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Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Fire-burial among our German forefathers: a record of the poetry and history of Teutonic cremation
Creator
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Blind, Karl
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed in double columns. Printed by Spottiswoode and Co., New Street Square and Parliament Street, London. Includes bibliographical references.
Publisher
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Longmans, Green, and Co.
Date
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1875
Identifier
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G5170
CT39
Subject
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Death
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Fire-burial among our German forefathers: a record of the poetry and history of Teutonic cremation), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Burial
Conway Tracts
Cremation
Death
Germany
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Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Yggdrasil; or the Teutonic tree of existence
Creator
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Blind, Karl
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Inscription in ink: "To Moncure D. Conway - as a token of friendship. K.B." Printed in double columns. Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine with some additions. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Spottiswoode & Co., printers
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1877
Identifier
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CT69
Subject
The topic of the resource
Mythology
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Yggdrasil; or the Teutonic tree of existence), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Norse Mythology
Yggdrasil
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....
W. S. Burton, Esq.
J. B. Langley, Esq.
W. T. Malleson, Esq. ...
Mark E. Marsden, Esq.
William Shaen, Esq.
R. W. Mackay, Esq.
P. A. Taylor, Esq.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
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Title
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[Letter concerning Moncure Conway delivering lectures to the working classes]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Marsden, Mark Eagles
Mackay, Robert William
Shaen, William
Langley, J. Baxter
Blind, Karl
Malleson, W.T.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 2 sheets ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1865
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5699
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lectures
Moncure Conway
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work ([Letter concerning Moncure Conway delivering lectures to the working classes]), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
The Flemings and the Walloons of Belgium
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Blind, Karl
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 14 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Printed in double columns. Reprinted (by permission) from Fraser's Magazine. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Spottiswoode and Co., London.
Publisher
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Longmans, Green, & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1876
Identifier
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CT63
Subject
The topic of the resource
Ethnology
Belgium
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Flemings and the Walloons of Belgium), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Belgium
Conway Tracts
Ethnology
Fleming and Walloon Peoples
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1G4
AND
By Karl Blind.
The German nation, which is not a political product of to-day, as someappear to think, but which was knit together nearly a thousand years
ago, in a union far more efficient than the incomplete one at present
existing, has, like its western neighbour, enjoyed an early literary
development. A rugged, heroic poetry, and some religious chaunts,
which have come down to us in a fragmentary form, mark the most
ancient time. Between the twelfth and the fourteenth century, Ger
many has had her minnesinger, or troubadours. After that, a school of
meistersinger flourished in the towns, until that gigantic cataclysm
occurred—the Thirty Years’ War, during which the nation’s life-blood
ebbed out whilst its soul was panting for spiritual freedom.
Then the ‘princes,’1 who by law were mere provincial governors, but
who had for some time past aspired to sovereignty and endeavoured to
set up particular dynasties, began to tear the Empire to shreds. The
popular forces which in the various Republican (Eidgenossen) Leagues,
and in the War of the Peasants during the Reformation movement,
had sought to reorganise the nation on a democratic basis, were no
longer in the field. The princes thus had it all their own way; and
Germany who once had undoubtedly been an indivisible union—not a
mere confederacy of sovereign states, but a real Union—became split
up into a medley of petty principalities over whom merely a shadow of
Imperial rule flitted, until that shadow, too, was formally done away
with in 1806, when the Corsican conqueror lorded it over Continental
Europe.
During the colossal misfortune which befel Germany in consequence
of the terrible struggle of the seventeenth century, it seemed for a while1
as if her intellectual light were extinguished. Her very language, with
1 Fiirsten, which originally did not mean sovereign rulers, but simply the first or
foremost of the high aristocracy—a meaning that word still had at Luther’s time.
�GERMAN TROUBADOURS.
165
its combined strength and aptitude for musical development, becamebarbarised. It sank down to the level of a rude dialect. Only gradually,,
oui’ literature, which had had so promising a beginning, recovered the
lost ground, but at last attained once more a development the extent,
beauty, grandeur, and richness of which is now universally acknowledged
even by a nation in which an unapproachable poetical master-mind has
risen.
There is a great break between the Master-singer epoch and the litera
ture of which Goethe and Schiller are the foremost representatives. Yetz
Goethe was, as he himself confesses, deeply indebted to that particular
poet of the Master-singer school who is best known by name, though
not by his works, namely, to Hans Sachs, the much-vilified ‘ shoemaking
rhymester’ of Nuremberg. ‘ In order to find a congenial poetical soil on
which we could plant our foot, in order to discover an element on which
we could breathe freely’—says the author of Wahrheit und Dichtung—
‘we had to go back a few centuries, when solid capabilities rose splendidly
from a chaotic condition; and thus we entered into friendly intercourse;
with the poetry of those bygone ages. The minne-singers were too far
removed from us. We would first have had to study their language
and that did not suit us. Our object was to live, and not to learn..
Hans Sachs, the truly masterly poet, was nearest to us. A genuine talent,,
although not in the manner of those knights and courtiers; but a quaint
citizen, even as we boasted of being ! His didactic realism agreed with
our tendency; and we used, on many occasions, his easy rhythm, his
facile rhyme.’
So Goethe, who, moreover, in his ‘ Poetical Mission of Hans Sachs,’1
has fervently sung the praise of the citizen poet, uttering strange curses
against ‘the folk that would not acknowledge their master,’ and con
demning them to ‘ be banished into the frog-pond,’ instead of dwelling
on the serene heights where genuine bards throne in glory.
If a Goethe could thus speak of a master-singer, that often-despised
school of town’s-poets may, after all, merit some notion. The proper
judgment of the rise and origin of the Meister-singer is, however, gene
rally obscured at the very outset by the unduly sharp division made between
their early representatives and the chivalric Minstrels of Love. Minnesong and Master-song are reckoned to bear their antagonistic difference
in their very appellations. Yet, the apparently distinctive name of
£ Meister’ was applied already to poets in the period in which we gene
rally assume that the German troubadours flourished. On the other
hand, the word 1 minne-singer ’ is of quite recent date. It was Bodmer
who first used it in the last century : and this comparatively new word
1 Hans Sachsens poetische Sendung.
�16G
GERMAN TROUBADOURS
then gave rise to 'an over-strained division-line which is detrimental to
a proper understanding. Grimm at least, the great authority, has deci
dedly laid it down’as his’opinion that the Troubadour-song and the Master
song in Germany are not only not to be thus divided, but that they have
a close affinity in their essential points. Docen and von der Hagen
■have upheld the contrary view. ‘The Minne andMeister-song,’—Grimm
says ‘ are one plant, which at first was sweet; which in its older age
•developed into a degree of acerbity; and which at last necessarily became
woody. But unless we go back to the days of its youth, we shall never
comprehend the branches and twigs which have sprouted forth from it.’
Even the usual separation into ‘ chivalric’ poets and ‘civic’poets must
be accepted with some caution. Among the crowd of lyric bards whose
songs have been handed down to us in that famous collection attributed
to Riidger von Maness, the splendid manuscript of which is still, in spite
-of the Peace of Frankfort, retained by the French, there are not a few
singers of humble descent and calling. We there meet with a clerk, a
schoolmaster, a fisherman, a smith, and other mechanics—even a poet
■of the much persecuted race of the Hebrews, namely, the Jew Siisskind,
of Trimberg. That which we possess of him, is poetry of a more abstract,
philosophical character, a kind of Solomonic wisdom, not untinged with
melancholy. In the midst of priestly fanaticism, he sings of the free
dom of thought. ‘ Thought penetrates through stone and steel; Thought
travels quicker over the field than the quickest glance of eyes ; Thought
rises high up in the air above the soaring eagle.’ No doubt, this Jewish
Marquis Posa had, as he himself relates, at last to leave the poetic art,
finding little favour among its noble patrons. In bitter disappointment
he- complains that he is travelling on the fool’s high-road (ich var ilf der
toren vart), and says he will give it up, grow a long beard of gray hairs,
live in the manner of the old Jews, clad in a long mantle, with a capa’
■cious hood, walking along with lowly gait, and trying to forget that he
had ever sung at courts.
The vast majority of those whom we now call minne-singers were no
doubt of noble descent. Some of our emperors were befriended by the
muse. Even Henry VI., that iron ruler, is reckoned among the trouba
dours ; his lay : ‘ Ich grueze mit gesang die suezen, die ich vermiden niht
wil, noch enmac ’ is one of the most touching :
I greet with song that sweetest lady
Whom I can ne’er forget;
Though many a day is past and gone
Since face to face we met.
Frederick II, too, another German ruler of the Suabian house of
Hohenstaufen, struck the lyre; but as he composed in the Italian
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
167
tongue, he cannot be included among our own troubadours. Great
depth of feeling marks his song: i Di dolor mi conviene cantare.' An
excellent English translation, under the title of ‘ My Lady in Bondage,’
is to be found in ‘ The Early Italian Poets, from Ciullo D’Alcamo to
Dante Alghieri,’ by G. D. Rossetti. Some have fancied to see in this
song of the free-thinking German emperor an allusion to the captivity of
the Church, a Symbolisation of religious ideas. This view is undoubtedly
a most erroneous one; Frederick’s lay has as much to do with the
Church as the Song of Solomon has.
But though king-emperors, dukes, princes and counts, had a slight part
in the literary productions of that age, the main strength of the minnesinging brotherhood resided in men of less ambitious descent, who had
sprung from the lower nobility, and who were generally gifted with very
small worldy goods, if with any at all. Uhland, in his otherwise so
beautiful Tale of German Poesy (Mahrchen), which describes the dif
ferent periods of our literature in a charming Dornröschen allegory, calls
German poesy a ‘princely child,’1 and a ‘princess.’ The great connois
seur of our ancient literature, who knew better when he wrote in prose,
allowed himself, in his ‘ Tale,’ to be beguiled into this mis-statement
by the seduction which the Dornröschen myth naturally offered. The
truth is, the mass of our early lyric bards were, in rank, only removed a
degree from the generality of freemen. Some of them pass even wrongly
1 Zwo macht’ge Feen nahten
Dem schönen Fürstenkind;
An seine Wiege traten
Sie mit dem Angebind ....
Und als es kam zu Jahren,
Ward es die schönste Frau,
Mit langen, goldnen Haaren,
Mit Augen dunkelblau ....
Viel stolze Ritter gingen
Der Holden Dienste nach:
Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
Wolfram von Eschenbach.
Sie gingen in Stahl und Eisen,
Goldharfen iij der Hand;
Die Fürstin war zu preisen,
Die solche Diener fand.
Von alter Städte Mauern
Der Wiederhall erklang ;
Die Bürger und die Bauern
Erhüben frischen Sang.
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS
as members of the nobiliary order. For instance, it is by no moanssure that Walter von der Vogelweide was of aristocratic origin; the con
trary is more probable in fact. Again, as I have above remarked, there
were, among the poets of that period, not a few whose civic character is.
beyond question. These circumstances have to be mentioned, in order
to show how difficult it is to draw a strong line of demarcation between
minnesinger and meistersinger, at least in the intermediary stage dur
ing which they blend, whilst afterwards no doubt a change occurs—im
perceptible at first, and only later of the most pronounced kind.
The master-singers regarded themselves as the continuators of the old
poetry. Among the 1 Twelve Masters ’ who, the legend says, founded
the poetical schools in the cities, Frauenlob, Klingsor, Walter von der
Vogelweide, the Marner, and Reinmar von Zweter are named—all un
doubtedly troubadours, although by no means all belonging to the nobili
ary order. I need not say that this alleged formal foundation of a
master-singer guild is as much a myth as Arthur’s Round Table. Chrono
logically, the Twelve Masters could not have acted together ; nor
could they have done what the fable relates, in the reign of Otto the
Great under whom the event is said to have taken place. Nevertheless,,
even that myth shows that the Meister-singer felt some contact with their
predecessors. And indeed there are, among what are now called the
Minne-singer, several who are remarkably like some of the later didac
tic, sententious master-singers. Again, among the towns’-poets, especially
among those who are reckoned as precursors of the school, some by far
excel, in fervour and chivalric colouring, their aristocratic prototypes. The
master-singers called their own art ‘ die holdselige Kzmstfl an appellation
reminding us of the ‘ science gaye ’ of the Provençal troubadours, among,
which latter however—in the words of Gorres—‘the ardent breath of
Moorish poetry is felt,’ whilst among the minne-singer, and still more
among the majority of the meister-singer, a colder tone prevails.
Territorially also, the Master-song coincides with the Minne-song.
It extended from the Upper Rhine, from Alsace, then a very cradle of
German culture, into Franconia, Bavaria, Thuringia, and partly alsoLowei' Germany, or Saxony, as it was then called. It was mainly the
South and the West on which both forms of poetry grew up—the one sprout
ing forth from the other. At Toulouse also, as Grimm remarks, the last
remnants of Provençal poetry, the jeuxfloraux, lingered on the same spot
where they had flourished of old.
And even as the later master-singers composed their lays according
to set rules, so we find 1 rules ’ and ‘ masters ’ already among the chivalric
poets in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Nor could it well be
otherwise if we remembei- the form and figure of the Poetic Art of those
early ages. Now-a-days, in thinking of poems, we have a notion
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
169
of some book that is to be read, of some production composed in the
solitude of a study, and destined to be conveyed into the mind of others
through the medium of the eye. But the minne-singer were yet bards
in the ancient Orphic fashion. They really sang; their delivery was
essentially a chaunting one. Hence the birds on the flowery meadow
play such a part in their lays. Hence those poets, not quite inaptly,
Called themselves ‘ nightingales.’ In this respect also, the two poetic cir
cles have a point of contact which ought to be kept in mind, for the
Meister-Singer, like their predecessors, never delivered their productions
■Otherwise than in singing. Their name, therefore, was not a mere figure
of speech.
Germany was then, even in a higher degree than now, a country full
•of song. The melodies, some of which have been preserved, were simple
•enough; but the whole nation delighted in the repetition of those strains ;
•and song, which was but another word for poetry, was almost invariably
•connected with dance. Dance, among all nations of ancient time, is
not simply an amusement, but at the same time an act of consecration :
in the earliest ages a religious, sacrificial performance. It is as if the
harmony of the many-winded movements had been considered an image
•of the variegated, and yet orderly, cycle of Nature ; of the recurrence,
rafter many changes, of the same phenomena on this planet, as well as on
th® starry skies.
A 1 wandering society ’ (fahrende diet) of minne-singer consisted, at
least, of the poet, the declamator (sager), the fiddler, and the dancer.
When the poet himself was unable to sing, he was represented by another,
called the little songster (das singerlein). A player on some wind-instru
ment (blasgeselle) is also mentioned by some of the minne-singer; he
probably played on the flute. Now, in order to get a proper conception
of the character of these migratory poetical associations, we must dismiss
the remembrance of our modern manners and views, and rather think
of the most ancient Greek, or, for the sake of that, Teutonic life, and we
■shall at once look upon the matter in a very different light. It will be
seen at a glance that where such a co-operation was required as is indi
cated by the appellations of the various members of a i Fahrende Diet,’ a
sort of poetical school would gradually be formed, with distinct rules—
a «school in which there would be masters and pupils, and various
■degrees.
i From whom have you learnt your art ? ’ asks Klingsor, in wrathful
■contempt, his rival, Wolfram von Eschenbach, during the famous Tourna
ment of Song known as the Wartburg Contest, in which the rival minne
singer were represented as contending for the palm. The ironical ques
tion can only be understood when one knows that the then united arts
•of poetry and of singing were already at that time taught in regular
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS
school, or guild, fashion, even as was later the case among the burgher
poets. Klingsor is probably but a mythic personage, a sort of early
medieval Faust. But the author of the ‘Wartburg War’ has certainly
not put an anachronistic remark into his mouth.
There were many gradations in these poetical fellowships. The high
born dukes and members of ruling houses who occasionally turned to theharp, did not, of course, belong to the singer class properly speaking.
The veritable singers, or poets, according to the customs of the age, led
a migratory life, going from one court, or nobleman’s mansion, to the
other, expecting reward for what they gave. Their poetry is by them
selves called ‘courtly song’ fiovdicher sang). The expression had, how
ever, not the unpleasant meaning that would now be evoked by the term
‘courtly.’ Hof, from which ‘hovelich’ (courtly) is derived, then meant
any country seat. The word is even now used in Germany as well for a
prince’s court as for a peasant freeholder’s dwelling. The habit of taking
reward, wages (gniete), for their poems, was openly acknowledged by
these minstrels. So distinguished a poet as Walter von der Vogelweide
did not scruple to say that he expected his ‘ wages.’ Still, in the
beautiful lay in which he sings the praise of German women—
German men are nobly bred;
E’en as angels our women are ....
Virtue and pure love,
He who seeks for them,
May he come to our land so full of bliss—
0, long would I live therein !
the poet has the good taste (that is to say, according to the courtesy of
the time) of declaring that womankind is far too sublime for him to
expect any other ‘ wages ’ from them than amiable greetings (schone
grueze). The same Walter, some time afterwards, obtained a feudal
tenure in reward for his exertions during an election contest for the
German' crown. The poetical effusion in which he expresses his un
bounded gratitude for this liberal act of the ruler whom he had helped
to place on the Imperial Throne, is rather comic in its exuberance.
He says he no longer fears to ‘ feel frosty winter in his toes,’ nor does he
mind what wicked lords think of him. He now has ‘ air in summer, and
fuel in the cold season; ’ his neighbours consider him a most excellent
man, whereas formerly they looked quite bearishly at him. His poems,
once regarded as bitter, grumbling, and scolding utterances (his satires on
Church and State are here alluded to), are now thought quite clean and
fit for a court:
Icb was so voile scheltens, daz mm aten stanc;
Daz hat der kiinec gemachet reine, und dar zuo minen sane.
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
171
A rather realistic expression for a tender minne-singer ! But trouba
dour language, generally so fragrant, sometimes breaks out into utter
ances totally unfit for a modern drawing-room.
Between the various poetical associations, and the different rivals in the
art, angry feuds occasionally sprang up, according to the excitable
nature which has from olden times been attributed to the poetical
genius. The angriest words were exchanged between those who looked
down upon each other as being of an inferior degree in the poetical
guild. There were bards who carefully cultivated the ancient and purer
traditions ; others who descended to the lowest humdrum versification.
As taste degenerated in consequence of the nobility assuming more
and more a lansquenet and even robber character, and becoming,
therefore, unable to enjoy true poetry, the inferior caste of poet
asters rose to the surface. Even as the minstrels in England, and theConfrerie des Menestriers and the Troubadours in Northern and
Southern France, gradually became mere street-bawlers and jongleurs,
so also in Germany a gradual deterioration took place in the character of
the wandering bards. So-called ‘ sentence-savers ’ (spruch-sprecJier) and
court fools (liofschalke) began to introduce themselves in the castles and
mansions and to obtain the chief hold on the people at large. A great
many complaints are yet extant of later minne-singer, who utter their
grief at the decaying art.
They charge that decay upon the miserly habits which had grQwn up
among the nobility, as well as upon the increase of 1 court foolery.’
Thus Konrad von Wurzburg complains of these ‘ untutored fools ’ (kunstelose schalke), whom he calls a bastard cross-breed between a wolf and
a fox, and of whom he says that they steal from the real poets (the
kiinstereichen) both the language and the melody. In a symbolical
representation he leads True Art into a wood before the throne of Jus
tice. Clad in tattered, beggarly garments, True Art utters her griev
ance. The verdict of Justice is, that he who confers upon the vile
poetasters the rewards which rightfully belong to the veritable bards,,
shall for all time to come be shunned by Love.
Much stronger are the expressions of the minne-singer Boppo, with the
furname of ‘the Strong.’ He was famed for his bodily strength; nor
was his language deficient in massiveness. In abusing the inferior versifex
class, he runs through the whole animal kingdom, and through every
imaginable scolding term, in order to fix strange denominations upon
them—as for instance : herr esel, dunkelgut, ehrenneider, galgenschwengel,.
niemands freund, wiedehopf, schwalbennest, entenschnabel, affenzagel,
schandendeckebloss. That power which our language possesses of coiningnew terms, had evidently been concentrated in a remarkable degree in the
hands of Boppo, who, albeit a troubadour, is supposed to have originally
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS.
been a glass-blower, and who subjected his antagonists to a most unmer
ciful fire of vituperative appellations.
The Minne-song hadflourished in Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth,
partly still in the fourteenth century. Even in the fifteenth we yet
meet with wandering poets ; but they are few and far between ; and the
castle-gates generally remain locked to them. The nobles change into
robber knights. The chase, plundering expeditions, petty feuds, and
gross carousals, are now their only occupations. The Empire is distracted
and convulsed by the aristocratic leagues of the 1 Cudgellers’ (Bengeler),
the ‘ Grim Lions,’ and other brigand associations of the nobility. Mean
while, in the towns, a new power rises. There, a spirit of freedom makes
its way ; there, trade and commerce expand; a lofty architecture combines
with the development of the pictorial art. In the towns, therefore,
Poetry also takes its refuge. The lyre is little heard now in the courts
and the castles; the bardic guilds are henceforth established in the
-cities.
The transition is a gradual one. The old poetical forms remain at
first the same as before : the Master-song is, as it were, evolved from
the Troubadour song, and appears, at least in the beginning, so mixed
up with the latter that in some cases it is impossible to make a distinct
classification one way or the other. Even as in nature there is no abrupt
break in the forms of life, so also on the domain of intellectual develop
ment. The lines of division are generally less marked in reality than
we assume them to be for the sake of finding our way through the maze
of multiform phenomena. Epic poetry is, through a process of conden
sation, evolved from the ballad form, and gradually dissolves again into
the latter. The drama arises from the lyric strophe and antistrophe.
Chivalric poetry in Germany takes its rise from a previous populai and
monkish literature. The master-song, too, sprouts up from the ancient
stem: a later blossom, of less fragrancy, amidst the shed leaves of the
decaying minne-song. On the emblematic Tneistcrtafcl at Nuremberg,
the Rose Garden was depicted in which the errant chivalry once sang ;
and Hans Sachs, in the sixteenth century, still composed many of his
lays on the melodies of Walter von der Vogelweide and other trouba
dours.
•
Generally, Oswald von Wolkenstein and Hugo von Montfort are re
garded as the last representatives of the Minne-song ; Muscatbliit and
Michael Beheim, who lived at the end of the fourteenth and the begin
ning of the fifteen centuries, as the chief precursors of the Master-song.
Wolkenstein and Muscatbliit are the more important of the four. Their
poetical character, it seems to me, is almost invariably indicated in the
wrong way, even in standard works like those by Gervinus and
Vilmar. Both these eminent historians of our literature reckon Oswald
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
173
von Wolkenstein among those who once more raised the old troubadour
song, while they accuse Muscatbliit of affectation and triviality. I con
sider this statement a very unwarranted one. The opinion of Gervinus
that Muscatbliit was ‘ as far from the breath of free nature as his arti
ficial tone is from the artless strophes of Montfort,’ can at most be
applied to his Lays on The Virgin Mary. In them we meet with a com
plicated versification, an affected rhyme, an offensive superabundance of
imagery. Still, it ought not to be forgotten that even in this he kept
within the taste of his time. On the other hand we frequently find in
his productions a wealth of sentiment, rendered in such simple words
that it is not too much to say that some of his poems may be placed at
the side of the best of all times and nations.
Who has not admired Gretchen’s Song at the Spinning Wheel as a
true master-piece 1 On looking more closely, we meet, in ancient Ger
man literature, poems coming so near to it that we may assume without
disrespect that Goethe, who had studied the old Faust plays and bor
rowed much from them, had also embodied many a lyric jewel of that
time in his dramatic treasure. Has not Gretchen’s plaint: 1 My peace is
gone, my heart is sore ’ a striking affinity to a poem by Muscatbliit,1 in
which a lover thus pours forth his grief:
■ Herz, Muth unci Sinn
Sehnt sich dahin,
Wo meine Gewalt
So mannigfalt
Sich ganz hat hingekehret.
Mein freier Will’
1st worden still;
Mein stater Muth
Mich trau’ren thut:
Mein Herz ist ganz versehret.
I fear it will be found impossible to render in English the pathetic
simplicity of these quaint lines. The following 2 gives, however, some
idea of the poet’s power :
With grief o’erborne,
And anguish-torn,
My soul and heart
Would fain depart
Where each sad thought a captive dwells.
My once free will
Is quelled and still;
My constant breast
By woe oppressed;
My heart with hopeless mis’ry swells.
1 I give it but slightly changed in orthography, so as to render it more accessible
to the student of modern German.
2 I am indebted for this version, as well as for one or two others, to the kindness
of a friend, Miss Garnett.
VOL. III.—NO. XIV.
N
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS
Somewhat in the tone of the popular Parting-songs (Scheidelieder), but
at the same time reminding one of Gretchen’s : (Ach neige, du Schmerzens
reiche,' are the following passages in the same poem by Muscatblüt :
Ach Gott, erkenn,
Warum und wenn
Ich sehnender Mann
Verdienet han,
Dass ich muss von ihr scheiden ....
Dass Lieb’ mit Leid
Von Liebe scheid’,
Das heisst doch wohl ein Leiden.
Denn Lieb ohne Leid nicht kann sein;
Lieb’ bringet Pein,
So Mann und Weib
Mit betrübtem Leib
Hie von einander scheiden.
Wie möcht mein Herz
In solchem Schmerz
Fröhlich sein,
Dass ich die Reine
Soll ewiglich vermeiden.
Ach, Scheiden, dass du je wardst erdacht;
Scheiden thut mich kränken.
Scheiden hat mich zu Sorgen gebracht,
Thut Muscatblüt bedenken.
Scheiden hat mich
Gemachet siech;
Scheiden will mich verderben.
Daran gedenk’, traut selig Weib !
Is there a want of natural truthfulness, a want of deep feeling, in
this? Undoubtedly Gervinus’ Geschichte der Deutschen Dichtung has
rendered great service by showing the intimate connexion between the.
political and the intellectual life of the nation. But Gervinus has not, to
my knowledge, made very profound studies in our ancient writers. I
am afraid that in the case of Muscatbliit he rendered his verdict off
hand, without being intimately acquainted with the subject. The same
might be said with regard to the judgment he passed on Wolkenstein—
again a most erroneous one, giving a false notion both of Wolkenstein’s,
particular bent and of his general capabilities.
In saying this, I am surely far from endeavouring unduly to raise
Muscatbliit, the commoner, above Wolkenstein, the knight. Muscatbliit
certainly does not attract our sympathies by anything else than his lyric
merits. Whilst Walter von der Vogelweide boldy denounces papal
tyranny and priestly arrogance with a truly reformatory energy, Muscat
glut, the precursor of the Master-song, combines a voluptuous Mariolatry
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
175
with, an ardent hatred against all reformatory aspirations, for instance,
of the Hussites. It is true, the Czechian movement in Bohemia, even
at that time, created already much bitterness in Germany on national and
political grounds; and John Huss, besides being a reformer, was a
Representative of this Czechian, anti-German movement. But Muscatbliit
attacked the memory of Huss on Church grounds, giving his assent in
Äther a brutal manner to the fiendish act of the inquisitorial assembly
at Constance. With an allusion to the name of the Bohemian leader,
which in Czechian signifies 1 goose,’ he exclaimed : ‘ There is yet many
8» Unroasted gosling to be examined !’ 1 To examine,’ in those days, was
the technical term for ‘ putting on the rack ! ’
Altogether, some of the fore-runners of the Master-singer school were
rather characterised by this dark spirit of opposition to the reformatory
movement, which was strongly coming up long before Luther. How
ever, at Augsburg, about the middle of the fifteenth century, we already
find considerable enlightenment among the master-singer school there; for,
in a reactionary satire against the boldness of the towns, which dates
from that time, there is the following ironical praise of Augsburg :
.
Augsburg hat einen weisen Rath;
Das sieht man an ihrer kecken That
Im Singen, Dichten und Klaffen.
Sie haben errichtet eine Singschul,
Und setzen oben auf den Stuhl
Den, der übel redt von den Pfaffen.
Thus, heretical views already were a recommendation, in 1450, for
the position of chairman among the civic bards of that free town.
That was before Luther was born ! We here see the beginning of that
Protestant movement which afterwards became a very law to the master
singers ; the Bible, in opposition to the legendary cycle of the Catholic
- Church, serving them as a text-book and a guide in their poetical pro
ductions.
Michael Beheim, that other precursor of the Meister-singer school,
was one of the last wandering poets who tried their luck by singing at
courts. He however met with many rebuffs, and then, ill-humoured
and full of anger against those who would not be his patrons, broke out
I into pungent satires against the princes and the nobility. In this he
certainly was far from representing in any way the character of the later
k'meister-singer who never asked for princely or aristocratic favour, much
less for pecuniary reward from courts. Following their trade for a live
lihood, they sought in poetry, so far as they understood it, merely a
satisfaction for the mind and the heart, endeavouring to render their
I* schools ’ a means of raising the intellectual and moral standard of their
Qwn class and of the popular classes in general. As to Beheim’s effun
2
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS
sions, they were rather of that artificial and somewhat tasteless style
which Gervinus wrongly attributes to Muscatbliit. Yet it must not be
forgotten that even in such stiff and strangely-set devices as we meet
with, for instance, in his praise of a lady, who is said to be—
ein Balsamgarten
Der Lilien ein
Violensprengel,
Und auch. Zeitlos,’
Der Seligkeit Ruhm,
Maienblüthe,
rein,
Stengel,
Ros’,
Blum’,
Güte,
des Sommers Zier—
he is not too far removed from some troubadour prototypes.
On the contrary, how distant, in spirit and tone, is Oscar von Wol
kenstein from the Minne-poets, whilst yet it has been said of him that
he had continued the old chivalric song ! I, for my part, cannot con
ceive a more erroneous judgment. A few songs of a more delicate
nature there are no doubt to be found in Wolkenstein, who is a queer
mixture of a venturesome, heroic ritter, of a Don Quixote, and of a
Sancho Pansa. But the bulk of his poems, which fill a goodly volume,
is surely not of the nobler troubadour kind. His dancing songs espe
cially are of a broad-grinning comicality. There is a boorish bacchanalianism in them which sometimes verges upon satyr-like grossness, or
seeks relief in mere senseless outcries. What could be less like a minnesong than the poem which begins with the words ‘ Mine host, we feel a
jolly thirst,’ and in which one of the tamest verses, utterly untranslat
able in their unbridled hop-and-jump wildness, runs thus :
Pfeifauf, Heinzel, Lippel, Jäckel!
Frisch, froh, frei! Frisch, froh, frei 1 Frisch, froh, frei!
Zweit euch; rührt euch ; schnurra bäckel!
Hans, Luzei! Kunz, Katrei! Benz, Clarei!
Spring kälbrisch drunter, Jäckel!
Ju hei hei! Juhei! hei! Ju hei hei!
Or take the following bit of a nonsensical jumble of words ! Barringtwo or three lines, no meaning can be detected in them, except a fierce
animalism that breaks out into a .rapid utterance of inarticulate cries :—
Da zysly, musly,
fysly, fusly,
henne, klusly,
kumbt in’s husly,
werffen ain tusly,
susa, susly,
negena grusly
well wir sicher han.
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177
Clerly, metzly,
elly, ketzly,
thuont ein setzly,
richt eur letzli,
tula hetzly,
trutza tretzly,
vacht das retzly,
der uns freud vergan.
Unless I greatly err, the minne-singers had a somewhat different
style.
In other poems, Wolkenstein, who on his adventurous expeditions in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, had become something of a linguist in a rather
unscientific sense, heaps together, in the absurdest manner, odds and
ends of various languages, so as to produce a perfect maze of gibberish.
A few biographical notes on this vagabond freelance, to whom in all
histories of our literature a totally wrong place is assigned, may per
haps prove of interest; the more so because in his character there is
such an eccentric medley of the old and the beginning modern time, a
mixture of chivalry and of very Nether-Dutch ‘ popular ’ ways and
manners.
He was a Tyrolese by birth, and lived between 1354 and 1423. As a
boy, he lost an eye by a shot; but with his other eye he peered only the
more deeply into the romantic ‘ ritter ’ literature of his time. At the
age of ten he left his father’s castle, in order to participate in a crusade
against the heathen Sclavonians in Prussia. His parents let him depart
without much ado ; for his support they handed him three-farthings and
a piece of bread. On the march he gained his livelihood as a groom.
At night the roystering boy slept in a stable-corner, or covered by the
starry canopy. For eight years he served as a common baggage-boy,
went through Prussia, Lithuania, Poland, Red Russia; became a cap
tive, was almost mortally wounded, went to Norway, Denmark, Sweden,
Flanders, England, Scotland, Ireland, mostly serving—in what later
became the lansquenet character—in various armies and countries. In
the company of German merchants he went through Poland to the
shores of the Black Sea, and into the Crimea; became a cook on board
ship, then a common boatswain ; saw Armenia and Persia ; sailed, again
as a ship’s cook, to Candia; took part in an expedition against the
Turks; fled from a lost battle, wandering through Dalmatia, and return
ing to the Tyrol, At the age of twenty-five, his hair had become grey ;
his face was deeplyffurrowed ; but he had learnt no less than ten lan
guages.
When he resolved to marry, he met with a tragi-comic misfortune.
Wooing a certain Sabina Jäger, a citizen’s daughter, he was told by her
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GERMAN TROUBADOURS
that, to prove his true love, he ought, as a first chivalric duty, to make
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Which he did; but on returning
he found Sabina Jäger married ! Later he turns up in the struggles of
the Tyrolese nobles against the dukes in Austria; then again in Spain,
Holland, England, Portugal; in a crusade against the Moors ; afterwards
as a wandering -singer in the Moorish Kingdom of Granada and in the
Provence. Meanwhile his castles had been burnt down; still, immediately afterwards, he celebrates a marriage. But his former love, Sabina
aforesaid, who now resided at the Court of Innsbruck, allures him to a
rendezvous under the pretext of a pilgrimage ; and as Don Quixote
Wolkenstein unsuspectingly meets her, she has him captured and bound,
in order to extort from him a ransom of six thousand gulden. The iron
fetters which the false fair one imposed upon him, made him a cripple
for life; nevertheless, after the death of his wife, we see him once more
in the field, and once more in captivity. For a long time he pines in
a loathsome dungeon. On issuing from it, he marries again ! Then he
goes to war against the Hussites. But at last he can move neither foot,
nor arm; neither walk, nor stand; and thus he dies an inglorious
death from dropsy. In the wars in which he played a part, he
always kept on the losing side—a born bird of ill-luck. Even after
his death, there was an evil star shining over his remains ; for on the
church, near which he was buried, being rebuilt, his tomb-stone became
accidentally transposed, and the whereabouts of his burial-place were
forgotten.
Such was the chequered career of the strange man -who erronously is
represented as one of the last 1 Minne ’ poets, but whose lays generally
resemble the troubadour style as much as a broom-stick does a forgetme-not.
However, Wolkenstein, as a poet, does not stand alone in this exuber
ant hilarity. Between Minne and Meister-song, we find a third element
interposing at that time—an element of gross joviality, which, strange
to say, makes its appearance even on clerical ground. This peculiar
phenomenon is to be observed in many spiritual Church poems of the
fifteenth century. Whilst the Minne-singer, when they yielded to re
ligious enthusiasm, exhibit a melancholy, brooding mood, a mystically
ardent adherence to sacred traditions; whilst the Meister-singer,
about the time of Hans Sachs, are characterised by a profound but
quiet profession of faith, there is, in that age of transition when
the Master-song only begins to rise, a certain hilarious form of spiritual
poetry.
Many of those clerical poems sound almost like a student’s Gaudeamus
igitur. Were it not known that they are Church songs, they might be
mistaken for satires against the clergy. The mixture of Latin and
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
179
German, in itself not unapt to produce a risible effect, is very much used
in those poems:
In dulci jubilo—
Nun singet und seid froh!
All unsre Wonne
Liegt in praesepio;
Sie leuchtet mehr als die Sonne
Matris in gremio ;
Qui est A et 0,
Qui est A et 0!
-
*
0 Jesu parvule,
Nach dir ist mir weh!
Tröst’ mir mein Gemüthe,
0 puer optime,
Durch aller Jungfrau’n Güte,
0 princeps glorise,
Trahe me post te !
Trahe me post te !
Mater et filia
Ist Jungfrau Maria.
Wir waren gar verdorben
Per nostra crimina:
Nun hat sie uns erworben
Coelorum gaudia.
Quanta gratia!
Quanta gratia!
Ubi sunt gaudia ?
Wo die Engel singen
Nova cantica,
Und die Glöcklein klingen
In regis curia.
*
Eia, qualia!
Eia, qualia!
This, surely, is not a very austere triumphal song on the birth of the
Saviour. A clerical May-song in honour of the Thom-crowned is also
extant, in which the faithful are invited to assemble under the Tree of
the Cross:
Unter des Kreuzes Aste,
Da schenkt man Cyperwein ;
Maria ist die Kellnerin,
Die Engel schenken ein ;
Da sollen die lieben Seelen
Von Minne trunken sein.
�180
GERMAN TROUBADOURS
Under tlie branches of the Cross
Is poured forth Cyprus wine ;
Maria bears the goblet round,
The angels pour the wine ;
There all dear souls shall drunken be
With juice of Love’s own vine.
In the 1 Bath-Song,’ another clerical lay, the pilgrimage of the faithful tothe Saviour is literally described as a journey to a Spa, nay as a
voyage to Baden-Baden. Even the effect of the water, the bleeding
nceessary for the cure, and other mundane matters, are strangely
mixed up with the religious subject. The five introductory verses,
run thus:
Wohlauf ! ini Geist gen Baden,
Ihr zarten Fraulein ;
Dahin hat uns geladen
Jesus der Herre mein.
Hie quillt der Gnaden Bronnen,
Der Freuden Morgenröth ’;
Da glänzt die ewige Sonne,
Und alles Leid zergeht.
Da hört man süss erklingen
Der Vögelein Getön,
Und auch die Engelein singen
Ihre Melodie gar schön.
Da führt Jesus den Tanz
Mit aller Mädchen Schaar ;
Da ist die Liebe ganz
Ohn’ alles Ende gar.
Da ist ein lieblich Kosen1
Und Lachen immermehr ;
Da kann die Seel ’ hofiren
Mit Freuden ohn’ alles Weh !
The following I believe to be a fair translation :—
Up ! haste to the Baden spring,
Ye tender maidens fair !
Jesus, our Lord and King,
Himself invites us there.
The well of grace supernal,
Joy’s rosy dawn is there ;
There shines a sun eternal—
Banished are pain and care.
1 Smiren, in the old text,
�AND MASTER-SINGERS.
181
There soundeth, sweetly singing,
Of birds the harmony ;
There angels’ voices are ringing
Celestial melody.
There the Lord doth lead the measure
’Mid troops of damsels bright’;
And there the heavenly pleasure
Of love is infinite.
There caresses sweet are given,
And unending laughter is heard ;
There the souls may go a-courting,
With gladness undeterred.
And let it not be too hastily assumed that in these extraordinary
verses, 'which partake so strongly of the erotic character and even of
the erotic terminology, the spirit of the later pietists, or ‘ Mucker,’ is
already visible. On the contrary, strange as it may seem, the proba
bility rather is that this Bath-song, which describes the well, the dawn,
the crowd of young girls, and the chirping of the feathered songsters in
a region where all grief ceases, is a dim echo of the worship of the
Germanic Goddess of Love, whose place, after the introduction of
Christianity, was occupied by the Virgin Mary. In the Freia myth also,
we have the well of eternal rejuvenation—the rosy dawn which ever
lastingly pervades the region of this goddess—the crowd of children
that move joyously on a flowery meadow filled with the song of birds ;
in short, the whole outer structure of a legend in which afterwards only
names were changed.
In this way, ancient Germanic paganism, with its mystic poetical
charms, once more flickers up from beneath the Roman Catholic integu
ment, ere the Meistersinger intone the sadly serious chaunts of the
‘ Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’ :
0 sacred Head, surrounded
By crown of piercing thorn !
0 bleeding Head, so wounded,
Reviled and put to scorn !
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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German troubadours and master-singers
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Blind, Karl
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 163-181 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 3 (April, 1872). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
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[1872]
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G5340
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Music
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Conway Tracts
Germany
Singing
Songs
Troubadours
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Text
1875]
243
ARMIN, THE LIBERATOR OF GERMANY.
N August the 16th, a great
festive gathering will be held
near Detmold, at the unveiling
the colossal statue of Arminius, or
Hermann,1* Deliverer of Germany
S
the
from the Roman yoke. In the
midst of the Teutoburg Forest—on
the brow of a lofty hill, surrounded
by beech and fir-wood—stands the
figure of this national hero, on a
granite pedestal: with a foot placed
on the eagle of a Roman legion ;
holding a raised sword in his right
hand. The hill rises to an emi
nence of 1,300 feet.
The enor
mous statue itself towers some
sixty feet high.
It is turned
towards the Rhine: a doubly
significant position in our days!
Far and wide will it be visible—as
far as the Drachenfels, famed by
Siegfried’s mythic struggle; as far as
the Brocken, the traditionary seat
ofancient heathen witchcraft. Thirtysix years have passed since Ernst
von Bandel, the patriotic sculptor,
to whom the work has been a labour
of love, conceived the idea of this
great monument. Now, at last,
thanks to Bandel’s unflagging zeal
during a lifetime, the gigantic Statue
—made of iron, and screwed together
in its several parts—is finished : a
remarkable memento of the famed
battle in which the legions of Varus
were annihilated, about the year 9 of
our era.
The country all round the Grotenburg, near which the monument
stands, is replete with myth and
history. The whole mountain-range
goes by a name (‘ Osning ’) that
brings back remembrances of early
Germanic worship. There are
Hiinen-Hinge—Giant Circles—mys
O
terious remnants of large stone
structures. There are woods and
of
homesteads which, if the antiquity
of their names could be proved,
would show an unbroken link of
tradition with the very days of the
Teutoburg Battle. In more than
one sense is the ground between
the Weser and the Rhine strangely
hallowed. In the Osning stood
the Irmin-sul, or Irmin’s Column,
which Karl the Great destroyed in
his struggle against the Saxons.
That popular rhyme in Low German
speech, which is yet current:
Her men! slaDermen;
Sla Pipen ; sla Trummen !
De Keiser will kumen
Met Hamer an Stangen,
Will Her men uphangen—
is by some referred back, not to the
contest against Witukind, but to
that against Armin or Hermann him
self. Not far from the scene of the
great battle—in the cloister of Korvei—there were found, for the first
time, in the sixteenth century, those
Annals of Tacitus which contain a
graphic record of Armin’s deeds.
Again, in the Abbey of Verden,
at the end of the same century,
the Gothic translation of the Bible
by Ulfilas was discovered—the oldest
record of German speech. Truly,
in Massmann’s words, a trilogy of
things full of Teutonic interest!
A most romantic career that of
the Cheruskian Chieftain was, who
wrought the signal victory. As a
youth, he had learnt the art of war
among his country’s foes; was
placed at the head of a legion of
German auxiliaries; and by his
valour, perhaps on Danubian battle
fields in Pannonia (Hungary),
1 The modern rendering of Arminius by ‘ Hermann,’ though generally accepted, is
probably an error. More likely is the connection of that na me with Irmin (AngloSaxon: Eormen-; Old Norse: Iormun-). It may, in Simrock’s opinion, simply have
meant the common leader of the Cheruskian League—even as Irmin was perhaps a com
mon War-God of allied German tribes. Dio Cassius writes the name : ’Apglwos; Strabo:
’Amiewos.
S 2
�244
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
obtained Roman, citizenship and the
rank of a knight. The Romans that
saw him describe him as coming
from a noble stock; strong and
brave; of quick perception, and
of penetrating judgment—more so
than might be expected from a
‘barbarian’ (ultra barbarum prompltus ingenio). The ardour of his
mind was said to glow from his
face and from the glance of his
eyes. He was the son of Segimer
.—in modern German : Siegmar—
a Cheruskian leader. Armin’s wife,
whose name we learn from a Greek
source, was Thusnelda ;2 originally
betrothed against her will to another
chieftain, but secretly carried off
by her daring swain, between
whom and his father-in-law, Segest,
there was thenceforth a deadly feud.
In those days, it was the en
deavour of the Romans, after
they had conquered Gaul, and gra
dually come up from the Danubian
side, to subject also the country
between the Rhine and the Elbe.
A hundred thousand of their sol
diers kept watch and ward along
the Rhine : one half of them sta
tioned between Mainz and Bonn;
the other half between Koln and
Xanten, and down to the very shores
of the German Ocean.
Pushing
forward from the Rhine in an east
ern direction, they succeeded in
establishing, near the Lippe, a strong
fort, called Aliso—probably what is
now Else, near Paderborn. Drusus
even ventured with an expedition
as far as the Elbe; but, terrified by
the weird appearance of a gigantic
Teuton prophetess, who foretold his
approaching death, he returned, and
soon afterwards died through being
thrown from his horse. Armin’s
merit it is, by his triumph in the
Teutoburg Forest, and by a struggle
carried on for years afterwards,
to have freed this north-western
[August
region, and thus, step by step, to
have driven back the ever-encroach
ing Latin power.
It was under the Emperor Au
gustus that Quinctilius Varus, the
former Quaestor in Syria—who
had, in that capacity, put down
a Jewish insurrection with great
cruelty—was sent to the Lower
Rhine to complete the enslave
ment of the German tribes there.
A man of sybaritic tastes; who
had entered Syria poor, and left
it loaded with riches.
Not
distinguished by a statesman’s
wisdom; but apt to charm the
chieftains of a simple people
into submission to a seductive civi
lisation. This Sardanapalus on a
small scale, whilst exerting himself
to morally fetter and corrupt the
leaders, rode rough-shod over the
people ; disregarding their native
customs; dispensing Roman law
like a praetor; making the Latin
tongue resound near the Cheruskian
homesteads as the language of the
administration and of the tribunals.
His aim was, to push the wedge of
Roman dominion into the very
heart of Germany. The old plan
of Drusus was to be carried out: the
lictor’s fasces were to be promenaded
from the Rhine to the Elbe.
Of the German chieftains placed
with Varus as a means of influencing
the surrounding tribes, Armin,
Segimer, and Segest were the most
prominent—the latter a staunch
adherent of Roman rule; the two
former, as events proved, good
patriots at heart. Young Armin,
then but twenty-five years of age,
became the soul of the national
conspiracy for the overthrow of the
foreign yoke. Segest, his fatherin-law, who afterwards bore him
so deep a grudge because Thus
nelda had become Armin’s wife
in spite of the paternal pro-
2 Thusnelda’s name has been variously interpreted. The explanation given, that it
means ‘A Thousand Graces’ (Tausendhold), is no doubt a mistaken one. Others have
suggested ‘ Thursinhiid,’ which would give a martial, Bellona-like meaning of the word.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
test,, was excluded from the se
cret patriotic council. Soon get
ting, however, an inkling of the
occult doings, Segest,by denouncing
them to Varus, very nearly brought
about the failure of the whole
movement. On the eve of the out
break, as an earnest of his fidelity
to the Romans, he even asked to
be placed in chains, together with
Armin and the other German leaders,
until the truth would become patent.
Fortunately, Varus disbelieved the
timely warning. Under cover of
raising some auxiliaries for the
quelling of an alleged insurrection,
Armin was enabled to depart, and
at once put himself at the head of
the national rising.
Enough had the young Cheruskian seen of the superior armament
and the military science of the Ro
mans ; too well was he acquainted
with the difficulties of meeting at
one and the same time their excel
lent warlike organisation and the
strength they derived from the
bravery of German, Gaulish, and
other troops in their pay, for him
not to lay his plan cautiously, so as
to balance, to some extent, these
immense advantages of the hostile
army. His design therefore was, to
lure Varus into the depths of the
pathless Teutoburg Forest. By a
series of stratagems he fully suc
ceeded in this.
The Roman Governor, at the head
of his legions, encumbered with a
long train of baggage, was made
to enter a ground where at every
step a clearance had to be ef
fected with the axe; where thick
woods, narrow gorges, impetuous
forest-brooks offered numberless ob
stacles, and the swampy soil often
became slippery from torrents of rain.
Nature conspired, on this memorable
occasion, to render the terrors of the
wilderness more ghastly. A tem
pest of unusual fierceness broke
over the primeval forest, when Varus
245
stuck in the middle of the thicket.
Mountain-spates inundated the
ground. Trees of enormous age
fell, shaken by the storm and struck
by the lightning. The roar of
thunder smothered the cries of
those that staggered under the
weight of falling branches. In short
intervals, the blue zigzag light of
heaven lit up the mysterious re
cesses of the wood, only to fill the
minds of the Roman soldiers with
greater fear when, in the next mo
ment, all was dark again. At last,
a glimpse of sun shone through
the dark forest. Then, of a sudden,
the encircling hills resounded with
the terrific war-cries of the Ger
mans who barred every issue,
compelling their foe to a contest
in which military science went for
nothing.
We know that the Germans of
that time, though a nation of
warriors, given to continued war
like practice, and tolerably advanced
also in several branches of industry,
were armed in a very poor way.
Few wore a helmet, or harness.
Not many even had good swords ;
the quality of the iron used being
such that, after a few strokes, it
easily bent. Their shields, of great
size, were made of thin wicker
work, or of wood, not even covered
with iron or leather; but painted
over with figures—the only orna
ment they used in their war-array.
The infantry and cavalry alike car
ried a shield and a number of short
spears, which could be thrown, or
used for hand-to-hand fight. The
first ranks of their infantry used
lances of great length. The hind
ranks had only short wooden
spears, the points of which were
hardened in the fire;3 and not tipped
with iron. In a regular attack the
Germans massed their forces in
wedge-shape; but by preference
they fought in loose order, each
man displaying his gymnastic agi-
See the speech of Germanicus, in Tacitus’ Annals, ii. 14.
�246
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
lity, of which Roman writers
have noted down some remarkable
instances. The more well-to-do
among those fur- or linen-clad
Teutonic warriors wore tight suits,
which seemed to hamper them
in fighting. When their blood was
up, they therefore often put aside
their upper garments, rushing into
battle in true Berserker style—
singing their wild heroic songs.
Such was the foe that Varus had
to meet.
I rapidly pass over the details of
the Teutoburg Battle—how a hail
of short spears and arrows came
down from the hill-sides upon the
troops of Varus; ho w, after a carnage,
they gained an open space, and
hurriedly erected a fortified camp ;
how, having burnt many of the
vehicles and less necessary imple
ments, they continued their march,
but were once more led into thick
woods, when a new massacre
occurred—the foot soldiery and
the horse being wedged together in
helpless confusion. Bor three days
the attacks were resumed. The third
day brought the crowning misery of
the Romans. Many cast away their
weapons. Varus, in despair, threw
himself on his sword, and died. Of
the Prefects, Lucius Eggius bravely
defended himself to the last. His
colleague, Cejonius, surrendered.
Vala Numonius, the legate, was
killed in an attempted flight.
Caldus Caelius, made prisoner, beat
his own brains out with the chains
with which he was manacled. Three
legions were destroyed. Two eagles
fell into German hands. A third
eagle was saved from them by the
banner-bearer, who covered it with
his belt, and trod it into the morass.
The rear-guard, led by Lucius Asprenas, the nephew of Varus, fled
towards the Rhine, and was able
yet to restrain the populations on
the other side of the river from
rising in rebellion against Roman
rule.
On hearing of the disaster, Au-
[ August
gustus pushed his head against the
wall, and exclaimed: ‘ Varus! Varus I
give me back my legions!’ Such
was the fear of a new invasion of Teu
tons andKimbrians that all Germans
were removed from Rome, even
the Emperor’s bodyguard ; the city
was placed in a state of defence;
and the Imperator, letting his hair
and beard grow as a sign of dejec
tion, vowed to Jupiter a temple and
solemn games, if he would grant
better fortune to the Commonwealth.
Tiberius, then at the head of the
army in Pannonia, was in all haste
recalled for the better security of
Rome.
This great Teutoburg Battle had
freed the land between the Lower
Rhine and the Weser ; but no ad
vantage was taken of the victory
by the much-divided German tribes.
A few years afterwards, the Romans
were enabled to make a sudden
attack upon the Marsians (near
Osnabriick), during a nocturnal fes
tival of that German tribe. On the
occasion of this raid, the famous
Tanfana temple was destroyed, the
name of which has given so much
trouble to archaeologists, and which
was one of the few temples the
forest-worshipping Germans pos
sessed. Osnabriick, like the Osning
range of hills, no doubt derives its
name from the Asen, Osen, or Aesir,
the Teutonic gods: so that there
was probably a great sanctuary in
that neighbourhood, similar to the
one on Heligoland (Holy Land), or
perhaps in the isle of Riigen.
Another unexpected raid was ef
fected by young Germanicus, five
years after the Teutoburg Battle,
into Chattian (Hessian) territory.
Most probably he crossed the Rhine
near Mainz; followed the road to
wards what is now Homburg; thence
to the country where Giessen and
Marburg now are, which latter may
be what the Roman and Greek au
thors called Mattium and Marriak-dr.
Others believe Mattium to be the
present Maden, near Gudesberg.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
According to their cruel practice,
the Romans, during this inroad,
‘ captured or killed all that were
defenceless on account of age or
sexi The German youth had en
deavoured to offer resistance by
swimming over the river Adrana
(evidently the Edder of to-day),
and trying to prevent the erection
of a bridge; but, received by a
shower of arrows and spears, they
were driven back into the forests.
On returning from their expedition,
the Romans destroyed Mattium, the
chief place of the Chattians, and
devastated the fields. So Tacitus
himself relates.
Soon afterwards we come upon a
tragic incident in Armin’s career.
His father-in-law, Segest, compelled
by the people’s voice to side with
the national cause, had once more
turned traitor. After having suc
ceeded for a time in capturing and
placing chains upon the Liberator,
Segest was, in his turn, beleaguered
in his stronghold, with a great
many of his blood relations and fol
lowers. Among the noble women
in his fort was his own daughter,
Thusnelda, of whom he seems to
have got possession during this in
ternecine warfare. Pressed hard by
his besiegers, Segest, by a secret
message, asked the Roman general
to bring relief. Segest’s own son,
Segimund, who once had been or
dained as a priest among the Ro
mans in Gaul, but who in the year of
the great rising had torn the priestly
insignia from his forehead, and gone
over to the ‘ rebels,’ was made,
against his own conscience, to
carry the father’s message to the
Romans. In this way relief came,
and Segest was freed. But Thus
nelda was led into Roman capti
vity—‘having more of her hus
band’s, than of her father’s, spirit;
not moved to tears; not of imploring
voice; her hands folded under her
bosom; her eyes glancing down on
her pregnant body ’ (gravidum
uterum intuens).
247
Stepping forth—a man of great
personal beauty, and of towering
height,—the very image of a proud
German warrior, yet a renegade to
his fatherland—Segest held forth
in a speech which Tacitus has pre
served. In it, an attempt is made
to rebut the charge of unfaithful
ness to his country ; the traitor as
suming the part of a mediator be
tween the Romans and the Germans
—if the latter would prefer repent
ance to perdition. The speech, in
which Segest prides himself on his
Roman citizenship, conferred upon
him by the ‘ divine Augustus,’ and
in which he accuses Armin of being
‘ the robber of his daughter, the
violator of the alliance with the
Romans,’ winds up with a prayer
for an amnesty to his son Segi
mund. With regard to Thusnelda,
the heartless father added the cold
remark that she had to be brought
by force before the Roman General,
and that he may ‘judge which cir
cumstance ought by preference to
be taken into account—whether the
fact of her being pregnant by Armin,
or the fact of her being his own.
(Segest’s) offspring.’
The Romans went, in their judg
ment, by the former circumstance,
and carried Thusnelda to Ravenna,
a place of banishment for many of
their state-prisoners. It seems that
afterwards she had to reside at
Rome. Pining away under the
Italian sky, she gave birth to a son,
of the name of Thumelicus, who was
educated at Ravenna. A ‘ mocking
fate,’ Tacitus says, befel afterwards,
this son of Armin. Unfortunately,
the book containing the record is
lost.
A German drama, written
some years ago, about the real au
thorship of which there has been
much contest, but which is no
doubt by Friedrich Halm, has for
its theme the assumed fate of
Thumelik. It is called Der Fechter
von Ravenna—1 The Gladiator of
Ravenna ’—and made considerable
stir.
�248
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
Thusnelda’s misfortune forms the
subject of a splendid canvas of vast
dimensions by Professor Piloty, of
Munich. It represents her as being
led along in a triumphal entry of
Roman soldiers before the Emperor
Tiberius. At the Vienna Exhibi
tion, last year, this powerful picture
created a deep impression. We
know that in the triumph of Germanicus, Thusnelda figured with her
little son, then three years old.
Together with her, there were her
brother Segimund ; the Chattian
priest Libys ; Sesithak, the son of
the Cheruskian chief Aegimer, and
his wife Hramis, the daughter of
the Chattian chieftain Ukromer;
Deudorix (Theodorich,or Dietrich),
a brother of the Sigambrian chief
tain Melo ; and various other
German captives. Even Segest
had to show himself before the Ro
man populace, in order to swell the
triumph. There are sculptures ex
tant which Gottling thinks can be
recognised as contemporary images
of Thusnelda and Thumelik ;
Armin’s wife being represented
as wrapped up in melancholy
thoughts.
The statue of what is supposed
to be a representation of Thusnelda
is above life-size. It stands at
Florence, in the Loggia de' Lanzi.
Casts of it are at Rome and at
Dresden. Gottling regards it as
the work of the sculptor Kleomenes,
from Athens. The statue has the
German dress, as described by
Tacitus; the flowing hair of Ger
man women of old ; and the
peculiar shoes, which we know to
have been worn by Franks and
Longobards, and even later by the
[August
German people in the Middle Ages.
That which Millin, Tolken, and
Thiersch consider a smaller repre
sentation of Thusnclda, Thumelik,
and some of the other prisoners in
Germanicus’ triumph—in the Cameo
de la Sainte Chapelle at Paris—
Gottiing does not recognise as such.
In the British Museum (Roman
Antiquities, No. 43) there is a bust
which the same author looks upon
as that of Thumelik;4 but this I
believe to be a most improbable
guess.
I may mention here also that the
Teutoburg Battle, during which
Varus ran upon his own sword,
has been the subject of various
poetical attempts ; for instance, by
Klopstock and Grabbe. Heinrich
von Kleist’s drama, Die HermannsSchlacht, was written more than
sixty years ago, at the time of Ger
many’s deepest degradation, when
Napoleon ruled supreme. Kleist,
who also died from his own hand,
never had the satisfaction of seeing
his play even in print; much less
on the stage. It is, however, being
acted at present at Berlin with a
great display of scenic effects ; some
of the best German archaeologists
having lent their aid to get up a
most faithful and correct represen
tation of the costumes, arms, and
habitations of the early Teutonic
race. The run of the public on
the theatre is stated to surpass all
previous experience.
But to return to Armin’s achieve
ments. After Thusnelda had fallen
into the hands of the Romans, we
see her valiant husband, with fiery
energy, at work to rouse the Ger
man tribes. The thought of his
4 The name of Thumelicus somewhat baffles etymologists. It has been explained as
‘ Tummlichfrom tammeln—to run about quickly, or to be active and bustling; so that
it would mean Swift or Nimble. Born in captivity, Thumelicus became by law a Roman
slave; and Thymelicus was a frequent slave’s name, referring to the performances of
such slaves in the Tbymele
the open theatrical place. I would, however,
observe that Strabo gives the name of Armin’s son not as Thymelikos, but Thoumelikos
(&ovp.t\uc6s'), which he would certainly not have done, had he, as a Greek, connected it
with the Thymele. Strabo probably saw, as an eye-witness, the triumphal entry in
which Thusnelda and her son figured as captives; and he wrote before there could have
been a fixed decision as to whether little Thumelik was to become a public performer of
any kind.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
fatherland and his desolate home
drove him to frantic fury. In the
words of the historian, he was urged
on by the impetuosity of his nature,
as well as by his feelings of indig
nation at the fate of his wife, and
the prospect of a child of theirs
having to be born in captivity.
He sped through the Cheruskian
districts, calling for war against
Segest; for war against the Caesar.
‘ 0 the noble father I ’—he exclaimed,
in one of his patriotic harangues—
‘ 0 the great Imperator! O the
valiant Army, whose countless hands
laid hold of, and carried away, a
helpless woman ! Three legions, as
many legates, had gone down into
the dust before him (Armin). But
notin cowardly manner—not against
helpless women—but openly, against
armed men, did he make war.
There were still to be seen, in Ger
man forests, the banners of the
Romans which he had hung up
there in honour of his country’s
gods. A Segest might cultivate
the banks of a river conquered by
a foreign foe, and make his own
son resume the functions of a Ro
man priest. But the Germans as
a people would never forget that
between the Rhine and the Elbe
they had seen the fasces, the lictor’s
axes, and the togas. Other nations
there were that lived without know
ledge of Roman dominion—un
aware of its cruel executions ; un
acquainted with its oppressive im
posts. But they who had freed
themselves from such tyranny ; they
before whom Augustus, who was said
to be received into the circle of the
gods, and that egregious Tiberius,
had been unable to achieve anything
—they should not stand in fear of an
inexperienced youth and his re
bellious army. If they preferred
249
their fatherland, their parents,
their ancient laws, to a Lord and
Master, and to the new colonies
he would set up among them, then
they should rather follow Armin,
the leader of glory and freedom,
than Segest, the herald of dis
graceful bondage!’
Tacitus says of this speech that
it contains words of abuse. It con
tained only a truth not palatable to
a race which aimed at the dominion
over the world. The result of
Armin’s energetic agitation was,
that neighbouring tribes, besides
the Cheruskians, were inflamed
with patriotic ardour, and that
his uncle, Inguiomer,4 a man of
5
high standing, and of great author
ity with the Romans themselves,
was drawn into the League. True
to their policy, the Romans en
deavoured to get the better of
this new German rising by enlisting
auxiliaries among the Chaukians,
who inhabited the country now
called Eastern Friesland, and by
coming down upon the League
formed by Armin from the side of
the river Ems, as well as from the
Rhine. A colossal army and fleet
were at the command of the Roman
General. ‘ In order to divide the
enemy,’ Caecina led forty Roman
cohorts through Brukterian terri
tory to the Ems. The cavalry was
led by the Prefect Pedo to the
frontier of the Frisians. Caesar
Germanicus himself went by sea,
along the Frisian coast, at the head
of four legions. At the Ems, the
place of general appointment, the
fleet, the infantry, and the cavalry
met. Then began the work of
devastation in the country between
the Ems and the Lippe—‘ which is
not far from that Teutoburg Forest
where, according to common report,
4 Many German names have been written down by the Romans in a form which it is
difficult to recognise now. Inguiomer’s name is among the exceptions. Among the
sons of Mannus (i.e. Man), the mythic progenitor of the three chief German tribes,
there is one whose name corresponds with the first part of the name of Armin’s uncle.
In the Edda (Oegisdrecka) we find the sunny god called Ingvi-Freyr; and again, in the
heroic song of Helgakhvida, we find an Ingvi. So again, in an Anglo-Saxon genea
logical table. The ending syllable ‘ mer,’ or ‘mar,’ occurs in many German names.
�250
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
Varus and the remnants of the
legions still lay unburied.’6
The plan evidently was to sur
round the Cheruskian League; to
annihilate it at the very scene of
its earlier great triumph; or to
drive it towards the Rhine—thus
crushing it between an attack from
the East and the West. Through
swamps and morasses, over which
bridges and embankments had to
be raised, the Roman army marched
towards the fatal Tentoburg Forest.
A deep emotion seized the soldiers
when they came to the place so
hideous to them by its aspect and
memory. It was a terrible sight.
The first camp of Varus could yet
be recognised, showing, by its wide
extent and its divisions, the strength
of three legions. There was the half
sunken wall—the low ditch; indi
cating the place where the beaten
remnants of the legions had once
more attempted a resistance. In
the open spaces, bleached bones
were to be seen—scattered, or iu
heaps, even as the troops had fled,
or withstood an attack.7 Broken
spears, skeletons of horses, heads
nailed to trees; in the groves near
by, rude altars where sacrifices had
taken place : all this brought back
the harrowing incidents of the Teutoburg Battle. Some of the survivors
of the defeat, who had escaped from
the battle or from their fetters,
pointed out the most noteworthy
spots. There the legates had fallen !
There .the eagles were lost! There
Varus had received his first wound !
There he had found his death by a
sword-thrust from his own hand!
Here, Arminius had spoken from a
raised scaffolding ! Here, a gallows
had been erected for prisoners!
Here there were pits of corpses 1
On yonder spot, Arminius had wan
tonly scoffed at the Roman banners
and eagles !
[August
In melancholy mood, yet full of
wrath—as Tacitus says—the Roman
Army buried the sorry remnants of
the legions of Varus. Germanicus
himself raised the first sod for a
grave-mound. Brooding Tiberius,
always nourishing suspicion, strong
ly blamed this expedition to the
scene of the lost battle; thinking,
perhaps not without reason, that
the sight of the dead and unburied
must impress the army with greater
fear of its foe. Indeed, the new
battle which now followed was, ac
cording to Roman testimony, again
very near being lost, and remained
‘indecisive.’ That is to say, Ger
manicus hurriedly returned with
his legions to the Ems, re-embark
ing them on his fleet, whilst a por
tion of his cavalry was ordered to
follow along the shore of the Ger
man Ocean, towards the Rhine;
thus remaining wi thin hail. Caecina,
in the meanwhile, was to march
over the so-called Long Bridges—
probably the same dykes which, for
eighteen hundred years afterwards,
still led from Lingen to Kovorden,
through the Bourtang Moor.
Finding the dykes partly decayed,
Caecina had to use the shovel as well
as the sword in presence of the ha
rassing enemy. A fearful struggle
began. The Germans, with their
powerful limbs and long spears,
fought on the slippery ground and in
the morasses with wonderful agility.
From the neighbouring hill-sides,
waters were made to deviate, by
German hands, towards the place of
contest. In their heavy armature, the
Romans felt unequal to this strange
water-battle. Night at last gave
some respite, but was made hideous
by the jubilant songs of the carous
ing enemy, who filled the valleys
and the forests with the echo of their
deep-chested voices. The Romans,
‘more sleepless than watchful,’ lay
6 Tacitus, Annals, i. 6o.
7 Not far from the village of Stuckenbrock, there is a brook that still bears the name
of Knochenbach (Bones’-brook). Tradition says of it that it is so called on account of
the human bones that were frequently washed out of the ground by its waters.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
drearily near their palisades, or wan
dered about despairingly between the
tents. It was during that night of
terrors that Caecina, in his dream,
saw and heard Quinctilius Varus—
he rose, blood-covered, from the
morass, calling for help; yet not
accepting, but pushing back, the
proffered hand of help.
When day broke, Armin rushed
upon the Romans, shouting : c Ho !
Varus again ! and, by the same fate,
twice-vanquished legions !’ With a
body of picked men, he in person
cuts through the Roman troops; in
flicting wounds especially on their
horses. They, throwing their riders,
and trampling on the fallen men,
create confusion throughout the
ranks.
Caecina himself, flung
from his horse, is nearly surrounded,
and with difficulty saved by the
first legion. After a prolonged
massacre, darkness even brings no
end to the misery. There are no
sapper’s tools ; no tents ; no band
ages for the wounded. The food is
soiled with blood and dirt. Wail
ing and despair everywhere.
A
night alarm is created by a horse
that has got loose. The Romans,
believing that the Germans have
broken into the camp, fly towards
the gate on the opposite side, and
are only stopped at last by Caecina,
whose admonitions and prayers
had been fruitless, throwing himself
bodily on the ground to bar the
gate, whilst the tribunes and the
centurions assure the soldiers that
the alarm was a groundless one.
Had Armin’s more prudent tac
tics been carried out to the last; had
not Inguiomer’s passionate advice
to storm the Roman camp pre
vailed in the German council of
war, the legions of Caecina would
have been annihilated as those of
Varus had been. As it was, the
fortune of battle was restored to
the Romans; Armin leaving the
ground of contest unharmed, whilst
Inguiomer received a severe wound.
Caecina’s troops effected their re
251
treat. The fleet of Gernianicus,
who had taken the remainder of
the army with him, was in the
meanwhile wrecked in the German
Ocean by a storm-flood, and gene
rally believed to be lost, until that
part of the army also came back,
after many sufferings and losses.
On the Rhine, the rumour that
the Roman army was hemmed in,
and that the Germans were march
ing towards Gaul, gave rise to such
fears that the bridge over which the
retreating legions were to come
would have been pulled down, had
not Agrippina, the granddaughter
of Augustus, and wife of Germanicus, placed herself there with her
little son, the future Emperor Cali
gula, whom she had dressed in the
garb of a legionary. By personally
receiving and encouraging the re
turning soldiers, she stayed the
apprehensions, and prevented the
destruction of the bridge. So miser
ably ended a campaign which had
been destined to be a War of Re
venge for the Battle in the Teutoburg Forest.
Again we find the Romans re
turning to their plan of conquering
the country between the Rhine and
the Weser by a simultaneous attack
from the land side and from the
shores of the German Ocean. An
even more colossal army and fleet is
under the orders of their General.
Again they come with auxiliaries of
Teuton origin; but some of these—
the Angrivarians—rise in their rear.
On the Roman side there is, this
time, Armin’s own brother, Flavus —so called on account of his
flaxen or golden hair. Like Segest,
he had kept with his country’s
enemies, even after the great victory
of the German arms. There is a
pathetic account, in Tacitus’ Annals,
of an interview between the two
brothers, standing on the opposite
banks of the Weser, when Armin
endeavoured to gain over Flavus
to the national cause. The inter
view took place with Roman per-
�252
Arinin, the Liberator of Germany.
mission. Armin, after having saluted
his brother, who had lost an eye in
battle, asked him whence that dis
figuration of his face ? On hearing
of the cause, and of the reward
received for it—namely, a neck
chain, a crown, and other insignia
—the Liberator laughs scornfully
at ‘ those contemptible prizes of
slavery.’ Thereupon they speak
against one another : Flavus extol
ling Latin power, pointing to the
severe punishments that await the
vanquished, and to the mercy ex
tended to the submissive. On his
part, Armin speaks to his brother
of his country’s rights; of their
ancient native freedom; of Ger
many’s own gods; of the prayers
of their mother; of the calls of their
kith and kin. ‘Is it better,’ he
exclaims, ‘ to be a deserter from, and
a traitor against, your people, than
to be their leader and their chief
tain ? ’
Filled with anger, Golden-Hair
hurriedly asks for his horse and
weapons from those near him;
wishing to cross over with fratri
cidal purpose. With difficulty is he
restrained. Armin answers with
threats, announcing new battles;
and many sentences he uttered, be
tween his German speech, in Latin,
so that the Romans also might
understand him.
Soon the struggle recommences.
We see Cariovalda (probably ‘Heerwalt,’ i.e. Army-leader), the chief
of the Batavian auxiliaries, falling
under Cheruskian blows in a plain
surrounded by wooded hills. News
comes to the Roman General by a
German runaway that Armin has
fixed the place where he will give
battle to the Romans; that other
tribes also are assembled in the
‘Grove of Hercules’ (undoubtedly
a grove devoted to Thunar, the God
of the Tempests) ; and that a noc
[August
turnal attack upon the Roman camp
is intended. Meanwhile the bold
ness of the Germans becomes such
that one of their men who knows the
Latin tongue, spurs on his horse to
the camp wall, and with powerful
voice, in the name of Armin, makes
sundry joyful promises to those
who will desert from the Roman
Army. We hear Germanicus rousing
the courage of his troops ; Armin
on his part asks his men what else
there is to be done than ‘ to main
tain their freedom, or to die before
falling into bondage ? ’
We then see the Roman Army,
composed of many legions, and
with picked cavalry, marching for
ward with Gallic and German
auxiliaries to the Battle of Idistaviso. The locality of that battle
is not clearly fixed. Maybe, that
‘Idistaviso’ means Leister-Wiese —
the Meadow of the Deister Hills.8
In this case, the battle-field would
be near Minden. Others place it
near Vegesack, in the vicinity of
Bremen. It is reported that in
this battle Armin, easily to be
distinguished by his bravery, his
voice, and his wound, for some
time maintained the contest; rush
ing through the enemy’s bowmen,
and only stopped by the Rhaetian,
the Vindelician, and the Gallic co
horts-—all men of other nationality
than the Roman. In danger of beingsurrounded, he breaks away from
his foes by his vehement valour
and the impetuosity of his charger.
His face is smeared over with
blood—perhaps purposely done, to
avoid recognition. Some say that
the Chaukian auxiliaries of the
Romans did recognise him, but let
him pass through unhurt. Though
mercenaries themselves, they could
not harm the Deliverer—a touching
trait! In similar manner, Inguiomer saved himself. The result of
* A mythological explanation of the name of that field is, that it means the Meadow
of the Divine Virgins; or of the Walkyres—Virgins of Battle. Instead of Idistaviso,
Idiasa-Viso has been suggested to sustain this interpretation.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
the battle was claimed as a victory
by the Romans, who boast of a
great massacre among the van
quished Germans.
But another battle presently
followed ; the German tribes being
roused to fury by the sight of a
triumphal monument which the
Romans had raised, with an in
scription of the names of the popula
tions they thought they had van
quished. ‘The people, the nobles,
the youth, the old men, suddenly
fell upon the Roman Army,
throwing it into confusion.’ So
Tacitus says.
Armin, suffering
from a wound, is not present
during this new engagement. Inguiomer, who rushes through the
ranks, with words of cheer, is
forsaken by Fortune rather than by
his courage. Germanicus recom
mends his troops ‘ not to make any
prisoners, but to continue the carn
age, as the war could be ended only
by the extermination of that people.’
The main victory was again claimed
by the Romans, although their
cavalry fought, according to their
own testimony, indecisively.
Raising a monument of arms,
a mendacious inscription on which
spoke of a victory over ‘ the na
tions between the Rhine and the
Elbe,’ the Roman General re
turned, by way of the Ems, to
the German Ocean, when the
fleet was again wrecked, and
Germanicus, in a trireme, driven
to the Chaukian shore. With diffi
culty was he restrained from seek
ing death, accusing himself of this
misfortune. Some of his wrecked
soldiers found shelter on the Frisian
islands. Many had to be freed by
ransom from captivity among the
inhabitants of the interior. Some,
driven as far as the British shores,
were sent back by the kinglets of
that country.
Barring a few fresh Roman inroads
into Chattian and Marsian territory,
there was an end, henceforth, of
Latin power in those regions of
north-western Germany. The fol
253
lowing years are filled with the
struggle between Marobod, the
German ruler in Bohemia, who had
assumed the title of King, and
Armin, the ‘Championof Freedom.’
Suevian tribes, Semnones and
Longobards, dissatisfied with Marobod’s royal pretensions, went over
to the Liberator, whose influence
would now have been paramount,
had not dissension once more
broken out by the defection of
Inguiomer.
Priding himself on
the superior wisdom of older age,
he would not obey his younger
nephew, Armin, and went over to
Marobod; thus helping to divide
Germany from within. In the words
of the Roman historian, the different
tribes had, ‘ after the retreat of the
Romans, and being no longer
apprehensive of foreign enemies,
become jealous of each other’s
glory, and turned their weapons
against themselves, in accordance
with the custom of that nation.
The strength of the contending
populations, the bravery of the
chiefs, were equal. But Marobod’s
royal title was hateful to his
countrymen, whilst Armin, the
Champion of Freedom, possessed
their favour.’
With an army of 70,000 men and
4,000 horse, organised and officered
on the Roman system, the Markoman
King opposed the Cheruskian leader.
North and South were ranged as
foes against each other—a spectacle
too often seen in later centuries!
It is reported that Marobod, though
for some time looked upon and
treated by the suspicious Romans
as a possible enemy, who might
threaten their possessions south of
the Danube, and even Italy itself,
yet endeavoured to keep on good
terms with them. When Armin,
after the defeat of Varus, sent the
head of the Roman general as a
pledge of victory to Marobod, the
latter hastened to return it to the
Romans for honourable burial. In
the hour of Marobod’s misfortune
the Romans, however, only re-
�254
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
membered that he had not aided
them in their contest against the
Clieruskians. Imploring—after an
indecisive battle, and much weak
ened by desertion—some succour
from Tiberius, the Markoman ruler
was refused all help ; and becoming
a fugitive, had to go, more as a
prisoner than as an exile, to that
same Ravenna, where Thusnelda
ended her days in grief, far from
her northern forest-home.
The
young Gothic duke Catualda, or
Chatuwalda, who in the meanwhile
stormed Marobod’s capital, was in
his turn expelled by another German
tribe, the Hermundures ; and flying
also to the Romans, died in distant
Gaul. Verily, a series of sad pic
tures of such discord as made the
Roman historian say that if the
gods wished to stay the impending
fate of his own nation, they should
for ever keep up dissension among
the Germans.
Still, even these dissensions,
albeit delaying, could not prevent,
the fall of the Roman Empire.
Frisian, Batavian,Markoman risings,
the latter lasting for twenty years,
followed, in course of time, upon
Armin’s struggles. And who knows
whether in the later Germanic on
slaught on Rome, the hosts of Goths,
Herulians, Longobards, may not
have marched forth to the sound of
heroic songs that praised Armin’s
deeds ?—songs probably still extant
in the ninth century, under the
Frankish Karl ; forming part of
those collected by him, but unfor
tunately lost for us.
We now rapidly come to Armin’s
end. We hear of a knavish pro
posal for poisoning him, made to
the Roman Senate by a Chattian
chieftain, Adgandester. The same
historian who describes the refusal
of the Senate to accede to poison,
considers it a simple matter that a
Chaukian leader, Gannask, was got
rid of by means not very dissimilar.
[August
The last days of the Victor of the
Teutoburg Battle are enveloped in
doubt and mystery. It is said that,
after the withdrawal of the Romans
and the overthrow of Marobod,
he, too, was suspected of aiming at
dominion, and was opposed by his
freedom-loving countrymen, against
whom he struggled with varying
success. Roman report states this
in a few lines. But it would be
difficult, in the absence of all
further testimony, to decide whe
ther the ‘ love of freedom ’ of his
opponents was a people’s spirit
of self-government, or merely
the jealousy of minor chief
tains whom the Romans would
gladly have seen fritter away all
German national cohesion.
At
last, Armin, at the age of thirty
seven, ‘ fell by the treachery of his
relations ’—that is to say, was mur
dered.
Of him Tacitus writes:—‘With
out doubt, Arminius was Germany’s
Deliverer (Arminius Liberator baud
dubie Germaniae)—one who had not
warred against the early beginnings
of the Roman people, like other
princes or army-leaders, but against
the Empire at the height of its
power. Of chequered fortune in
war, he was never vanquished in
battle. Thirty-seven years of hislife,
twelve of his power did he com
plete : his glory is still sung among
the barbarian nations ; unknown he
is to the annals of the Greeks,9 who
only admire tlieir own deeds; not
sufficiently praised is his name by
the Romans, it being our custom
to extol the past, and not to care
for the events of more recent days.’
This prai se, coming from an enemy,
is the greatest that could have been
given; and no prouder inscription
could be placed on the Memorial
which is to be inaugurated in the
Teutoburg Forest than the Latin
words : ‘ Liberator Germaniae.’
9 Still, Strabo—before the time of Tacitus—mentions Armin,
later by Dio Cassius.
Karl Blind.
The same was done
�The Development of Psychology.
405
of that theory of the secular transmission of mental acquisitions
which has become so familiar that it is now difficult to appreciate
its daring originality. Feeling, like Reason, arises out of instinct;
and emotions of the greatest complexity, power, and abstractness
are formed out of the simple aggregation of large groups of
emotional states into still larger groups through endless past ages.
Thus out of the feeble beginnings of life have been woven all
the manifestations of mind, up to the highest abstractions of
a Hegel and the infinitely complex and voluminous emotions
of a Beethoven. Well may a French writer say :—“ Si on la rapproche par la pensee des tentatives de Locke et de Condillac sur ce
sujet, la genese sensualiste paraitra d’une simplicity eufantine.”*
Hitherto the psychologist, proceeding objectively, has made no
use of consciousness ; and it is now necessary, in order to justify
the findings of the synthetic method, to examine consciousness in
the only possible way—by analysis. Setting out with the highest
conceivable display of mind, compound quantitative reasoning, he
tracks all the mental phenomena down to that which is only a
change in consciousness, the establishment of the relation of
sequence, and proves that the genesis of intelligence has advanced
in the same way as was shown in the synthesis—by the establish
ment and consolidation of relations of increasing complexity. Thus
throughout all the phenomena of mind there exists a unity of
composition; and the doctrines of innate ideas, intuitions by gift
of God, supernatural revelations, mysticism of all kinds, have the
ground cut from under them.
The very great extension of plan which Mr. Spencer’s work
received between 1855 and 1870-2 was due solely to the creation
of his own philosophy of evolution. That in its turn had its
initiative in the theory of the correlation of forces advanced by
Grove in 1842. As the new philosophy conceived all existence
to result from evolution through differentiation and integration, it was incumbent on Mr. Spencer to show that mental
phenomena, or at least the physical correlatives of them, can be
interpreted in terms of the redistribution of matter and motion,
and explained by a series of deductions from the persistence of
force. This is the task of a Physical Synthesis, which shows the
structure and functions of the nervous system to have resulted
from intercourse between the organism and its environment.
And thus is laid the coping-stone of a treatise which has defini
tively constituted Psychology a science.
With the definitive constitution of the science our inquiry,
which began with the differentiation of its subject-matter, comes
to an end. We have seen mind slowly emancipating itself from
* Ribot, “ La Psycbologie Anglaise,” p. 215.
[Vol. CI. No. CC.j—New Series, Vol. XLV. No. II.
EE
�406
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
the barbaric Cosmos, and raised into an independent object of
speculation. Once “ differentiated’ it begins itself to unfold, and
at the same time to gather round it the at first alien facts of
sensation, appetite, and bodily feeling generally. These are in
creasingly matter of inquiry, and theories respecting them take the
hue and shape of the sciences which relate to the material world.
The science of motion evolves, and the idea of orderly sequence
enters into Psychology. Natural Philosophy rises from motion to
force, and Psychology passes from conjunction to causation. Che
mistry tears aside a corner of nature’s veil, and a shaft is sunk in a
mysterious field of mind. The sciences of organic nature receive
a forward impulse, and mind and life are joined in inextricable
union. A philosophy of the universe, incorporating all the
sciences, is created, and Psychology, while attaining increased
independence as regards the adjacent sciences, is merged in that
deductive science of the Knowable which has more widely
divorced, and yet more intimately united, the laws of matter
and of mind.
Art. VII.—The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
1. Deutsche Classiker des Mittelalters, Mit Wort und Sacherkldrungen. Begriindet von Franz Pfeiffer. Erster
Band, Walther von der Vogelweide. Leipzig: F. A.
Brockhaus. 1870.
2. Das Leben Walthers von der Vogelweide. Leipzig : B. G.
Triibner. 1865.
N the history of German literature no period is more inte
resting, than that short classical epoch at the end of the twelfth
century and the beginning of the thirteenth, which gave rise to the
literature written in Middle High German. More especially does
it attract attention, because within very narrow limits it com
prises many and great names, but above all it is remarkable
because within these limits it saw the birth and death of a new
kind of poetry, a poetry of an entirely different character from
that of the old epic poems. They were grand, massive, and
objective ; the new style was light, airy, plaintive, and subjective.
To this style belongs the German Minnesong. The songs of three
hundred Minnesingers are preserved all belonging to this short
period. In their themes there is not much variety. The changes
of the seasons, and the changes of a lover’s mood do not in fact
present a wide range of subjects to the lyric poet. And most of
the Minnesongs are confined to these. But the following simile
seems true. If any one enters a wood in summer time, and listens
I
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Armin, the liberator of Germany
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Blind, Karl
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 243-254 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Printed in double columns. Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Fraser's Magazine 12 (August 1875).
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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1875
Identifier
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CT37
Subject
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Germany
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Armin, the liberator of Germany), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Arminius
Conway Tracts
Germany