre, and others. In 1880, when twenty years of age, her
+first picture, _A Young Woman Reading 'La Question du Divorce'_ by
+Alexandre Dumas, was admitted to the Salon. Her next picture in the
+Salon, _Julian's Studies_, was spoken of by the Parisian press as a work
+full of life, with firm touch and warm coloring. Two years later her
+_Jean et Jacques_, representing two little schoolboys from the poorer
+class of the Parisian population, attracted general attention and was
+very highly praised by the press: the picture showed the artist's power,
+boldness, and fine insight into the realities of life. In 1884 the
+Meeting of Mademoiselle Bashkirtseva occupied the leading place in the
+Salon, owing to its excellent delineation of figures, fine presentation
+of types, and correctness of detail. That same year the young artist
+died of consumption. An exhibition of her pictures made by the society
+of French woman artists exhibited the great variety and productiveness
+of her talent. Mademoiselle Bashkirtseva left about one hundred and
+fifty pictures, sketches, and drawings. Some unfinished studies in
+sculpture showed her great talent in that direction also. Her numerous
+sketches manifest her warm love of humanity and the great depth of her
+powerful talent. The French government purchased the best of
+Mademoiselle Bashkirtseva's pictures for a national collection, while
+the public throughout the civilized world have read in an abridgment of
+the artist's diary the story of her life and of her struggle with
+worldly temptations and vanities.
+
+The end of the nineteenth century witnessed the death of a prominent
+Russian mathematician, Sofia Vasilievna Kovalevskaya. She, too, received
+her preparatory training at home, from foreign governesses and private
+tutors, and early showed a taste for mathematics. Her conservative
+parents would not allow her to continue her studies away from home, and
+in order to obtain her freedom, she married early and went abroad to
+study her favorite subject. For two years she attended lectures on
+mathematical subjects in Heidelberg, studied in Berlin under
+Weierstrass, and, in 1874, at twenty-four years of age, took her
+doctor's degree at Gottingen. Seven years later, Madame Kovalevskaya was
+elected a member of the Moscow mathematical society. In 1884, after her
+husband's death, she received the chair of mathematics at the University
+of Stockholm. She soon mastered the Swedish language, and began to
+publish her mathematical works and contributions to literature in that
+language. In 1888, the Paris Academy of Science awarded to Madame
+Kovalevskaya a prize of five thousand francs for her work on the
+rotation of a solid body around a stationary point. In the following
+year she won fifteen hundred crowns from the Academy of Stockholm by a
+similar work. In 1889, two years before her death, she was elected
+corresponding member of the Academy of Saint Petersburg.
+
+But mathematics was not the only accomplishment of Madame Kovalevskaya.
+She was a woman of great depth of feeling and of keen observation, and
+possessed, in a high degree, the ability to picture her inner life in
+literary and artistic form. Her personal life did not give her all she
+expected from it, and in her _Struggle for Happiness: Two Parallel
+Dramas_, she tried to present the fate of a person from two opposite
+points of view, how it was and how it might have been. She was a strong
+believer in predestination, but at the same time she admitted in human
+life the existence of moments when alternatives are presented, the
+choice of which will shape human life in accordance with the path taken:
+she saw a parallel to her theory in Poincare's work on differential
+equations. Madame Kovalevskaya's literary career had just begun to
+develop and her contributions to magazines to be universally admired
+when pneumonia put an end to her work and to her abundant promise.
+
+The field of the Russian woman's activity is as wide as it is in western
+Europe or in America. In some respects there is in Russia less prejudice
+against woman's adopting a professional career than is found in more
+civilized countries. Women compose the ranks of the teachers in the
+public schools throughout Russia. There are many women physicians and
+registered minor medical practitioners and trained nurses whose services
+are particularly valuable to the Mohammedan female population. Many a
+Russian woman wears the uniform of the government telegraph operator.
+She has legal right to practise law. She takes part in local government
+on the same level as men when there is no one to represent her
+interests. She has won her position by her energy and talents as well as
+by her moderation, tact, deep earnestness, unselfishness, and readiness
+to sacrifice herself for the welfare of her fellow men and women.
+
+In Russia there are several business firms conducted wholly by women.
+They once startled the former famous minister of finance, Witte, by
+sending him a petition requesting him to allow them to do business on
+their own account in the stock exchange instead of employing brokers.
+The minister asked for time to consider the petition.
+
+The change which has taken place in the condition of the woman of the
+well-to-do classes during the last two hundred years has not affected
+the most numerous class of the Russian population, the peasant woman.
+For years, while special schools were being founded for the daughters of
+the noble, the merchant, and the burgher families, she bore with her
+husband and family the yoke of servitude, at times degrading and
+intolerable, was the lord's property, body and soul, was worked like a
+domestic animal, sometimes sold away from her family and otherwise
+abused. When the emancipation came with the imperial decree of February
+19, 1861, she began to breathe more freely. Now the elementary
+education, at least, is accessible to her, and when means allow there is
+nothing to keep her from obtaining the highest education to be had in
+the country. Even in her modest station throughout the centuries the
+peasant woman has not remained intellectually inactive. When students of
+Russian literature became interested in the national folklore and began
+to collect it, they found a large number of peasant women in the
+northern provinces of Russia who possessed astonishing memories and who
+dictated one long epic poem after another to the collectors. These
+female Homers took pride in their accomplishment and were highly
+respected for it in their neighborhoods. While the chief merit of these
+poem singers lies in their highly retentive memory, women singers of
+another type, the professional mourners at funerals, display creative
+genius in composing and improvising songs. The names of peasant women
+who composed some of the most popular Russian songs are known, and in
+the latter part of the nineteenth century one of them was living in a
+western province of Russia. In vocalization Russian women have few
+equals among their class, both in civilized and uncivilized countries,
+this owing to the richness and vigor of their voices, to the
+characteristic fondness for music, and to the beauty of the national
+music. Women sing their babies to sleep, sing at social gatherings in
+and out of doors, sing while spinning and weaving, going to work and
+returning from it.
+
+[Illustration 6:
+KALMUCK INTERIOR
+After Racinet
+The policy of Catharine was dominated by her desire for the
+aggrandizement of Russia and the extension of the central rule. One of
+the most striking results of her active government is the extraordinary
+exodus of Kalmuck tribes in 1771. These people are of Central Asian
+origin. Their incursions led them early in the seventeenth century into
+Russian territory, where they secured a foothold in the region east of
+the Volga. Other immigration followed till the Kalmuck population and
+power became considerable. Generally nomadic in their habits, they dwelt
+in circular felt tents, and were impatient of government, but about the
+middle of the eighteenth century they came into voluntary subjection to
+Russia.]
+
+Russian woman has shown much artistic skill and taste in domestic
+manufactures. Her crochet work, laces, and embroidery deserve high
+praise and will doubtless be appreciated when they become better known
+outside of the comparatively narrow circle to which they are now
+confined. Russian peasant women have studied medical botany from time
+immemorial. For centuries they were the only physicians within the reach
+of the people. Even at present, when doctors with university training
+are accessible to almost everyone, peasants frequently prefer the
+ministrations of female herbalists.
+
+In her home the Russian woman is a hard and steady worker. She gets up
+at daybreak and tends her cows, cooks and serves the family breakfast
+and the rest of the meals, keeps her house tidy, does the family sewing
+and washing, is her family dressmaker and tailor. She transforms the
+main room of the house into a factory in spring, and on her looms turns
+into crashes and homespuns the result of a winter's work at the spinning
+wheel. When the harvest time comes she does a good share of work in the
+fields. A woman parasite is unknown to the peasant family and can have
+no place in it. The Russian peasant woman earns her position in life
+through honest, wholesome toil by her husband's side. Her reward is the
+respect and consideration paid her. She is treated in the family as her
+husband's equal. Under special conditions she has a voice in the village
+folkmote, and has a right to a share in the village landed property on
+equal footing with men. She is not debarred even from holding offices in
+the village administration. Peasant women of ability have acted as
+preachers and spiritual advisers among the Russian dissenters who do not
+recognize the clergy of the established church. Through the woman school
+teacher the Russian village girl now begins to learn in a wholesome way
+of the wide world outside, and with ambition and means she will evolve
+for herself a career full of interest and success. The future of the
+Slavic race is the present world problem. It is a problem that becomes
+more prominent with each decade. In the solution, whatever it may be, of
+that problem the women of Russia will be a factor of tremendous
+importance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WOMEN OF POLAND
+
+
+In the great family of the Slavic races the Poles are preeminent by
+their ancient civilization, their genius, and their literary and
+artistic activity. Their ancient history, like that of most other
+nations, is lost in a confused mass of legends, but the rich treasures
+of their ancient popular songs reveal to us, largely, their old cultural
+status. Especially do many love and marriage songs of ancient origin and
+others preserved in Latin versions in old chronicles prove the
+conservatism of the mind of the Polish people and their conceptions of
+life. The maiden, now as in the olden days, sings before the
+all-important act of marriage: "Wreath, delicately bound of roses and
+white lilies intertwined, thou shalt for the last time adorn my anxious
+brow. Thou art the last of all garlands that I wound in the spring of
+maidenhood! By the side of the husband do I wander far away. Farewell to
+the mother's heart that bore me through bliss and pain. Might I repay
+all her toils with rich treasures...." Adorned with the gaily colored
+bridal treasures or tinsel, she kneels to-day as of yore before her
+parents to receive their blessing. All the symbolic ceremonies betray an
+ancient origin.
+
+Though legendary and mythical, Princess Wanda, daughter of Cracus
+(founder of the ancient capital Cracow), symbolizes the virtues of
+Polish patriotism, chastity, and grace. She is the noblest type of
+Polish womanhood, and her memory lives on and on, in the soul of her
+race, as it were the personification of her sex Polonized. She had vowed
+eternal chastity, but a German war lord, Ritiger, inflamed by her
+beauty, waged war against her people to win her by force. Though the
+Poles were victorious, Wanda threw herself from the bridge of the castle
+on the Wawel mountain into the Vistula to save her country and her
+people from similar wars. Lyric and dramatic poetry, as well as the fine
+arts, music, painting, and sculpture, have glorified the self-sacrifice
+of the noble Polish princess at the legendary entrance of her race into
+history. Only the other great race of the western Slavic family, the
+Czechs, begins its history in like fashion with the beautiful and
+semi-divine form of Libussa.
+
+With the reign of Mieczyslaw I. (962) Polish history begins. In 965,
+this prince adopted Christianity in order to win the hand of Dombrowka,
+daughter of king Boleslaw of Bohemia, and thus to consolidate the two
+great western Slavic races against the ever-increasing encroachments of
+the Germans. Roman Catholicism stands at the cradle of the Poles, thus
+placing them from the start in opposition to the eastern Slavs, foremost
+among whom are the Russians. After Dombrowka's death in 977, a German
+markgravine, Oda, shared the Polish throne.
+
+Polish literature begins with a hymn to the Holy Virgin (_Bogarodzica_,
+Mother of God), the national protectress of the Poles, whose worship
+pervades their entire life, and whose sacred picture is the essential
+part of their national coat of arms of the white eagle and their
+national banner. This hymn is the Polish catechism; it accompanies the
+schoolboy and the warrior and, in fact, all classes and ages throughout
+life. This feminine romantic song and the _Psalter of Queen Margaret_
+are the oldest monuments of Polish literature.
+
+The later princes and kings of Poland, a dignity bestowed upon them by
+Otto II., Emperor of Germany, married, for dynastic reasons, Czech,
+Kief, and German princesses, who, it is true, did not further Polish
+national life, but broadened Polish culture by contact with other
+nations. Wladislaw Lokietek (the Short), who about 1312 made Cracow the
+centre of Poland, being the first monarch crowned there, married
+Jadwiga, daughter of Boleslaw, Prince of Kalisz. She was an eminent
+woman, and was buried in the magnificent cathedral at Cracow, where her
+granite monument still stands.
+
+The early kings favored the common people, who, unfortunately, in later
+centuries were reduced to servitude, against the _szlachta_
+(_Geschlechi_, nobility), so that in early days the women of the people
+(_naród_) attained a high social standard. Especially Casimir the Great,
+"the king of the peasants," and of the oppressed generally, greatly
+increased the happiness and prosperity of the nation. He even admitted
+to his realm the persecuted Jews by virtue of the statute of 1357
+(privilegia judaeorum), a favor which, according to an unauthenticated
+tradition, was due to his love for a beautiful Jewess _Esterka_
+(Esther). This great king was legally married three times. He was
+unhappy in his marriage with Anna Aldona, a Lithuanian princess, a union
+which remained, however, without political consequences. Anna never felt
+at home in Poland; she clung to Lithuanian customs, music, and dance.
+She loved the manly sports of horseback riding and hunting, and during
+her indulgence in them she was accompanied by Lithuanian flute players.
+Her Christianity appeared at all times rather doubtful in the eyes of
+the Polish clergy, and the Church pomp and ceremony were to her very
+distasteful.
+
+Her husband, to whom she was married almost in his boyhood, led a very
+licentious life. Theodor Schiemann, the historian of the Slavs, relates
+how Casimir at the court of Budapest fell in love with Clara von Zach,
+daughter of a court official. Casimir's sister, Queen Elizabeth of
+Hungary, aided him in seducing the innocent maiden. The father of the
+latter, maddened by the disgrace, broke into the royal hall to avenge
+himself upon the betrayers of his child, and wounded the royal couple,
+but he was finally slain. A terrible judgment was passed upon all the
+members of the family of Zach: Clara herself was mutilated and chased,
+as a beast might be, to death, but her royal seducer did not interpose a
+barrier to her punishment. This event throws a lurid light on the
+mediæval court life in Hungary and Poland.
+
+After the death of Lithuanian Anna, Casimir betrothed himself to
+Margareth of Bavaria, who is said to have died of grief at the
+approaching marriage to the hated Polish king. His next wife, Adelheid
+of Hesse, was neglected and ill treated, and when the king married
+another woman, Christina Rokiczan, she left Poland forever. Christina
+shared the fate of her predecessor, and the king married in 1365 Hedwig,
+Duchess of Sagan, during the lifetime of his undivorced wife Adelheid.
+The Pope, however, who had at first called that marriage "a public
+disgrace," granted him a divorce from his former wife to legitimatize
+the new union. We may draw interesting comparisons between that
+otherwise great and tolerant but morally depraved Polish king and Henry
+VIII. of England.
+
+The first great Polish woman in the glowing light of history is Jadwiga,
+daughter of King Louis of Hungary and Poland, the legitimate queen of
+Poland in default of a male heir, crowned on October 15, 1384, in the
+Cathedral of Cracow. Betrothed in her childhood to an Austrian prince,
+who now came to Cracow and quickly won her heart and actually
+consummated the marriage, she was nevertheless compelled by the Polish
+nobles, who hated the German and forced him to flee for his life, to
+accept Jagiello, the supreme duke of the Lithuanians, a still barbarous,
+pagan people, but whose power extended down to Kief. This union was a
+political stroke of the first magnitude. Jagiello and the Lithuanians
+became Christianized in the Latin form, the united countries became the
+greatest power in eastern Europe, and therewith the overwhelming might
+of the Teutonic Order was broken forever. The dynasty of the Jagiellos
+was founded and reigned supreme in Poland for two hundred years
+(1386-1572). When Jadwiga, a great queen and woman, died in 1399, the
+Poles, otherwise unruly, retained as their ruler King Wladislaw
+Jagiello, who from a great but savage pagan had become a good Christian
+and a strong statesman. The destruction of the Teutonic Order in the
+battle of Tannenberg, 1410, one of the greatest and most decisive
+battles in history, insured for centuries the hegemony of Poland in
+eastern Europe. Of this battle we have an interesting letter from
+Jagiello to Anna, his second wife, whom he addressed from the camp on
+the battlefield as "noble princess, illustrious and dear consort": "We
+slew numberless enemies, not through the strength of Our arm, or the
+multitude of Our warriors, but solely with the aid of Our Lord, who may
+further us in power and virtue!" This document not only shows Jagiello's
+adherence to Christianity, but also proves the respect paid to a Polish
+queen, even though she was inferior to Jadwiga, who was the reorganizer
+and refounder not only of a mighty realm, but also of the famous old
+University of Cracow, which before her time had sunk into complete
+insignificance. She had obtained in 1397 a papal bull for the foundation
+of a theological faculty, and insured the existence of the university
+for the future by rich legacies bequeathed on her deathbed.
+
+One century and a half later a royal romance with a tragic ending was
+enacted in Poland. King Sigismund (Augustus) II. (1547-1572), on the
+death of his first wife Elizabeth, daughter of Emperor Ferdinand I.,
+married secretly Barbara Radziwil, of the most illustrious Lithuanian
+family. On his accession to the throne he avowed his marriage, and the
+princess accompanied him to Cracow to attend the funeral of his father.
+The diet of Piotrkow believing a union with a foreign princess more
+profitable to Poland, demanded the annulment of his marriage with
+Barbara, but the king resisted, and saw her crowned as his queen in
+1550. Six months after her coronation, however, she died suddenly,
+probably poisoned by her mother-in-law, the hated Italian, Bona Sforza,
+who as queen had exercised a baneful influence upon Polish life. The
+unfortunate Queen Barbara is idealized in Polish lays, and the portraits
+preserved of her show beauty of form and features.
+
+It may be interesting to note the relation of the great Polish king Jan
+Sobieski (1674-1696), the liberator of Vienna, and in truth of Europe,
+from the Turkish conquerors, to his wife, who exercised an almost
+complete dominion over him. We have an admirable description of the
+Polish court at the time of Sobieski; of his extraordinary wife and
+daughter, and of social affairs there, in a report by a contemporary, an
+anonymous French abbé, whose manuscript was found in the Bibliothèque
+Mazarin, in Paris, and was published for the first time in 1858. He
+describes the Polish nobility as turbulent in the Diet and at home,
+tells of their luxury and their habits, the high esteem in which ladies
+of high birth were held, and the scandalous treatment of peasant women,
+as well as the absolute power of the _szlachta_ over the life and honor
+of the serfs and their women.
+
+Sobieski's wife was a French woman, but she became completely Polonized:
+Marie Casimire d'Arquien, originally maid of honor of Marie Louise, wife
+of Wladislaw and of his brother Casimir successively, had been married
+first to the Polish magnate Zamoiski, and after his death to Sobieski.
+She is said to have induced her royal consort to assist Austria against
+the Turks, very much against the wishes of Louis XIV. of France, who
+desired the power of Austria to be broken forever. The King of France
+had incurred her ill will by refusing to elevate her father to the rank
+of a duke. The queen had the strongest Polish interests and sympathies;
+the letters of Sobieski to her are all in Polish; they are of the
+greatest historical value, as the king informs her constantly of his
+progress; also the personal element in them is highly interesting; they
+abound in words of endearment: "My charming and incomparable Mariette."
+"Only joy of my soul." The queen, though beautiful and passionately
+loved by Sobieski, was an avaricious, despotic, jealous, revengeful
+woman. After the death of the great king she lived in Italy and France,
+and died in 1716 in the castle of Blois which Louis XIV. had given to
+her. Her remains rest with those of Sobieski in the Cathedral of Cracow.
+
+The description of the decline of Poland under the Saxon kings, of the
+political and moral decay of the country under foreign rulers, does not
+belong to our theme, since the national element in the social life of
+the unfortunate country is wanting.
+
+If so much attention has heretofore been given to royal women, it was
+done in the conviction that, since, after all, the history of culture is
+a comparatively modern branch of scholarship, national life in periods
+not too clearly defined in history is best depicted in the highest
+circles, which, for good or for evil, will ever serve as a model or a
+type to be imitated by the classes below. We need only to glance at the
+life of fashion, so essential to women in all stages of society, to
+realize the truth of this conclusion.
+
+In spite of all class distinctions, which were stronger in Poland than
+in any other country of western civilization, the Polish type of
+womanhood was nevertheless more recognizable throughout all the classes
+than anywhere else. In spite of all their modesty and womanly beauty,
+Polish women were at all times political enthusiasts; at all epochs we
+find among them commanding natures, resolute and manly patriots.
+Patriotic motives governed their loves, their marriages, their
+motherhood, and at no time more than since the partition of their
+beloved country. They excel in hospitality, which is their particular
+métier, and upon which they lavish, almost frivolously, their earthly
+goods. Courage, bravery, even heroism, are common traits, and are
+presupposed in their men as prerequisites to winning female affections.
+Ideals prevailed at all times; and for ideals, often very empty and
+unstatesmanlike, they sacrificed themselves, and also the life blood of
+their men, nay, their commonwealth, in fatal contrast to the
+self-interested, cool-headed, and cold-hearted statesmanship of their
+well-disciplined German neighbors. Upon this noble, but unpractical,
+national characteristic is to be based also their lack of an economic
+sense; work as such for material reward was always, it may be said,
+despised by Polish women; money was, and is, considered a sordid means
+for a purpose; and the same training, inculcated into the souls of the
+sons of Polish women, was one of the chief reasons for the political
+downfall of the nation. A too highly developed sense of individual
+liberty, the pursuit of ideals, impracticable even for their own people,
+and a contempt for everyday work and commonplace activity, have
+destroyed Poland. The eminent Danish literary historian Georg Brandes,
+in his Poland, reports characteristically this significant remark by a
+distinguished Polish lady: "What company they invited me to meet! It was
+made up of workmen, advocates whom we pay, manufacturers who sell goods,
+doctors into whose hands three rubles are slipped for a visit."
+
+It is true that it was not always thus with Polish women, and certainly
+not with those of the poorer classes. In early times the education of
+woman consisted in prayer and work. Learning was not a womanly
+requisite; the domestic and agricultural work in the fields belonged to
+women, while the tavern was too frequently the abode of the man
+(_chlop_). Piety is a most genuine reality with Polish women; they were
+at all times a rock of the Catholic Church. Chastity was the most common
+virtue, and was strictly enforced. Nitschmann, the German historian of
+Polish literature, mentions the fact that as late as A. D. 1645, a young
+gentlewoman at the Polish court, who had entertained improper relations
+with several courtiers, was condemned to death, together with her
+lovers. Strict discipline went so far that, according to old Polish
+custom, maidens were chastised with rods every Friday to remind them of
+Christ's sufferings and to bring them nearer to God. The prayer of
+innocent children was reputed more effective, which was a strong
+incentive for young women to keep themselves pure as long as possible.
+No wonder that such women attained, in the course of time, a moral
+supremacy over their men, and that nowhere in Europe such a genuine
+deference was offered to women as in Poland. The almost supreme rule of
+the Polish mother over her sons is proverbial. With all her tenderness
+for her children, it is the Polish mother who drove the youth of the
+land to an almost hopeless struggle against the foreign conqueror, and
+to death on the altar of the fatherland. Nowhere has the Spartan
+mother's "Either with the shield or upon the shield" become such an
+often repeated reality as in the Polish insurrections against Russia.
+
+Until the entrance of French fashions, which, however, especially
+influenced the higher classes, the costume of Polish women of all
+classes was national, beautiful, and many-colored. A cap of fine linen
+and a diadem were worn; the neck was left uncovered, as with the Polish
+men, and was adorned with strings of beads or jewels; rich furs
+ornamented the edges of their garments. The unmarried women wore fine
+silken or linen aprons, which are even to-day an indispensable part of
+the costume of Polish peasant girls at their social functions, for
+example, dances and spinning parties. A gaily colored cloth,
+artistically wound around the head, was always worn by the Polish girl
+of the lower classes; a white veil, which, however, must not cover the
+face, as with Mohammedan women, covered the heads of the maidens of the
+higher classes. Since the partition of Poland the gay national costume
+of the Poles is prohibited in Russia, but it is still worn, especially
+on festal occasions in Austria and Prussia.
+
+The charm and beauty of Polish women is the constant theme of the
+national poets. A lyric poet of the seventeenth century, Morsztyn, sings
+of the Polish virgin:
+
+        "Thou model mine, divine in all thy beauty,
+        Compared with whom spring's roses even languish,
+        O brightest star, produced on earthly meadows,
+        Yet unsurpassed by heaven's luminaries!
+
+        "Pure spirit, encompassed in crystal,
+        From which thou shinest in lofty light of virtue;
+        Perfected creature by the hand of God,
+        My spirit's comfort and my heart's delight!"
+                                                    (H. S.)
+
+If during the more ancient epochs there are recorded no Polish women who
+have made a mark in literary pursuits, this is not due to any
+intellectual deficit in those otherwise brilliant and gifted
+representatives of the fair sex, but to prevailing conditions, which did
+not permit them to turn from the maidenly or housewifely occupations,
+for
+
+        "Woman's virtue never gets along
+        With novel-reading, sport, and song."
+
+According to the Polish idea, man belongs on the horse, woman to the
+hearth; in which respect the otherwise antagonistic Germans and Poles do
+not differ essentially, if we may accept Emperor William's formulated
+four K's: _Kirche_ (church), _Kuche_ (kitchen), _Kinder_ (children),
+_Kleider_ (clothing), as typical of German ideals.
+
+Nevertheless, there were not wanting intellectual women who contributed
+to the brilliancy of the Polish genius during the golden era of their
+nation's literature. It touches us strangely when the great Polish poet
+Kochanowski sings in the elegies upon the death of his little daughter
+Ursula, in 1580:
+
+        "Thou, Slavie Sappho, singer young and sweet,
+        The heiress of my poetry shouldst thou be;
+        This was my hope in cheerful mood,
+        When lovely songs welled from thy angel lips,
+        Unconscious to thyself, yet sweet to me....
+        Alas! too early silent, didst thou part,
+        Snatched forth by death, beloved poetess!...
+        Not even death sealed thy poetic lips,
+        That, full of woe, spoke with heart-breaking kiss:
+        'No longer can I, mother, serve thee now;
+        My place near by thy side will be no more;
+        The honor of the keyboard will not fall to me;
+        O Loved ones, far from you must I depart.
+        Thus didst thou speak, and more, angel of death,
+        Which I forgot in bitter parting's woe."
+
+The first great Polish poetess who created her title of nobility by her
+own talent in the dreariest time of Polish literature was Elizabeth
+Druzbacka, née Kowalska. Born in 1687, in Great Poland, she passed her
+youth under the care of the cultured Panna Sieniawska, Chatelaine of
+Cracow, married the treasurer Druzbacki, and, as a widow, retired to the
+cloister of Tarnow, where she died in 1760. Though unacquainted with
+foreign languages, and therefore with foreign literatures, she drew her
+inspiration from her own poetic soul and rose high above the level of
+her poetic contemporaries prophesying a renascence of Polish literature.
+Her poetic works, published by Joseph Zaluski, the famous historian and
+bibliographer, and later Bishop of Kief, and republished several times
+since, show much poetic beauty and graceful originality of composition,
+though the material itself betrays sometimes the undeveloped taste of
+the time: she apostrophizes the elemental forces in her poem _Water,
+Fire, and Air_; she describes in inspired words the life of King David;
+the four seasons; she writes allegorically of the fortress built by God,
+locked with five gates (the soul of man, with its five senses); she
+sings praises of the forests, so dear to the Pole and to the Germans:
+
+        "The dense and shady forests glow in richest colors:
+        White is the birch tree, tender green its branches:
+        The beech tree proud shines in its youthful fulness;
+        The noble fir spreads green its lofty branches;
+        Centuries' strength sleeps in the iron oak tree."
+                                                        (H. S.)
+
+Toward the end of the eighteenth century occurred the great and terrible
+events which, culminating in the tripartitionment of Poland,
+accomplished its political destruction as an independent commonwealth.
+This important event revolutionized the life, thought and aspirations of
+Polish women, suddenly expanded the horizon of their political ideas,
+and stirred them up to an understanding of the earnestness of national
+existence or national annihilation. These influences are constant, and
+ceaselessly interfere with the life of Polish womanhood, either
+encouraging them to great efforts or driving them to despair or
+denationalization. That great calamity, according to J. Moszczenska in
+Helene Lange's Handbook of the Woman's Movement, forced the Polish woman
+to take a deeper interest in the condition of her country and her own
+position, and impelled her to stand by the Polish man as companion of
+his misfortune, his exile, his solitude in foreign lands.
+
+When speaking of the unfortunate political situation of Polish women, we
+must, however, in justice exclude their sisters in Austrian Poland, to
+whom perfect freedom and national self-development are permitted; for a
+free and untrammelled national existence is in every respect vouchsafed
+to that part of Poland which fell to Austria, namely, Galicia and
+Lodomeria, with the capitals of Cracow and Lemberg.
+
+When Poland had actually fallen, the leading patriots began to realize
+the sins and follies which had eaten so much of the marrow of the great
+nation with the glorious past, and which had allowed their country to
+fall an easy prey to the disciplined and superior power of three mighty
+neighbors. Superior Polish women began to aid strongly the patriots in
+revivifying the slumbering forces of the masses of the lowly people who
+had so long been kept in servitude, prevented from participating in the
+national progress, and deprived of education and incentives to
+patriotism, the lack of which latter in the common people had been so
+bitterly avenged on the entire nation. Princess Czartoryska, of the
+illustrious house of Polish magnates, undertook to diffuse a universal
+culture and national consciousness among the people. By far superior to
+her, however, was Klementyna Tariska, born in 1798 in Warsaw, who, in
+her Gallicized country, did not at first even learn her national
+language, but had to make herself familiar with it through study. In
+1824 she began her literary activity, and strongly influenced ethically
+and nationally the society of her time, especially the women and the
+newly rising generation. This activity was intensified when, in 1827,
+she became superintendent of all the girls' schools in Warsaw. Married
+at the age of thirty to the historian Hoffmann, she left Poland and died
+in France in 1845. Her writings are of classical purity; and her
+services to the Polish language, which in its present literary worth and
+linguistic form is equal to any in existence, cannot be overestimated.
+Her historical portraits of the glorious past of her nation and of its
+great literary luminaries exercised a powerful influence upon the
+education of the young Poles, inasmuch as she vivified old Polish
+tradition and history. Her Jan Kochanowski at Czarnolas reveals the
+golden era of Polish literature: its environment, its great
+personalities of both sexes, the old Polish virtues and qualities which
+made the nation powerful, the commonwealth strong and prosperous. In
+short, this great Polish woman strove to raise her sisters to a higher
+plane of responsibility, of wifehood and of motherhood, in order to
+produce a new and better generation of men of Polish men withal. She was
+an opponent to the virago type of advocates of the emancipation of women
+who desired to arrogate to themselves what is by natural laws the domain
+of man. But realizing that the political conditions might make fearful
+gaps in the ranks of Polish men, and that there might be hundreds of
+thousands of widows and orphans, she desired to open to women all
+possible avenues of independent life and work, and to set before them
+the ideal of toil toil with the hands and toil with the head as the one
+worthy purpose of life. The works of this remarkable Polish author were
+edited in 1877, in twelve volumes, with an introduction, by another
+important Polish writer and extraordinary woman, Gabriele Narzyssa
+Zmichowska, who herself wrote admirable tales and a collection of
+charming lyric poems which reveal a lofty soul and a melancholy
+disposition.
+
+Klementyna Tanska's fears of a depopulation of her beloved country
+became a reality by the revolution of 1831. Deaths on the battlefield,
+wholesale exiles to Siberia, political flight and emigration en masse,
+deprived Poland of numbers of her noblest sons. Those who remained
+behind were cowed, and reduced to servile obedience: no wonder that
+Poland's women lost much of their former admiration for, and dependence
+upon, the strong sex. They began to realize that they must become
+independent, and wage the campaign of nationalism for themselves, if the
+Polish language, literature, and genius were to be saved, or a
+regeneration of the aftergrowth was to be possible. The right of a
+higher, or rather of the highest education for woman was demanded, to
+enable her to participate effectively in the political problems of the
+nation, in the social questions and the welfare of the race, to free her
+from the shackles of conventionalism which had reduced woman well-nigh
+to the standard of a social toy or an adornment of the "salon."
+
+Women were trained to work, to live up to the higher ideals of life and
+nationality, to subordinate the common petty interests to a higher, more
+universally human existence. A circle of superior women, the so-called
+enthusiasts, gathered around Gabriele Zmichowska, who worked for the
+rights of man, for the abolition of servitude, for the free development
+of the natural forces of their great race. The result was that Gabriele
+languished for two years in the fortress of Lublin and the other
+prominent members of her circle were scattered by persecution. But
+Polish women thus attained their revolutionary citizenship, and,
+confessedly or not, they belong to the irreconcilables in the political
+systems of Prussia and Russia, biding their time, knowing well that an
+open resistance, instead of the policy of passive and latent opposition,
+would be both unwise and untimely.
+
+Sociological questions have become prominent in denationalized Poland,
+and Polish women have been drawn into their discussion. The tariff
+barrier between Poland and Russia having been abolished, commerce and
+industry were turned into wider channels. The revolution of 1863, ill
+prepared and ill executed, failed utterly, and the only hope left for
+the nation was progress along economic lines. The great work of the
+czar-liberator, Alexander II., who released the Russian peasantry from
+servitude, also revolutionized the problems of economic sustenance in
+Poland: the struggle for existence under the changed conditions. Poland,
+placed as she is between Russia and her powerful western neighbors,
+quickly became an industrial centre. Polish women came forward with
+their legitimate claims to participate in this material movement. They
+had no easy victory. The Russian government, as such, excluded Polish
+women _ipso facto_, even more rigidly than Polish men. But the breadless
+women forced their way into the factories, the offices, and the
+workshops, _i. e._, into commerce and industry. Finally, even the state
+recognized their punctuality, conscientiousness, and frugality, and all
+this with consequent cheaper wages, and received them in the postal, the
+telegraph, and even in the railway service, and as clerks in the courts.
+
+The teaching profession is still most sought by women, though
+instruction, in all the schools, is almost entirely in Russian, or other
+modern languages, Polish being excluded. The demand for university
+education, though granted to women in theory, is not so in practice. It
+is very much restricted, as the University of Warsaw does not admit
+women, though the stirring events after the Japanese war, the
+constitutional conflict throughout Russia, and the struggle for autonomy
+in Poland may change all this in the near future. The Austro-Polish
+universities of Cracow and Lemberg have recently opened their doors to
+them, a fact which drew the many earnest and studious Russian-Polish
+women to those centres of learning, as they had previously been
+attracted by the liberality of the Swiss universities and the University
+of Paris. As Cracow and Lemberg admit only women who have obtained the
+certificate testifying to proficiency for university studies, thus
+placing them on a level with the male students, gymnasia for women have
+been established in Cracow, Lemberg, and Przemysl. This academic
+movement is powerfully seconded by the literary, social, and political
+clubs of Polish women. These contribute much to the intellectual
+activity of the nation, if such the Polish people can to-day be called,
+and they produce able and earnest women teachers, correspondents,
+editors of reviews, and authors.
+
+Bismarck, the greatest German statesman that ever lived, and as such,
+naturally, the most unmitigated political enemy of the Polish race,
+which, in his mind, constituted a constant danger to the empire,
+expelled from Germany, in 1886, fifty thousand Poles of both sexes, not
+only foreign Poles, but even Germans who had married unnaturalized
+Polish women; for experience taught, he said, that such wives invariably
+make their husbands, and especially their children, Polish patriots. A
+higher testimony to their pride and worth, though unconsciously given,
+could hardly be cited, for if any man ever understood what was needful
+to Germany, it was Bismarck, the gigantic German statesman, who
+subordinated everything to German interests.
+
+Polish women of the aristocracy are born to rule; their pride and
+self-esteem never forsake them, even in misery; and the women of the
+lower classes are ever faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, which with
+the downfall of Poland has lost one of its most precious domains. Polish
+women, then, carry the spark of a dangerous patriotism and the torch of
+a Church foreign to Prussia and Russia from generation to generation.
+_Virgo Maria, Regina Polonice_, is still protectress of the land. And
+the woman worship of the "_Sarmats_ ruled by women," as Pliny has it,
+still remains; gallantry to their women is a trait ingrained in Polish
+men; the word "for a lady" has still a magic charm. Their beauty, the
+proverbial perfection of their hands, and the smallness of their feet,
+do the rest in the subjection of men.
+
+Georg Brandes, the aforementioned sharp observer, rightly calls Polish
+women of rank patriarchal and active only on their country estates,
+while at Warsaw they appear immersed in social duties; but this is only
+a guise under which they promote the cause of their country in every
+enterprise, be it the founding of a library, a hospital, or a sewing
+school. Every member of a social, charitable, or economic institute is
+also a member of the great army for the future redemption of their
+beloved country. The Polish language being forbidden in the schools,
+every noble Polish woman becomes a schoolmistress of her language at
+home, not only for her children, but also for her servants and those who
+are drawn under her sway. Polish women of the higher class once had the
+reputation of being frivolous; if so, they have become chastened by the
+one absorbing idea of patriotism and the restoration of Poland. They are
+elegant _grandes dames_ in a higher degree than German ladies of their
+class with their substantial virtues, and more self-controlled and
+faithful than their French sisters, though their hearts and heads are
+surely not colder. Of course, woman's nature is as complex and as
+unclassifiable in Poland as elsewhere, and generalization will therefore
+always remain onesided; but the Polish type of womanhood is
+unmistakable; so is the preponderance of the feminine element over the
+masculine. Brandes is quite right when he quotes the opinion of an
+Italian author: "Among Germanic races the men are more gifted than the
+women; among the Latin races they stand on the same level; among the
+Poles, the most characteristic Slavic race, woman is decidedly superior
+to man as to intellectual qualities, passion, courage, wit, patriotism.
+Polish history is pervaded as with a red thread with heroic deeds of
+women. They have aroused whole districts to rebellion against foreign
+oppressors, fought in battles, endured the hardships of camp and march,
+and died on the battlefield." We need only read Henryk Sienkiewicz's
+novels to find such real types of Polish women-heroes in all the domains
+of warlike and political activity. The rebellions of 1830-1831 and 1863
+found female warriors, as real combatants, in every Polish detachment.
+The Polish noblewoman Emilia Plater, sung in Mickiewicz's brilliant
+pasan, _The Colonel's Death_, raised a detachment of patriots, fought in
+many battles, tried to break with the sword the iron girdle of the
+enemies surrounding her corps, and finally died in a forest cabin, in
+December, 1831, of her wounds and from fatigue and hunger. The female
+martyrs who have followed voluntarily their exiled husbands or fathers
+to Siberia may be counted by thousands. No wonder that the Poles love
+their women with extraordinary tenderness and gladly concede to them the
+palm of superiority!
+
+It must be confessed, however, that conditions are quite the reverse in
+many places among the lower and lowest classes. The police system, and
+the exceedingly faulty and incomplete system of education, which seems
+consciously to be bent upon stupefying the lower strata of Polish
+society, has destroyed the force of Polish religion, language, and
+national characteristics, and has reduced thousands of Poles to the
+lowest social level. Much drunkenness prevails among the men, and
+consequently much brutal treatment of the women. Coarse vulgarity is
+heard in the karczmas (taverns) at dances and carousals. It is an
+ancient experience in history that an attempt at a violent
+denationalization of a race always produces a deterioration of the
+masses, while, on the other hand, the highest elements are steeled and
+tested as by fire.
+
+Several eminent women shine as luminaries on the Polish Parnassus. Maria
+Ilnicka, born in 1830, excels as an admirable translator of the songs of
+Ossian and of Walter Scott, and as a creator of profoundly thoughtful
+poems. Deotyma-Jadwiga Luszczewska, the talented Polish improviser and
+poetess, published in 1854 and 1858 two volumes of exquisite poetry, and
+later an epic, _Tomyra, the rhapsody Stanislaw Lubomirski_, and a
+brilliant _Symphony of Life_ for the Beethoven festival in the great
+theatre at Warsaw in 1870. Her fine creation, _Poland in Song_,
+published in 1887, treats of the Wanda legend in dramatic form.
+
+Omitting a large galaxy of lesser lights two women authors reign supreme
+in Poland: Elise Orzeszko and Marja Konopnicka. The former, born in
+1842, though too passionate in her plea for her ideals, especially for
+the absolute emancipation of woman, whom she believes is superior to the
+deceiver and cynic man, is a deeply poetic nature. Her novels and
+social-philosophical works have been, in later years, realistic and true
+to nature, and are permeated with a humanitarian sympathy for the
+oppressed, be they Poles or Jews or women. Her novels _Eli Makower_
+(1874) and _Meir Esofowicz_ (1878) treat of the relation of the Jews to
+the Polish nobility, and again of the contrast and warfare between the
+Talmudic fanatics and the tolerant, cosmopolitan, cultured Jews of the
+world. She prophesies to the homeless race a better future. Her
+brilliant literary works and her endeavors to inculcate on her people
+Polish ideals did not always find friendly appreciation on the part of
+the Russian government, which confined her for several years to Grodno.
+Her plea for the emancipation of woman found a strong antagonist in
+Eleonore Ziemiecka (1869), who declared that the unlimited emancipation
+of women is but a dream of unhappy and oppressed women, which, if
+realized, would lead society to destruction. Ziemiecka insists that in
+any sound society the natural mission of woman is that of a wife and
+mother, and as the counsellor of man.
+
+Marja Konopnicka is a lyric or rather elegiac poet of great power and
+genius. Her poetry is not soothing and comforting, but painful,
+pessimistic, and despairing. Freedom of thought, sometimes verging on
+atheism, is the inspiration which she drew from the condition of her
+country and of her people. She is the singer of despair; according to
+her conception of the world, God has lost his fatherly feeling for the
+world, or perhaps for Poland only:
+
+        "The thundercloud is thy crown, lightning thy garment,
+        The sun the stool of thy mighty feet.
+        What are human tears to thee? Dewdrops!
+        And yet omniscient, none is shed without thy will!
+        Indeed I And yet thou hast never dried them?" (H. S.)
+
+Not to end with a misconception of this poet's nature, let it be
+mentioned that love is not strange to her; but it is the love for her
+native land, and for all those who in some way glorify her native land.
+Such love she breathes in her ode to the great Polish painter Matejko,
+when she writes of his great pictorial apostrophe to the glory of
+Poland, _The Battle of Grunwald_, as _Zaleski_, also, eulogizes Matejko,
+"who with the magic staff of the brush resuscitates Poland."
+
+Though dramatic art is not the forte of the Polish race, the theatre has
+produced some great actresses, chief among whom are Helen Marcello and
+Wisnoska, who found such a tragic death at the hands of a jealous
+Russian officer; Madame Popiel Svienska; and, greatest of all, Madame
+Modrzejewska (Modjeska), whom Brandes calls a wonder of the nation.
+Unfortunately, the range of Polish dramatic poetry and the despotically
+ruled theatre at Warsaw could not satisfy Modjeska's genius. Her
+repertoire is drawn mostly from the creations of Shakespeare and
+Schiller; and with her art she has fascinated until her old age--she is
+now about sixty-three--vast audiences in the capitals of almost all the
+European states and in the United States, and vivified the noblest
+creations of the greatest thinkers and poets.
+
+We are forced to treat superficially so great a theme, for the women of
+Poland crowd the history of their country, especially since its fall. We
+cannot give the gallery of eminent Polish women, for this task belongs
+to the painter and to the historian of Polish literature and culture.
+But whenever a great man came under a Polish woman's spell, he succumbed
+to it: Napoleon the Great for once became a romantic lover under the
+influence of the beautiful Countess Walewska; the first German emperor
+felt his heart bleed when dynastic reasons forced him to give up a union
+with Countess Radziwil; Goethe grows enthusiastic, at the age of eighty,
+when in August, 1829, the great Adam Mickiewicz and his friend Odyniec
+presented themselves at Weimar, introduced by Madam Szymanowska, a great
+court pianist at Saint Petersburg; he exclaims spontaneously: "How
+charming she is, how beautiful and graceful!" The Polish poet's loves,
+adduced by Brandes, are different from all the others: they are ardent
+and wild, but never sensual; they are repressed or chastened by the
+constant emotions of sorrow for their country, their own condition, the
+desperate future. So are also their poetic creations: Polish women are
+either heroic amazons struggling for the holy cause of the fatherland
+(ojczyzna), or they are angelic beings belonging to another world. Nor
+is the motherhood of a Polish woman sweet or idyllic; the same pain
+prevails in bearing a Polish son whose future fate is the sorrow of "the
+man who lost his fatherland." Mickiewicz strikes the real chord of this
+sentiment in the celebrated ode To the Polish Mother: "Take thy son in
+time into a solitary cave, teach him to sleep on rushes, to breathe the
+damp and vitiated air, and to share his couch with poisonous vermin.
+There he will learn to make his wrath subterranean, his thought
+unfathomable, and quietly to poison his words, and give his being the
+humble aspect of the serpent. Our Redeemer, as a child, played in
+Nazareth with the cross on which He saved the world. O Polish mother! In
+thy place, I would give to thy son the toys of his future to play with.
+Give him early chains on his hands, accustom him to push the convict's
+dirty wheelbarrow, so that he shall not grow pale before the
+executioner's axe, nor blush at the sight of the halter. For he will not
+go on a crusade to Jerusalem, like the olden knights, and plant his
+banner in the conquered city, nor will he, like the soldier of the
+tricolor, be able to plough the field of freedom and water it with his
+blood! No! an unknown spy will accuse him; he must defend himself before
+a perjured court; his battlefield will be a dungeon underground, and an
+all-powerful enemy his judge. The blasted wood of the gallows will be
+the monument of his grave; a few woman's tears, soon dried, and the long
+talks of his countrymen in the night-time will be his sole honor and
+memorial after death." (Transl. Brandes, Poland.)
+
+Such is the character of Polish womanhood, in reality and in poetic
+fiction. Inexhaustible riches dwell in its type. The sins of past
+centuries have been avenged bitterly upon them and their children; but
+they live on, true to their Polish nature. The variety of the human
+races, created by Divine Providence, with all their manifold
+peculiarities, their virtues and faults, would suffer greatly, and the
+human family would be seriously impoverished, should the species "Polish
+Woman" ever be merged in the conquering nations and vanish with them,
+however great and nobly endowed the latter may be. If the realization of
+this wish be the hope of statesmen, the historian of culture can only
+desire that the race remain according to a Tacitean word regarding the
+Teuton "similar only to itself."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+PREFACE
+
+I.    THE WOMEN OF THE PAGAN TEUTONS.
+II.   THE YEARS OF THE WANDERINGS.
+III.  THE YEARS OF THE WANDERINGS (CONTINUED).
+IV.   THE CENTURIES OF SUBMERGENCE AND OF NATIONALIZATION.
+V.    THE DAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS.
+VI.   THE COMING OF THE MASTERSINGERS.
+VII.  WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION.
+VIII. AN ERA OF INTELLECTUAL DESOLATION.
+IX.   WOMAN HELD IN TIGHTENING BONDS.
+X.    THROUGH STORM AND STRESS TO CLASSICISM AND HUMANISM.
+XI.   EMANCIPATION OF GERMAN WOMEN.
+XII.  WOMEN OF RUSSIA.
+XIII. WOMEN OF POLAND
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+
+Emma carrying her lover,                   G. L. P. Saint-Ange.
+Capture of Thusnelda,                                 H. Konig.
+A Teutonic alliance,                           Ferdinand Leeke.
+Fredegond watching the marriage of
+ Chilperic and Galswintha,                      L. Alma-Tadema.
+Princess Sophia and the old and new school
+ religionists,                                    V. G. Peroff.
+Kalmuck interior,                                      Racinet.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Women of the Teutonic Nations, by 
+Hermann Schoenfeld
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