THE DAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS
With the extinction of the Franconian dynasty we approach the golden era
of the Hohenstaufen emperors. The ascent of that noble race was due to
that German loyalty which they had borne to Henry IV. in his distress.
Their home was the lofty Suabian Staufen which towered over the wooded
valley of the Rems and looked down on the beautiful land with its
vineyards and continuous orchards. The Hohenstaufens belonged to the
poetic, highly gifted race of the Suabians from which have sprung some
of the greatest German poets and thinkers. Suabia is the cradle of many
of the choicest spirits from antiquity down to Schiller and Uhland.
German history during the golden reign of the Hohenstaufen emperors is
filled with the deeds of royal women no less than with those of their
anointed husbands. Imperial women held the insignia at the death of the
emperors. Kunigunde, consort of Henry II., at his death turned over to
Konrad II., the first Salian Frank, the insignia of the empire, the
crown, the sceptre, and the holy relics which belonged to the regalia;
which the last Frank, Henry V. (1106-1125), on his deathbed, intrusted
to his consort, requesting her to hand them to his successor, that she
might win gratitude and influence; for great weight was attributed to
their possession, as they were deemed to contain mysterious forces and
to give to their possessor the favor of the saints. Archbishop Adalbert
of Mainz, a cunning politician, induced the widowed empress to deliver
the crown jewels to Frederic of Hohenstaufen, and then intrigued for the
election of Lothaire the Saxon, who won the crown. At the next vacancy
Konrad of Hohenstaufen (1138-1152) was elected, and founded the great
Suabian dynasty. During its governance (1138-1254) the Germanic body
politic displayed the highest degree of energy, and with that dynasty
began and ended the most glorious period of mediaeval German social life
and literature. By the magnificence of their rule, the Suabian emperors,
in spite of many and great political errors, through which they
exhausted much of their strength in Italian wars, carried the
romanticism of the Middle Ages to its zenith. In the same proportion in
which the nation was raised by a knowledge of its own power, the
national productions of art and letters were stamped with a bold and
original character. Great men of extraordinary genius arose to exalt
their own names with the glories of the empire.
The Roman expeditions of Frederick Barbarossa, who sought to restore the
grandeur of Charlemagne, and of Otto the Great brought to Germany a new,
original culture that took a place beside the old Latin, monkish,
scholarly culture, with its gloomy clericalism. Chivalry, courtliness,
the "gay science" of the Romance peoples, were grafted upon a knotty,
rugged, but intensely healthy trunk. The very foundation of the new
society stood in contrast with the ascetic gloom of the former church
philosophy. The highest praise was now to be "gay and joyous in chaste
moderation"; life, vigor, beauty, courtly elegance in form and
countenance and speech marked the gentleman and the lady of the age. The
eye was delighted by beautiful features and lovely expression; by
stately appearance, fine movements, harmonious rhythm and dance, by
splendid processions and courtly functions. Grace, charm, and loveliness
were ardently sought: the commonplace and the vulgar were avoided as
rustic and ridiculous.
The Hohenstaufens are the impersonation of romantic chivalry. There is
in all of them, especially in Frederick II. (1212-1250), a profound
romantic tendency, a thirst for heroic greatness, glory, immortality. A
vein of poetry pulses through their history, "to develop which says
Scherr will be reserved perhaps to some future German Shakespeare." The
power of Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190) raised the nation to an
intellectual elevation which created imperishable works of art and
poetry. Glorious, though fruitless expeditions to Italy and crusades to
the Orient extended mightily the limited horizon of the Germans:
Southern and Oriental beauty penetrated the monachism of the North. The
Italian and Sicilian courts of Frederick II. were thronged with the
fairest ladies of Orient and Occident. Saracen beauties were
intermingled with the loveliest women of the German and Roman and Greek
world. All were bent upon gallantry, and song and poetry were the common
accomplishments. The Orient once more fertilized the Occident; the
fulness of Oriental fancy and symbolism poured over the Germans romance,
wisdom and love, passion and vice, and cast a roseate bloom over the
coarse actuality of the death struggle between Empire and Papacy,
idealizing the "blood and iron" services of German warriors on Southern
and Eastern battlefields.
The struggle for the Holy Sepulchre blended Christian monachism and
Christian chivalry in the spiritual orders: the Knights Templars, the
Knights of Saint John, the Teutonic Order. Their holy vows taken in the
presence of ladies and princes "to honor and defer to the Church, to be
true and obedient to the sovereign or feudal lord, to conduct no unjust
feud, to defend widows and orphans," characterize sufficiently the ideal
of their mission. The rules of honor are laid down in the new word
Courtoisie, an essential part of which is devotion and service to
ladies. Nevertheless, this service to ladies has a religious root: it is
but the evolution to its final consequence of the old German veneration
for women which Christianity crystallized in the cult of the Holy Virgin
Mary. Religion is greatly dependent upon the emotions, thus making even
this cult more sensuous than rational. Inasmuch as this religious
affection is transferred to the entire sex, we find the most beautiful
side of knighthood expressed and codified in the _Minnedienst_, or love
service. And, in so far as the delight of youthful life and feeling was
considered as dependent upon the life of nature in general, the subject
of the minnesongs dealt with love within the natural environment of
fields and forests, rivers and mountains, spring and flowers, winter and
ice. "In the month of May," runs Freytag's beautiful description, "when
the trees were adorned with foliage, and the heath with flowers, when
the birds sang, and the brooks, freed from ice and snow, trickled
through the meadows, then began also for the courtly man the sunny time
of joy. Then he prepared his arms and armour, thought of adornment and
fine garments, and wandered away for love-wooing, to repasts, to wedding
and tournament, or to earnest war to acquire honor or to serve his
chosen lady, or to win estates. But when the winter approached, the
little birds migrated away, the meadows faded, the leaves sank from the
trees, frost hovered about the burgh, then the joyful activity in the
district terminated, the German knight retired to the interior of the
house, lived honorably with wife and children and dreamed golden dreams
in the hope of the next awakening of life." This conception of a dualism
of human life, a serene, sunny side, and a cold twilight pervades the
entire chivalrous poetry. It is but a realization of the dualism of the
human soul, as Goethe has wonderfully expressed it in his Faust:
"Two souls alas! reside within my breast,
And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.
One with tenacious organs holds in love
And clinging lust the world in its embraces;
The other strongly sweeps, this dust above,
Into the high ancestral places.
Yet in each soul is born the pleasure
Of yearning onward, upward and away,
When o'er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure,
The lark sends down his flickering lay."
The fantastic devotion to woman and the love for her at the time of the
Minnesingers thus changed the entire life of the Teutonic race. Woman
became the centre of the rich animated social circle. The love of woman
controlled the hearts of the ruling class and the imagination of the
poets. Her power in state, court, and home was firmly rooted and
remained great, even though the golden sheen and glimmer of the period
of the minnesong vanished after a few generations. Her legal status,
too, was raised; she became equal, and in many respects superior, to
man. If the basis of her existence was the house, the family, she was
the ruler of the units of which the fabric of the state is composed. The
sacred flame of the hearth was nourished by her; the children were in
her safekeeping; in her eye and heart rested the blessing or the curse
of home and state.
The love of woman, the life of minne, during that epochal era shines
most brightly, though idealized, in the greatest lyric and epic poets
Germany ever produced.
True poetry is, after all, the highest truth. To describe woman's life
and love in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we cannot do better
than view her reflection in the mirror of that poetry of which she is
the almost exclusive subject. The minnesong is the especial history of
women. Elevation and degeneracy appear as clearly in poetry as in life.
Woman, wine, and the eternal laws of nature are the essence of poetry.
Poetry, on the whole, is the history of love in all its aspects, and
minne is especially the soul of the Middle High German poetry, which, in
spite of its brilliancy, is, alas! too self-confined in this one, though
supreme, all-pervading emotion.
In this respect, German minnesong is quite different from that of the
Provencal troubadours, who sing also warlike strains of patriotism, of
the sweet and glorious death for the fatherland, of revolution against
an overbearing Church or political tyranny. Among the German
minnesingers, Walter von der Vogelweide alone, the greatest of all,
sings in the same strain.
One sided as the subject of that period is, its modulations are varied.
There is the language of the pensive heart, of the gay boundings of hope
and happiness, of cheerfulness and melancholy, of depth of feeling, of
buoyant spirits, and again there is a dirge bewailing a lover's fate in
tones that breathe mystic feelings.
We cannot, therefore, agree with the harsh judgment of the great
Schiller regarding the Minnesingers: "If the sparrows should ever chance
to think of writing or publishing an almanack of love and friendship, we
might bet ten to one that it would be composed pretty much in the same
manner. What a poverty of ideas in these minnesingers! A garden, a tree,
a hedge, a forest, and a sweetheart! quite right! somewhat such are the
objects which have a place in the head of a sparrow. And the flowers,
they exhale! and the spring comes, and the winter goes, and nothing
remains but _ennui_!"
The minnesongs of the greatest masters, nevertheless, whose treasures
were unearthed after Schiller's time, enable us to form a true and vivid
estimate of the regard in which women were held when this poetry
flourished. Wolfram von Eschenbach sings the sorrows of unrequited love:
"Would I that lofty spirit melt
Of that proud dame that dwells so high,
Kind heaven must aid me, or unfelt
By her will be its agony.
Joy in my soul no place can find:
As well might I a suitor be
To thunderbolts, as hope her mind
Will turn in softer mood to me.
"Those cheeks are beautiful, are bright
As the red rose with dewdrops grac'd;
And faultless is the lovely light
Of those dear eyes, that, on me plac'd,
Pierce to my very heart, and fill
My soul with love's consuming fires,
While passion burns and reigns at will;
So deep a love that fair inspires!
"But joy upon her beauteous form
Attends, her hues so bright to shed
O'er those red lips, before whose warm
And beaming smile all care is fled.
She is to me all light and joy,
I faint, I die, before her frown;
Even Venus, liv'd she yet on earth,
A fairer goddess here must own."
The longing for a distant, hard-hearted, beloved lady is expressed by
Heinrich von Morungen in tones worthy of the best traditions of the
Greek lyric poets:
"My lady dearly loves a pretty bird,
That sings and echoes back her gentle tone;
Were I, too, near her, never should be heard
A songster's note more pleasant than my own;
Sweeter than sweetest nightingale I'd sing.
For thee, my lady fair,
This yoke of love I bear,
Deign thou to comfort me and ease my sorrowing.
"Were but the troubles of my heart by her
Regarded, I would triumph in my pain;
But her proud heart stands firmly, and the stir
Of passionate grief o'ercomes not her disdain.
Yet, yet I do remember how before
My eyes she stood, and spoke,
And on her gentle look
My earnest gaze was fix'd; O were it so once more!"
Another Minnesinger, Kristan von Hamle, is an exponent of romantic love:
"Would that the meadow could speak!
And then would it truly declare
How happy was yesterday,
When my lady was there:
When she pluck'd its flowers, and gently prest
Her lovely feet on its verdant breast.
Meadow! what transport was thine,
When my lady walked across thee;
And her white hands pluck'd the flowers;
Those beautiful flowers that emboss thee I
Oh, suffer me, then, thou bright green sod,
To set my feet where my lady trod!"
And again, Master Hadlaub, the last of the line of true Minnesingers, at
the end of the thirteenth century:
"I saw yon' infant in her arms carest,
And as I gazed on her my pulse beat high;
Gently she clasp'd him to her snowy breast,
While I, in rapture lost, stood musing by;
Then her white hands around his neck she flung,
And prest him to her lips, and tenderly
Kiss'd his fair cheek as o'er the babe she hung.
"Straight she was gone; and then that lovely child
Ran joyfully to meet my warm embrace:
Then fancy with fond thoughts my soul beguiled;
It was herself! O dream of love and grace!
I clasp'd him, where her gentle hands had prest,
I kissed each spot which bore her lips' sweet trace,
And joy the while went bounding through my breast."
The minnesong reached its climax of perfection in Walter von der
Vogelweide, who is unsurpassed, even by Goethe, as a lyric poet. The
following dancing song is typical of his work:
"Lady, I said, this garland wear!
For thou wilt wear it gracefully;
And on thy brow 't will sit so fair;
And thou wilt dance so light and free;
Had I a thousand gems, on thee,
Fair one! their brilliant light should shine:
Would'st thou such gift accept from me,
O doubt me not, it should be thine.
"Lady, so beautiful thou art,
That I on thee the wreath bestow,
'Tis the best gift I can impart;
But whiter, rosier flow'rs I know,
Upon the distant plain they're springing,
Where beauteously their heads they rear,
And birds their sweetest songs are singing:
Come! let us go and pluck them there.
"She took the beauteous wreath I chose,
And like a child at praises glowing,
Her cheeks blush'd crimson as the rose
When by the snow-white lily growing;
But all from those bright eyes eclipse
Receiv'd; and then, my toil to pay,
Kind, precious words fell from her lips;
What more than this I shall not say."
Minnesong represented at first, and during its growth, purity in love,
and profound respect for noble womanhood. Goethe's word: "Wilt thou in
life know what is seemly, inquire it of noble women," is fully realized.
We like to dwell on this phase of our theme, for soon we shall have to
descend to the very depths of corruption and impurity.
If we had not the chronological records of history, it would be hard to
believe that a nation could be swept by a century of religious wars from
the ideals set forth in minnesong to the degeneracy that characterized
the "Era of Desolation."
But in the early days of minnesong, modesty, chastity, and measure or
moderation (_diu maze_) are concomitants of the ideal of womanhood. Love
is then the extinction of self. Walter von der Vogelweide says: "True
minne never entered false hearts!"
Even Gottfried von Strassburg, the poet of passion and sensual love, in
this respect the very counterpart of Walter von der Vogelweide, sings:
"Of all the things of this our World,
On which the golden sunlight shines,
Not one is blessed as a wife
That vows her life and body sweet
And manners also to measure refined."
Measure, like the Greek _kalokagathia_ of a gentleman, implies the
harmony and the development of all the inner and outer virtues and
charms. The sacredness of the relations between the sexes is originally
almost of a religious nature. The lady of the knight's heart and the
Holy Virgin are strangely blended.
There are among the lyrics of the Minnesingers many which are devoted
entirely to religious topics, especially the glory of the Virgin, a
specimen of which may here be given:
"Maria! Virgin! mother! comforter
Of sinners; queen of saints in heav'n that are!
Thy beauty round the eternal throne dost cast
A brightness that outshines its living rays:
There in the fulness of transcendent joy
Heaven's king and thou sit in bright majesty:
Would I were there, a welcom'd guest at last
Where angel tongues reecho praise to praise!
There Michael sings the blessed Saviour's name
Till round the eternal throne it rings once more,
And angels in their choirs with glad acclaim,
Triumphant host, their joyful praises pour:
There thousand years than days more short appear,
Such joy from God doth flow and from that mother dear."
The eternal longing for the divine then melts mysteriously into the
longing for the youthful love of woman. This longing is perhaps nowhere
in literature expressed with more touching, more naive delicacy than by
Gottfried when he has fair Sigune speak to Herzeloide concerning her
Schionatulander whom she loved as ever woman loved man, and who was then
absent in war:
"For the loved friend is all my spying;
From the window on the road, over heather and bright meadows
All in vain; I espy him not:
Alas! my eyes by tears must dearly pay for longing love.
"From the window do I ascend to the battlement,
And spy eastward, westward, after tidings from him,
Who long ere this has conquered all my soul;
Count me among old lovers, for my love abides.
'When I then on wild tides glide in my boat,
My eyes glance over thirty miles away,
If I may find such tidings
As would free me from sad longing for my bright young friend.
"Where is my joy? Why has departed
Lofty spirit from my heart?
Pain and woe expelled our peace;
I would gladly suffer for him, if I suffered but alone,
Yet I know sweet longing draws him hither, though he must be far.
"Woe to me! How can he come? All too far is my true one.
For him I shudder now in cold, now burn in fire.
Thus Schionatulander makes me glow,
His love kindles me as Agremontin does the Salamander."
Yet whether lofty or earthly, platonic or ardent, the centre of the
lyrics of the Minnesingers is always the relation of the sexes. The
manner of giving expression to the "eternal feelings" as Goethe calls
them varies according to the desire, the hope, or the hopelessness of
the lover. The lady is entreated for grace (Huld); she encourages the
knight or keeps him at a distance; love ceases to be pure, feelings
become fantastically exaggerated; the veneration of woman becomes
morbid, sometimes even senseless; love is often allegorized; a magic
charm envelops the singer; the world surrounding him is changed, his
nature passes the natural bounds; melancholy, ever the legacy of German
nature even in the midst of joy, prompts the desire that the epitaph on
his tomb should record how faithful he was to his lady. He dreams,
perchance, that a rose tree with two blooming branches embraces him and
interprets the dream as a fulfilment of his secret desire. This
fantastic unnaturalness of the super-realization of love had a
demoralizing effect upon both men and women: it developed mock lovers
and mock love.
Thus the love cult gradually degenerated. This was especially due to the
fact that married women were in most cases the object of minne. French
customs and thought entered more and more into German life. When the
consummation of love appeared hopeless because of obstacles of a moral
or social nature, the lovers, perchance, indulged themselves in a
perverse mutual satisfaction of a puerile nature, such as the exchange
of their undergarments for a night. Wolfram von Eschenbach relates that
Gahmuret used to wear the shirt of his beloved Herzeloide over his armor
in battle.
With the development of heraldry, the knight wore the colors of his lady
love. He fought in tournament of real war for his lady. Frequently
ladies imposed services and even hard and dangerous exploits upon their
importuning lovers, either to test their love, or for the sake of
sensation, or even to keep obstinate lovers at a distance. We must not
believe that the knights went out cheerfully. "Let no one inquire," says
Hartmann von der Aue, "after the cause of my journey. I confess frankly:
love bade me to vow the crusade and now commands me to undertake the
journey. It cannot be helped, and an oath must not be broken. Many a one
boasts of what he has done from love, but where are deeds? I hear only
words.... This is love indeed, if one for its sake expatriates himself.
Behold, how it drives me from home! Truly, if Sultan Saladin still lived
and all his army, they would not move me one pace from Franconia! Yet
only the body crosses the sea, the heart remains behind with the beloved
one." But the reward of love (_Minnesold_) is always kept in view. In
the rarest cases it consists in an ideal satisfaction, except perhaps if
the lady is of a very high rank and birth. Generally, however, it is
real sensuality. The descent of morality can be gauged from the fact
that it was not unusual for a lady to permit her lover to pass a night
in her arms, upon the condition that he might not touch her impurely
without her express consent. Perhaps a bare sword was placed between the
two lovers as a guard of good behavior. Hartmann von der Aue defends the
practice in _Iwein_: "If any one declare it a wonder that Iwein lay so
near a strange maiden without indulging in love, he knows not that a
strong man can abstain from anything he chooses to abstain." In fact,
the custom of a common couch became well-nigh a national German
institution, as it was called "_Beilager upon truth and faith._" Among
German peasants of certain sections says Weinhold this Beilager
continues to this very day; but it is considered as a real betrothal.
There is a small literature in existence on the "nights of proof"
(_Probenachte_) of German maidens.
Yet in general the heads of families were not so accommodating regarding
the young female members of their household. We learn of a class of
"watchers" or spies (_Merker_) whose mission it was to watch over the
honor of the maidens. A whole crop of poetry, the so-called watch songs,
sprang up, dealing with the subject. The business of the clandestine
lover is to escape from the snares and the watchfulness of those spies.
The following example of a watch song, of a high literary and poetic
value, is typical:
"I heard before the dawn of day
The watchman loud proclaim:
'If any knightly lover stay
In secret with his dame,
Take heed, the sun will soon appear;
Then fly, ye knights, your ladies dear,
Fly ere the daylight dawn.
"'Brightly gleams the firmament,
In silvery splendor gay;
Rejoicing that the night is spent,
The lark salutes the day;
Then fly, ye lovers, and be gone!
Take leave before the night is done,
And jealous eyes appear.'
"That watchman's call did wound my heart,
And banish my delight;
Alas, the envious sun will part
Our loves, my lady bright
On me she looked with downcast eyes,
Despairing at my mournful cry,
'We tarry here too long.'
"Straight to the wicket did she speed;
'Good watchman, spare thy joke!
Warn not my love, till o'er the mead
The morning sun has broke:
Too short, alas! the time, since here
I tarried with my leman dear,
In love and converse sweet.'
"'Lady, be warn'd! on roof and mead
The dew drops glitter gay;
Then quickly bid thy leman speed,
Nor linger till the day;
For by the twilight did I mark
Wolves hying to their covert dark,
And stags to covert fly.'
"Now by the rising sun I view'd
In tears my lady's face;
She gave me many a token good,
And many a soft embrace.
Our parting bitterly we mourn'd;
The hearts which erst with rapture burn'd,
Were cold with woe and care.
"A ring with glittering ruby red,
Gave me that lady sheen,
And with me from the castle sped
Along the meadow green:
And whilst I saw my leman bright,
She waved on high her kerchief white:
'Courage! to arms!' she cried.
"In the raging fight each pennon white
Reminds me of her love;
In the field of blood, with mournful mood,
I see her kerchief move;
Through foes I hew, whene'er I view
Her ruby ring, and blithely sing,
'Lady, I fight for thee.'"
The end of wooing is thus always understood to be the gratification of
passion. But many ladies of the era of chivalry were extremely exacting,
and imposed heavy tasks for the attainments of the prize which they
alone could bestow. They allowed very slight favors at first, a glance,
a trifle, otherwise they let the lover long and languish, as, for
instance, in the case of the knight Ulrich von Lichtenstein, whom we
shall soon consider more closely. Sometimes, however, favors which by
modern standards would appear very improper were readily granted with a
charming naivete! The lover was allowed to accompany the lady of his
heart to her bed chamber, and wait upon her and help her undress, a
rather crucial service, as the mediaeval custom was to sleep without any
garments at all.
Weinhold calls minne the crown jewel of the German language, the love
which rests in the soul; but it also had its shameful history of
debasement, and finally met its death when the sensual prevailed over
the spiritual, when minne became lust. Reinmar von Zweter could well
say: "Minne is the gilding of love, a treasure above all virtue a
teacher of pure morals, companion of chastity and fidelity, the noblest
thing that is in the world, to which only woman can be compared. Minne
flees from the fool, associates with the wise; minne strengthens honor,
truth, and modesty." At the era of decadence of chivalry, however, minne
came to mean sexual enjoyment par excellence.
The life of love in the high society of Germany for the lower gentry,
according to Scherr, lived in their narrow, miserably equipped burgh
stalls on a very low level became, in the course of time, a perfectly
developed art and science; and Weinhold firmly believes that the
highborn lords and ladies at the German courts dialectically treated
interesting themes of love which may have had the forms of real courts
of love, in imitation of the French _Cour d'Amour_. It is true, however,
that some great Romance scholars deny their existence altogether. This
seems erroneous. We know that Queen Alinora (Eleanor), the ill-famed
consort of Henry II. (1154-1204), after her French divorce, was a high
authority in love affairs. Schiller in The _Maid of Orleans_ described
the nature and character of such a _Cour d'Amour_.
It is but natural that the minne of a knight was not always smooth
sailing: his springtide feelings were frequently tossed on the sea of
his lady's caprice; longing and suspense, "heaven-high exultation and
sadness unto death," to use Clarchen's words in Goethe's Egmont, held
him in a constant state of agitation. Tannhauser charmingly satirizes
woman's whims. She demands impossible things of her foolish suitor, who
is ever ready to serve: she asks him to have the Rhone River flow past
Nuernberg; to turn the Danube back toward the Rhine; or to build an ivory
palace, wheresoever she will, in the midst of a lake; or to bring her
the light of the moon; the salamander from the fire, or from Galilee the
mountain upon which Adam sat; in recompense of which she will bless him
with her sweet love! "If I bring her the great tree from India, or the
Holy Grail, which Parsifal guarded, or the apple which Paris adjudicated
to Venus, or the magic mantle which fits only faithful ladies, or the
ark of Noah from which he sent the doves, she will fulfill my most
ardent desires! Alas, the sharp rod was kept too far away from her when
a child!"
Some knights and Minnesingers console themselves by choosing other
subjects for their songs, spurning the intolerable demands of their
exacting mistresses, and their too expensive charms we need only recall
that unmerciful lady who dropped her glove from the gallery between the
lion and the tiger, and lovingly invited her knight to pick it up for
her. The knight having accomplished the feat, threw the glove in the
pretty face that welcomed his return, with the words: "Thanks, lady, I
do not desire." But the majority became Don Quixotes and allowed
themselves to be played with and mocked by their whimsical taskmasters.
From the sunny south, the Provence, the home of minstrels and songs, we
learn how the troubadour Pierre Vidal of Toulouse fell desperately in
love with Loba of Carcasses. As her name was Loba (she-wolf), he called
himself Lop, encased himself in a wolf's skin and roamed, wolflike,
through the mountains. Shepherds and dogs misunderstood the joke and
tore him almost to pieces.
In Germany we meet with an extraordinary type of a knight-errant in the
person of the noble Ulrich von Lichtenstein (died January 6, 1275 or
1276), who spent a long life in the self-imposed service of a capricious
princess. During his long career of minne service, which, however, never
brought him fulfilment of his desires, he committed one folly after the
other, and, worst of all, he was never cured of his passion, though he
often pathetically sings his misfortunes and the cruelty of his lady. He
was no mean singer, and his poetry is a most interesting human document.
At the time of the purple bloom of Middle High German civilization, or
when it first began to fade, Ulrich von Lichtenstein was a boy. Under
his parental roof he heard and absorbed the epics of the romantic school
of his time, and learned to appreciate the worth of a nobleman by his
chivalrous aspiration for the grace of a high born lady. As a page of
twelve years he was overwhelmed at the sight of a brilliant princess,
very likely Agnes of Meran, the future consort of Frederick the Warlike.
His youthful love was inflamed to such ardor by the alluring beauty of
the queen of his heart that "he carried secretly away the water
wherewith she had washed her white hands and drank it out of sheer
love." But while he vowed chivalrous service and songs to the sun of his
life, he married a gentlewoman who became the mother of his children. At
the court of the marquis Henry of Istria he was still more confirmed in
his adulation of woman. But his poetry in the "_Ladies' Book_"
(FraueribucK) and his poetic messages to the queen of his heart betray
not only an exaggerated love, but also the qualities of charity,
bravery, honor. Von Lichtenstein's description of his own interesting
life is due not to his self-love, but, as he tells us, "to the pure,
sweet, much beloved lady." It is true that pure, sweet lady is
capricious and cruel enough; for example, she invites her paladin to
mingle among the lepers who assembled before her castle; promising as a
reward to appoint an hour for a nocturnal visit and the fulfilment of
his desires. But his exposure to a disgusting malady serves him to no
purpose.
Even religion is subordinated by Von Lichtenstein to his lady love. He
is not especially anxious for a pilgrimage across the sea, unless his
lady so orders. He reproaches ladies for their nun-like costume, and
says: "Alas, when you ought to go to dance with us, you are seen
standing by the church."
His wishes for wealth are concentrated in five things: "fine women, good
food, beautiful horses, good garments, brilliant armour." Von
Lichtenstein calls himself blest that "his senses are intent to love
her, to love her more and more." He hopes that in her goodness the good,
dear, "pure" lady will reward his constancy more graciously than
heretofore with the fulfilment of his wishes. Comfort and joy he has
only in her, the fair one, the bright one, in her laughter. "When he is
reflected in her playing eyes, his high mind blossoms like the roses at
May time." "He would rather dwell in his lady's heart than in heaven
itself."
But real madness begins when, to please his lady, he has a painful
operation performed on his lip; on another occasion he cuts off his
little finger and sends it to her in a precious box. The lady is
astonished that any man can make such a fool of himself. And yet we
learn incidentally that Ulrich has a good wife and dear children at home
whom he visits when his knight-errantry carries him past his ancestral
castle. He lives with his wife during the wintry days, he mentions her
housewifely virtues in his poetry, she nurses him when he returns,
perchance, sick and injured by his mocking-bird of a lady who, promising
him sweet fulfilment, has him drawn up in a sheet to the window of her
castle, and then prevents his entering by causing him to be dropped
fifty feet into the moat. A strange chapter, truly, in the history of
human folly and perversity!
It is pleasant to record that this kind of chivalry and love service
found no welcome among the North Germans or Scandinavians. In their
poetry that is left to us we find none of the degenerated, effeminate
sensuality of the Romance and South German courtoisie. True German
character does not permit the profound feelings of real affection to
pass into publicity. Love is purer and more genuine; women stand on no
imaginary, fantastic pinnacle, but are, on that account, really freer
and nobler. The higher that women are raised to the domain of unreality
and unnaturalness, the lower is generally their moral standard. This
explains the fact that among civilized nations morality is always
highest in the middle classes of society. Among the poorest and
lowliest, alas! the demon of physical hunger, the moloch of distress,
when there is frequently nothing for sale but womanly honor, militate
against innate virtue.
A beautiful example of woman's gratitude toward a singer of her virtues
must here be recorded. When Heinrich von Meissen, called Frauenlob
(Women's Praise) from his glorification of the fair sex, died, A. D.
1317, at Mainz, he was magnificently entombed in the hallway of the
Cathedral. The ladies of Mainz carried the bier of the deceased
minnesinger with loud lamentations and mourning to his grave, and poured
upon it such an abundance of wine that it flowed through the entire
expanse of the church. Heinrich had indeed well deserved the women's
special affection, as he had glorified the Holy Virgin, and given new
place in the language to the ancient term Frau (the joygiver), that had
been supplanted by Weib. The fame of Frauenlob has been perpetuated by
German womanhood; in 1842 a monument, by Schwanthaler, was erected in
his honor by the ladies of the city, in the cloisters of the Cathedral,
where he is buried. The grave itself is still marked by a copy, made in
1783, of the original tombstone.
A few words about the education of a woman of noble birth may not be
amiss. The difficult arts of writing and reading were more generally
acquired by noble ladies than by their knights. While the great Wolfram
von Eschenbach, though possessing all the social culture of his time,
could not read, and Ulrich von Lichtenstein had to keep an epistle of
his lady unread for ten days, as his secretary was absent, ladies
generally studied those branches which appear to us now quite
rudimentary. Heinrich von Veldeke, we learn, lent the manuscript of his
Emit, before it was quite finished, to the Countess of Cleve, to read
and to see (_i. e._, the pictures).
The noble maidens, whose instructors were usually the castle chaplains,
learned early to sing minnesongs, to sing and say the ancient sagas and
legends; they often even composed songs and poems; they learned music,
which was part of a liberal education, played the fiddle, zither, and
harp. Isolde, according to Gottfried von Strassburg, knew Irish, French,
Latin, and played the Welsh fiddle. Fine handiwork belonged to a noble
lady's occupations. The laws of courtesy were, as we have mentioned,
codified into a perfect science for use under all conditions: at the
court, at home, at the dance and play, on the street, to control conduct
toward high and low, men and women; minute directions were provided for
all occasions. Even the conversation in society, at the banquet table,
is prescribed; noble ladies must show grace and measure in the favorite
ball play, ride horseback, chase with falcons, blush, and nod their
heads courteously at the tournaments. The reception of guests and their
hospitable entertainment is their business, and the social savoir-faire
constitutes ladylike courtoisie or moralitas. Religion toward God and
the world, churchgoing, all are strictly regulated; and we see women in
all their aspects, as we pass in review the vast literature of the time.
The arts of adornment, of painting the cheeks and lips, are highly
developed; the men seem to have been even more eager to adorn and
decorate their persons than were the women. Male garments are adorned
with symbolic colors; coats of arms of silk embroidery appear on the
most ridiculous parts of knightly dress. Superficiality and superstition
widely prevail. There is a strong belief in magic or love potions, as we
learn, e. g., from a bit of poetry by Veldeke:
"No thanks to Tristan that his heart had been Faithful and true unto his
queen; For thereto did a potion move More than the power of love: Sweet
thought to me, That ne'er such cup my lips have prest; Yet deeper love,
than ever he Conceived, dwells in my breast: So may it be! So constant
may it rest! Call me but thine As thou art mine!"
The knightly dwelling, that is, the palace or castle of a lord, with a
watch tower outside, rising above the strong wall and separated from the
other dwellings, had always distinct from it a ladies' house, called
"the women's secret" (_der frouven heimliche_), or the _kemenate_. This
consisted of at least three rooms: one for the familiar intercourse of
the family; this was also the sleeping chamber of the lady of the house;
one, a room where the lady devoted herself, with her women, to the
female occupations of the time; and lastly, the sleeping room for the
maidservants. In each kemenate there were, usually, a kitchen, a chapel,
cellars, and provision rooms. Arched niches in the wall gave opportunity
to the ladies to look far overland. The furniture was rich, and often
finely carved, but of heavy and clumsy pattern. Tables, chairs, and
chests were abundantly provided. The bed was a large, square, high piece
of furniture, and it was treated with great care and respect; it was
covered with elaborate curtains, which hung from a silken canopy; heavy
feather beds and fine linen were the pride of the highborn housewife.
Food was plentiful, but plain. Field and forest furnished the principal
dishes: game, bread, vegetables. On festivals, delicacies and highly
spiced dishes in great number burdened the table. Wine, beer, cider, and
fruit brandies were drunk in large quantities. It is highly suggestive
to read in the records the allowances of liquor made to princely ladies
of the time and to their noble attendants. We forbear furnishing
statistics from the records, which may seem to our time slanderous
exaggerations.
The ideal of womanly beauty as established by the poets of the romance
when knighthood was in flower is as follows: to be considered beautiful
a woman must be of moderate stature, of slender and graceful build, of
symmetrical and well-developed form. Out of the white countenance the
cheeks must blossom forth like bedewed roses; the mouth must be small,
closed, and sweetly breathing, the teeth shine forth from swelling red
lips, "like ermine from scarlet"; a round cheek with snow-white dimple
must heighten the charm of the mouth. The ideal nose was not Grecian,
long, or pointed, or stumped, but straight and normal. Long eyebrows, a
little curved, the color of which slightly contrasted with that of the
hair, were praised. The eyes must be clear, pure, limpid like sunshine,
preeminently blue or of that indefinite changing color which we note in
some species of birds. The Oriental ideal of "the black eyes' spark is
like God's ways, dark" is not acceptable to the mediaeval Teuton. The
hair was preferably of that golden blond which did not contrast too
strongly with the snow-white, blue veined temples and the mild blue
lustre of the eyes. A slender neck, a firm and plastic bust of moderate
fulness, strong hips, round, white arms, long, slender fingers, straight
legs, small, well-arched feet, must not be wanting. There are, of
course, constant variations of that ideal according to the aesthetic
views and the sensuous predilections of the love singers. In the late
Middle Ages the womanly ideal of beauty becomes materialized and merely
sensual: the different parts of woman's form are brought together from
the various lands according to the particular local reputation for
womanly beauty. Among the hundreds of types, Konrad Fleck's description
of _Blancheflur_ may be mentioned: gold shining hair fell around her
temples, which were whiter than snow; fine straight eyebrows arched
above her eyes, the power of which conquered everybody; her cheeks and
lips were red and white, her teeth ivory, her throat and neck were those
of the swan; her bosom was full, her limbs were long and slender, her
waist was tender and delicate.
This detail painting of womanly beauty by the Minnesingers is a great
advance over the descriptions given by the epic poets, which deal mostly
in poetic generalities. A minnesong type is given in this description of
the appearance of Kriemhilde:
"Now came that lady bright,
And as the rosy morn
Dispels the misty clouds,
So he who long had borne
Her image in his heart,
Did banish all his care,
And now before his eyes
Stood forth that lady fair.
"From her embroider'd vest
There glittered many a gem,
While o'er her lovely cheek
The rosy red did beam;
Whoe'er in raptur'd thought
Had imag'd lady bright,
Confess'd that lov'lier maid
Ne'er stood before his sight.
"And as the beaming moon
Rides high the stars among,
And moves with lustre mild
The mirky clouds along;
So, midst her maiden throng,
Uprose that matchless fair;
And higher swell'd the soul
Of many a hero there."
Most expressive of popular feeling toward woman is, perhaps, the ballad
and folklore poetry of a people. Though preserved mostly without date or
name they breathe national sentiment most faithfully. True folk songs
would betray the nationality from which they sprang even though the
language did not. All the characteristics of the German _Gemut_ (mood,
soul, sentiment, and longing strangely blended) exhale from songs like
the following:
"Sweet nightingale, thyself prepare,
The morning breaks, and thou must be
My faithful messenger to her,
My best beloved, who waits for thee.
"She in her garden for thee stays,
And many an anxious thought will spring,
And many a sigh her breast will raise,
Till thou good tidings from me bring.
"So speed thee up, nor longer stay;
Go forth with gay and frolic song;
Bear to her heart my greetings, say
That I myself will come ere long.
"And she will greet thee many a time,
'Welcome, dear nightingale! I will say;
And she will ope her heart to thee,
And all its wounds of love display.
"Sore pierced by love's shafts is she,
Thou then the more her grief assail;
Bid her from every care be free:
Quick! haste away, my nightingale!"
Even more naive and lovely is perhaps this gem:
"If a small bird I were,
And little wings might bear,
I'd fly to thee:
But vain those wishes are;
Here then my rest shall be.
"When far from thee I bide,
In dreams still at thy side
I've talked with thee;
And when I woke, I sigh'd,
Myself alone to see.
"No hour of wakeful night
But teems with thoughts of light--
Sweet thoughts of thee
As when in hours more bright,
Thou gav'st thy heart to me."
But in whatever sense the chivalry and minnesong were conceived, they
certainly turned toward worldliness. The struggle of the Papacy against
the Empire was accompanied by a struggle of the clergy against the
knighthood. The clerics attempted to turn the warlike and passionate
instincts of the time in the direction of spiritual things. An immense
number of holy legends of good women resulted, the ideals of which were
humility, self-abnegation, and chastity; we have the legend of
Crescentia, a pure woman, who, accused like Saint Genevieve, is at last
justified and saved; others die for their virtue, and are sanctified;
the story of Lucretia of ancient Roman memory is revived in the style of
contemporary court life, where she appears as a white raven.
This spirit of religious revival appears most strongly in a versified
story of the thirteenth century, related by Konrad von Wurzburg in a
work entitled _Frau Welt_ (Lady World):
Wirent von Grafenberg, a Franconian knight, a romancer, and a man of the
world, strove incessantly for worldly goods and honors. He was handsome,
well educated, brilliant, a good hunter, player, and musician, loved by
the ladies and ever ready to serve them; whenever there was a
tournament, no matter how far, there he rode to win the minne-prize. It
was love, and love alone, that filled all his senses. One day he sat in
his chamber, passing his time in the perusal of a love romance until
evening. All at once the dusky room brightened up in wonderful radiance,
and a marvellously beauteous woman entered; she was more lovely than any
earthly woman, than Venus or Pallas; she was clad with splendor, and a
golden crown was upon her head. In spite of all her magnificence, Wirent
became pale from fright. "Do not be frightened; I am indeed the woman
for whose sake thou hast frequently risked life and limbs, whose
faithful servant thou wert, of whom thou hast said and sung so much
good; thou bloometh like a twig of May in manifold merits; thou hast
from thy childhood worn the wreath of honor; now I have come to bestow
thy reward upon thee." "Forgive, noble lady, if I have served thee, I do
not know it; but tell me who thou art!" "I shall gladly tell thee; thou
needest not be ashamed of having served me; I am served by emperors,
kings, princes, counts, freemen. I fear no one but God, he is more
powerful than I am. My name is Lady World. Thou shalt now have the
reward which thou hast wished for so long: look at it!"
With these words, she turned her back. It was full of snakes and vipers
and toads, of ulcers and sores, wherein flies and ants teemed and vermin
crept. An abominable stench arose; her rich silken dress looked ash
pale; and thus she went hence. But Wirent von Grafenberg, the spoiled
child of the World, perceived the perdition of the soul in the service
of the world; he left wife and children and the pleasures of the world,
took the Cross, fought against the heathen, atoned for his sins, and
obtained divine forgiveness and eternal bliss.
This story, evidently of clerical origin, proves the position of Church
and clergy toward the life of chivalry and the ideals of the
Minnesingers. They condemned the service of the world of love and power
which, they averred, led only to eternal damnation. Earthly ideals, with
their inner sins, were symbolized by the poetic picture of Lady World,
which was even plastically represented on the Cathedral portals at Worms
and Basle.
As here the typical knight is turned from the joys and aspirations of
the world, thus the women of that brilliant period were drawn from their
delight in earthly life and love; Christ was shown to them as the
bridegroom of their souls; ideal joys of the world beyond were depicted
to them in attractive colors. Numberless German hymns are devoted to
Mary, but so little was it possible to get away from the realism of the
love of the time that the sublime glow of holy fire makes room for the
almost frivolous ardor of the time of chivalry. The Holy Virgin becomes
more and more an earthly queen, whose court is provided with all the
luxuries of the time. Religious sentimentality changes into passion. The
piety of the noble ladies by no means deprives the minstrel knights of
their due, or, as Scherer ingeniously says, "the result of the hundred
years' struggle of the clergy against the world ends in the triumph of
the latter." But not entirely so, for again and again there stirs in the
German conscience the eternally spiritual element.
The Church placed in the field new troops, who did their work with
victorious energy. Orders of beggar monks arose, and the Popes soon
realized what a valuable instrument they were. The Dominicans and
Franciscans had begun to settle in Germany. As preachers and confessors,
they strove for dominance over souls. They inveighed passionately
against the courtly life. Sinful was the tournament, sinful the luxuries
of the table and courtly dress and fashions, sinful the dance and the
minne, the worldly song and the service to women out of wedlock. Their
influence upon women became very marked; many ladies began to turn from
the world, sat like nuns, hid their bosoms and faces, and wore
scapulars. "Instead of going with us to dance, you stand day and night
in church," is a knightly complaint.
Not only piety and mysticism, but scholarship, which also was in
conflict with chivalry, destroyed the minnesong. The great Italian
Dominican, Thomas Aquinas, furnished to German mystics a considerable
part of their philosophy. The essence of mysticism, poetically
conceived, is the conviction that the soul is a bride of Christ. Mystic
theology described the passionate emotions of the soul, in her ascent
to, and union with her heavenly bridegroom. Eckard, Tauler, and Suso are
the great leaders of the mystic movement which, seizing especially the
minds and souls of women, transfers the nature of earthly minne to
heavenly minne.
In this connection, we must mention a princely woman whose
self-abnegating virtue rises well-nigh to the superhuman: Elizabeth of
Thuringia. She was a daughter of King Andrew of Hungary, and in 1218 was
married to Ludwig of Thuringia, after whose death she was treated most
brutally by her brothers-in-law. Her confessor, the monk Konrad of
Marburg, a dark fanatic, who tried to introduce the Inquisition the
horrible Spanish institution into Germany, and who was killed in 1233 by
a band of robber knights, tortured the pious princess with his gloomy
ascetics. This princess devoted her life to charity and noble deeds for
the poor and sick, whom she nursed and tended with her own hands. She
died at the age of twenty-six, after having rejected the suit of the
great and romantic Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II.; she is said to
have earned her living during her last years by spinning wool. The saga
has illumined the fame of that saintly royal woman with the aureole of
glory and affection.
Pious women nursed the entire mystic movement. Mathilda of Magdeburg
(1277) describes in her fragmentary and profoundly passionate
revelations the mingling of the soul with God. Many ecstatic women
followed her. Visions became a fashion in the fourteenth century. The
ecstatic state of passionate love for the divine which shook her frame
was considered the union with God, and the blissful rapture of one nun
wrought a holy contagion among all her sisters. All the cloisters were
drawn into the nervous whirlpool of religio-sensuous emotions. Ladies
who formerly found satisfaction in the charms of the minnesong retired
to the cloisters and passed through all the stages of the emotions of
love toward the divinity, the Creator of all life.
Such was the period of the Minnesingers, and such the reaction against
them. The cultural forces of the epoch can be expressed only by
describing the literary trend of the events of life. They are
correlative and interdependent. If, therefore, this chapter should
appear to the reader to be unduly literary rather than historical, we
can defend it by stating the fact that this was an era of song, and that
this literature bears everywhere the stamp of truth. It is the faithful
reflection of an infinitely rich time from which only the brilliant
melodies of saga and song ring down to our prosaic and materialistic
century.