Women of the Teutonic Nations Part 9

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 Nurnberg; 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 Carca.s.ses. 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sion, 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 doc.u.ment.

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 n.o.bleman 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 a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.s into publicity. Love is purer and more genuine; women stand on no imaginary, fantastic pinnacle, but are, on that account, really freer and n.o.bler. 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 cla.s.ses 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 grat.i.tude 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 s.e.x, 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 n.o.ble birth may not be amiss. The difficult arts of writing and reading were more generally acquired by n.o.ble 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 ma.n.u.script of his Emit, before it was quite finished, to the Countess of Cleve, to read and to see (_i. e._, the pictures).

The n.o.ble 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 Stra.s.sburg, knew Irish, French, Latin, and played the Welsh fiddle. Fine handiwork belonged to a n.o.ble 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; n.o.ble 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 const.i.tutes ladylike courtoisie or moralitas. Religion toward G.o.d and the world, churchgoing, all are strictly regulated; and we see women in all their aspects, as we pa.s.s 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 superst.i.tion 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 princ.i.p.al 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 quant.i.ties. It is highly suggestive to read in the records the allowances of liquor made to princely ladies of the time and to their n.o.ble 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 G.o.d'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 l.u.s.tre 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 l.u.s.tre 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 a.s.sail; Bid her from every care be free: Quick! haste away, my nightingale!"

Even more nave 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 pa.s.sionate 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 chast.i.ty; 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 ent.i.tled _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, pa.s.sing 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, n.o.ble 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 G.o.d, 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 d.a.m.nation. 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 pa.s.sion. The piety of the n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sionately 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 pa.s.sionate 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 inst.i.tution 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sionate revelations the mingling of the soul with G.o.d. Many ecstatic women followed her. Visions became a fashion in the fourteenth century. The ecstatic state of pa.s.sionate love for the divine which shook her frame was considered the union with G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed 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.

CHAPTER VI

THE COMING OF THE MASTERSINGERS

After the lofty house of Hohenstaufen had been overwhelmed with destruction, the _interregnum_, the time of anarchy, "_the emperorless, the terrible time_," in Schiller's words, (1250-1273), and the reign of Rudolf of the house of Habsburg mark the beginning of the era of the decline in German culture. Princes and n.o.bles had long ago ceased to sing, for between arms the Muses are silent. Tenderness and refinement of feeling gradually drifted into the commonplace if not into downright coa.r.s.eness. We are obliged to record a cheerless period of mediocrity and degradation lasting almost four centuries, though, of course, interwoven here and there with illuminating stars that shoot up to the heavens from this dreary waste, and continuing until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the second cla.s.sical bloom came into florescence and intensified strongly the cla.s.sical era of the Middle Ages.

The decline that found its perigee in the period of the Mastersingers went on gradually. It was the result of various political and social causes. The aesthetic ideals, because of which in the time of the Hohenstaufens women were revered, vanished. With the decadence of culture superst.i.tion a.s.serted itself more strongly. Women were burned as witches; and the general references to them in the literature of the period of decline are usually vulgar, and not infrequently obscene.

Refined deportment toward women ceased. Saint Ruffian (_Sanct Grobia.n.u.s_) became the idol of the era of decadence, and the vulgarities of _Till Eulenspiegel_ furnished amus.e.m.e.nt. "Shamelessness celebrated a boisterous carnival." The cla.s.sics alone, though diluted by pitiful scholasticism until rescued and raised to a higher plane by the Humanists of the Renaissance, became the only oasis in the dreary waste of the decadence.