Women of the Teutonic Nations Part 1

Women of the Teutonic Nations.

by Hermann Schoenfeld.

PREFACE

Adequately to write the history of the woman of any race would mean the writing of the history of the nation itself. There is no phase of the cultural life of any people that is not founded upon the physical and moral nature of its women. On the other hand, mental and moral heredity, both through paternity and maternity, determines the character and innermost being of woman. If we knew all the preponderating influences of heredity for ages, we could with almost mathematical accuracy compute the traits of human biology in every case. The forces of environment, tremendous though they are, modify, but do not alter in any way the original nature of man, which is established and standardized "by eternal and immutable laws." Anthropology is continuously progressing toward a firm scientific foundation, and is beginning to organize even the vast domain of psychology into a well-defined system. The interdependence between physical, mental, and moral traits is well recognized, but its exact determination is impossible, owing to the infinite complexity of the endless ancestral potencies.

So much is established, however: Teutonic woman, as she appears in history, is the product of two groups of influences, the one group, inherited nature; the other, environment; she is the exact sum of these antecedent causes. And only so far as these causes differ does the Teutonic woman differ from her sister of any other race of other times and climes.

In this book of a purely historical, literary, and cultural character must be excluded all that refers to the physiological and ethnographical characteristics of the Teutonic woman and of her Slavic sister. Nor are we concerned with the theory of their evolution, _i. e._, the search of the physical principles according to which the consequences of their existence are true to the laws of their antecedents. Many eminent scientists have tried their great faculties on this subject of universal interest and importance. Standard works of a scientific character, like Floss's _Das Weib in der Natur und Volherhunde_, abound in scientific and medical bibliography.

Our limited task is merely to deal succinctly with the most general evolution of the social position and the cultural status of the Teutonic and, even more briefly, of the Slavic woman at the various epochs of their respective histories, and how far the history of civilization among those races was influenced by them, how far the symptoms of national morality and the degree of culture were shaped by feminine achievements, proclivities, virtues, and vices. Two thousand years of the richest, almost unfathomable, history had to be traversed in the attempt to glean the essential red thread from the enormous ma.s.ses of facts which in their entirety would be inaccessible even to the most universal historical scholar. Most difficult of all the periods is perhaps the question of the present and actual women's movement, which is now in its liveliest flux and in a most variable condition both in the German and in the Slavic world. It is impossible as yet to systematize the entirety of the problems and the requirements which have resulted in recent times from the transformation of society with regard to the position of woman among the two modern peoples. Many of the questions belong to the domain of private and public law, of political economy, of sociology, of education in all its phases. The leaders of state and church and society, the higher schools and universities, are signally undecided concerning the final solution, though the mist of the conflict of opinion begins slowly to clear away. Even under the changed conditions of modern society, one party still clings to the old tradition of the family ideal of wifehood and motherhood, which is no longer possible in all cases, as of yore, and considers extra-domestic activity as abnormal, unhealthy, transient; the other extremists desire to wipe out the natural differences and the limitations prescribed by s.e.x to human activity and capacity. A middle ground and a rational solution will certainly be found during this century.

The author has strenuously endeavored to avail himself for every period of all the source material and the secondary works accessible to him in the Library of Congress and in the other libraries of the national capital. The chapters on the Reformation Period, the Era of Desolation, and on Woman Held in Tightening Bonds, a long period of dreariness so distressing and humiliating to German pride, were prepared with skill and scholarship by Miss Sarah H. Porter, A. M., at the time a graduate student in the author's department. Credit for the chapter on Russian Woman belongs to Mr. Alexis V. Babine, of the Library of Congress.

The author also expresses sincere grat.i.tude to the publishers, and especially to Mr. J. A. Burgan, the publishers' editor, for his careful revision of the English text and for the generous, vigilant aid extended to the author throughout the entire work.

HERMANN SCHOENFELD.

The George Washington University.

CHAPTER I

THE WOMEN OF THE PAGAN TEUTONS

Women were valued by the primeval Teutonic race, as by all other races of the human family, as mere chattels means whereby the profit or the pleasure of man might be maintained or increased. The custom of burning the wife or wives with the dead master and husband was, from the prehistoric times until far into the light of historic days, prevalent in the tribes of the Teutonic family. Sacrifices of widows were especially prescribed in eastern Germanic law, and the low status of woman among the Teutons of the early times is sufficiently indicated by the established and quasi-legalized right and prerogative of the husband, as the owner of the female chattel, to bequeath, give, sell, or hire her person or services to strangers, guests, or friends; or even to kill her if she committed adultery, or if want and distress made such a course expedient.

We must admit the harshness and cruelty to which woman, according to the most ancient conscience of the Teutonic race, could lawfully be subjected. Evidences that her status was outside of the pale of right and law is manifest in all historical proofs. Traces of the old status still abound. One lies in the present refinement of woman's actual position a refinement which cannot obscure its real origin from the student of culture and civilization.

It is certain that the prehistoric Germanic community began with the communal use of women for pleasure or profit. This common use could be broken and suppressed only by marriage by capture. If the man wished to have exclusive possession of a wife, he had to procure her from outside his own community. Besides this exogamic marriage, an endogamic marriage was later recognized as conferring t.i.tle, on the condition that the man reconciled the woman's blood relatives by the payment of a definite compensation. This system of marriage by capture survived the Migration period, and was found in Sweden even in the early Middle Ages.

Marriage by treaty also existed even in prehistoric times. This compact (_Gifta_) is always between the blood relatives of the bride and the bridegroom. It is a presentation, a giving away (_Verschenkung_) of the bride. The parent or guardian gives her away, an act which requires no consent of the bride, but only a counter gift, or rather purchase money, from the bridegroom. Thus a kind of purchase, the symbolic pursuit of the bride (_Brautlauf_) as an imitation of the ancient marriage by capture, and the technical consummation of marriage (_Beilager_), for which the man, however, owes her a gift (_Morgengabe_), are the phases of marriage.

Polygamy is the rule at first. The northern Teutons, especially the Scandinavians, practised an unmitigated polygamy down to a very late period, and only yielded after a most persistent struggle with the ethics of Christianity. As late as the eighth century the bitter accusations of the churchmen against Pepin of Heristal for having two wives, and their arraignment of Charlemagne's sins of concupiscence, show how ineradicable this ancient Teutonic usage was. However, as early as B.C. 57, Caesar mentions King Ariovistus's marriage to two wives as an exception to Teutonic custom, due, perhaps, to political motives.

Tacitus praises the Germans as those who, with few exceptions, live in monogamy, and though Tacitus is not an unimpeachable authority, owing to the fact that he wished to idealize the vigorous race as a model to the decadent Roman world of his time, his statements seem to prove that at the dawn of Christianity southern and western German tribes at least had the highest conception of family purity. Later on, under the teachings of Christianity, polygamy was first modified, then abolished; and marriage by capture was either suppressed or treated as a crime.

Upon the status of women among the Teutonic tribes the study of philology sheds some light. From it we learn that the Gothic _quind_, woman (in general), and _queue_, married woman, signifies the child-bearing one, from the verb _quinan, gignere_; or _wip_ (Saxon _wif_, Old Norse _vif_), indicating the root of _wib_, motion, the mobile being; though _frouwa, frau_ (Old Norse, _freyja_), means originally "joyous, mild, gracious," and is used to signify "ill.u.s.trious ladies" down to the thirteenth century.

The female child was allowed to live only by grace of the father. If this right of the father over the life of his female child appears barbarous, we must understand that the valuation of life in primitive times is always very low. Not only among the early Teutons, but also among the early Romans and Slavs, a custom prevailed by which the children might kill their old or incurably sick parents, because of the conception that life is valuable only so long as physical vigor dwells in the body. Believing this, it is easy to conclude that when vigor departed death was a blessing, the bestowal of which parents could legitimately expect from their children.

The daughter was bought from the father for marriage purposes for a value, and, without recourse, she was placed in the absolute possession of the buyer, who might be an entire stranger to her. Friendship, favor, or material advantage might induce the buyer to transfer his wife to whomsoever he chose. Nothing was left to her but resignation, and, obeying a stern necessity, she followed her husband and taskmaster to death, "not to sweeten his after-life, but to continue her dreary service."

The Norse sources are full of tragic examples of immolation. When the bright sun G.o.d Baldur, the wisest, most eloquent, and mildest of all the Ases, is finally slain, at the instigation of the evil G.o.d Loki, by a twig of mistletoe in the hands of the blind G.o.d Hodur, his wife, the G.o.ddess Nanna, is burned with him. Likewise, the Valkyrie Brunhild, in the Old Norse version of the Siegfried legend, kills herself so that she may be burned with her beloved Sigurd. Hakon Jarl, the last great partisan of paganism in Scandinavia, woos in his old age beautiful Gunhild, but she is unwilling to expose her blooming youth to the risk of being burned with her aged husband.

The toil and trouble of life rested upon woman's weak shoulders; the menial work at home and in the field was her lot. The man roved in war or on the hunting ground, and while at home was an impa.s.sive onlooker of her labors. He gave himself up to the enjoyment of his barbarous pleasures of drinking mead, lying idly on the skins of the wild beasts killed by his rude weapons, or gambling with such desperateness as sometimes to impel him, when all else was lost, to stake wife and children, nay, his own person, on the result of chance. Freedom and absolute liberty of life was the manly ideal, since according to the word of Caesar "trained and accustomed from childhood to no business or discipline (outside of war and hunt, to be sure,) they do nothing at all against their own will."

A highly important occupation of the ancient Teutonic woman was the brewing of beer from barley and other grain. Thus, the Edda relates that King Alrek of Hordaland decides the question which of his two wives he is to discard, in order to terminate their eternal altercations in his household, by the superior skill of one of them in brewing beer. Also the making and the care of wine, which the Teutons learned to know and appreciate from the Romans, belonged to the sphere of woman, for women not infrequently served as cupbearers to the men in their halls. It is, however, true that the Suevi, at least, forbade the importation of wine within their realm, because they believed that men by its use became effeminate and unfit for heavy labors.

Even though we a.s.sume the menial labors of the household to have been done by slaves, yet we learn that royal women took an active part in washing. The pernicious strife between Brunhild and Gudrun breaks out in the business of veil washing. (In the old Norse version.)

In its beginnings Teutonic family life was undoubtedly hard; it was, however, destined to emerge from its early barbarity and one-sidedness into a strong, sound, and healthy moral relation between the s.e.xes. Only thus could have been produced a race now dominant throughout the world, and always capable, by this development, of the best and highest progress in political advancement.

When first the light of history is shed by the two great historians, Caesar and Tacitus, upon the Teutonic family eastward of the Rhine and northward of the Danube, woman has already conquered and appropriated to herself many traits of Freya and Frigg, the divine mothers of the Teutons. Something holy and providential is perceived and acknowledged in woman's nature: she has already become priestess and prophetess and a political power in the state.

Of the sacrificing and prophesying priestesses of the Cimbri, the first Teutons who knocked powerfully at the gates of Italy, we shall speak later. When, in B. C. 58, Caesar offered battle daily to Ariovistus, the Suevian king who had broken into Gaul and installed himself there, the latter, though a fierce and heroic warrior, did not accept it. Caesar learned from Teutonic prisoners that the prophetesses, in consequence of lots and divinations, forbade the king, if he hoped for victory, to engage in battle with the Romans before the new moon. The battle was, however, forced by Caesar and it ended with the total rout of the Teutons. Caesar's envoy, Procillus, who had been held in chains by Ariovistus according to the barbarian fashion, escaped from his captors and related to Caesar his terrible experiences in the camp of the king.

It had been a vital question whether Procillus should be burned at the stake or kept for a future occasion, and this was thrice determined in his favor by the lots cast in his presence by the wise women. Here, as elsewhere, women interpreted the decree of fate. Tacitus mentions Albruna (called Aliruna by Grimm) as an ancient prophetess venerated by the Germans during the expeditions of Drusus and Tiberius in the interior of Germania.

The greatest veneration, however, ever enjoyed by a prophetess, fell to the lot of Veleda during the heroic war of liberation waged against the Romans by the Batavi, a branch of the Chatti, under their great leader Civilis. Veleda's influence extended far beyond the theatre of the uprising on the "Island of the Batavi." Johannes Scherr, the historian of German civilization, finds in her name an allusion to Valkyrie, Vala, Volur, thus indicating the quasi-deification of Veleda. In reality, she belonged to the tribe of the Bructeri. She received emba.s.sies, formed alliances, and the most precious portions of the booty fell to her share. Her power was at its height when she correctly predicted the defeat of the Roman army. She dwelt solitary and inaccessible in a tower and was the Pythia of the Low-Rhenish tribes. Approach to her was forbidden in order to increase her divine prestige. On the downfall of Civilis, she was brought to Rome as a captive to enhance the triumph of the Roman conqueror, Crealis, the general of Emperor Vespasia.n.u.s.

There are many other such divine women mentioned in the ancient books, though the records of their deeds are scanty. Ganna is a prophetess among the Semnones at the time of Emperor Domitia.n.u.s. The Langobardian Gambara and the Alemannian Thiota belong to a late time, probably the ninth century.

From these few examples it appears clearly that in spite of the harsh treatment of woman by the more ancient Germans the veneration of her is inherent in the Teutonic soul. Hence prophetesses gradually become G.o.ddesses in the consciousness of the people; hence the depth of the later cult of the Virgin Mary (_Marienkultus_), and the extraordinary sentimental and poetic evolution of the Love Service (_Minnediensf_) which inspired and enriched what was perhaps, the greatest period of German literature and life.

The oldest traces of German literature left to us are, in fact, charms p.r.o.nounced by such deified women. The Old Saxon word _idis_ (from ict, ictn, work, activity, _i.e._, the working, active, skilful one) means originally "divine virgin," especially a G.o.ddess of fate. This is ill.u.s.trated in the two charms found in Merseburg thus the first story runs: The G.o.ds Phol and Wodan rode into the forest; suddenly Baldur's horse sprained his foot. Sindgund and her sister Sunna uttered a charm over him. Volla and her sister Freya did the same; but all in vain. Then Wodan, who understood such things well, uttered his charm. He charmed away the sprain in the bone, the blood, and the joint. He uttered the potent formula: "Bone to bone, blood to blood, joint to joint, as if they were glued." Great as the art of the four heavenly women is in the treatment of wounds, it is yet inferior to that of Wodan. But it is an indication of the Teutonic conception that the curing of the sick and the tending of the wounded appertains to the domain of woman.

It will furnish a more accurate idea of the alliterative form of this most ancient Germanic poetry if we place here a clever translation by Professor Gummere of the story just told:

"Phol and Wodan fared to the holt: Then Haider's foal's foot was wrenched.

Then Sinthgunt besang it and Sunna, her sister: Then Fryja besang it and Volla, her sister: Then Wodan besang it, who well knew how, The wrenching of bone, the wrenching of blood, The wrenching of limb: Bone to bone, blood to blood, Limb to limb, as if it were limed."

The second Merseburg charm attributes to the Idisi (wise women) the power, on the battlefield, of loosening prisoners' bonds. This is apparent from its text, which runs:

"Once sat (wise) women (idisi), sat hither and thither.

Some bound bonds; some hindered the host; Some unfastened the fetters: Spring from fetters; fly from the foe."

It describes the activity of the heavenly women, the Valkyries, in battle. They are, according to the charm, divided into three detachments; the first, binds prisoners in the rear of the army which they favor; the second, engages the foe; the third group appears in the rear of the enemy where the prisoners are secured, and, touching their fetters, utters the formula of deliverance: "Escape from your bonds, flee from the enemy."

Though Weinhold, perhaps the foremost scholar on the position and achievements of early Germanic womanhood, does not concede the existence of a real priestcraft among the ancient Teutons, he gives, nevertheless, numberless examples of their great influence and prophetic mission. Like the above-mentioned mythological women, mortal women were supposed to know secret charms to make the weapons of their men victorious: some possessing the charm over the blade (_Schwertsegeri_). This spell was worked by scratching secret runes (letters) upon the handle or blade of the sword while calling thrice the name of the sword G.o.d Tyr.

The most potent influence of Teutonic women rests upon their guardianship of the sacred runes, which are a primeval, Teutonic method of searching the future: the power of divination. The Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian word _run_ signifies a letter, a writing, or literally a secret, mystery, confidential speech, counsel. A letter was also called _runstaef_. Little staffs with significant signs and symbols were thrown by women, as dice are cast, to the accompaniment of prayers and charms, and from the result of the cast prophecies were made. Odin (Wodan) himself taught the wise women the greatest of runes "which [in this connection] means both writing and magic, and many other arts of life."

Whittier, Kallundborg Church, says of them: "Of the Troll of the Church they sing the rune: By the Northern Sea in the harvest moon."

The _runes_ or charms are twofold. The good and wholesome ones are called _galdr_; the pernicious ones, carrying with them sickness, madness, and death, are called _soidr_. The women of magic possessed of the art of the _runes_ were called _volur_ or _seidkona_, and wandered through the land in fantastic attire, a dark cloak set with pearls around their limbs, a cap of black lambskin on the head, a staff with a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton, set with stones, in their hand. Wherever they appeared, they were reverently invited to a feast and propitiated in every way, that they might be induced to practise beneficent magic arts during the night. They enjoyed an almost semi-divine veneration. There were, however, "_balewise_ women" against whom the Scandinavian warrior was warned. "The sons of men need an eye of foresight wherever the fray rages, for _balewise_ [horrible, hideous] women often stand near the way [with _baleful runes_] blunting swords and minds."

A still higher, more divine and poetic mission than that of bond breakers is a.s.signed to the Valkyries _i.e._, choosers of the slain or Walmaids. Odin, the supreme G.o.d of the Germanic Olympus, sends them out to every battlefield to turn the tide of battle and to make choice of those who are to be slain. Glittering in their armor and their waving golden hair, bright as the sun, they ride through the air and above the sea with shields and helmets and sparkling breastplates to execute the orders of the war G.o.d, whose handmaidens they are. With their spears they designate the heroes who shall fall and whom they afterward conduct to _Valhalle_ (Valholl), the hall of the slain, the heaven longed for by the Germanic warrior. This magnificent hall is in Asgard, the garden of the Ases, the G.o.ds of Old Norse mythology. Here Odin receives and welcomes the G.o.ds and all the _einherjes_, the brave warriors who died in battle.

The hall is resplendent with gold; spears support its ceiling, it is roofed with shields, and coats of mail adorn it. According to the Elder Edda it has six hundred and forty doors, through which nine hundred and sixty _einherjes_ may enter side by side. The Valkyries make it a perfect paradise. As the servants of the divine host they bear the drink, take care of the mead horns and wait upon the table. Here they appear in the loveliness of their peaceful, housewifely mission. This unwarlike side of their nature should be emphasized, for it is apt to be forgotten when we think of Valkyries as spirits of the clouds flying over land and sea, driven by the wind, messengers of the storm G.o.d, shining in lightning, rattling in thunder.

Nowhere does the poetry inherent in the primitive Germanic conscience, in spite of all its apparent, warlike savagery, appear in a brighter light than in the many sagas relative to those superhuman, semi-divine beings. Their conception sheds a brilliant light upon the soul life of the primitive German as we consider it in connection with womanhood, and especially with womanhood elevated to the level of the divine.

In one way might the Valkyries be brought into subjection to man. A hero who surprised them bathing in the quiet forest lake obtained power over them if he succeeded in carrying off their feather garments, for he thus prevented them from flying away. In this respect the swan-maiden and the Valkyries are identical. A swan-maiden thus surprised must then follow the hero as his wife, until she perchance finds again her feather garment, for this will permit her to fly away as a swan. One of the loveliest pa.s.sages in the _Nibelungenlied_ is the story where fierce Hagen, the slayer of the sunny hero Siegfried, surprises the prophetesses of the Danube by stealing their raiment, and thereby forces them to reveal to him the future fate of himself and of the Burgundians wandering to the court of the Hunnish king Attila, or Etzel:

"Spake one of the mere women Hadburg was her name: Here will we tell you, Hagen, O n.o.ble knight of fame; If you now, gallant swordsman, our raiment but restore, Your journey to Hunland, and all that waits you more.