Sachsenspiegel. Deme babste ist ouch gesaczt zu ritene zu bescheidener zeit uf eime blanken pferde, der chaiser sol im den und der keiser sal im stegraif haben durch dev beschaiden unge: geistleichem gerichte den stegereif halden, gerichte getwingen wesene. "To the popo it is set (ordained) that he shall judge at a certain time, (sitting) on a white horse, and the emperor shall hold the stirrup to the pope, that the saddle may not slide off. This means that whatsoever resists the pope, so that he cannot overcome it with spiritual censure, the emperor and other secular judges shall overcome with the proscription, (and the spiritual [court] shall exercise discipline with the ban)." was either necessary or possible at the time when manu scripts written expressly in the local dialects of the readers were the only means of conveying literary information. Besides, writers as well as printers must soon have found it profitable to publish their works in a language readily understood by readers in all parts of the country. Tho principal work, however, was done in Germany by the ist die bezcechenunge: chanceries. Among these the imperial chancery naturally Swaz deme babste held the most prominent position; and, inasmuch as its widerste, nicht mit geistlicheming throughout the empire, it obviously had also the greatest des her public acts were addressed to readers of all dialects existinterest in calling into existence a general idiom. In the 14th century no difference. between the language of the imperial chancery and the local idioms of the particular emperors was yet visible. The public Acts of Louis of Bavaria (1314-1347) were written in the Bavarian dialect. The succession of Charles IV. (1347-1378) was accompanied by the introduction of the Bohemian dialect into. the imperial charters. This dialect, as was natural from its local position, was neither purely Southern nor purely Midland. Ei, ou, eu for i, u, iu were frequently adopted from the Southern dialects, but ch fór k and p for b were generally rejected; unaccented vowels were preserved to about the same extent as in Midland German. In the reign of Wenceslaus of Bohemia (1378-1400) the same state of things was maintained; but in the charters of Rupert, the elector palatine (1400-1410), we find the Midian dialect of the Palatinate. Sigismund (1410-1437) reintroduced the Bohemian dialect, which by this time had, with the exception of a very short period, prevailed for nearly a hundred years in the imperial chancery. It was therefore but nat ural that Duke Frederick of Austria should exchange the Austrian dialect of his ducal chancery (which abounded with kch, kh, kg for k, and p for b) for the Bohemian chancery dialect of his predecessors, when he succeeded to the imperial throne (1470-1493). His example was followed by Maximilian (1493-1519), but only so far as public Acts were concerned. In charters destined for local Austrian use as well as in his private correspondence he always kept his vernacular Austrian dialect, showing thus that no change of the spoken idioms had been caused as yet by the introduction of the new artificial language. In the same manner and at the same time the Midland dialect of the electoral chancery of Saxony came to be better adapted for general use by the adoption of the Southern ei, ou, eu for i, u, iu, and the abolition of several prominent Midland peculiarities. In the 14th and 15th centuries the development of the dialects rapidly advanced. The greatest changes were those occurring in the vowel system. The new diphthongs ei, ́ou, eu, for older i, u, iu, which had originated in the southeastern parts of the Bavarian district gradually spread to the north and west; even some of the Soutli Midland dialects, as Bohemian and Silesian, began to partake of this change, while the north Midland dialects and Alemannian remained unaltered. Short root syllables ending in a single consonant began to be lengthened in almost all dialects, as geben, nemen, for geben, němen, to give, to take. Unaccented e was dropped in the southern dialects, especially in Bavarian, to the utmost extent possible. Such forms as pschach, gtorst, kært, for beschahe, happened (subj.), getorste, I durst, gehæret, heard (part.), began to be quite familiar. Even before a final or nasal sound e was now and then dropped in Bavarian, as in gebm for geben, to give, gegnt for gegende country, which are exactly the forms still used in our time. Midland and Low German dialects continued to be much more conservative in all these respects. In the consonantal systein we have to mention the loss of the z sound in all dialects, where it was a simple spirant (not ts); although the letter z was still often preserved in spelling, it was frequently confounded with s in the rhymea, a thing which never occurred in the earlier centuries. Alemannian is chiefly distinguished by its constant change of sm, sn, sl, sw, sp, st into schm, schn, schl, schw, schp, scht, as in schmit, smith, schne, snow, sehlahen, to slay, schwimmen, to swim, geschprochen, spoken, geischtlich, "ghostly," spiritual. Late Bavarian favours such spellings as chrankch, pekch, for krank, becke. Spelling in general was much neglected, although it was not quite so bad as often in the 16th century, when there was a strong tendency towards crowding as many letters into a word as possible. While the 15th century was thus marked by great divergencies of the spoken dialects, important steps towards gaining a greater uniformity of literary speech were made in the same period by the invention of the art of printing, and by the development of certain Kanzleisprachen, or literary idioms of the imperial and other chanceries. There is no need to explain how the habit of reading books printed in dialects not familiar to the reader must have obliged the learned public of the time to acquire a certain amount of knowledge of dialects in general, and must have made them better aware of the peculiarities of their own idioms than Modern High Gerntan.-In the preceding paragraph we have tried to give a short sketch of the origin of literary Modern High German; and it is this very idiom of the imperial and Saxon chanceries that Luther made afterwards popular by his translation of the Bible and his numerous other writings. We may quote his own words in confirmation : not been powerful enough to abolish all dialectal peculiarities in the case of even the highest classes. Only a very few general rules can be given. Englishmen will do well to pronounce the vowels as in Italian: ü and ö are rounded or labialized and e sounds, formed by pouting the lips while trying to pronounce i or e. Long vowels are always pronounced simple, never as diphthongs (which is frequently the case in English, especially with a and o). Unaccented e is invariably dropped in the terminations el, lippen, haben, nehmen being handl, bittn, lippn or lippm, habn or habm, nēm (with a lengthened m) Among the peculiarities of the consonantal system we may mention the sound of ch (in two distinct varieties as in ach and ich), the 2 to be trilled with the tip of the tongue, but is often pronounced as a uvular or guttural sound. S initial is generally sounded like the English z, in stage pronunciation, but not usually elsewhere; st and sp initial are never pronounced on the stage like English st or sp, but are always sht, shp, as in stein, spiel, pronounced (to use English spelling) as shtine, shpeel. The English w ought to bə avoided. The German w sound is more like English v, but somewhat softer; in Midland pronunciation a sound intermediate between English to and takes its place. German v is simply f.3 best pattern of High German. It is true that in the 16th | rent opinions as to how one ought to pronounce, but has ceutury many writers, especially in Switzerland and Lower Germany, still clung with great pertinacity to their native dialects. But about 1600 Luther's language was fully established as the only idiom of literary intercourse throughout Germany. The changes the language has undergone siuce Luther's time mostly concern the inflexional system. In the strong verbs the differences between the singular and plural and the indicative and subjunctive of the past have been levelled in the course of time: thus, ich fand, wir fanden, I, we found, subj. ich fände, or ich schnitt, wiren, the real pronunciation of such words as handel, bitten, schnitten, I, we cut, for ich fasid, wir funden, ich fünde, or ich schneit, wir schnitten. At present the verb werden, to become, is the only specimen left of the old regular inflexion :-ich ward, wir wurden, ich würde; but even here a new irregular form, ich wurde, has come into use and almost, which is a combination of t and s, and the r, which ought superseded the more archaic ich ward, which is now chiefly confined to poetry. Many other vowel changes have taken place besides, as in webe, wob, gewoben, weave, wove, woven, for Middle High German wibe, wap, geweben, so that the old system of "Ablau," or vowel change in the root syllables of the strong verbs has often become quite indistinct. A great number of verbs have passed from the strong inflexion to the weak, and vice versa. The declension of substantives has also been greatly altered. Umlaut is now regularly used as-a plural sign with most monesyllabic and many dissyllabic masculine words, as in baum, bäume, or nagel, nägel, for Middle High German boum, boume, and nagel, nagele; originally it was confined to a much smaller number of words (i-stems, as gast, gäste, Middle High German gast, geste). Other masculine words have adopted the plural -er, together with Umlaut of the root syllables, from the neuter declension, as mann, männer, geist, geister, besides frequent exchanges between the strong and weak declensions, which cannot be specified here. The strong and the weak declension of feminine words originally onding in e have been melted together, one form (ending in e or a consonant) being used for all singular, and one (ending in en or n after a consonant) for all plural cases, as gabe, gaben, zahl, zahlen, zunge, zungen, for Middle High German gābe, gābe, gen. and dat. gaben; zal, zal, gen. and dat. zaln; zunge, gen. dat. and acc. zungen, pl. zungen through out. As to phonology, no change of vowel quality is noticeable in literary German. Modern High German still has the Midland sounds (often spelt ie), u, ü, for Southern ie, uo, üe, as well as the Bavarian diphthongs ei, au, en (äu), for the older sounds i, u, iu, the latter not being distinguished either in spelling or in educated pronunciation from the older diphthongs ci, ou, öu. We have thus zwei, drei, baum, haus, freude, häuser, leute for Middle High German zwei, drī, boum, hūs, vröude, hiuser, liute, Change of vowel quantity is the most prominent phonetic feature of Modern High German when compared with the earlier stages of the language. All root-syllables ending. formerly in a short vowel followed by a simple consonant have now become long, either by lengthening the vowel or by doubling the consonant, thus tag, tāge, sāl, bōte, or gott, gottes, blatt, blätter, for Middle High German tag (or tac), tage, sul, bote, got, gotes, blut, blěter. The rules for dropping unaccented vowels have often been changed accordingly, It must not be forgotten, however, that all these rules are only applicable to the literary idiom; the dialects, and even those of the educated people, often differ very materially from the rules laid down above. There is, indeed, no such thing as a generally recognized standard pronunciation of German, except perhaps on the stage, which no doubt has exercised and still exercises a certain influence on the cur 1 For fuller particulars readers are referred to H. Rückert, Geschichte der neuhochdeutschen Schriftsprache, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1875. The varieties of the German dialects of the present are too numerous to be described here. It may suffice to state that the old divisions of Low German, Midland, and Upver German dialects are stili applicable. Among the first, the Western or Westphalian dialects are distinctly marked by the pronunciation of g initial as a gh, or voiced ch (sometimes even voiceless), and the use of numerous diphthongs, both long and short, instead of simple vowels. The principal subdivisions of Midland German are the Lower Rhenish or Middle Frankish dialect (including the German dialects of Transylvania), South-Western and Eastern or High Frankish, Hessian, Thuringian, Saxon, and Silesian. Alemannian is divided into the three main groups of Swabian, Alsatian, and Swiss, while Bavarian is constituted by several subdialects spoken in Bavaria and Austria. The study of these dialects has been carried on in Germany for a considerable time, but not always very successfully, especially so far as phonology is concerned; for many observers, while welltrained in all the disciplines of the older school of philology, have been totally ignorant of the simplest laws of phonetics. It is only within the last few years that the value of phonetic studies (although they began in German researches) has been duly recognized in the country of their origin, and dialectology has not hitherto gained much by the more theoretical study of general phonetics. Some excellent beginnings indeed have been made, among which Dr Winteler's book on his native Swiss dialect holds by far the foremost rank;5 but it is probable that a long time must yet clapse before Germany can possess so well trained and independent a school of phonetists as that which already exists in England headed by Mr A. Melville Bell and Mr Alexander J. Ellis. Not till then, however, can a real history of the German language be written. (E. SI.) Foreigners are easily detected by their generally inserting a real vowel-sound before the 1, n. Sievers, Grundzüge der Lautphysiologie, Leipsic, 1876. 4 A very full list of books referring to German dialectology has been given by C. H. Herrmann, Bibliotheca Germanica, Halle, 1878, p. 67 sqq. 5 J. Winteler, Die Kerenzer Mundart des Kantons Glarus, Leipsic, 18 76. This is indeed the only work that can be justly compared with Dr J. A. H. Murray's Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, 'published in 1873. X. 66 Ancient PART IV.-LITERATURE. There is a deep vein of poetry in the Teutonic nature, poetry. and it appears to have revealed itself in the earliest ages. According to Tacitus, the Germans of his time had ancient songs relating to the god Tuisco, his son Mannus, and the three forefathers of the Teutonic race. They had also poems in honour of Arminius, the original subject of which was probably the god Irmin, whose pillar Charles the Great overthrew long afterwards in his first campaign against the Saxons. A song called "barditus," celebrating the greatness of the war god whom Tacitus cails Hercules, was sung or chanted by the freemen as they advanced to battle. The name barditus" led some ingenious writers of the 18th century to speculate respecting an order of bards among the ancient Germans; but there is no evidence that any such order existed. "Barditus" meant in the first instance a shield, and was transferred to the song because, while the singing went on, the shield was held to the mouth to make the sound more terrible. It is the opinion of many critics that the stories of "Reynard the Fox" and "Isengrim the Wolf" may be traced back to these remote times. If so, the probability is that they were brought by the Teutons from Asia, and were originally common to the Aryan family. There is every reason to believe that some elements of the Nibelungenlied belong to the prehistoric age. The legend of Siegfried has all the marks of extreme antiquity, and it seems to have had at first a purely mythological character. Of the rhythm in which these primitive conceptions were embodied we have no certain knowledge; but as the most ancient poems which have been preserved are in alliterative verse, it is reasonable to assume that this had grown up long before writing came into use. the olergy. Opposi- I. The Early Middle Age.When the German tribes betion of gan to accept Christianity the clergy everywhere opposed the native poetry, and strove to replace its rude conceptions by the milder images of the gospel. Among the Goths of the 4th century Bishop Ulfilas took the most effectual means of achieving his purpose by preparing a clear, faithful, and simple rendering of the Scriptures,-a translation which has been of inestimable value in the scientific study of the Teutonic languages. No clergyman of like genius arose in Germany itself; but there, too, pagan compositions were steadily discouraged. Charles the Great was the first to check this hostile movement. He showed his love of his native speech, not only by beginning to put together a German grammar, but by issuing orders for a collection of old German poetry. Louis the Pious bad little sympathy with the taste of his father, but he could not efface the impression produced by the great emperor. Many of the clergy ceased to dislike that which so mighty a friend of the church had approved, and in some monasteries there were ardent collectors of ancient epic fragments and ballads. These treasures of Old High and Low German literature are nearly all lost, but from the small portions which have come down to us, and from hints in Latin chronicles, we can at least make out the themes with which many of them dealt. Ermanrick, or Ermanaricus, the famous Gothic king of the 4th century, was the subject of a large number of poetical legends. Siegfried continued to be a great epic hero, and from about the 7th century he appears to have been no longer treated as superhuman. The legend of the overthrow of the Burgundian king, Gundicarius or Günther, by Attila assumed many forms, and was at a later time connected with the story of Siegfried. Around the name of Theodoric the East Goth, as Dieterich, several legends soon grouped themselves; and from about the 9th century he was associated with Attila, with whom in history he had nothing to do. Unfortunately, the frag ments which have been preserved-all of which are alliterative-do not treat of these supreme heroes; their subjects are of subordinate importance and interest. The Hildebrandslied, which was written from traditional narratives early in the 9th century, and is in a mixed dialect, introduces us to a follower of Dieterich. Hildebrand, returning from the wars carried on by his lord, is compelled to fight his own son; but we are left in uncertainty whether father or son is conqueror. The Ludwigslied is a ballad of the latter part of the 9th century, written in honour of a victory gained over the Northmen by Louis III., the WestFrankish king. The author was probably a monk who had been a favourite at the court of Charles the Bald. There is also an Old High German ballad celebrating the reconciliation of Otto I. with his brother Henry; and similar ballads are known to have kept up the fame of Duke Ernest of Swabia, who rebelled against Conrad II., and of many other popular heroes. Walter of Aquitania, who flies with his bride from the court of Attila, and at Worms fights King Günther and his warriors, is the hero of a Latin poem of the 10th century, written by a monk of St Gall, whose materials were evidently taken from a more vigorous German original. The Merseburger Gedichte, two songs of enchantment, were written in the 10th century, but must have come down from a much more remote period. They are chiefly interesting for the light they throw upon the religious beliefs and customs of ancient Germany. The old ballads, which were intended to be sung as well Minas recited, were handed down from generation to generation, strels. and necessarily underwent many changes. They were preserved from an early period in the memory of the people by professional minstrels, who were held in considerable honour in the time of Charles the Great, but were afterwards rather tolerated than encouraged by the higher classes. Many of them were blind men, and in their solitary wanderings the ancient stories must often have assumed in their minds new shapes. They usually accompanied their singing with the zither or the harp. Of the works with which the church sought to counter- Religious act pagan influences very few remain. The most import- poctry. ant is Heliand, a Low German poem in alliterative verse said to have been written by a Saxon at the request of Louis the Pious. It is a narrative of the life of Christ, and follows closely the Four Gospels, whose separate accounts it attempts to harmonize. The author has considerable force and freedom of expression, and seems to have been so absorbed in the grandeur of his theme as to have deliberately rejected rhetorical ornament. The so-called Krist of Otfrid, a High German poet, who dedicated his work to Louis the German, has the same subject, but is not nearly so effective. It is the first rhymed German poem, and the necessities of rhyme often compel Otfrid to fill out his line with words and phrases which obscure his meaning. His lyrical passages are too didactic to rank as genuine poetry. The fragment of Muspilli, a Bavarian poem of the 9th century on the Last Judgment, indicates power of a much higher order. Its form is alliterative; and reminiscences of paganism are strangely mingled with its Christian ideas. During the reigns of Charles the Great and Louis the Monastie Pious secular learning was zealously cultivated in the learning monasteries of Germany as well as in those of other portions of the Frankish empire. The school established by Hrabanus Maurus in the famous abbey of Fulda vied with that of Tours, where Hrabanus had been a pupił HohenStaufen period. of Alcuin, in the excellence of its teaching. In the wars with the Northmen, with the Magyars, and with the Slavs under the later Carolingian kings, many of the ecclesiastical institutions were destroyed; but they sprang up again under the protection of Henry I. From the time of his son Otto I. the Germans stood in direct relation with Italy; the marriage of Otto II. with the princess Theophano brought them into connexion with the learning and refinement of the Byzantine court; and Gerbert, the friend of Otto III., afterwards Pope Silvester II., introduced them to some of the achievements of Arabian science. These influences quickened the energies of enlightened churchmen, and originated an intellectual movement which to some extent continued during the vigorous reigns of the first two Franconian sovereigns, Conrad II. and Henry III. "The chief subject of study was the scholastic philosophy, to which, however, in its earlier stages, Germany made no supremely important contribution. The Neo-Platonic tendencies of Scotus Erigena were opposed by Hrabanus Maurus, who remained loyal to Aristotle and Boetius; and his example was generally followed, not only by his successors in Fulda, but by the members of all other German schools. The school of St Gall was exceptionally active, and one of the monks, Notker Labeo, who died in 1022, wrote some original philosophical books, and translated into German the De Consolatione of Boetius and two of Aristotle's works. In pure literature very little was done; but there are several well-written Latin histories belonging to the 11th century. The best thought of the age was manifested in its Romanesque architecture, and in the then subordinate arts of painting, sculpture, and music. II. The Age of Chivalry.-The reign of Henry IV., during which the struggle between the empire and the papacy began, had a disastrous effect on the national culture; and the evil was not remedied under the disturbed rule of his two immediate successors. But under the Hohenstaufen dynasty, during the period of Middle High German, the country passed through one of the greatest epochs of its literature. The more learned of the clergy interested themselves deeply in the development of scholasticism through the nominalists and the realists; and in the 13th century Albertus Magnus, a native of Swabia, produced the first systematic exposition of Aristotle, in the full light of Arabian research. It was, however, in poetry that Germany achieved the highest distinction; and her most important poets were members of the knightly class, which at this time rose to its utmost power and fame. There were many reasons why the members of this class became sensitive to the higher influences of the imagination. In the first place, they had the elevating consciousness of a life shared with a vast community which set before itself the loftiest aims. Historians sometimes take a malicious pleasure in contrasting the mean performance of many knights with their high vows; but these vows at any rate introduced into the life of rough nobles an ideal element, and inclined them to take interest in the gentler and nobler aspects of existence. In the Italian wars of Frederick Barbarossa the German knights saw more than they had ever before done of Southern civilization, and their minds were continually stimulated by the varying fortunes of their adventurous emperor. Of still greater importance was the influence of the crusades, in which the Germans first took an active part under Frederick's predecessor, Conrad III. The crusaders had a remote and unselfish aim, connected with all that was most sacred and most tender in their religious ideas; and this alone would have created a sentiment favourable to poetic aspiration. But, besides this, the far-off Eastern lands, with their strange peoples and mystical associations, awoke dreams which could not have other than harmonious utterance, and on the return of the warriors they stirred the fancy of their friends with reports of a new and greater world. While the crusades lasted, the knights were forced into intimate acquaintance with the clergy, whose refined culture inevitably to some extent softened their rudeness; they also formed friendships with representatives of French chivalry. In France the works of the troubadours and the trouvères formed one of the most prominent elements of the national life, and the French nobles did not forget in Palestine the songs and romances of their home. The better minds in the German armies caught the inspiration, and longed to distinguish themselves by like achievements. And their desire was deepened when, by the acquisition of the Free County of Burgundy, Frederick Barbarossa opened a new pathway by which intellectual influences might pass from the western to the eastern bank of the Rhine. The poetic impulse which thus entered Germany affected a wide circle; the highest princes as well as the humblest knights felt its power. Even the emperor Henry VI. hiuself is said to have been moved by the prevailing feeling, and to have composed verses. At the imperial and princely courts poets were encouraged to give expression to their genius; and the ladies whose beauty and virtues they delighted to praise stimulated their endeavours by marked appreciation. Thus the national imagination found in the whole temper of the age an atmosphere well adapted to the blooming of its first spring-time. The most characteristic outcome of this active era is the Poetical series of poetical romances produced in the 12th and 13th romances. centuries. The German poets might have found magnificent material in their old, native legends; but for the most part they preferred subjects which had already been artistically wrought by the trouvères, whose methods and style they also closely imitated. Among the themes' they selected may be mentioned the legends of Alexander the Great, of Charles the Great and his paladins, of Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, with the allied legend of the Holy Grail. The fortunes of Tristram and Iseult also exercised a powerful charm over many minds. These and all other chosen subjects were treated wholly in the spirit of chivalry. The poets of the Middle Age had no idea of being true to the characteristics of a particular epoch; their own time was the only one they attempted to understand. Ancient heroes became in their hands medieval knights; men who had died long before the rise of Christianity were transformed into devoted servants of the Church. And in every romance the supreme aim was to present an idealized picture of the virtues of knighthood. One of those who prepared the way for the chief romance- Romance writers was Conrad, a priest in the service of Henry the writers. Proud, who, before 1139, composed the Rolandslied, setting forth, in imitation of the French Chanson de Roland, the overthrow of Roland, the favourite paladin of Charles the Great, in the pass of Roncesvalles. He was followed by another priest, Lamprecht, who, also working upon a French original, relates in the Alexanderlied the deeds of the Macedonian hero. Greater than either of these was Heinrich von Veldeke, the first of the poets who may claim to rank as German trouvères. His great work was the Eneit, written beween 1175 and 1190. It is not only in armour and in dress that Virgil's characters are here changed; in thought and feeling they are recreated. The language of the poem is so carefully crosen, and the incidents are narrated with so much spirit, that it is still possible to understand the immense popularity it once enjoyed. Hartmann von HartAue, in Der Ari Heinrich and other poems, selected mana themes that are extremely repulsive to modern feeling; but Von Aue. he was endowed with genuinely plastic force, and interests us by touching certain mystical aspects of medieval senti ment. The master in whom these aspects were most fully represented was Wolfram von Eschenbach, a member of a noble family of Franconia, who was born during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa and died during that of his grandson, Frederick II. He was one of a group of poets who established themselves at the Wartburg, the court of the brilliant landgrave Hermann of Thuringia; and his chief poem, Parzival, was composed there towards the end of the 12th century. Germany did not produce during the Middle Ages a more truly poetic mind, and it is curious to observe how exactly he anticipated some of the qualities for which she long afterwards became famous. He has all the dreaminess, the sentiment, the passion for the ideal, which are, or rather at one time were, her most attractive characteristics. The hero, trained by his mother amid circumstances of idyllic simplicity, suddenly passes into a world of movement and adventure, and he is brought by accident to the gorgeous palace of the Holy Grail, of whose kingdom he ultimately becomes lord. The object of the poem is evidently to depict the strivings of a restless but noble spirit, dissatisfied with passing pleasure, having always before it a high and spotless.aim. It is difficult for modern readers to detect the spiritual significance of many of the scenes; the poet seems to escape from us into a far-off region, whence his words reach us rather as dim echoes than as clear, ringing sounds. And some of the descriptions are in themselves tedious and superfluous, while advance from one stage of the tale to another apparently proceeds according to the arbitrary whim of the moment. Nevertheless, the character of Parzival is a true conception of genius, and enables us to understand, better than any other imaginative creation of medieval Germany, that discontent with life as it is, that sense of being haunted by visions of spiritual loveliness, which, throughout the Middle Ages, existed side by side with unrestrained delight in the outward world. signs of exhaustion, and romances began to make way for Fortunately the poets of the age of chivalry did not all A complete, almost a dramatic, contrast to Wolfram von Eschenbach is found in Gottfried of Strasburg, the greatest of his literary contemporaries. These two men are representatives of a distinction which incessantly recurs,-that|sional traces of medievalism; but its spirit is that of a more between the poet who fashions spirits of a finer mould than those we actually know, and the poet who contents himself with penetrating into the innermost recesses of existing character. Gottfried's theme is Tristram and Iseult; and the charming tale, which unfortunately he did not live to carry to the end, was perhaps never more beautifully told. There are no mystic longings in the men and women he presents to us: they love the earth and the sky, with their gorgeous colours, graceful forms, and happy sounds; they care not to inquire what may lie behind these, or whether in the scheme of things there is a place for moral law. Few poets have set forth so powerfully the fascination of youthful passion. In his glowing pictures we find no shadowy figures like those of Wolfram, with step so light that they appear to be the figures of a dream; his images are clear, sharply cut, like those of the world from which they are taken. And although psychological analysis was unknown to him, the actions of his characters display keen insight into the secrets of human hearts when entangled in the most confused meshes. Medieval romance bore its richest fruit in the works of these two great poets; and most of their successors imitated one or other of them. Those who followed in Gottfried's steps came nearest to a happy result, for Wolfram was one of those lonely and daring spirits in whose remote path it is given to few to tread without stumbling. The best known of Gottfried's imitators was Conrad von Würzburg, who wrote on the Trojan war and many other subjects, and is considered one of the most artistic of medieval writers. Towards the end of the 13th century the movement showed Gudrun is another epic in which a poet of this period gave form to several old legends. They had for centuries been current along the coasts of Frieslaud and Scandinavia, and the society they represent is essentially the same as that of the Nibelungenlied,-a society in which the men are rude, warlike, and loyal, the women independent and faithful. Although full of serious episodes, Gudrun is as happy in its ending as the greater poem is tragic; and we feel throughout that the beautiful Princess Gudrun of Seeland, whom the Northmen have carried from her home, and on whom the cruel Queen Gerlind heaps indignities, will at last be restored to King Herwig, her brave and passionate lover. The characters stand out clearly in their rough vigour; and several happy strokes |