Of all the branches of modern European poetry, it would be most ungracious to neglect that of the Teutonic nations; for to them may almost every where be traced the love and practice of song, even in the days of what we are accustomed to call the deepest barbarism. It is hardly necessary to refer to the earliest observers of their manners, for the purpose of reminding the reader that the deeds of their warriors, as related in legendary songs, were always the delight of the ancient Germans. Time has laid its unsparing hand on much; yet some interesting and venerable reliques have survived; and there is little doubt that in the Nibelungen Lied, the Helden-buch, and the Scandinavian Eddas and Sagas, we see, though in a comparatively modern dress, fragments of a remote and almost primitive antiquity; such, perhaps, as Jornandes heard and referred to as historical materials at the court of Theodoric, who, like Alfred and Charlemagne, seems to have encouraged the ancient vernacular literature of his country.
The reigns of Charlemagne and his successors in the Carlovingian dynasty, exhibit the first glimpses of distinct light thrown upon that portion of the ancient poetry of Germany which has survived to us. Though merciless and cruel in his views of territorial aggrandizement, Charlemagne had the discernment to see that the most politic plan for giving stability and enlightening the understandings of the tribes over whom he triumphed in arms. Though his literary tastes were acquired in Italy, he had judgement enough to postpone the popular learning of the day to the better object of bringing forward the indigenous literature of the countries which formed the immediate seat of his empire. With something of a prophetic perception of their future value, he sought to preserve even the "barbara et antiquissima carmina" of his native land, and to fix its grammar and language, rather than introduce either the favourite Latin, or the Romance dialect which had sprung from it and was spoken in the Gaulish provinces of his empire. Thus stability began to be given to the German tongue; and from that era we may date a gradual but steady progress towards maturity.
The two great original divisions of the Teutonic languages are :-- first, the Low-German, which comprehends the dialects of the more northern tribes, such as the Anglo-Saxon, the old Friesic, the more modern Nether-Saxon, and the Belgic or Dutch :-- second, the High-German, which prevailed in the south-west, and comprehends the Francic, Alemanic, Burgundian, Suabian, and other kindred dialects. These leading divisions are often very indistinctly marked in the most ancient specimens, probably from the multiplicity and confusion of provincial dialects; but as soon as the languages became fixed, or had been in any way devoted to literary purposes, the distinction became broad and obvious between the High-German or Suabian, in which the greater part of the poetry of the Minnesingers is written, and the Nether-German, which in many respects (especially to English readers, from its affinity to the common parent the old Friesic or Saxon,) forms a more pleasing and certainly a smoother tongue, and one which we should perhaps have been inclined, a priori, to prefer to the one which in fact became the literary language of Germany. This was the Upper-Saxon dialect, which seems to have been cultivated during the reigns of the Saxon emperors, and which, in consequence mainly of its adoption by Luther at the era of the Reformation, obtained, and has ever since preserved, the ascendancy.
The language of the court and army of Charlemagne and his immediate successors was the Francic, or that branch of the High-German which had most assimilation to the lower dialects. However pure might have been the language of Clodwig [Clovis], the necessity or expediency which Charlemagne found for forming a new version of the Salic law, shows that great alterations had taken place in the popular tongue. The constant intercourse, under the Carlovingian monarchs, with the more Northern tribes, seems very much to have inclined the bias towards their dialect; and accordingly some of the earliest reliques of that age have a great portion of Low-German words. This is particularly the case with the fragment of Hildibrant and Hathubrant, which will be mentioned hereafter. From the 9th century, the modern High-German, which is placed somewhat between the two extremes, appears gradually to develop itself, and to emerge from the weak and unsettled state in which it is before exhibited, till in the 11th century we find it (as in the legend of St. Anno) assuming a determinate character, approaching much nearer to the standard of Luther. During the same period, the rougher Alemanic or Suabian must also have been forming itself into that state of perfection in which it suddenly breaks upon us, as the court language of the Suabian dynasty, and the favourite dress of the poetry of the 12th and 13th centuries; while the Nether-German remained in the most pure and primitive form of all, as it appears in the specimens that have been preserved, which are not very numerous, the principal being romances.
In various periods during the Carlovingian dynasty we have valuable fragments of German poetry, which was gradually acquiring stability and importance, notwithstanding the endeavours of the learned to stop the progress of the new literature, by veiling every thing in their degenerate Latin. Many of the most valuable poetic monuments have been lost to the world by the laborious dullness of those who converted them into Latin prose; and many an author has deadened his fancy and destroyed his worth, by attempting to express in a dead language the thoughts and feelings which were the offspring of a new state of society. What a treasure might not the good nun Roswitha have left us on the deeds of the Saxon emperors, if her vanity had not induced her to display her learning in Latin verse!
Perhaps the most remarkable of all the remains of ancient German poetry is a fragment relating to the ancient German poetry is a fragment relating to the combat between Hildebrant and Hathubrant, which is assigned to the middle of the 8th century. The dialect in which it is written is the Francic, with a very great intermixture of the Nether-Saxon tongue. Bouterwek characterizes it as being just what one would suppose would be the result of a Nether-Saxon trying to write Francic. But this fragment is most valuable on account of the direct and indisputable testimony which it bears to the fact, that the romances of the proper German Cyclus of the Suabian age, as well as many of the Scandinavian demimythological fables, have their basis in the ancient popular songs and traditions, current in the age of Charlemagne, and probably long previously. It is, moreover, curious, from its being written in alliterative rhythm, a circumstance which has escaped the observation of the authors of the "Illustrations of Northern Antiquities," who printed it in that work as prose.
The church was fated to become in Germany, as in many other countries, a powerful instrument, though against its will, in fixing and preserving the rising popular tongue. Louis le Debonnaire piously banished from his court the vain themes which his father had loved to collect : but the multitude were not to be diverted from the objects which the bright recollections of their childhood and their dearest associations riveted in their minds. It therefore became politic to direct the current where it could not be stopt, and to apply the vehicle of popular rime to recording the deeds of holy men and scriptural histories; and thus by degrees to wean the populace from their heathen favourites. With this view, Louis caused a poetical translation or harmony of the New Testament to be made, which is supposed to be that of which part remains in the Cottonian Library, and of which other portions have been described, and selections given, from a MS. found by M. Gley at Bamberg, in his valuable little work "Langue et Literature des anciens Francs." With the same design Otfried a Benedictine monk of Weissenburg, who flourished between 840 and 870, lamenting over the vain and frivolous amusements of his flock, conquered his aversion for the rough idiom of the country, and published poetical versions of scriptural tales, which still exist, and were published by Schilter in his Thesaurus. Three stanzas of this work may be selected as a specimen:
Ludouuig ther snello
Thes uuisduames follo
Er Ostarrichi rihtit al
So Frankono Kuning scal.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Themo si jamer heili,
Joh salida gimeini,
Druhtin hohemo thaz guat
Joh freuuemo emmizen thaz muat.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Uuanta er ist deil Francko
Uuisero githanko
Uuisera redinu
Thaz duit er al mit ebinuu.
The following version by Herder, in modern German, will illustrate the affinity of the tongues:
Ludwig der schnelle
Der weisheitvolle,
Der Ostreich richtet all
Wie der Franken König soll.
Dem sei immer Heil
Und Seligkeit gemein,
Gott höh' ihm das Gut
Erfreu' ihm den Muth.
Denn er ist edler Franke
Weiser Gedanken
Weiser Reden
Thut alles mit Ebne (Gleichmuth).
In the same century we have a valuable Francic remain in the song of triumph for the victory of Louis III. over the Normans in 883. A few lines, selected as before, will suffice :--
Tho nam her skild indi sper,
Ellianlicho reit her :
Uuold her uuarer rahchon
Sina uuidarsahchon.
Tho ni uuas iz buro lango
Fand her thia Northmannon.
Gode lob; sageta.
Her siht thes her gereda.
Ther Kunig reit kuono,
Sang lioth frano,
Joh alle saman sungon
Kyrieleison!
Sang uuas gesungen,
Uuig uuas bigunnen,
Bluot skein in uuangon
Spilodunder Vrankon.
Which Bouterwek gives in modern German thus :--
Da nahm er Schild und Speer
Eilends ritt er;
Wollt' er wahrlich rächen
Seine widersacher (sich an ihnen).
Da nicht war es dauernd lange
Fand er die Normänner.
Gottlob! sagte (er).
Er sieht dass er begehrte.
Der König reitet kühn,
Sang (ein) Lied fromm,
Und alle zusammen sangen,
Kyrieleison!
Sang war gesungen,
Kampf war begonnen;
Blut schien in (den) Wangen
Spielender Franken.
The fragment of a song or legend in praise of St George, published by Sandwig, probably belongs to the first half of the 10th century: and in the 11th we have the poem in honour of St. Anno bishop of Cologne (who died in 1075), or, more properly speaking, a chronicle of the world, into which the poet's "copia verborum" seduced him from the more confined and less promising subject on which he professed to enter. In this piece are some passages of poetic merit; as, where the Deity is introduced viewing the perfection of his works, to which the sin of man alone is an exception: He sees--
Den manen unten sunnen
Die gebin ire liht mit wunnen.
Die sterrin bihaltent ire vart;
Si geberent vrost unte hizze so starc;
Daz fuir havit ufwert sinen zug,
Dunnir unte wint irin vlug,
Die wolken dragint den reginguz,
Nidir wendint wazzer irin vluz;
Mit blumin cierint sich diu lant,
Mit loube dekkit sich der walt,
Daz wilt habit den sinin ganc,
Scone is der vügilsanc:
Ein iwelich ding diu é noch havit,
Di emi Got van erist virgabit.
Newere die zuei gescephte,
Di her geschuph die bezziste,
Die virkerten sich in diu doleheit.
The joyous sun and moon
Their wonted light give forth.
The stars keep on their course,
And frost and heat their round;
Fire upwards holds its way,
Thunder and wind speed on,
And clouds pour forth their rain:
Down rushing stream the floods,
The flow'rs adorn the fields,
Green leaves bedeck the groves,
The beasts their courses run,
Soft rings the sweet bird's song:
All things obey the laws
That God creating gave,
Save the two latest born,
Whom noblest, best, he framed;
They spurn his high command,
And turn to folly's course.
In all this period it can hardly be supposed but that the taste for popular poetry remained uneffaced by the attempts made to divert it, and that it was not confined to themes of martial enterprise. As early as the reign of that gloomy monarch whom, with the French, we have honoured with the title of "Debonnaire," but whom the Germans more characteristically called "the pious," it appears to have been necessary to address a formal edict (see M. Schlegel's lectures) to the German nuns, restraining the indulgence of their passion for myne-lieder, or love-songs.
Thus was the ground gradually preparing for that bright harvest of lyric poetry which was so abundant in the 12th and 13th centuries. That the seed had been long and deeply sown, we cannot doubt :-- "Il n'appartient qu'à Jupiter de faire sortir de sa tête une Minerve toute armée," as M. Roquefort observes in the preface to his Glossary: yet we are sometimes told that this early school of German poetry was merely imitative, as arising out of the alliance between the Suabian emperors and the princes of Provence. It is easy, however, to see that the same causes which aroused the mind in other countries, operated as powerfully in Germany (we might go much further North if it were necessary); though foreign intercourse doubtless excited emulation, and even the disputes of Henry IV. and V. with the popes in the latter half of the 11th century, contributed to awaken the national spirit by bringing it into contact with that of other countries. The poetry of passion, of gay and gallant feeling, burst forth with all the freshness of novelty, and drove dullness into the shade for a season; though in Germany, as well as elsewhere, it returned when the flame of chivalry had died away, and the church resumed its benumbing influence over the mind.
During the reigns of the Saxon emperors, great progress was made in many departments of literature not within our view; but with the Suabian dynasty opens (at least so far as history has preserved its records) the splendid aera of early German poetry, which flourished most amidst the storms and dissensions that perpetually agitated the empire. In the beginning of the 12th century the Suabian family began its line of emperors with Conrad III. Frederic duke of Suabia, surnamed Barbarossa or Redbeard, was on the death of his uncle unanimously elected sovereign by the factious chieftains of Italy and Germany. For a time all seemed inclined to heal the divisions by which the empire had been so long harassed: but the Germanic body was composed of too discordant materials, and was too much exposed to the restless intrigues of the Papal court, to remain long in peace. Frederic steered a manly course through the difficulties which every where assailed him. He was an able and active monarch, a skilful general, and a shrewd politician; one who would (like many of his successors) have been a far greater prince if he had not been encumbered by the oppressive appendage of Italian possessions and dignities. He caught the religious as well as chivalric feeling of the age; but experience taught him to distinguish his efforts in the holy wars above those of his predecessors, by greater prudence and a more discerning policy. Germany for a long time resisted the infatuation of the first Crusades, and laughed at the needy crowds who thronged across its plains to their discomfiture: but Conrad was at last preached into joining the second crusade, after repeated and determined opposition to the calls of St Bernard. In that expedition Frederic served, and was a witness of the disastrous consequences of improvident zeal. The Saxon historian says, "Si non fuit bona, praedicta expeditio, pro dilatatione terminorum vel commoditate corporum, bona tamen fuit ad multarum salutem animarum." [Otto Frising. de Gestis Frider. I. Imp. lib. 1. c. 60.] and we may add, that it taught Frederic, if he could not resist the torrent of zeal, at least to temper and direct it by prudence. Accordingly, that part of the third crusade which he led was distinguished by discretion and politic precaution, more especially in preventing those from joining it who could not provide themselves with the means of subsistence, and in securing the respect and confidence of the people through whose territories he directed his march. If his sudden death in 1190 had not cut short his progress, the exertions of so able and experienced a general would most probably have been attended with highly successful results.
The rising spirit of German literature found in this great man, as in all the succeeding members of his family, a zealous patron: and in his reign the band of Minnesingers commences with Henry of Veldig, who is generally supposed to be the earliest in point of date of those names of note which have been handed down to us.*
*[Yet it is singular that even Henry of Veldig is found lamenting over the degeneracy of his age from the good old rules of 'rechten minne.'
Do man der rehten minne pflag
Da pflag man ouch der ehren;
Nu mag man naht und tag
Die bösen sitte leren;
Swer dis nu siht, und jens do sach,
O we! was der nu clagen mag
Tugende wend sich nu verkeren!
Bodmer's Collection I. 19.
"When true love was professed, then also was honour cultivated; now by night and by day evil manners are learnt.-- Alas! how may we who witness the present and witnessed the past, lament the decay of virtue!"]
Frederic had led an active life,-- he had roved through the fairy regions of the East, and had held his court in the poetic lands of the South of Europe; but while he admired the songs of the Provençaux, he loved and cultivated the muse of his native land; he rigidly enforced the use of its language for all court and state purposes; and Germany has to thank his patriotic hand for simulating her sons to a literary emulation of their cotemporaries.
His niece Richilda having married Raymond Berengar III. count of Provence, Frederic became intimately connected with that court; and Nostradamus relates how, on the confirmation at Turin, in 1162, of the investiture of Provence,"l'illustre Remond Berenguier (dict le jeune Comte de Barcelonne, et de Provence, fils de Berenguier Remond fils troisième de Doulce Comtesse de Provence,) accompagné d'une grande trouppe d'orateurs et poëtes Provensaux et des gentils-hommes de sa cour, avec la princesse Rixende ou Richilde sa femme, vint trouver l'Empereur, qui lui feist une grande bien-venue pour la bonne renommée de ses faits. -- E le Comte Remond Berenguier feist reciter plusiers beaux chants en langue Provensalle a ses poëtes en la presence de l'Empereur; lequel, du plaisir qu'il y print, estant esbay de leurs belles et plaisantes inventions et façon de rithmer, leur feist de beaux presens et feist une epigramme en langue Provensalle à la louange des toutes les nations qu'il avoit suyvies en ses victories, au quel epigramme il loue la langue Provensalle, disant ainsi;
Plas my cavallier Francés,
E la donna Catallana,
E l'onrar del Gynoés,
E la cour de Kastellana,
Lo cantar Provensallés,
E la dansa Trevizana,
E lo corps Aragonés,
E la perla (?) Julliana,
Los mans e cara d'Anglés,
E lo donzel de Thuscana."
The sense, though it is not very clear to what some of the lines refer, may be thus expressed:--
I like a 'cavalier Francés'
And a Catalonian dame;
The courtesy of the Genoese,
And Castilian dignity;
The Provence songs my ears to please,
And the dance of the Trevisan;
The graceful form of the Arragoneze,
And the pearl (?) of the Julian;
An English hand and face to see,
And a page of Tuscany.
This little piece is curious as a commentary on the manners of the age. It has by some been ascribed to Frederic II.; but probability is much in favour of its being composed by (or, as may perhaps be suspected, for) the elder Emperor. His successors were all brought up more or less in the habits and literature of foreign lands, and were themselves composers in more than one language. The epigram better suits the position of one who came fresh into the busy scene, and took a panoramic view of the objects that struck his attention; regarding the prospect around him as from a centre, without identifying himself with any part of it. Frederic I. was a very popular prince, and his memory is still preserved and connected with many local traditions. The ruins of his palace at Gelnhausen are said still to carry with them the traditional attachment of the neighbourhood; and even in the dark recesses of the Hartz forest, the legend places him in a subterraean palace in the caverns of the Kyffhaus mountain, his beard flowing on the ground, and himself reposing in a trance upon his marble throne, awakening only at intervals to reward any votary of song who seeks his lonely court.
Henry VI. partook of his father's spirit, and was himself a Minnesinger. But Frederic II. was the most ardent patron of literature. He was educated in Sicily, and his active exertions were directed towards imparting to his German subjects the benefit of the Southern schools. In Italy, where he almost constantly resided, he revived the academy of Salernum, promoted the study of Grecian and Arabic learning, and called to his court the most celebrated poets, orators and philosophers of the age. We have already seen one of his attempts in Italian song, of which he and his chancellor may be properly stiled the founders, though it must be confessed that he does not personally appear calculated to shine as a poet. He was also a writer in the Provençal tongue; and that his exertions in exciting a literary taste in Germany were successful is amply proved by the numerous writers who adorned his reign.
He, too, took a part in the wars of the Holy Land; and it is perhaps not descreditable to him, that while other monarchs marched as slaves, obedient to the will of the bishop of Rome, and under the promise of a heavenly recompense, Frederic toiled with no other reward than the ban of excommunication. His prudent policy, in spite of the treachery and calumny of the church, achieved more for the cause of the Christian armies than the exertions of the most favoured and bigoted of their leaders. His fault, says Denina, was, that "he knew not how to adapt himself to the opinions of the age: perhaps the force of political circumstances was opposed to his vast designs, and thus it was that the glory he acquired was far beneath what his rare talents were capable of achieving." "Had he but been a true Catholic," says the Dominican Salimbene, "and loved God, and the church, and his own soul, few of the rulers of this world would have been worthy to have been accounted equal unto him."
Some valuable memorials of this great monarch's talents and zeal for the promotion of knowledge survive in the correspondence of his learned chancellor Pietro delle Vigne, or Petrus de Vineis,
...... colui che tenni ambo le chiavi
Del cuor di Federigo.
DANTE, INF. xiii.
Pietro, whom we have already seen associated with his master in Italian song, was an able political coadjuator, and annoyed the court of Rome with energetic replies to its bulls, comprising and anticipating many of the most weighty arguments which the reformers long afterwards employed against the temporal power and corruption of the church. His untimely fate left a stain on Frederic's fame; but historians seem agreed that he was falsely accused, and that the Emperor, when too late, lamented the precipitate credulity with which he had listened to the treacherous arts employed by their mutual enemies.
Misfortunes fell frequent and heavy on the succeeding members of the house of Suabia. Conrad IV. struggled vainly against the storm; and Conrad the Younger, or Conradin, another Minnesinger, succeeded to the crown of Sicily and Naples only to be murdered on the scaffold, in 1268, by the united efforts of the Pope and Charles of Anjou. Both these monarchs, even in the midst of their troubles, retained their poetic taste; and Conradin's funeral anthem was sung by the Troubadour Barthelemi Zorgi, "un genils home de la ciutat de Venise."
Rodolph of Hapsburgh succeeded to the Imperial crown in 1273; and, though the flame which the fostering care of the Suabian princes had nourished continued, to a certain extent, to burn on till the close of the century, it is plain that it was gradually expiring. About the period of Rodolph's accession, we find Conrad of Wurtzburg, one of the most highly gifted of the Minnesingers, lamenting over the declining popularity of his art in the following plaintive lines, which are introductory to his history of the Trojan war :--
Man wil ungerne hören
Wol sprechen unde singen;...
Drum wil ich doch nicht lasse
Min sprechen und singen abe,
Swie kleine ich darum lones habe. ...
Ob nieman lebte mer denne ich,
Doch seite ich, und sunge,
Dur das mir selben clunge
Min rede und miner stimme schal.
Ich täte alsam die nachtegal,
Dü mit ir sanges töne,
Ir selben dicke schöne,
Die langen stunden kürzet:
Swen über sie gestürzet
Wird ein gezelt von loube,
So wirt von ir das toube
Gefilde lout esschellet.
--
Unwilling stays the throng
To hear the minstrel's song;
Yet cease I not to sing,
Though small the praise it bring;
Even if on desert waste
My lonely lot were cast,
Unto my harp, the same,
My numbers would I frame;
Though never ear were found
To hear the lonely sound,
Still should it echo round;
As the lone nightingale
Her tuneful strain sings on
To her sweet self alone,
Whiling away the hour
Deep in her leafy bow'r,
Where night by night she loves
Her music to prolong,
And makes the hills and groves
Re-echo to her song.
The commencement of the 14th century witnessed a total revolution in the literature of Germany. John Hadloub may be considered as the last distinguished ornament of that school which Henry of Veldig commenced. The church regained its power over the mind, and the pedantic rules of the "meisters" (masters, or professors of poetry), and of their "song schools" which now arose, effectually shackled the flights of fancy. Princes left off singing; courts no longer gathered together the minstrel tribes; Germany was cut off from its intercourse with Italy and Sicily; its freebooting age of second barbarism commenced; the whole face of society changed; and poetry speedily sunk, with very few exceptions, into the lowest depths of poverty and trifling.
It was not at the Imperial court only, however, that the taste for poetry was in its day of prosperity cultivated. "Germany about the time of Frederic II. began," as M. Schlegel in his Lectures observes, "to abound more than ever in petty princes; in sovereigns, whose dominions were too insigificant to occupy the whole of their attention, and who, therefore, were at full leisure to think of procuring for their courts the ornaments of music, poetry, and the arts. These were the real patrons of German literature. It was thus that vast assemblages of minstrels and poets were collected around the courts of the Landgrave of Thuringia, and still more of the Austrian Babenbergs." Suabia and German Switzerland seem to have been the principal sources whence the poetry of the Minnesingers flowed; and most of the authors from whom our specimens will be taken will be seen to spring from families belonging to those districts. St. Gall especially deserves commemoration, one of its abbots having even acquired fame for his skill in "Watchsongs," the nature of which class of compositions will be explained hereafter. But the same taste was more or less diffused all around, and there is every reason to believe that various other dialects were used by the Minnesingers, although nearly all that has come to us is Suabian. Henry of Veldig, for instance, was certainly a Low German.
Rudiger von Manesse*
*[Rudiger appears to have been an extraordinary man, who not only maintained correspondence with the most eminent men of his country, but held at his house a sort of academy or conversazione, where all the pieces of poetry which could be collected were examined, and those which were thought worthy were enrolled in his 'lieder-buoch.' The singular history of the invaluable treasure so formed is given in Bodmer's preface to the volume of selections from it, which he first published at Zurich, in 1748, under the title of 'Proben der alten Schwäbischen Poesie des 13ten Jahrhunderts.' The mode in which this sort of family album was compiled is related in a song by Hadloub, one of the last of the Minnesingers, who was himself patronized by the family of Manesse. The MS. (or at least one which answers to the description, and the identity of which Bodmer and succeeding German antiquaries assume with great probability) is repeatedly noticed during the 16th century, as seen at different places by various inquirers into the antiquities of German song, and was at last discovered to have found its way to the King's Library at Paris. The songs of each poet are introduced by an illumination, in which singular attention is paid to heraldic decoration. Each design seems to represent an event of the poet's life, or to be in some way illustrative of his character. A few will be engraved in a reduced size as ornamental accompaniments to this volume.]
Rudiger von Manesse (a senator of Zurich in the beginning of the 14th century) and his sons are the persons to whose taste and industry we are said to be indebted for the splendid MS. collection of lyric poets, now in the King's Library at Paris, which was printed at Zurich by Bodmer in 1758. Of course they were likely to use the dialect of their own province: it seems very probable, however, that the same pieces circulated in various dialects, and that they owe their permanent character to the whim of the collector, as many of the authors (particularly the one who stands in the highest rank -- Wolfram of Eschenbach) were unable even to write. To this cause it is perhaps to be attributed, too, that all the pieces in the Manesse MS. bear the same apparent age and perfection of language, although the work of poets at least a century and half distant point of time, and natives of provinces where various dialects were spoken. Some of the same songs are, it is said, to be found in the Thuringian dialect in a MS. collection at Jena. Kinderling, in his history of the Plattdeutsch, Nether-Saxon, or Low-German tongue ... mentions, among his specimens of the 13th century, three songs (published from a fragment of an ancient MS. collection of similar pieces), which are in Low-German dialects, and resemble closely the style and subjects of the Suabian minstrels. We may quote a couple of verses from the first, which is in the pure Nether-Saxon, and is probably the work of some Westphalian Minnesinger.
Twivel nicht du Leveste myn!
Lat allen Twivel ane syn!
Hert, Sinne unde Mot is allend dyn,
Des schaltu wol geloven my.
Ick wil min sulues nemen war,
Queme al de welt an eyner schar
Nen schoner konde komen da,
Ick wolde vil lever syn by dy. &c.
O doubt me not, thou dearest one!
Mistrust and chilling fears away!
Heart, sense and mind are all thine own,
Believe the faithful words I say.
To this my faith I pledge and plight :
Were all the world outspread for me,
No fairer maid could bless my sight,
Far rather would I rest by thee.
And what if care, if trial come?
What matter, so thy love be nigh?
And rest thee sure, if hence I roam,
Still turns my heart to thee and joy: &c.
Accidental circumstances alone probably have deprived us of a great variety of early poetry, of the same character, in all the various Teutonic dialects. Even the Dutch was, according to Kinderling, very early cultivated as a poetic language; much earlier indeed than Mr. Bowring seems to have been aware in his "Batavian Anthology." Klaas Kolyn, a monk of Egmond, about 1176 wrote a "Geschichte Historiael-Rym der eersten Graven van Holland," which alludes to older writers, whom he calls "Runers;"
(Wan die Runers ie ontbraken
Tie woizen scriban irrer zaken,)
It speaks too of the "bards" who had sung the ravages of the Normans, and mentions that there had, even in the author's time, been "bards" in Egmond.
The court of Herman Landgrave of Thuringia was a principal focus of attraction for the literature of his age; and it is therefore improbable that the Suabian dialect should have been exclusively adopted. Under the protection of this Landgrave (who died in 1228) flourished the celebrated Wolfram of Eschenbach, Henry of Ofterdingen, and Walther Vogelweide; and his court was the scene of the poetic battle or tournament of Wartburg, of which the German antiquarians have written so much, and as to which something may hereafter be said in this volume. Similar patronage was bestowed at the Austrian, Bohemian, and other courts; and the names of the Emperor Henry and some others of the Imperial family, of Count Frederic of Leiningen, Count Otho of Bottenloube, Otho IV. Margrave of Brandenburg, Wenzel king of Bohemia, Henry IV. duke of Breslau, John duke of Brabant, &c. make the German catalogue of royal and noble poets as distinguished as that of the Troubadours. The number of humbler minstrels is immense; but the few particulars of their personal history, which have been handed down, possess little interest. Our selections will exhibit specimens of the more celebrated; and of many even of these, little beside the name and date is now known.
During the Suabian aera were also written an immense number of romances, many of which possess great merit, and well deserve the laborious care bestowed of late by the German critics in editing and illustrating them. These are divided into two classes; the first being imitative of the French school; the second founded on the ancient legends peculiar to the Teutonic nations. In the first department, the labours of the German writers were unwearied; and it is curious to observe how generally and cotemporaneously the subjects of romance (wherever we are to seek their origin) were diffused. The Troubadour Rambaud d'Orange (who died probably about 1173) makes distinct allusions to the well known adventures of the Romance of Tristan; a chanson of Chrestien de Troyes (who died in 1191) turns not an inelegant compliment from one of its incidents:
(Ainques dou buvraige ne bui
Dont Tristan fut empoisonez;
Car plus me fait aimer, que lui,
Fins cuers, et bone volentez.)
and Henry of Veldig, the earliest known Minnesinger, was as nearly as possible at the same time (perhaps earlier, and of course long before the German vesion*
*[These sheets were in the printer's hands when the new edition of Warton's History of English Poetry appeared. The reader is referred to it, not only in connexion with the observations made above on the romance of Tristan (on which subject an excellent note will be found, vol. i. p. 181), but in relation to the romances of Titurel and Parcival, mentioned sup. p. 24. "The editor," in his preface (p. 71), has given some highly interesting particulars of the nature and origin of Kyot's Provençal poem as preserved by the German translator. The opportunity must not be omitted of bearing testimony to the very great merit of this new edition of a work now rendered doubly valuable. "The editor" brings to his task that intimate acquaintance with ancient Scandinavian and German literature which is so necessary to a full development of the subject, but in which the French and English antiquaries have hitherto been lamentably deficient.]
of the French romance was executed by Godfrey of Strasburg) making the same allusion in one of the most ancient German songs:
Tristan mueste sunder sinen dank
Stete sin der Kuniginne,
Wan in der poysun darzuo twanc
Mere dan diu kraft der minne:
Des sol mir diu guote danc
Wissen das ich solken tranc
Nie genam; und ich si doch minne
Bas danne er; und mac das sin
Wol getane,
Valsches ane,
La mich wesen din
Und bis du min!
--
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
Conceiv'd, dwells in my breast:
So may it be!
So constant may it rest!
Call me but thine
As thou art mine!
The Germans were not only translators of the French class of romances, but they employed the same materials in the composition of what may properly be called original productions. This is in general the character of the works of Wolfram of Eschenbach, which display great original genius at the same time that they excite astonishment at the extent of acquaintance with the literature both of North and South France, which could be acquired by a man, who, as has been before observed, is said not to have been able even to write. At the same time the appetite for romance which the prodigious quantity of works of this sort evinces, did not prevent the same writers from devoting equal attention to lais and fabliaux similar to those of the Trouveurs. In short, the literary tastes of every country of Europe seem to have been drawn into Germany as to a common centre, to be there pursued with a diligence and avidity almost incredible.
But the romances of the Teutonic cyclus are more valuable than those of the French school, inasmuch as they have served to preserve historical traditions, which most likely would have otherwise entirely perished. The selection of these materials for a new national class of romantic fiction, shows that the popular regard for such traditions was still strong, and at the same time evinces the original talent and discrimination of the men who were not content with imitating the fashionable topics of the day, but selected subjects of their own, so well calculated to perpetuate their fame. These romances furnish an interesting field of inquiry; but it is of great extent, and one into which it is not prudent for him to trust himself who does not pretend to sufficient acquaitance with the subject to enable him to speak with confidence; the English reader, too, has fortunately a great store of valuable information on the subject in the "Illustrations of Northern Antiquities," a book which has never received the support it deserves. A few observations on the most distinguished works of this sort seemed, however, proper, in order to fill up our sketch of the national literature of this singular period; and in the few extracts that will be made, the translations are in substance (though with some freedom of alteration) borrowed from that book.
The period in which is laid the historic basis of most of the Teutonic traditions adopted by the poets of the 12th and 13th centuries, extends as far back as that of Attila and the Hunnic conquest. That they were in substance tales which had formed the burden of popular songs in and probably long previously to the Carlovingian dynasty, seems highly probable; particularly since the discovery of the precious fragment of Hildibrant and Hathubrant, which has been before noticed as actually connecting and identifying the older traditions with the rifacciamenti of the Suabian times. These and similar stories had probably been preserved in Ostrogoth, Longobard, Francic and Saxon song; they had been popular at the court of Theoderic, and afterwards at that of Charlemagne; and the same subjects found their way into the Sagas of Scandinavia, where many of them now exist in nearly the same form as in the Suabian romances.
The "Nibelungen Lied," or "Song of the Nibelungen," is not only the most ancient in date, but the most perfect in its epos and execution. Almost every thing in the story is in proper keeping. The manners, tone, thoughts and actions are in unison, and bear testimony to an antiquity far beyond that of the present dress of the poem: and if anachronisms in facts or allusions sometimes appear, they are rather to be attributed to the remodelling and dressing up than to the substance of the fable. Its author can only be conjecturally fixed upon. It appears that Pelegrin bishop of Passau, who died in 991, collected the then current legends of the Nibelungen, which he committed to writing in the favourite Latin tongue, with the assistance of his scribe Conrad, whose name has occasioned the Suabian poem to be sometimes ascribed to Conrad of Wurtzburg, who lived long after. The present poem is most likely, to a great extent, founded on this Latin version.
Whoever was the author, his powers are undoubtedly of a very high order; he belongs, apparently, to the middle of the twelfth century; and from internal evidence, Henry of Ofterdingen is thought to have the fairest claim, though the probable time of his life does not exactly agree with this hypothesis. Some of the descriptive passages in the poem are written with considerable spirit; as, for instance, the appearance of Crimhilt;
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,
As now before his eyes
Stood forth that lady fair.
From her embroider'd vest
There glitter'd 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 lovelier 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,
Up rose that matchless fair;
And higher swell'd the soul
Of many a hero there.
Next in value are the pieces usually passing under the general title of the "Helden-buch," or "Book of Heroes." The greater part is attributed to the unwearying hand of Wolfram of Eschenbach, the review of whose life and works would in fact embrace almost every branch of the literature of his age. One of the pieces, entitled "Laurin, the Dwarf King," or "The Little Garden of Roses," is the work of his cotemporary Henry of Ofterdingen, and might be selected as the most sprightly and elegant specimen of this class of ancient romantic fiction. Nothing can be more airy and romantic than some of the descriptions which it contains; and it may perhaps be added, that it also derives very considerable interest from the circumstance of its embodying much of the leading machinery of our ancient popular stories, such as the magic girdle, the tarn-cap or invisible hat*, &c.
*[For a great deal of valuable information on these points I must again refer to the excellent preface of the editor of Warton. The little collection of "German Popular Stories," which he has thought worthy of his notice, only touched on a subject highly interesting no doubt, but requiring for its full development a depth of research far beyond my means: I would gladly leave it in the able hands into which my friend 'the editor's' preface shows that it has fallen.]
Similt, the heroine of the poem, sallies forth with Dietlieb her brother to revel in the festive jollity of spring under the linden-tree in the forest. In the midst of their gaiety she is carried off by the little king, who avails himself of the aid of his tarn-cap, which has the power of rendering its wearer invisible, and bears off his prize to his retreat :
He bore her to his cave
Where he ruled in royalty
O'er hill and valley wild
With his little chivalry.
Dietlieb and his knights pursue; and in their inquiries after the pygmy king, are informed of his exploits and power. They learn, especially, that his great pride is in a magnificent garden of roses, round which is drawn the protection of a silken line; and that any luckless wight who trespasses on his parterre rues the consequence of his aggression.
The tale is repeated to Dietrich [Theodoric] of Bern [Verona] and Wittich his friend, and they immediately determine to brave the little monarch by rifling his roses. On their arrival at the spot, however, Dietrich is ravished with the beauty of the scene: not so Wittich, who commences the work of destruction; the pride of the garden soon lies prostrate, and the heroes repose on the earth musing on their doughty exploit, when on a sudden the monarch appears;
Behold there came a little king
In warlike manner dight,
A king he was o'er many a land,
And Laurin was he hight.
A lance with gold entwined round
The little king did bear,
And on the lance a pennon gay
Wav'd flutt'ring in the air.
And thereupon two greyhounds fleet
Right seemly were pourtray'd,
And alway look'd as though they chas'd
The roebuck through the glade.
His courser bounded like a fawn
With golden trappings gay,
And costly gems, too, sparkled round,
Bright glittering as the day.
And in his hands the hero graps'd
Right firm the golden rein;
With ruby red the saddle gleam'd
As he prick'd o'er the plain .....
Around his waist a girdle fair
He wore of magic might,
The power of twelve the stoutest men
It gave him for the fight.
Cunning he was and deep in skill,
And when his wrath arose
The foe must be of mickle power
That could withstand his blows .....
And tall at times his stature grew
With spells of grammarie,
Then to the noblest princes he
A fellow meet might be .....
A crown of purest gold he bore
Upon his helmet bright,
With richer gems or finer gold
No mortal king is dight.
Upon the crown and on the helm
Birds sang their merry lay,
The nightingale and lark did chaunt
Their melodies so gay.
It seem'd as on the greenwood tree
They turn'd their minstrelsy,
By hand of master were they wrought
With spells of grammary.
A savage combat ensues; and when the king is obliged to yield to the superior force of Dietrich, he has recourse to the friendly tarn-cap, which removes him from sight, and enables him to strike with greater effect. Of this resource, however, accident deprives him, and at length a reconciliation is effected between the contending parties. The champions are then hospitably welcomed by the monarch at his palace in the forest, which is described in some very pretty poetry, though at too much length for our limits:
There all the livelong night and day
The birds full sweetly sang,
And through the forest and the plain
Their gentle measures rang.
For there they turn'd their melody,
And each one bore his part,
So that with merry minstrelsy
They cheer'd each hero's heart.
And o'er the plain there ranged free
Of beasts both wild and tame,
In merry gambols there they play'd
Full many a lusty game .....
The meadows, too, so lovely seem'd,
The flowers bloom'd so fair,
Certes the lord who ruled that plain
Could know nor woe nor care. &c.
It has already been remarked that several of the heroic traditions which form the burden of the German romances are to be found also in the early remains of Scandinavian literature; and it may be added that many of these subjcts are there elevated into a mythological character, not uncommonly acquired where the object is removed by a convenient spearation in point of time and space. All have probably one common terrestrial origin, though of a remote traditional antiquity; and it seems most likely that the German antiquarians are correct in attributing the literary cultivation of such materials in the furthest North to the influence of early German example. But the opportunity may be here taken of remarking that there are very early proofs of the original prevalence of poetic taste even among the most roving tribes of the North; and the song of Harald the Hardy, of the middle of the 11th century, precedes in date any of our specimens, either of Troubadour or German minstrelsy. Perhaps it would have found a more appropriate place in our notice of the Northern French poetry; for the reader will recollect that it belongs to the parent stock of those Normans who were then domesticated in France; and he will easily see that though they were about commencing there a new school of the art in a tongue adopted from their conquered subjects, yet the taste was one anterior to their migrations, only now transplanted into a more fruitful soil, and placed under the more genial influences of increasing civilization. While Harald was roaming on adventures that almost identify him with the Vikingr, and echoing the strains of a Scald, part of the same parent stock, "refined without being corrupted in a warmer climate," was, under Robert Guiscard, founding an active and enlightened dominion in Italy and Sicily, which, before the end of the century, comprised within its limits the trade of Amalphi, as well as the school of the united wisdom of the Christian and Mahometan world at Salernum, and soon completed the circle of Teutonic influence by co-operating with the policy and example of the German emperors to bring forward, as we have seen, the vernacular literature of Italy.
Harald, it is perhaps needless to say, was a Norwegian prince, who led his followers even to Africa, Constantinople, and the Holy Land; and his song is inspired by Ellisif or Elizabeth, the daughter of Jarisleif, a Russian prince. Mr. Herbert, in the second volume of his "Miscellaneous Poetry," has directed his talents to the illustration of Harald's muse; and from him we may quote the following elegant and spirited translation from the Icelandic of the Knytlinga Saga as printed in Bartholinus. His version is taken because it would be presumption to attempt another, and yet the piece can hardly be omitted altogether, in taking a general view of the early efforts of the barbaric schools of poetry.
My bark around Sicilia sail'd;
Then were we gallant, proud and strong;
The winged ship, by youths impell'd,
Skimm'd, as we hoped, the waves along:
My prowess, tried in martial field,
Like fruit to maiden fair shall yield!
With golden ring in Russia's land
To me the virgin plights her hand.
Fierce was the fight on Trondheim's heath;
I saw her sons to battle move;
Though few, upon that field of death
Long, long, our desperate warriors strove:
Young from my king in battle slain
I parted on that bloody plain.
With golden ring in Russia's land
To me the virgin plights her hand.
With vigorous arms the pump we plied,
Sixteen (no more) my dauntless crew,
And high and furious wax'd the tide;
O'er the deep bark its billows flew;
My prowess, tried in hour of need,
Alike with maiden fair shall speed.
With golden ring in Russia's land
To me the virgin plights her hand.
Eight feats I ken ;-- the sportive game --
The war array -- the fabrile art --
With fearless breast the waves I stem --
I press the steed -- I cast the dart --
O'er ice on slippery skates I glide --
My dexterous oar defies the tide.
With golden ring in Russia's land
To me the virgin plights her hand.
Let blooming maid and widow say,
Mid proud Byzantium's southern walls
What deeds we wrought at dawn of day!
What falchions sounded through their halls!
What blood distain'd each weighty spear!
Those feats are famous far and near.
With golden ring in Russia's land
To me the virgin plights her hand.
Where snow-clad Uplands rear their head,
My breath I drew mid bowmen strong;
But now my bark, the peasants' dread,
Kisses the sea its rocks among;
Mid barren isles, where ocean foam'd
Far from the tread of man I roam'd.
With golden ring in Russia's land
To me the virgin plights her hand.
But it is time to direct our attention to the lyric poetry of the Minnesingers, which should form the more peculiar object of these inquiries. Of this it may with truth be said that it combines and improves upon all the pleasing features of the Provençal muse, and is at the same time highly and distinctively characteristic of the more subdued and delicate tone of feeling which inspired the German minstrels. Indeed, nothing can breathe more clearly the sentiments of innocent and tender affection than many of these little productions. Narrow and circumscribed as the field of such poetry may appear, its charms are diversified by the varied attractions of natural beauty and the impassioned tones of feeling.
SEE PART 2 to finish.
Cotemporary, or nearly so, with the most celebrated Troubadours flourished the Minnesingers of Germany. Their poetry was, till of late, almost unknown out of their native land; yet it is decidedly superior to that of their more fortunate rivals. It is the primary object of the present volume to introduce these early ornaments of a kindred tongue to the English reader; on which account he will perhaps excuse rather more particularly details of their history.
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