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Transcriber's Notes:
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2. Diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE
IN THE
EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.
SECOND SERIES.
* * * * *
VOL. I.
PICTURES
OF
GERMAN LIFE
In the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries.
Second Series.
BY
GUSTAV FREYTAG.
Translated from the Original by
MRS. MALCOLM.
_COPYRIGHT EDITION.--IN TWO VOLUMES_.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY.
1863.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
CONTENTS.
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.
Introduction.--The nation and the individual--Aim of the
book--Peculiarities in the development of the German people since
the Thirty Years' War
CHAPTER I.
Life of the German Peasant (1240-1790).--The duration of modern
nations--German agriculture in the time of the Romans, the
Carlovingians, and the Hohenstauffen--Description of the peasants by
Neidhart von Reuenthal--Narrative of young Helmbrecht, by Wernher
the Gardener--The fifteenth century--The Peasant War--Eberlin von
Guenzburg--Condition of the peasants after the war; their service and
burdens; their different condition according to districts, and
deterioration by oppression--First signs of improvement--Description of
the German peasant by Christian Garve--Insurrection of the peasantry in
1790, and their present position
CHAPTER II.
The Life of the Lower Nobility (1500-1800).--The country nobles
in the sixteenth century--The court nobles--The detrimental effects
of the Great War--Description of a wealthy nobleman from
1650-1700--Patents of nobility--Description of the life of the
newly-ennobled merchants from 1650-1700--The country nobles and
Krippenreiters from 1660-1700--Description of the same from "The
Nobleman," by Paul Winckler--Better condition after 1700--Privileges of
the nobles--Introduction of a new culture--Gellert--Union of the nobles
with the citizens
CHAPTER III.
The German Citizen and his Shooting Festivals (1300-1800).-Gradual
development of the citizen class--Decline after the Thirty Years'
War--The prize shooting as an example of their former wealth and
importance--May feasts of the old citizens--Prize shooting before
1400--Preparations for the festival--The Pritschmeister and
procession--Prizes and fortune's urn--Hospitality, and conclusion of
the festival--Zurich and Strasbourg--Differences of the festivals
according to districts--Their decline--Description of the Breslau
"Koenigschiessens" of 1738, by Kundmann
CHAPTER IV.
The State Policy and the Individual (1600-1700).--The dissolution of
the German Empire--The Prince's parties--The despotic official
administration--The statesmen after the war--The insecurity of the
subject; its influence on the character--Characteristics of the State
system in a flying sheet of 1678--Tendencies up to 1740
CHAPTER V.
The "Stillen im Lande," or Pietists (1600-1700).--Tendencies
of Protestantism till 1618--Consequences of the war--The older
Pietism--Spener--Hatred of worldly pleasures--The
women--Self-contemplation and social intercourse--Good effects on
morals--The revival--Characters of Petersen and his wife--Narrative
of Johanna Eleonora Petersen--Narrative of Dr. Johann Wilhelm
Petersen--Fate of this couple, and their revelations--The later Pietism
and its aberrations--Opposition--Lamentations of the student, Ernst
Johann Semler--Progress of the people through Pietism
CHAPTER VI.
The Dawning of Light (1750).--Changes in the human mind from
the invention of printing--Mathematical discipline and natural
science--Law--Philosophy and its position with respect to theology--The
leaders--Change of literature by Wolf and his disciples--Description
of a German city about 1760, its police and artisans--The
gentry--Merchants and their commerce--Ecclesiastics, teachers, and
schools--Post and travelling--Dress and manners--Sentimentality, tears,
and self-contemplation--Marriage a business matter--Women and house
duties--Narrative of Johann Salomo Semler--Letter from a bride to her
bridegroom in the year 1750
PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE.
Second Series.
INTRODUCTION.
The Man and the Nation! The course of life of a nation consists in the
ceaseless working of the individual on the collective people, and the
people on the individual. The greater the vigour, diversity, and
originality with which individuals develop their human power, the more
capable they are of conducing to the benefit of the whole body; and the
more powerful the influence which the life of the nation exercises on
the individual, the more secure is the basis for the free development
of the man. The productive power of man expresses itself in endless
directions, but the perfection of all powers is the political
development of the individual, and of the nation through the State. The
mind, the spirit, and the character are influenced and directed by the
political life of the State, and the share which the individual has in
the State is to him the highest source of honour and manly happiness.
If in the time of our fathers and grandfathers the German contemplated
his own position among other men, he might well question whether his
life was poor or rich, whether hope or sorrow predominated; for his
earthly position was in every way peculiar. Whilst he felt with
pleasure that he was in the enjoyment of a free and refined
cultivation, he was daily oppressed by the harsh despotism, or the weak
insignificance of his State, in which he lived as a stranger without
the protection of the law; he looked with pride on the gigantic
workings of German science, but he perceived, with bitter sorrow, that
millions of his countrymen were separated by a deep chasm from the
highest results of scientific labour. He found himself amidst the
working of a popular energy, which ventured with heroic courage on the
boldest conclusions in the realm of mind; and, on the other hand, saw
around him narrow-hearted obstinacy, where simple and close results
ought to have been the aim. He felt with thousands an eager desire for
an object of life which would exalt and animate him, and again he found
himself surrounded and shackled by narrow-mindedness and by provincial
and local exclusiveness. Whoever should thus feel, may well inquire
whether we Germans are old or young, whether it is destined by fate
that the German nature should only find expression in the individual
virtuosoship of art and science, or whether an harmonious development
of the nation in its practical and ideal tendencies, in labour and
enjoyment. State, church, science, art, and industry, lies before us in
the future: whether we shall ever again, as members of a great State,
play the part of masters in Europe, which old records inform us our
ancestors, in remote ages, won by their swords and the energy of their
natures. There is still a time in our memory when hope was so faint,
that one may be excused for giving a doubtful answer to such questions.
After the War of Freedom, the decay of the old method of culture became
the characteristic of the time; but we now approach, with youthful
vigour, new ideas and an energetic will, to a new and higher climax. In
the characters of that past time we find, only too frequently,
isolation, hopelessness, and deficiency in political morality; in the
new time we have a sharper vision, a higher interest for the nation as
a whole, and a power of viewing things in a practical light which makes
us feel the need of close union between all of like mind. The realism,
which is called, either in praise or blame, the stamp of the present
time, is in art, science, and faith, as in the State, nothing but the
first step in the cultivation of the rising generation, which
endeavours to spiritualise the details of present life in all
directions, in order to give a new tendency to the spirit.
But, though it may be no longer necessary to cheer the soul with hope,
yet it is a pleasing task to demonstrate the point to which we have
attained in comparison with the past, and in comparison with other
civilised nations; why we were obliged to remain behind in many things
which our neighbours possess in abundance, and why we have made other
acquisitions in advance of them. It is instructive for us to make such
inquiries, and the answer that we shall find may be instructive to
other nations. No individual can give a satisfactory solution to each
single question; even the strongest mind can but imperfectly comprehend
the great life of his nation: the clearest eye and the most ingenuous
judgment is contracted in comparison with the great unity of the
people. But, however imperfect may be the portrait given by individuals
of the life of their nation, yet each contemporary will discover some
main features of the picture lying in his own soul, more especially he
who stands in the same grade of cultivation with the delineator.
This kind of delineation of the period of the Reformation and the
Thirty Years' War, was the object of the former series of pictures of
the past life of Germany; the following will be a sketch of some of the
phases of development of German character during the last century up to
the present day. Again shall the narratives of those who are gone, as
well as the living, portray the times in which they figure; but the
nearer we approach the present, the less do the records of individuals
give an impression of the nature of the general community. First,
because from the greater proximity we are able more accurately to
distinguish the individual from the community, and also, because the
diversity of character and the difference of culture become ever
greater the further the German mind advances in profound investigation;
therefore these examples will probably lose for the reader some of the
charm afforded by those of former centuries. And in addition to this,
the records of these latter times are far more known and realised by
our popular writers. Lastly, the political history, as well as the
development of the German mind, since the time of Frederick the Great,
has, through copious works, become the property of the nation. It is
not therefore intended here to enter upon a representation of the
scientific mind, or of the political condition of the nation; but only
to represent those phases of the spirit and social circumstances, which
more especially define the character of a people. By these the
continuity and many peculiarities of our present cultivation will be
illustrated.
The new time began in Germany, after the invention of printing, by a
struggle in which Germans broke the fetters of the Papal Church of the
Middle Ages, and passed from submissive belief in authority, to an
energetic, independent search after truth. But they did not at the same
time succeed in building up a compact monarchy out of the unsymmetrical
feudalism of the Middle Ages. The Imperial House of Hapsburg became the
zealous opponent of the national development. Owing to this opposition
arose the power of separate territorial princes, and the political
weakness of Germany became the more perceptible, the more the rising
vigour of the nation demanded an answering development of political
energy. From this the German character suffered much. Ecclesiastical
disputes were for a long period the only national interest; there was
but too great a deficiency in Germans of that pride and pleasure in a
fatherland, and of that whole circle of moral feelings, to which
political independence gives life, even in the most obscure individual.
After the Reformation it became the fate of the German nation to
develope its character under conditions which were materially different
from those of the other civilised people of Europe. In France, the
Protestant party was struck down with bloody zeal by the crown under
the despotic government of Louis XIV.; and the Revolution was the
growth of this victory. In England, the Protestant party gained the
dominion under the Tudors; the struggle against the Stuarts and the
completion of the English constitution was the result. In Germany, the
opposition of parties was not followed either by victory or
conciliation; the result was the Thirty Years' War, and the political
paralysis of Germany, from which it is only now beginning to recover.
This Thirty Years' War, the worst desolation of a populous nation since
the national exodus, is the second period of German history which gave
a peculiar tendency to the character of the people. The war shattered
into ruins the popular strength, but it also certainly removed the
dangers which threatened German cultivation, by the alliance of the
Imperial House with the Roman Hierarchy. It also separated the Imperial
State, politically, from the rest of Germany; what was lost to France
in the west by the Hapsburgers, was gradually regained to Germany in
the east by another Royal House. The great destruction caused by the
war, changed the State life of Germany to a hollow form; it threw the
Germans almost two centuries back, in comparison with their English
kinsmen, in wealth, population, and political condition. It must again
be repeated that it destroyed at least two thirds, probably three
fourths of the population, and a still greater portion of their goods
and cattle, and deteriorated the morals, arts, education, and energies
of the survivors. Out of these remains of German life, the modern
character of Germans was slowly and feebly developed--individual life
under despotic government.
It is this period, in which our popular strength was slowly raised from
the deepest degradation, which will be here portrayed by the narratives
of contemporaries. Again a great time, but a period of German
development of which the last and highest results have not yet become
history.
The way in which the people raised themselves from this abyss is
peculiar to the Germans. Marvellous as was the destruction, so also was
the revival. More than one nation has been overpowered by outward
enemies or cast down under political oppression, each of which has had
to undergo special trials which have given them from time to time a
hopeless aspect, but through the whole course of history a renovation
has been effected, so that the strengthening of the State has gone
hand-in-hand with intellectual progress. When the Greeks during the
Persian war felt their own political worth, their science and art
blossomed almost simultaneously; when Augustus had given a new support
and constitution to the declining Roman republic, there began forthwith
a new Imperial culture in enjoyment-seeking Rome: the intellectual
life, from Horace and Virgil to Tacitus, followed the destiny of the
State; the increased expansive power of the Empire ever gave a wider
stretch and stronger independence to individual minds. And again in
England,--when the war of the Red and White Roses was ended, when the
people peacefully danced round the maypole, and a brilliant court life
enforced courtly manners upon the wild Barons, when daring merchants
and adventurers waylaid the Spanish galleons, and conveyed the spices
of India up the Thames,--then the popular energies found expression in
the greatest poetic soul of modern nations. Even in France the splendid
despotism of Louis XIV., after the wars of the Huguenots and the
Fronde, gave suddenly to the tranquillised country a brilliant courtly
bloom of art and literature. It was quite otherwise in Germany. Whilst
everywhere else the State might be compared to the body whose abundant
energy calls forth the creative development of the nation, in Germany,
since the Thirty Years' War, owing to the awakening popular energy, a
new national civilisation has gradually arisen in a shattered, decaying
government, under corrupting and humiliating political influences of
every kind,--first dependent upon strangers; then independent and free;
finally, a shining pattern for other people, producing blossoms of
poetry, and blossoms of science of the greatest beauty, of the highest
nobility, and the greatest inward freedom: it was developed by
individuals who were deficient in just that discipline of the mind and
character, which is only given to them when they are members of a great
State. The German culture of the eighteenth century was indeed the
wonderful creation of a soul with out a body.
It is still more remarkable that this new national cultivation helped,
in an indirect way, to turn the Germans into political men. From it the
enthusiasm and struggle for an endangered German State, passions,
parties, and at last political institutions were developed. Never did
literature play such a part or solve such great problems, as the
German, from 1750 to the present day. For it is thoroughly unlike the
modern endeavours of other nations, who from patriotism, that is to
say, from the need of political progress, mature an objective
literature. In these cases art and poetry serve, from the beginning, as
handmaids to politics; they are perhaps artificially fostered, and the
artistic and scientific worth is probably less than the patriotic aim.
In Germany, science, literature, and art only existed for their own
sake: the highest creative power and the warmest interests of the
educated classes were engrossed with them alone; they were always
German and patriotic, in opposition to the overpowering French taste;
but, with the exception of a few outbreaks of political anger or
popular enthusiasm, they had no other aim than to serve truth and
beauty. Nay, the greatest poets and scholars considered the political
condition under which they lived, as a common reality out of which art
alone could elevate mankind.
As therefore in Germany art and science desired nothing but honourable
exertion within their own sphere, their pure flames refined the
sensitive disposition of Germans till it was hardened for a great
political struggle.
Before giving pictures of the German character during the last two
centuries, we will endeavour to portray the peculiarities which are
developed in the family relations of the different classes of ancient
Germany, both the peasantry, the nobility, and the citizens. But the
aim of the book is to show how, by means of the Hohenzollern State,
Germans changed gradually from private to public men; how dramatic
power and interest entered into lyrical individual life; how the
Burgher class was strengthened by increasing education, and the
nobility and peasantry submitted to its influence; finally, how it cast
aside the specialities of classes, and began to form characters
according to its own needs and points of view.
CHAPTER I.
THE LIFE OF THE GERMAN PEASANT.
(1240-1790.)
In seven hundred years the independent life of the Greeks terminated;
about a thousand embraces the growth, dominion, and decline of the
Roman power; but the German Empire had lasted fifteen hundred years
from the fight in the Teutoburg Forest,[1] before it began to emerge
from its epic time. So entirely different was the duration of the life
of the ancient world to that of the modern; so slow and artificial are
our transformations. How rich were the blossoms which Greek life had
matured in the five centuries from Homer to Aristotle! How powerful
were the changes which the Roman State had undergone, from the rise of
the free peasantry on the hills of the Tiber to the subjection of the
Italian husbandmen under German landlords! But the Germans worked for
fifteen centuries with an intellectual inheritance from the Romans and
the East, and are now only in the beginning of a development which we
consider as peculiar to the German mind, in contradistinction to the
Roman, of the new time, to the ancient. It is indeed no longer an
isolated people which has to emerge from barbarism by its own
creations; it is a family of nations more painstaking and more
enduring, which has risen, at long and laborious intervals, from the
ruins of the Roman Empire, and from the intellectual treasures of
antiquity: one nation reciprocally acting on the other, under the law
of the same faith.
The Romans from free peasants had become farmers, and they were ruined
because they could not overcome the social evil of slavery. The German
warriors also, in the time of Tacitus, took little pleasure in
cultivating their own fields, and were glad to make use of dependents.
It was only shortly before the year 1500, that the German cities
arrived at the conviction that the labour of freemen is the foundation
of prosperity, opulence, and civilisation. But in the country, even
after the Thirty Years' War, the mass of the labourers--more than half
of the whole German nation--were in a state of servitude, which in many
provinces differed little from slavery. It is only in the time of our
fathers that the peasant has become an independent man, a free citizen
of the State: so slowly has the groundwork of German civilisation and
of the modern State been developed.
All earthly progress does not take the straight course which men expect
when improvement begins; thus the position of the German husbandman in
1700 was worse in many respects than a hundred years before; nay, even
in our time it is not comparatively so good as it was 600 years
earlier, in the time of the Hohenstaufen.
The German peasant for centuries lost much that was valuable in order
to attain a higher condition; his freedom and elevation to citizenship
in our State was effected in an apparently indirect way. At the time of
the Carlovingians more than half the peasants were free and armed, and
the pith of the popular strength; at the time of Frederick the Great,
almost all the country people were under strict bondage,--the beasts of
burden of the new State, weak and languishing, without political object
or interest in the State. Somewhat of the old weakness still clings to
them.
We shall therefore first take a short review of an earlier period,
comparing it with the peasant life of the last two centuries.
What the Romans mention of the condition of the German agricultural
districts, is only sufficient to give us a glimpse of ancient peasant
life. According to their accounts, the Germans were long considered to
be a wild warrior race, who lived in transition from a wandering life
to an uncertain settlement, and it was seldom inquired how it was
possible that such hordes should for centuries carry on a victorious
resistance to the disciplined armies of the greatest power on earth.
When Cheruskers, Chattens, Bructerers, Batavers, and other people of
less geographical note, occasioned terror, not only to single legions,
but to large Roman armies, not once, but in continual wars for more
than one generation,--when a Markomannen chief disciplined 70,000
infantry and 4000 cavalry after the fashion of legions; when a Roman,
after a century of devastating wars between the Rhine and the Elbe,
puts before us with great emphasis the powerful masses of the
Germans,--we may conclude that single tribes which, with their allies,
could sometimes bring into the field more than 100,000 warriors, must
have counted a population of hundreds of thousands. And we equally
approach to a second conclusion, that such a multitude in a narrowly
limited space, surrounded by warlike neighbours, could only exist by
means of a simple, perhaps, but regular and extensive cultivation of
field products. That the agriculture of the Germans should appear
meagre to the Romans, after the garden cultivation of Italy and Gaul,
is comprehensible; nevertheless they found corn, millet, wheat, and
barley; but the common corn of the country was oats, the meal of which
they despised, and rye, which Pliny calls an unpalatable growth of the
Alpine country, productive of colic. But in the year 301, the corn
which made the German black bread, was introduced as the third article
of commerce in the corn bourse of Greece and Asia Minor. And from
barley the German brewed his home drink, beer; he also brewed from
wheat.
Now we know that in the time of the Romans, most of the German races
lived in a condition similar to that in which it appears from records
they lived shortly after their great exodus, in the early centuries of
the Christian era: sometimes on single farms, but generally in enclosed
villages, with boundaries marked out by posts. They had a peculiar
method of laying out new village districts, and the Romans found it
difficult to understand the mode of farming customary to the country.
Probably the dwellers in the marshes near the North Sea had, as Pliny
writes, made the first simple dykes against the encroachments of the
water; already were their dwellings built on small hillocks, which, in
high tides, raised them above the water, and their sheep pastured in
the summer on the grass of the new alluvial soil;[2] but further from
the coast the peasant dwelt in his blockhouse, or within mud walls,
which he then loved to whitewash. Herds of swine lay in the shadows of
the woods,[3] horses and cattle grazed on the village meadows, and
long-woolled sheep on the dry declivities of the hills. Large flocks of
geese furnished down for soft pillows; the women wove linen on a simple
loom, and dyed it with native plants, the madder and the blue woad; and
made coats and mantles of skins, which had already borders of finer fur
introduced from foreign parts. Well-trod commercial roads crossed the
territory from the Rhine to the Vistula in every direction. The foreign
trader, who brought articles of luxury and the gold coins of Rome in
his wagon to the house of the countryman, exchanged them with him for
the highly-prized feathers of the goose, smoked hams, and sausages, the
horns of the ure ox and antlers of the stag, fur skins, and even
articles of toilet, such as the blonde hair of slaves, and a fine
pomade to colour the hair. He bought German carrots, which had been
ordered as a delicacy by his Emperor Tiberius; he beheld with
astonishment in the garden of his German host, gigantic radishes, and
related to his country-people that a German had shown him honeycombs
eight feet long.
The warlike householder, it is true, held his weapons in higher esteem
than his plough, not because agriculture was unimportant or despised,
but because in the free classes there was already an aristocratic
development. For, although the warrior did not employ himself in any
field labour, he insisted upon his household cultivating his ground,
and his bondmen had to pay a tribute in corn and cattle. The bondman
dwelt with his wife and child near his master in special huts, which
were erected on the land that was allotted to him for cultivation.
Freemen were not only associated in communities, but several races were
joined in one confederacy, being by the old constitution knit together
by religious memories and public worship. The boundaries of the
province were marked out, like those of the village, by casts of the
holy hammer, and consecrated by processions of divine cars.
Notwithstanding the numerous feuds of individual tribes, there
were many points of union which served to reconcile and keep them
together,--blood relationship and marriage alliances, similitude in
customs and privileges, and, above all, the feeling of the same origin,
the same language, and those pious rites which keep alive the memory of
ancient communion.
Although the German of Tacitus appears to us as a fierce warrior, who,
clothed in skins, watched with spear and wooden shield over the abatis
which guarded his village against the assaults of enemies; yet this
same German is shown, by the results of new researches, to have been a
householder and landlord. He looked with satisfaction on the great
brewer's copper which had been wrought by his neighbour, the skilful
smith; or he stood in coloured linen smock-frock before the laden
harvest wagon, on which his boy was throwing the last sheaf of rye, and
his daughter placing the harvest wreath with pious ejaculations.
The German is incomprehensible to us, when, according to the Roman, he
worshipped Mercury as the highest god; but we can realise the figure of
the Asengott Woden, when we see the connection, of the wild hunter of
our traditions and the sleeping Emperor of Kyffhaeuser, with German
antiquity. Now, we know how lovingly and actively the gods and spirits
hovered round the hearths, farms, fields, rivers, and woods of our
forefathers. From this tendency also the old Chatte or Hermundure has
been transformed into a Hessian or Thuringian householder, who in the
twilight looks wistfully up to his rooftree, on which the little
household spirit loves to sit, and who, when the storm rages, carefully
covers the window-openings, in order that a spectral horse's head from
the train of the wild god who rides on the blast may not look into his
hall.
Even from the productions of the Germans in that century that were most
full of heart and soul, their songs, which no careful hand transcribed
on parchment, we may draw some conclusions. Their oldest kind of
poetry is not entirely unknown to us,--the native epic verse, with its
alliterations--and in some of the popular songs and proverbs which have
been preserved, we still find the ancient love of contests of wit and
of enigmas, with which a troubadour delighted his hearers by the hearth
of the Saxon chief.
After the great national exodus, written records begin slowly to appear
in Germany. They came, together with that irresistible power which
changed so much of the whole spirit of the German people,--with
Christianity. However energetically religion turned the mind into new
paths, and however fearful was the destruction occasioned by popular
tumults at that period of immigration, the changes in the Germans
arising from both sources were not sufficient to shatter everything
ancient into ruins. We are too apt to consider the national exodus as a
chaotic process of destruction. It is true that it drove from their
homes many of the most powerful German nationalities that were located
in and beyond East Germany, and the depopulated domiciles were filled
with the Sclavonians who followed. The Bavarians migrated from Bohemia
to the Danube; the Suevi, Allemanni, and Burgundians, southwards to
their present localities. The names of old nationalities have
disappeared, and new ones have spread themselves far across the Rhine.
But nearly half the Germany which was known to the Romans--the wide
territory from the North Sea to the Thuringian woods and the Rhone,
from the Saal to near the Rhine--retains, on the whole, its old
inhabitants; for the Thuringians, the Chattens, and indeed most of the
races of Lower Saxony, only came in partial swarms; they probably
greatly diminished in marching through foreign lands, and by
emigrations of their kinsmen; they were also, as for example the
Thuringians, frequently intermingled with foreign hordes, who settled
among them. But the nucleus of the old inhabitants remained through all
fluctuations, and maintained their own old home traditions,
peculiarities of speech, customs, and laws.
About the year 600 the oldest law books and records in the new
Franconia, afford us the richest insight into the life of the German
countryman. Each had a right to a holding, generally of 30 morgans, on
the common land, the morgan being decided according to the nature of
the soil. On each holding there was a yard fenced round, closed by a
gate, within which was the dwelling-house with stables and barn, and by
the side of it a garden; and in the southwest of Germany frequently a
vineyard. These homesteads formed villages divided by lanes; it was
only in part of Lower Saxony that the inhabitants of the marsh and
hilly country lived in separate farms, in the midst of their holdings.
But amongst most Germans the holding is not a connected tract of land.
The collective arable land of the village was divided into three
portions--winter, summer, and fallow fields; each of these fields,
according to soil and situation, again into small parcels; and in each
of these parcels in every field each holder had his share. Thus the
arable land of every holding consisted of a number of square acres
which, lying dispersed through the three principal divisions of the
village district, gave, as far as possible, an equal measure of land in
each. Besides this, a share of the pastures, meadows, and wood of the
community belonged to the holding; for round the arable land lay the
meadow land of the community, and its woods, in which were the
treasured acorns. Already the boundaries were carefully marked, and on
the boundary hills boys received blows on their cheeks and had their
ears pulled, and already was it called an old custom to set up a small
bundle of straw as a warning on a forbidden footway. Already we find
the property not unfrequently divided, where the vassals dwell in the
house and farm, the grades of their vassalage and their burdens being
various. The households of freemen also contained bondservants, who
differed little from Roman slaves; only in the service of God could
they be equal with the free; they shared in all the holy usages of the
Church; they could become priests and perform marriages with the
permission of their masters, but the master had a right over their
life.
Among the farms of freemen and vassals might be found the farm of a
larger landed proprietor, who had a manor house with a hall, and a
great number of huts for domestics and labourers. For as yet, artisans,
wheelwrights, potters, armourers, and goldsmiths were most of them
bondmen; as the number of markets and cities were small, their
influence in the country was still unimportant. All kinds of grain were
cultivated in the fields, which are now used in our succession of
crops, and in the gardens, almost all the vegetables of our markets,
also gherkins, pumpkins, and melons; the laws were vigilant for the
protection of the orchards. The clergy brought from Italy costly
grafts, and peaches and apricots were to be found in the gardens of the
wealthy. Already the old Bavarian house began to appear, formed of
beams, with galleries outside, and its flat projecting roof; and it may
be assumed also, that the old Saxon house with its heathen horses'
heads on the gable ends, its thatched roof over the porch, its hearth,
sleeping cells, and cattle stalls, spread widely over the country, and
that the Thuringians, even then, as in a century later, lived in the
unfloored hall, in the background of which a raised dais--the most
distinguished part of the house--separated from the hall the women's
apartments and the sleeping-rooms. Dwellings were seldom without a
bathhouse; for their winter work the women descended into their
underground chamber, which had already astonished the Romans, where
stood the loom; the places for the mistresses and servants were
separated. In the court-yard fluttered numerous poultry, amongst them
swans and even cranes, which, up to the Thirty Years' War, were
treasured as masters of the German poultry yard. The greatest pleasure
of the countryman was the training of his horse, and the steeds which
were used in war were of great value. They pastured with their feet
hobbled; any one was severely punished who stole them from their
pasture; the impositions of horse dealers also were well known, and the
laws endeavoured to afford protection against them. All the South
Germans fastened bells round the necks of their cattle, and the
Franconians round the swine in the woods.
Every means of ascertaining the relative number of bond and freemen in
the time of Charles V. is deficient, even in that part of the country
which had for a long time been won over to Christianity; yet we see
distinctly that the whole strength of the nation lay in the masses of
free yeomen. But even in his time, larger landed proprietors,
tyrannical officials, and the not less domineering Church, eagerly
endeavoured to diminish the number of the free by obtruding upon them
their protection, and thus placing them under a gentle servitude. The
position of the free peasant must have been frequently insupportable;
the burdens laid upon him by the monarchy were very great, such as the
tithes, the military service, and the supply of horses and vehicles for
the journeys of the king and his officials. There was no law to protect
him against the powerful, and he was especially tormented by robber
hordes and the violence of his neighbours. Therefore he found safety by
giving up his freedom, surrendering his house and farm into the hands
of a powerful noble, and receiving it back again from him. Then he
delivered to his new master as a symbol of his service, a fowl from his
farm yard, and a portion of the produce of his field or of his labour
as a yearly tax. In return for this, his new master undertook to defend
him, and to perform his military service for him by means of his own
followers.
Thus began the diminution of the national strength of Germany, the
oppression of the peasants, the deterioration of the infantry, and the
origin of the feudal lords, and of their vassal-followers, from which
arose in the next century the higher and lower German nobility. Every
internal war, every invasion of foreign enemies,--of Normans, of
Hungarians, or of Sclaves,--drove numerous freemen into servitude, and
without ceasing did the Church work to recommend itself or its saints
as feudal lords to repentant sinners.[4]
Yet about the year 1000, under the great Saxon emperors, the free
peasant had still some consciousness of strength. The bondman, indeed,
was still under severe oppression; he was slightly esteemed, and
obliged to give outward proof of the difference between himself and the
freeman, by bad dress and short hair. The free peasant then wore the
long linen or cloth dress of a similar cut to the Emperor himself; with
his sword by his side he went to the assembly under the tree, or to the
judgment stone of his village. And if he descended from four free
ancestors, and possessed three free hides, he was, according to Saxon
law, higher in rank than some of the noble courtiers who had serf blood
in their veins, and whoever injured him had to make atonement as to one
of princely blood. It was then he began to cultivate his fields more
carefully; it appears to have been about this time that the practice
arose of ploughing a second time before sowing the summer seed. In the
neighbourhood of rich cloisters, fine garden-culture progressed,
vineyards were carefully cultivated, and in the low countries of the
Rhine, in Holland and Flanders, there was a husbandry of moor and marsh
grounds, which in the next century was carried by numerous colonists of
these races, into the Elbe country, and far into the east.
The peasant in the time of Otto the Great, had become a good Christian,
but the old customs of the heathen faith still surrounded him in his
house and fields, his phantasy filled nature, beasts, and plants with
warm life. Whatever flew or bounded over his fields, whether hare,
wolf, fox, or raven, were to him familiar forms, to whose character and
fate he gave a human turn, and of whom with cheerful spirit he used to
sing in heroic terms, or tell beautiful tales. In his house were
numerous trained birds; and those were valued the highest which could
comport themselves most like men. The starling repeated in a comic way
the paternoster; the jackdaw welcomed him on his return home; and he
rejoiced in the dance of the trained bear. He loved his cattle with all
his heart, he honoured his horses, oxen, cows, and dogs with the names
of the ancient gods, to whom he still continued to attach ideas of
dignity and sanctity. This craving for familiar intercourse with all
that surrounded him was the peculiar characteristic of the German
peasant in the olden time. This great love of beasts, tame birds, dogs
and horses continued long, as late as Luther's time, a few years before
the great peasant war. A true-hearted peasant having in the fullness of
his joy kissed his decorated foal upon the neck, a lurking monk who
happened to see it, cited him before the ecclesiastical court, and
inflicted a heavy fine upon him, because it was unseemly. On this
account Karsthans clenched his fists at the priests.[5] In the eleventh
century, the countryman still sang by his hearth the stirring heroic
songs, the subject-matter of which is in part older than the great
exodus,--those of Siegfried and the Virgin of Battle Brunhild, of the
treachery of the Burgundian King, Gunthar; of the struggle of the
strong Walthar with Hagen, and of the downfall of the Nibelungen.
Though his language was clumsy in writing, it flowed from his lips
solemn and sonorous, with full terminations and rich in alternations of
the vowels. Still had the solemnly spoken word in prayer, in forms of
law, and in invocations, a mysterious power of magic effect: not only
is the meaning of the speech, but also its sound full of significance.
A wise saw was the source of great good fortune to him who possessed
it; it could be bought and sold, and the buyer could return it again if
it was useless to him.
About the beginning of the twelfth century there was a change in the
life and position of the peasant. The disquiets and passions of the
Crusades reached him also by degrees. To the serf, who lived in an
insecure possession of his hut, from which the landed proprietor could
eject him and his children, it was very attractive to obtain, by a sign
affixed to his shoulder by the hand of a priest, freedom for himself,
exemption from rent and other burdens, and the protection of the Church
for his family left at home. From this the Lord of the Manor was
himself in danger of losing his husbandmen, and becoming a beggar by
the departure of his serfs; in order therefore to avert this danger
bondmen had often the inheritance of their possessions given to them,
and greater personal freedom, thus the position of serfs became more
favourable. Besides this, the distinction between the old freemen and
bondmen, both in the agricultural districts and the cities, was
obliterated by the new societies of citizens and officials. In the
cities bond and free-men were under the same law; in the palaces of
princes, freemen claimed the same privileges which were originally for
the advantage of the vassal retinue of territorial lords, and both bond
and free-men bore, as serving men, the knightly shield.
We can obtain an insight into the spirit of the country-people of this
period, and many details of their life. Since the middle of the twelfth
century, the manuscripts of the Hohenstaufen time have handed down to
us many invaluable features of the life of the lower orders. We
discover, with astonishment, from these sources, that the countryman of
that time formed a portion of the national strength, very different
from what he did some centuries later. The thriving peasant lived on
his farm; the young people gambolled about, blythesome and fond of
enjoyment, on the village green and in the lanes; the countryman passed
through life in the calm consciousness of strength, the preserver of
old customs, in contradistinction to the nobleman, with his new-fangled
modes, who adorned himself with foreign discourse and language, and
with great pretentions set up distinguished court usages in opposition
to country manners. Great was the pleasure of the country people in the
awakening of nature: impatiently did the maidens await the breaking
forth of the first catkins on the willow and hazel; they look for the
leaves that burst from the buds, and search the ground for the first
flowers. The earliest summer game is with the ball, in the village
streets or on the tender grass of the green,--it is thrown by old and
young, men and women. Whoever has a coloured feather ball to throw
sends it with a greeting to her he loves. The agile movements, the
powerful throw, the short cheer to friends and opponents, are the
pleasures both of players and spectators. When sunny May comes, then
the maidens get their holiday attire from the press, and twine wreaths
for their own hair and that of their friends. Thus they go, crowned
with garlands and adorned with ribbons, the hand-glass as an ornament
by their sides, with their playfellows to the green; full a hundred
maidens and women are there assembled for the dance. Thither also
hasten the men, smart also is their dress, the waistcoat trimmed with
coloured buttons, perhaps even with bells, which for a long time had
been the most choice attire of persons of distinction; there is no want
of silk, nor in winter of fur trimmings. The belt is well inlaid with
shining metal, the coat of mail is quilted in the dress, and the point
of the sword, in walking, clinks against the heel. The proud youths are
defiant, take great pleasure in fight, and are jealous of their own
importance. Vehement is the energy displayed in the great dances, they
are venturesome in their springs, jubilant in their joy; everywhere
there is the poetry of enjoyment of the senses. The chorus of
bystanders sing loudly to the dance, and the maidens join softly in the
melody. Still greater becomes our astonishment when we examine closer
the rhythm and words of these old national dances, there is a grace not
only in the language but in its social relation, which reminds us much
more of the ancient world than of the feelings of our country people.
Introductory strophes, which extol in countless variations the advent
of spring, are followed by others which have little coherence, and are,
as it were, improvised, like the _schnader huepflen_, which is still
retained in Upper Germany among the popular dances. The subject is
often a dispute between mother and daughter, the daughter dressing
herself for the festivity, the mother wishing to keep her back from the
dance; or it is the praise of a beautiful maiden, or droll enumerations
of dancing couples; often the text conveys attacks upon opposite
parties amongst the dancers, who are depicted and turned into ridicule.
Parties are easily formed amongst the dancers, the opponents are
challenged in caustic verses; the glory of the young lad is not to put
up with any slight, and to be the most vigorous dancer, cheeriest
singer, and the best fighter. The dances are followed by feasting, with
loud and boisterous merriment. The winter brings new pleasures; the men
amuse themselves with dice, and with sledging on the ice, and the
people assemble in a large room for the dance. Then stools and tables
are carried out; the music consists of two violins; the conductor
begins the melody, and the head dancer leads off. The rondes and other
dances are various in character; more antique and popular is the
measure and text of the chain dance in the old national style of two
parallel rows; the winter dances are more artistic and modish. For in
the song dances, which we may consider as the beautified copy of the
old rhythm and text, the courtly law of triplets in the strophes is
everywhere followed; one perceives in them the imitation of Romanesque
knightly customs. Among the different kinds of dances may be mentioned
the Sclave Reidawac. The noble dances and drinks with the peasants in
these village diversions, though with the pride of more refined
manners; but however much he may be inclined to ridicule those around
him, he fears them, not only their fists and weapons, but also the
strokes of their tongues. The long-haired and curly peasant offers the
goblet to the _Junker_, and snatches it back as he attempts to grasp
it, places it then according to court custom before drinking, on his
head, and dances through the room, then the knight rejoices if the
goblet falls from the lout's head and is spilt over him; but the knight
has no scruple in making use of contemptuous oaths, when the indignant
village youths call him to account for having shown too much attention
to their wives and sweethearts.
Such is the aspect of village life given us in the songs of Neidhart
von Reuenthal, the most witty and humorous songster of the thirteenth
century. All his poetry dwells on the joys and sufferings of the
peasantry, and the greater part of his life was spent amongst them. He
has the complete self-dependence of a refined and cultivated man, but
in spite of that, he had not always the advantage over the country
people. A peasant youth, Engelhard, occasioned him the greatest sorrow
of his life. It appears that he had made his love Friderun, a peasant
girl, unfaithful to him; the thorn remained in the heart of the knight
as long as he lived; but afterwards, also, in his courtship of the
village maidens, the nobleman had much to fear from the wooing of the
young peasants, and was frequently tormented by bitter jealousy.
This connection of the knight, Neidhart, and the peasantry was no
exception in the beginning of the thirteenth century; for though in the
period that immediately followed, the pride of the nobles, with respect
to the citizen and peasant, quickly hardened into an exclusive class
feeling, yet in 1300, when knightly dignity was in great request, and
pride in noble quarterings had risen high, at least in Swabia, Bavaria,
and Upper Austria, still the knight married the daughter of the rich
peasant, and gave him his daughter in marriage; and the rich peasant's
son became vassal and knight, with one knightly shield.[6] Even in the
sixteenth century this state of things continued in some provinces--for
example, in the Isle of Ruegen. After the Reformation also, the wealthy
peasants put themselves on an equality with the nobles. They lived, as
a nobleman of that time relates, arrogantly and contentiously, and
these lamentable marriages were not unfrequent.
Some score of years after Neidhart, in the same districts of Germany,
the idealism of knighthood, its courtly manners and refined form, were
lost; a large portion of the nobles had become robbers and highwaymen.
The ceaseless and sorrowful complaints of the better sort of the
nobility testify how bad were the doings of the greater part. In
comparison with such fellows, in spite of their privileges, the peasant
might well regard his own life with pride. It was still with a sense of
wealth and power that he entered on the beginning of a hard period. At
this time a travelling singer, Wernher, the Gardener, gave a
portraiture of the life of the peasantry, particularly rich in
characteristic features--a picture of the times of the highest value,
and a poem of great beauty. Unfortunately only an abstract of the
contents can be given here; but even in extracts, his narrative gives a
surprising insight into the life of the country people in 1240. The
poem, "Helmbrecht," is edited by Moriz Haupt, according to the
manuscripts in volume iv. of the Zeit periodical on German antiquity.
"The old former, Helmbrecht--in Bavaria, not far from the Austrian
frontier--had a son. The blonde locks of the young Helmbrecht hung upon
his shoulder; he confined them in a beautiful silk cap, embroidered
with doves, parrots, and many figures. This cap had been embroidered by
a nun who had run away from her cell on account of an amour, as happens
to so many. From her, Helmbrecht's sister, Gotelind, learned to
embroider and sew; the maiden and her mother deserved well of the nun,
for they gave her a cow, much cheese, and eggs. The mother and sister
attired the boy in fine linen, a doublet of mail and a sword, with a
pouch and mantle, and a beautiful surcoat of blue cloth, adorned with
gold, silver, and crystal buttons, which shone bright when he went to
the dances; the seams were trimmed with bells, and whenever he bounded
about in the dance, they tinkled in the ears of the women.
"When the proud youth was thus attired he said to his father, 'Now I
will go to court; I pray you, dear father, give me somewhat to help
thereto.' The father answered, 'I could easily buy you a swift steed
that would leap hedge and ditch; but, dear son, desist from your
journey to court. Its usages are difficult for him who has not been
accustomed to it from his youth. Take the plough and cultivate the farm
with me, thus will you live and die in honour. See how I live--true,
honourable and upright. I give my tenths every year, and have never
experienced hatred or envy throughout my life. Farmer Ruprecht will
give you his daughter in marriage, and with her many sheep and pigs,
and ten cows. At court you will have a hard life, and be deprived of
all affection; there you will be the scorn of the real courtiers,--in
vain will you endeavour to be like them; and, on the other hand, you
will incur the hatred of the peasants, who will delight in revenging on
you what they have lost by the noble robbers.' But the son replied,
'Silence, dear father. Never shall your sacks graze my shoulders; never
will I load your waggon with dung; that would ill suit my beautiful
coat and embroidered cap; and I will not be encumbered with a wife.
Shall I drag on three years with a foal or an ox, when I may every day
have my booty? I will help myself to strangers' cattle and drag the
peasants by their hair through the hedges. Hasten, father, I will not
remain with you any longer.' Then the father bought a steed, and said,
'Alas, how this is thrown away!' But the youth shook his head, looked
at himself and exclaimed, 'I could bite through a stone so wild is my
courage; I could even eat iron. I will gallop over the fields, without
care for my life, in defiance of all the world.' On parting from him
his father said, 'I cannot keep you--I give you up; but once more I
warn you, beautiful youth, take care of your cap with the silken birds,
and guard your long locks. You go amongst those whom men curse, and who
live upon the wrongs of the people. I dreamt I saw you groping about on
a staff, with your eyes out; and again I dreamt I saw you standing on a
tree, your feet fall a fathom and a half from the grass. A raven and a
crow sat on a branch over your head, your curly hair was entangled; on
the right hand the raven combed it, and on the left the crow parted it.
I repent me that I have reared you.' But the son exclaimed, 'Never will
I give up my will as long as I live. God protect you, father, mother
and children.'
"So he trotted off and rode up to a castle, whose lord lived by
fighting, and was glad to retain any who would serve him as a trooper.
There the lad became one of the retainers, and soon was the most nimble
of robbers. No plunder was too small for him, and none too great; he
took horses and cattle, he took mantles and coats, what others left he
crammed into his sack. The first year everything went according to his
wishes; his little vessel sailed with favourable winds. Then he began
to think of home; he got leave of absence from the court, and rode to
his father's house. All flocked together--man and maid-servant did not
say, 'Welcome, Helmbrecht;' they were advised not to do so. But they
said, 'Young gentleman, God give you welcome!' He answered, '_Kindeken,
ik yunsch uech ein gud leven_'[7] (Children, I wish you a good life).
His sister ran and embraced him; then he spoke to her, '_Gratia
vestra!_' The old people followed, and oft embraced him; then he called
to his father, '_Dieu vous salut!_' and to his mother he spoke in
Bohemian, '_Dobraybra!_' The father and mother looked at one another,
and the latter said to her husband, 'Goodman, are we not out of our
senses? it is not our child; it is a Bohemian or a Wend.' The father
exclaimed, 'It is a foreigner; he is not my son whom I commended to
God, however like he may appear to him.' And his sister Gotelind said,
'He is not your son, he spoke Latin to me; he must truly be a priest.'
And the servant, 'From what I have seen of him he must belong to Saxony
or Brabant; he said _ik_ and _Kindeken_; he must, undoubtedly, be a
Saxon.'
"Then the master of the house spoke in homely phrase, 'Are you my son
Helmbrecht? Show your respect for your mother and me by speaking a word
of German, and I myself will rub down your horse--I, and not my
servant.' '_Ei wat segget ihr Gebureken? min parit_,[8] _minen klaren
Lif soll kein bureumaun nimmer angripen_' (What are you boors saying?
my steed and my fine body shall be touched by no boors). Then the
master of the house, quite horrified, replied, 'Are you Helmbrecht, my
son? In that case I will this very night boil one hen and roast
another; but if you are a stranger--a Bohemian or a Wend--you may go to
the winds. If you are of Saxony or Brabant, you must take your repast
with you; from me you will receive nothing, though the night should
last a whole year. For a Junker, such as you, I have no meal or wine;
you must seek that from the nobles.'
"Now it had waxed late, and there was no host in the neighbourhood who
would have received the youth, so, having weighed the matter, he said,
'Truly I am your son, I am Helmbrecht; once I was your son and
servant.' The father answered 'You are not him.' 'But I am so.' 'Tell
me the four names of my oxen.' Then the son mentioned the four names,
'_Auer_, _Raeme_, _Erke_, _Sonne_. I have often flourished my switch
over them; they are the best oxen in the world; will you recognise me
now? Let the door be opened to me.' The father cried out, 'Gate and
door, chamber and cupboard, shall all be opened to you now.'
"Thus the son was well received, and had a soft bed prepared for him by
his sister and mother, and the latter called out to her daughter, 'Run,
fetch a bolster and a soft cushion.' That was put under his arm and
laid near the warm stove, and he waited in comfort till the meal was
prepared. It was a supper for a lord; finely minced vegetables with
good meat, a fat goose as large as a bustard, roasted on the spit,
roasted and boiled fowls. And the father said, 'If I had wine it should
be drunk to-day; but drink, dear son, of the best spring that ever
flowed out of the earth.'
"The young Helmbrecht then unpacked his presents for his father, a
whetstone, a scythe, and an axe, the best peasant-treasures in the
world; for his mother, a fur cloak, which he had stolen from a priest;
to his sister, Gotelind, a silk sash and gold lace, which would have
better suited a lady of distinction,--he had taken it from a pedlar.
Then he said, 'I must sleep, I have ridden far, and rest is needful for
me to night.' He slept till late the next day in the bed over which his
sister Gotelind had spread a newly washed shirt, for a sheet was
unknown there.
"So the son abode with his father.
"After a time the father inquired of his son what were the court
customs where he had been living. 'I also,' he said, 'went once when I
was a boy, with cheese and eggs to court. The knights were then very
different from now, courteous, and with good manners; they occupied
themselves with knightly games, they danced and sang with the ladies;
when the musician came with his fiddle, the ladies stood up, the
knights advanced to them, took them elegantly by the hand, and danced
featly; when that was over, one of them read out of a book about one
_Ernst_;[9] all was carried on then with cheerful familiarity. Some
shot at a mark with bow and arrows, others went out hunting and deer
shooting; the worst of them would now be the best. For now those are
esteemed who are liars and eaves-droppers, and truth and honour are
changed for falsehood; the old tournaments are no longer the custom,
others are in vogue instead of them. Formerly one heard them call out
in the knightly games "Hurrah, knight, be joyful!" There now only
resounds through the air, "Hunt knight, hunt; stab, strike, and
mutilate this one, cut off this man's foot for me, and the hands of
that one, and hang the other for me, or catch this rich man who will
pay us a hundred pounds." I think, therefore, things were better
formerly than now. Relate to me, my son, more of the new manners.'
"'That I will. Drinking is now the court fashion. Gentlemen exclaim
"Drink, drink; if you drink this, I will drink that." They no longer
sit with the ladies, but at their wine. Believe me, the old mode of
life which is lived by such as you, is now abjured both by man and
woman. Excommunication and outlawry are now held in derision.'
"'Son,' said the father, 'have nothing to do with court usages, they
are bitter and sour. I had much rather be a peasant than a poor
courtling, who must always ride for his living, and take care that his
enemies do not catch, mutilate, and hang him.'
"'Father,' said the young man, 'I thank you, but it is more than a week
that I have drank no wine; since then I have taken in my girdle by
three holes. I must capture some cattle before my buckle will return to
its former place. A rich man has done me a great injury. I saw him once
riding over the standing crops of my godfather the knight; he shall pay
dear for it. I shall trot off his cattle, sheep, and swine, because he
has trampled over the fields of my dear godfather. I know another rich
man who has also grievously injured me; he eat bread with his tartlets;
by my life I will revenge that. I know yet another rich man who has
occasioned me more annoyance than almost any other; I will not forgive
it him, even if a bishop should intercede for him, for once when he was
sitting at table he most improperly dropped his girdle. If I can seize
what is called his, it shall help me to a Christmas dress. There is yet
another simple fool who was unseemly enough to blow the froth of his
beer into a goblet. If I do not revenge that, I will never gird sword
to my side, nor be worthy of a wife. You shall soon hear of
Helmbrecht.'
"The father answered 'Alack! Tell me who are the companions who taught
you to rob a rich man if he eats pastry and bread together.' Then the
son named his ten companions; 'Laemmerschling (lamb devourer),
Schluckdenwidder (ram swallower), Hoellensack (hell sack), Ruttelshrein
(shake press), Kuehfrass (cow destroyer), Knickekelch (goblet jerker),
Wolfsgaumen (wolf's jaw), Wolfsruessel (wolf's snout), and Wolfsdarm
(wolf's gut)[10]--the last name was given by the noble Duchess of
Nonarra Narreia--these are my schoolmasters.'
"The father said, 'And how do they name you?'
"I am called Schlingdengau. I am not the delight of the peasants; their
children are obliged to eat porridge made with water; what the peasants
have is mine; I gouge the eyes of one, I hack the back of another, I
tie this one down on an ant-hill, and another I hang by his legs to a
willow.'
"The father broke forth. 'Son, however violent those may be whom you
have named and extolled, yet I hope, if there is a righteous God, the
day will come when the hangman may seize them, and throw them off from
his ladder.'
"'Father, I have often defended your geese and fowls, your cattle and
fodder, from my associates, I will do it no more. You speak too much
against the honour of my excellent companions. I had wished to make
your daughter Gotelind the wife of my friend Laemmerschling; she would
have led a pleasant life with him; but that is over now, you have
spoken too coarsely against us.' He took his sister Gotelind aside, and
said to her secretly, 'When my companion, Laemmerschling, first asked me
about you, I said to him; you will get on well with her; if you take
her do not fear that you will hang long upon the tree, she will
take you down with her own hands and carry you to the grave on the
cross-road, and she will fumigate your bones with frankincense and
myrrh for a whole year. And if you have the good fortune to be only
blinded, she will lead you by the hand along the highways and roads
through all countries; if your foot is cut off, she will carry your
crutches every morning to your bed; and if you lose your hand, she will
cut your bread and meat as long as you live. Then said Laemmerschling to
me, "I have three sacks, heavy as lead, full of fine linen, dresses,
kirtles, and costly jewels, with scarlet cloth and furs. I have
concealed them in a neighbouring cave, and will give them to her for a
dowry." All this, Gotelind, you have lost, owing to your father; now
give your hand to a peasant, with whom you may dig turnips, and at
night lie on the heart of an ignoble boor. Go to your father, for mine
he is not; I am sure that a courtier has been my father, from him I
have my high spirit.'
"The foolish sister answered, 'Dear brother Schlingdengau, persuade
your companion to marry me, I will leave father, mother, and
relations.' The parents were unaware of the conversation held secretly
by the brother and sister. The brother said, 'I will send a messenger
to you, whom you are to follow; hold yourself in readiness. God protect
you, I go from hence; the host here is as little to me as I to him.
Mother, God bless you.' So he went on his old way, and told his
companion his sister's wish. He kissed his hands for joy, and made
obeisance to the wind that blew from Gotelind.
"Many widows and orphans were robbed of their property when the hero
Laemmerschling and his wife Gotelind sat at their marriage feast. Young
men actively conveyed in waggons and on horses stolen food and drink to
the house of Laemmerschling's father. When Gotelind came, the bridegroom
met her, and received her with, 'Welcome, dame Gotelind.' 'God reward
you, Herr Laemmerschling.' So they gave each other a friendly greeting.
And an old man, wise of speech, rose, and placing both in the circle,
asked three times of the man and the maiden, 'Will you take each other
in marriage, yea or nay?' So they were united. All sang the bridal
song, and the bridegroom trod on the foot of the bride.[11] Then was
the marriage feast prepared. It was wonderful how the food disappeared
before the youths, as if a wind blew it from the table; they eat
incessantly of everything that was brought from the kitchen by the
servants, and there remained nothing but bare bones for the dogs. It is
said that any one who eats so immoderately approaches his end.[12]
Gotelind began to shudder and to exclaim, 'Woe to us! Some misfortune
approaches; my heart is so heavy! Woe is me that I have abandoned my
father and mother; whoever desires too much, will gain little; this
greediness leads to the abyss of hell.'
"They had sat awhile after their meal, and the musicians had received
their gifts from the bride and bridegroom, when a magistrate appeared
with five men. The struggle was short; the magistrate with his five,
was victorious over the ten; for a real thief, however bold he may be,
and willing to confront a whole army, is defenceless against the
hangman. The robbers slipped into the stove and under the benches, and
he who would not have fled before four, was now by the hangman's
servant alone dragged out by the hair. Gotelind lost her bridal dress,
and was found behind a hedge terrified, stripped, and degraded. The
skins of the cattle which the thieves had stolen were bound round their
necks, as the perquisite of the magistrate. The bridegroom, in honour
of the day carried only two, the others more. The magistrate could
sooner have been bribed to spare a wild wolf than these robbers. Nine
were hung by the hangman; the life of the tenth was allowed to the
hangman as his right, and this tenth was Schlingdengau Helmbrecht; the
hangman revenged the father, by putting out his eyes, and the mother,
by cutting off a hand and a foot. Thus the blind Helmbrecht was led
with the help of a staff, by a servant, home to his father's house.
"Hear how his father greeted him: 'Dieu salue, monsieur Blindman, go
from hence, monsieur Blindman; if you delay, I will have you driven
away by my servant; away with you from the door!'
"'Sir, I am your child.'
"'Is the boy become blind, who called himself Schlingdengau? Now do you
not fear the threats of the hangman or all the magistrates in the
world! Heigh! how you 'ate iron' when you rode off on the steed for
which I gave my cattle. Begone, and never return again!'
"Again the blind man spoke. 'If you will not recognise me as your
child, at least allow a miserable man to crawl into your house, as you
do the poor sick; the country people hate me; I cannot save myself if
you are ungracious to me.'
"The heart of the host was shaken, for the blind man who stood before
him was his own flesh and blood--his son; yet he exclaimed with a
scornful laugh, 'You went out daringly into the world; you have caused
many a heart to sigh, and robbed many a peasant of his possessions.
Think of my dream. Servant, close the door and draw the bolt; I will
betake me to my rest. As long as I live, I had rather take in a
stranger whom my eyes never beheld, than share my loaf with you.' Thus
saying, he struck the servant of the blind man. 'I would do so to your
master, if I were not ashamed to strike a blind man; take him, whom the
sun hates, from before me!' Thus did the father exclaim, but the mother
put a loaf in his hand as to a child. So the blind man went away, the
peasants hooting and scoffing at him.
"For a whole year he endured great hardships. Early one morning when he
was going through the forest to beg bread, some peasants who were
gathering wood saw him, and one of them from whom he had taken a cow
called to the others to help him. All of them had been injured by him,
he had broken into the hut of one and stripped it; he had dishonoured
the daughter of another; and a fourth, trembling like a reed with
passion, said, 'I will wring his neck; he thrust my sleeping child into
a sack, and when it awoke and cried, he tossed it out into the snow, so
that it died.' Thus they all turned against Helmbrecht. 'Now take care
of your hood.' The embroidery which the hangman had left untouched was
now torn, and scattered on the road with his hair. They allowed the
miserable wretch to make his confession, and one of them broke a
fragment from the ground and gave it to the worthless man as gate money
for hell fire. Then they hung him to a tree.
"If there be still any children living with their father and mother who
feel disposed to be jovial knights, let them take warning from the fate
of Helmbrecht."
Thus ends the story of young Helmbrecht, who was desirous of becoming a
knight. And such on the whole we may consider was the condition and
disposition of the free peasantry at the beginning of the long period
of decline, which loosened the connection of the German Empire, founded
the power of the great princely houses, made the burgher communities of
fortified cities rich and powerful, and which was also the beginning of
that wild time of self-help and free fraternization of cities, as of
nobles. But the details of the changes which the German peasant
underwent from 1250 to 1500, can no longer be accurately discerned by
us. The wild deeds of violence and oppression of the robber-nobles,
drove the helpless into the cities, and the enterprising into foreign
countries. There were always opportunities of fighting under the sign
of the cross against Sclavonians, Wends, and Poles, and on the east of
the Elbe, broad countries were opened for the weapons and the plough of
the German countryman. There was agitation also in the minds of men.
The new despotism of the Roman papacy and of the fanatical Mendicant
friars, drove the Katharers on the Rhine, and the Stedingers in Lower
Saxony, to apostacy from the church. Where the free peasants were
thickly located and favoured by the nature of their country, they rose
in arms against the oppression of feudal lords. In the valleys of
Switzerland and in the marsh lands on the German ocean, the associated
country people gained victories over the mailed knights, which still
belong to the glorious reminiscences of the people. But in the interior
of Germany, the peasantry under the increasing oppression of the nobles
and a degenerate church, became weaker, more incapable, and coarser;
ever more powerfully did the barons lord it over them. Even the
resident free peasant of Lower Saxony was cast down from the place of
honour, which he once maintained above the knightly serving man. The
consciousness of a higher civilisation and more refined manners caused
the citizen also to despise the countryman,--his love of eating, his
rough simplicity, and his crafty shrewdness were treated with endless
derision.
And yet the countryman in the fifteenth century still retained much of
his good old habits and somewhat of his old energy. He still continued
to extol his own calling in his songs, and was inclined to view with
ridicule the unstable life of others. In a well-known popular song,
three sisters married--one a nobleman, another a musician, and the
third a peasant. Both brothers-in-law came with their wives to pay a
visit at the peasant's farm. "There the gay musician played, the hungry
nobleman danced, and the peasant sat and laughed." At the end of the
fifteenth century a dancing scene in a Hessian village is described in
a city poem, the same customs as in the time of Neidhart, only wilder
and coarser. The proud labourers come from different villages, armed
with halberds and pikes, to dance under the Linden tree; the parties
are divided by distinctive marks, willow and birch twigs and hop
leaves on the shoulder and on the cap. From one village the whole
four-and-twenty labourers are clothed in red plush, with yellow
waistcoat and breeches. A gaily-attired maiden, a favourite dancer,
will only dance with one party, sharp words follow, and weapons are
drawn, the citizen, being a clerk, is persecuted with such forcible,
pungent words, that he is obliged to withdraw himself by ignominious
flight from the wild company.[13]
The life of the countryman within the village gates was still rich in
festivals and poetical usages, his privileges--so far as they were not
interfered with by deeds of violence--were valuable, and interwoven
with his life; and all his occupations were established by customs and
etiquette, by ceremonies and dramatic co-operation with his village
association.
But the oppression under which he lived became insupportable. After the
end of the fifteenth century he began to make a powerful resistance to
his masters.
It is probable that the great agitation in the European money-market
contributed to the excitement of the countryman. The sinking of the
value of metal since the discovery of America, was considered by
producers at first as a lasting rise in the price of corn. To the
peasant every sheffel of corn, and his labour also, became of higher
value; and, in the same measure, both were of higher importance to the
landed proprietor. It was natural, therefore, that the peasant should
take a proportionate view of his freedom, and here and there think of
relief from his burdens, whilst it became the interest of the landed
proprietor to maintain his servitude--nay, even to increase it. Yet,
one need not ascribe the great movement to such reasons. The pride of
victory of the Swiss who had prostrated the Knights of Burgundy, the
self-dependence of the new Landsknechts, and, above all, the religious
movement, and the social turn which it took in South Germany, made a
deep impression on the mind of the peasant. For the first time his
condition was viewed by the educated with sympathy. The countryman was
almost suddenly introduced into the literature as a judge and
associate. His grievances against the priesthood, and also against the
landed proprietors, were ever brought forward in popular language with
great skill. A few years before, he had played the standing _role_ of a
clown in the shrove-tide games of the Nuerembergers, but now even Hans
Sachs[14] wrote dialogues full of hearty sympathy with his condition,
and the portraiture of the simple, intelligent, and industrious
peasant, called Karsthans,[15] was repeatedly assumed, in order to show
the sound judgment and wit of the people against the priests.
But, dangerous as the great peasant insurrection appeared for many
weeks, and manifold as were the characters and passions which blazed
forth in it, the peasants themselves were little more than an
undulating mass; the greater part of their demagogues and leaders
belonged to another class; on the whole, it appears to us that the
intelligence and capacity of the leaders, whether peasants or others,
was but small, and equally small the warlike capacity of the masses.
Therefore here where the peasant for the first time is powerfully
influenced by the literary men of the period, more pleasure is
experienced in the contemplation of the minds that roused up his soul.
It was the case here, as it always is in popular insurrections, that
the masses were first excited by those who were more influential and
far-sighted, nobler and more refined; then they lost the mastery, which
was seized by vain, coarse demagogues, like Andreas Karlstadt and
Thomas Muenzer. But the way in which, in this case, the more rational
lost their control is specially characteristic of that time.