Pictures of German Life in the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries Volume I Part 1

Pictures of German Life in the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries.

Vol. I.

by Gustav Freytag.

PREFACE.

The great interest which these graphic Pictures of Life in Germany have created in that country, has induced me to translate them. The object of the distinguished author seems to have been, to convey a lesson, a warning, and at the same time an encouragement to his countrymen, derived from the experience of the past; whilst he demonstrates to other nations how it is, that a people so superior in intellectual power, has remained so far behind in social and political development.

I have also felt as an additional reason, that at the present moment, the British public must take a deep interest in everything connected with the past, and future, of the country in which the daughter of our beloved Queen has cast her lot, and which was the Fatherland of the revered Prince, who has been a source of blessing to England for so many years, and whose irreparable loss we now so deeply deplore.

GEORGIANA MALCOLM.

DEDICATION.

To my dear Friend Solomon Hertzel.

Without your knowledge I dedicate this work to you, who have taken so kind an interest in it, whose excellent library has so often helped when other sources failed, and where, as industrious collectors, we have examined so many old flying sheets and ma.n.u.scripts.

To you also these records of the olden times, in which the private life and feelings of the writers are portrayed, are especially valuable, for by them a clear light is thrown on events in our political history which till now have been only occasionally noticed, and we may discover from them how the German people have felt, suffered, and lived.

If these records of individuals can be judiciously arranged according to periods and their position in life, it appears to me that an instructive insight may be obtained into the gradual development of the mind of the German people.

I have endeavoured to carry this out from the middle ages to the beginning of the present era.

What I have added of my own is simple explanation: I have avoided saying anything where it could be given in the original; only where the old records fail to give a complete picture have I supplied the deficiency.

As there are very few who can read the language of the fifteenth, or even the seventeenth, century with ease, I have thought it necessary to translate the records into modern German, but at the same time to preserve something of the old style.

Accept kindly then, my friend, what of right belongs to you, for your flag waves on every vessel that I launch; and I trust that the freight that I have this time prepared, may meet with your hearty approbation.

GUSTAV FREYTAG.

_Siebleben, 8th October_, 1859.

INTRODUCTION.

In vain does the German seek for "the good old times." If even the pious zealot who condemns Hegel and Humboldt as the greatest of Atheists, or the conservative proprietor who is struggling for the privileges of his order, were to be thrown back into one of the last centuries, he would feel first unmitigated astonishment, then horror, at the position in which he would find himself placed. What now appears to him so desirable would make him miserable, and he would be driven to despair at the loss of all the advantages of that civilization which he at present so little appreciates.

Let a German proprietor endeavour to realize to himself the position of one of his ancestors in the year 1559. Instead of the house he has now, built in the old German style, surrounded by its English pleasure-grounds, he would find himself shut up in a gloomy, dirty, and comfortless building, placed either on a height dest.i.tute of water, and exposed to the cutting blasts of the wind, or else surrounded by the f[oe]tid smells of stagnant ditches. It is true that three generations back dim panes had been added to the small windows,[1] and large stoves of Dutch tiles, which were fed with logs from the neighbouring forest, kept the cold out of the sitting-rooms; but the accommodation was limited, as it was occasionally necessary to defend the house against attacks from the citizens of the nearest town, roving bands of marauders, or reckless soldiers bent on revenge because they had been cheated of half their pay by the neighbouring prince.

Comfortless and dirty is the house, for it is occupied by many others beside the family of the owner: younger brothers and cousins, with their wives and children, numberless servants, amongst them many of doubtful character, men-at-arms, labourers, and in 1559, mercenaries, may be added. In the court-yard, from the dung-heap is heard the cry of children quarrelling, and from round the kitchen fire the no less inharmonious sound of wrangling women. The children of the house grow up amongst horses, dogs, and servants; they receive scanty instruction in the village school; the boys keep the geese[2] and poultry for their mother, or they go with the village people to the wood to collect wild pears and mushrooms, which are dried for the winter meal; the lady of the castle is housekeeper, head cook, and doctor of the establishment, and is well accustomed to intercourse with lawless men and to the ill-treatment of her drunken husband. She is faithful, a thorough manager, proud of her escutcheon, of the gold chains and brocades belonging to the family; she looks suspiciously on the dress and finery of the wives of the counsellors of the town, who she considers have no right to wear sable and ermine, velvet dresses, pearls in their hair, and precious stones round their necks. The love and tenderness of her nature frequently gave elevation to her countenance and manners; but in those days, both in the homes of the n.o.bles and in the courts of princes, much was considered decorous and was permitted to women of the highest character in familiar conversation which now would be condemned as unseemly in the wife of a common labourer.

The daily life of the landed proprietor is one of idleness or wild excitement. The hunting is certainly excellent. Where the forest has not been laid waste by the reckless stroke of the axe, grow the stately trees of the primeval wood; the howl of the wolf is still heard in the winter nights; the hunters sally forth on horseback, with spear and cross-bow, against beasts of prey, stags, roedeer, and the wild boar, and all adopt the habits of the rough hunters. But whilst hunting, even in his own wood, every one must be provided with weapons against other foes than the wolf and the boar. There are few hunting-grounds concerning which there is not some quarrel with a neighbour or feudal lord, who often claims the right of following the chase up to the squire's castle; the squire is also set at defiance by the peasants of the nearest village, whose crops have been laid waste by the stag and the boar, and who hates the master of the castle for having beaten or thrown him into prison for crossing the path of the chase; and not unfrequently an arrow whistles through the darkness of the wood with other aim than a wild animal; or an armed band breaks through a clearing, and then begins a race for freedom and life. We will suppose the game to be brought home and cut up in the castle yard; then follows the banquet, with endless drinking of healths and wild revelry, and seldom a night pa.s.ses without the whole party breaking up in a state of intoxication. Drunkenness was at this time a national evil, prostrating alike the powers of princes, n.o.bles, and people. The guests at the hunt and the banquet are of the same rank as their host--some are old cavaliers, constantly swearing, and relating anecdotes of the knightly feats they have performed in the greenwood against the traders and townspeople; others a younger race, hangers-on of the great feudal lords, who proudly wear the gold-laced caps given by these lords to their va.s.sals.

Thus the week pa.s.ses away. On Sunday it is considered a duty to attend the village church, and listen to the preacher's endless sermon, which generally breathes hatred to Calvinists or Papists, and denounces the factious Schwenkfeld or the apostate Melancthon. There is but little intercourse with foreign countries: the country gentleman gratifies his curiosity by buying from the itinerant pedler what was then called a newspaper, being a few quarto sheets published at intervals in the towns, containing very doubtful intelligence, such as a horrible fight having taken place between the sons of the Turkish sultan, a young maiden being possessed by the devil, or the French king having been struck on the head by one of his n.o.bles. Sometimes the young squire listens to the songs of ballad singers, who recite similar news to old popular tunes, or, what is still more welcome, satirical verses on some neighbour, which the singer has been paid to propagate far and wide through the country. The reading which gives most pleasure at home, is either some astrological absurdity, such as a prophecy of old Wilhelm Friese or Gottfried Phyllers, or a description of the funeral festival of the Emperor Charles V. at Augsburg; besides these, theological writings find their way into the castle.

This life, which in spite of all its excitement is so meagre and monotonous, is sometimes varied by the discovery of a murdered man in the fields, or by some old woman of the village being accused of witchcraft. These incidents give rise to judicial proceedings, in the first case tardy and of little interest, in the latter fierce and bloodthirsty.

There are other annoyances in these times from which the landed proprietor is seldom free,--lawsuits and many difficulties. His father had sought to obtain money for the payment of his debts on the highway in his breastplate and saddle, and thus revenged himself for his injured rights. But now a new age has begun, and law a.s.serts its supremacy over the self-will and independence of individuals; it is however an uncertain, dilatory, distorted law, which overlooks the powerful, and too often favours the wealthy. The young squire still rides his charger, armed with lance and pistol, but he is no longer eager to obtain fame and booty in war. The foot-soldier with pike and musket, and light-horseman of the town have outstripped him. Even at the tournament he prefers running at the ring; and if perchance he should encounter in the lists any person of distinction, he finds it more advantageous to allow himself to be unhorsed, than to contend manfully.

The condition of his peasantry is wretched: they have sunk from freemen to slaves; the rent they have to pay in labour, corn, and money, swallows up their earnings, yet he benefits little by it. The roads being bad and unsafe, it is impossible to export his produce: he is just able to keep himself and his household, for his income is small; everything has become dear; the new gold which has been brought to Europe from America is ama.s.sed in the great commercial towns, and is of little advantage to him, and he is unable to maintain the state suitable to his position.

He holds obstinately to all he considers his right, and supports or resists his feudal lord according to his personal advantage; occasionally he follows him to the Imperial Diet. But in the Provincial States, he eagerly resists the impost of new taxes; he has no real love of his country, and only feels himself German in opposition to Italians and Spaniards, whom he hates; but looks with a selfish interest on France, whose King burns cursed Calvinists and engages German Lutherans at high salaries. The province in which he lives has no political unity; the sovereignty of his feudal lord is no longer a firm edifice, and his attachment is therefore only occasional. His egotism alone is firm and lasting, a miserable hateful egotism, which has scarce power to excite him to deeds of daring, not even to bind him to others of his own cla.s.s. Rarely does the feeling of his own social position enn.o.ble his conversation or actions; his education and knowledge of the world are not greater than those of a horsedealer of the present day.

A century has pa.s.sed, it is the year 1659--ten years since the conclusion of the great German war. The walls of the old castles have been shattered, foreign soldiers have encamped within them, whose fires have blackened the ruins, and whose fury has emptied the granaries and destroyed all the household goods. The squire has now erected a new building with the stones of the old one; it is a bare house, with thick walls, and without ornament; the windows look on a miserable village, which is only partly built, and on a field which, for the first time for many years, is prepared for cultivation; the flock of sheep has been replenished, but there are no horses, and the peasants have learned to plough with oxen. The owner of the house has no longer to provide for the horses of troopers and knights; a coach stands in a hovel,--a kind of lumbering chest on leather straps, but nevertheless the pride of the family. The house is surrounded by walls and moats with drawbridges; ma.s.sive locks and strong iron work defend the entrances, for the country is still insecure. Gipsies and bands of marauders lurk in the neighbourhood, and the daily conversation is of robberies and horrible murders. There is great regularity both in house and village, and strict order is kept by the squire amongst his children, servants, and retainers; but many wild figures may be still seen about the court-yard,--disbanded soldiers who have taken service as messengers, foresters, halberdiers, &c. The village school is in sad decay, but the squire's children receive instruction from a poor scholar. The squire wears a wig with flowing curls; instead of the knightly sword, a slender rapier hangs at his side; in society his movements and conversation are stiff and formal; the townspeople call him your honour, and his daughter has become "fraulein" and "damoiselle;" the lady of the house wears a bunch of keys at her side; she is great in receipts and superst.i.tious remedies, and her repose is troubled by ghostly apparitions in the old tower of the castle. When a visitor approaches, the spinning-wheel is hidden, an embroidered dress is quickly put on, the scanty family treasures of silver goblets and tankards laid out on the sideboard, a groom, who is just capable of making a bow, is hastily put into livery, and perfumes are burnt in the room. The young squire when he visits appears as a gallant a la mode,--in lace coat and wig, and pays the most fulsome compliments to the lady of the house; he is her most devoted slave, he extols the daughter as a heart-enslaver, and declares that she is quite angelic in her appearance; but these finely turned compliments are bad sauce to coa.r.s.e manners, and are generally interspersed with stable language and oaths. When conversation begins to flow more freely, it is directed by preference to subjects which are no longer ambiguous, and women listen, not with the navete of former times, but with secret pleasure, to the boldness of such language, for it is the fashion to relate improper anecdotes, and by enigmatical questions to produce a pretty affected embarra.s.sment in the ladies. But even such conversation soon wearies, and the wine begins to circulate, the hilarity becomes noisy, and they finish by getting very drunk, after the old German fashion. They smoke clay pipes, and cavaliers of high breeding take snuff from silver boxes. The chase is again the amus.e.m.e.nt of the country gentleman: he tries to exterminate the wolves, which during the late war have become numerous and insolent; he exhibits rifles among his hunting gear, but no longer mounts his steed as an armed knight; his armour is rusty, his independence is gone, war is carried on by the soldiers of the Prince, and he appears at court only as the obsequious servant of his ill.u.s.trious lord.

He is still firm in his faith, and adheres to the rites of the Church; but he holds in contempt the theological controversies of the clergy, and does not object to holding intercourse with unbelievers, though he prefers Jesuits to zealous sectarians. The pastor of his village is poor and devout, and from living amongst lawless men, has lost much of his priestly pride; he strives to support himself by agriculture, and considers it an honour to dine at the squire's table, and has in return to laugh at his patron's jokes, and retail the news of the day. When it is a fete day at the castle he presents a pompous poem, in which he calls on Venus, the Muses and Graces, to celebrate in Olympus the birthday of the lady of the house. On such days there is music at the castle, and the viola da gamba is the fashionable instrument. Once a week the newspaper is brought to the castle, from thence it is sent to the parsonage, then to the schoolmaster and forester: the chief reading besides this consists of tedious novels and histories of adventures, or anecdotes of ghostly apparitions and discoveries of treasure; sometimes also dissertations on the phenomena of nature, the first glimmering of a more intellectual literature. The squire interests himself in politics; he distrusts Sweden, and abhors the regicide tendencies of England, but admires everything French, and whosoever can give him news of Paris is a welcome guest. He attends the Diet, but it is only for the sake of maintaining the privileges of his order; he lounges in antechambers, and by bribery endeavours to secure for his relations some appointment about the court. He unwillingly allows his son to study law, with the hope that he may, as royal counsellor, advance the interests of his family; in short, he looks upon the court and the government as wine vats to be tapped, so as to afford him a good draught. Germany is to him a mere geographical spot, which he neither loves nor hates; his family or his order are all that he serves or cares for, and if one abstracts from him his high pretensions, and compares the remains of the kernel with the men of our own time, we should find more sense and rect.i.tude in the stubborn head of a corporation of the smallest town than in him.

Again a century has pa.s.sed, a time of little energy or national strength, and yet great changes have taken place. The year 1759 is in the youth of our grandfathers; numberless remembrances cling to our hearts; it will be sufficient to recall a few. The squire's house has no longer a bare front: a porch has been added, supported by stone pillars; the staircase is ornamented with vases; over the hall door a rudely carved angel holds the family arms emblazoned on a spiral sh.e.l.l.

On one side of the building lies the farm-yard, on the other the garden, laid out with trim beech hedges and obelisks of yew. The old whitewashed walls are almost all covered with plaster-of-paris, and some are highly ornamented. There is an abundance of household furniture beautifully carved in oak or walnut; near the ancient family portraits hang modern pastil pictures, amongst them perhaps the daughter of the house as a shepherdess with a crook in her hand. In the apartments of the lady of the house there is a porcelain table with coloured tankards, small cups, pug-dogs, and Cupids of this newly discovered material. Propriety reigns everywhere with a strict stern rule; women and servants speak low, children kiss their parents' hands, the master of the house calls his wife "ma chere," and uses other French phrases. The hair is powdered, and the ladies wear stiff gowns and high head-dresses; violent emotions or strong pa.s.sions seldom disturb the stiff formality of their carriage or the tranquillity of the house.

The squire has become economist, and looks a little after the farming; he tries by selecting choice breeds to improve the wool of his flocks, and raises carefully the new bulb called the potato, which is to be a source of unfailing nourishment to man and beast. The mode of life is quiet, simple, and formal. The mother shakes her head about Gellert's 'Life of the Swedish Countess;' the daughter is delighted with Kleist's 'Spring,' and sings to the harpsichord of violets and lambs; and the father carries in his pocket the 'Songs of a Grenadier.' Coffee is placed before the visitors, and on high holidays chocolate makes its appearance. Everything is managed by government officials, and much is required of the country gentleman, who has to pay taxes without being consulted: he is a person of more consideration than the citizen, but is now far removed from the prince. The great n.o.ble looks with contempt on him, and it is well for him if he does not feel the weight of his stick: the officials of the capital interfere with his farming; they order him to dig a drain, to build a mill, even to plant mulberry-trees, and send him the eggs of silkworms, insisting upon his rearing them. It is a weary time; the third, or Seven years', war is raging between the king and emperor; the squire is walking about his room, wringing his hands and weeping. How is it that this hard man has so completely lost his composure? The letter on the table has informed him that his son, an officer in the king's army, has come unscathed out of the fight at Cunnersdorf; why then does he weep and wring his hands?

His King is in distress; the state to which he belongs is in danger of destruction, and it is for this that he grieves. He is greater, richer, and better than any of his ancestors, for he has a fatherland; the training of his generation is rough, manners coa.r.s.e, and government despotic; his knowledge of the world is not greater than that of a subordinate official of the present day, but this feeling within him, either in life or death, makes him a man.

Life in every period of the German past was much rougher than now; but it is not the hardships of individuals which make the old time appear so strange to us, it is that the whole mode of life, in every thought and feeling, is so essentially different. The reason of this difference is, that at all periods of the past the mind of the individual was less free and more subordinate to the spirit of the nation; we may see this especially in the middle ages, but it may still be observed in the last century.

There was no such thing as public opinion. The individual submitted his conscience to the approbation of those with whom he lived; he committed to them his honour, interests, and safety, and only felt that he existed as a member of the society, thus rendering the necessity of union more urgent. How strikingly this tendency of the old times was exemplified in the clubs of Hanseatic stations! The constraint within their closed walls was almost monkish. Every word and gesture at the dinner-table was regulated, and this rule was maintained by severe punishments. The soldiers who roamed about together in troops from all parts of Germany, made laws for themselves, by which they kept the strictest discipline, each being accuser and judge of the other. Upon a sea voyage the pa.s.sengers selected from amongst themselves a magistrate, judge, and police-officer, who declared the law, imposed fines, and awarded even bodily punishment; and if at the conclusion of the journey any individual wished to free himself from this control, he had to take an oath that he would not revenge himself for any annoyance or injury he might have suffered under the ship's law; and it was the same with pilgrimages to the Holy Land, especially where it was question of any dangerous enterprise. For instance, when, in the year 1535, five-and-twenty men from Amberg undertook to explore the cavern of the "awful" mountains, their first act at the entrance to the caverns was to choose two leaders, and take an oath of obedience to stand by one another in life or death.

The same feature is to be found amongst the artists of the middle ages: thus did the life of individuals first find its full expression, in a.s.sociation with others.

One peculiar charm which we find in the national character of those early ages, is the union of a strong love of freedom with a spirit of obedience. To this characteristic of the old times may be added another. All, from the emperor to the wandering beggar, from their birth to their death, from morning till night, were fenced in by customs, forms, and ceremonies. A wonderful creative genius produced endless pictures and symbols, by which everything on earth was idealized. By these means was expressed the way in which the people understood their relations with G.o.d, and the right direction of all human energy; there were also many mysterious rituals which served as means of defence against the supposed influence of unearthly powers.

Even in law mimic and figurative proceedings were laid down. Whoever sought revenge before a court of justice for the murder of a relative, had everything as to garments and gestures, the very words of the accusation, and even their complaints, prescribed to them. Every transfer of property, every invest.i.ture and contract, had its significant forms and precise words, on which its legality depended.

The knights were summoned to the lists by the herald; the bride was claimed and the guests invited to the wedding by fixed forms of speech; it was considered of importance which foot was placed first on the ground in the morning, which shoe was first put on, and what stranger was first met on going out; also, how the bread was laid on the table at each meal, and where the salt-cellar was placed. All that concerned the body, the cutting of the hair, baths, and bleeding, had their appointed time and appropriate regulations. When the agriculturist turned up the first clod, when he brought in the last sheaf, leaving a truss of corn in the field, in short, all the incidents of labour had their peculiar usages; there were customs for every important day of the year, and they abounded at every festival. Many relics of these remain to our day; we maintain some for our amus.e.m.e.nt, but most of them appear to us useless, senseless, and superst.i.tious.

Many of these practices had been derived in Germany from the heathen faith and ancient laws and customs. The Church of the middle ages followed in the same track, idealizing life. The services became more frequent, the ceremonials more artificial. In the same way that it had sanctified the great epochs of life by the mystery of its sacraments, it tried, rivalling the heathen traditions, to influence even the trifling actions of every-day life. It consecrated fountains and animals, and professed that it could stop the effusion of blood and turn away the enemy's shot by its blessing. Its endeavours to make the spiritual perceptible to the senses of the mult.i.tude, produced many proverbs and symbolical actings, which gave rise to the dramas of the middle ages. But whilst it thus met the imaginative tendencies of the people, its own spiritual and moral character was injured by all these outward observances; and when Luther accused the Church of thirty-seven errors, from the sale of indulgences, to the consecrated salt, and the baptism of bells with their two hundred G.o.dfathers, he was not in a position to perceive that the old Church had given growth to these excrescences, by having yielded too much to the imaginative disposition of the German popular mind.

The artisans liked to reproduce the formulas of their religion and guilds for their amus.e.m.e.nt: dialogue and gesture were interchanged, and thus dramatic representations arose. The initiated and best informed of every cla.s.s became known by this; they had an opportunity of showing their nature under the traditional form. In such a way every young nation tries to represent life, and among the Germans, this inclination, together with the love of mystery, worked most powerfully in the same direction. It gave much opportunity for dramatic acting, though it was a peculiarly undramatic period in the life of the people, for words and characteristic gestures do not flow from the inward man; they come with imposing power from external circ.u.mstances, leading, forming, and restraining the individual.

Such union of order and discipline belongs to the epic time of the people.

How the German mind outgrew these bonds we shall learn from the following stories of the olden time. In the course of four centuries the great change was accomplished--a powerful action of the mind brought freedom in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and a fearful political catastrophe brought destruction in the seventeenth.[3] After a long deathlike sleep the modern spirit of the people awoke in the eighteenth century.

PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE.