Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/356

 FRIEDRICH

304

FRIENDS

native land. Aftorwanls crossing to France, he came to Poitiers, where in answer to a vision, he sought out the relics of St. Hilarius, and built a church for their reception. St. Hilarius subsequently appeared to him in a dream, and commanded him to proceed to an island in the Rhine, in the territories of the Alaraanni. In obedience to this summons, Fridolin repaired to the " Emperor" Clovis, who granted him possession of the still unknown island, and thence proceeded through Helion, Strasburg, and Coire, founding churches in every district in honour of St. Hilarius. Reaching at last the island of Sackingen in the Rhine, he recognized in it the island indicated in the dream, and prepared to build a church there. The inhabitants of the banks of the Rhine, however, who used the island as a pastur- age for their cattle, mistook Fridolin for a cattle- robber and expelled him. On his production of Clovis's deed of gift, he was allowed to return, and to found a church and monastery on the island. He then resumed his missionary labours, founded the Scottish monastery in Constance, and extended his mission to Augsburg. He died on 6 March, and was buried at Sackingen. The writer of this legend professes to have derived his information from a biography, which he discovered in the cloister of Helera on the Moselle, also founded by Fridolin, and which, being unable to copy from want of parchment and ink, he had learned by heart.

This statement sounds very suspicious, and makes one conclude that Balther was compelled to rely on verbal tradition for the information recorded in his work. Not a single ancient author mentions Fridolin, the life has no proper historical chronological arrange- ment, and the enumeration of so many wonders and visions awakens distrust. Consequently, most mod- ern historians justly reject the life as unauthentic, and as having no historical foundation for the facts re- corded, while the older historians believed that it contained a germ of truth. In the early Middle Ages, there was certainly some connection between Sackin- gen and Poitiers, from which the former monastery received its relics, and this fact may have made the author connect Fridolin with the veneration of St. Hilarius of Poitiers, and the churches erected in his honour. The only portion of the life that can be regarded as historically tenable, is that Fridolin was an Irish missionary, who preached the Christian relig- ion in Gaul, and founded a monastery on the island of Sackingen in the Rhine. Concerning the date of these occurrences, we have no exact information. The monastery, however, was of great importance in the ninth century, since the earliest extant document concerning it states that on 10 February, 878, Charles the Fat presented to his wife Richardis the Monasteries of Siickmgen, of St. Felix and of Regula in Zurich.

Vita Fridolini, auctore Batthero monacko, in the following works: Colgan, Acta Sand. Hibernim (Louvain, 16-1.5), I. 481 sg.: MoNE. Qudlensammtung der badischen Landesgcschichte (Karlsruhe. 1845), I; ed. Krusch in Mon. Germ. Hist., Script, rer. Merowing., Ill, 351-69; Acta. SS., March, I, 433-441.

PoTTHAST, Bibliotheca historica medii cevi (Berlin, 1896), II, 1.322-23; Bibliotheca hagiographica latino, ed. Bollandists. I, 478; Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, I (7th ed., Berlin, 1904), 155; Hefele, Geachichte der EinfUhrung des Christenthums in SOitwestl. Deutschland (Tubingen. 1837); LOtolf, Die Glaubensboten der Schweiz vor St. Gallus (Lucerne, 1871). 267 sqq.; Leo, Der hi. Fridolin (Freiburg im Br., 1886); Heer, .S(. Fridolin. der Aposlel Alemnnniens (Zurich, 1889); VON Knonatt, Nochmals die Frage St. Fridolin in Ameioer fiir Schweizergeich. (1889), 377-81; Schdlte, Beitrage zur Kritik der Vita Fridolini, Jahrbuch fiir Schweizergesch., XVIII (1893), 134-152.

J. P. KiRSCH.

Friedrich von Hausen (Husen), medieval German poet, one of the earliest- of the minnesingers; date of l)irth unknown; d. (i May, 1190. His name is men- tioned frequently in log.d documont.s, for the first time in one from Mainz dated 1 171. He was born in middle Rhenish tcrrilorv, as is shown by his dialect, especially by his rhymes, hut several towns claim the honour of bemg his birthplace, and the question cannot be defi-

nitely decided. In 1175 he was in Italy, and again in 1186 in the suite of Henry VI. The next year he was present when Frederick I (Barbarossa) and Philip Augustus met between Mouzon and Yvois, and in 1 188 he was at ^\"orms in the company of Count Baldwin V of Hennegau. He accompanied the Emperor Fred- crick, by whom he was held in high esteem, on the crusade of 1189, and met his death at the battle of Philomelium, when he fell with his horse while pursu- ing the enemy. His popularity was great; the whole army, we are told, mourned his death.

Friedrich von Hausen is one of the earUest of the minnesingers who are known to have imitated F'rench models, with which he became acquainted on his trax'els through Burgundy and Provence. Together with Veldcke he introduced the Romance element into the minnesong. The Provenf;al influence is especially evident in the tlactylic rhythm of his verses, which re- sulted from the adoption into German of a Romance ten-syllable line with four or five stresses. His rhymes are still occasionally imperfect and his songs contain more than one strophe. Hansen's poetry is not at all popular, but rather artificial in form and often ab- struse in spirit. He is fond of dallying with a word. Like most of the troubadours or minnesingers he sings chiefly of love's pangs, but he never degenerates into efi'eminacy. Friedrich von Hansen's poems are printed in F. H. von der Hagen's "Minnesinger" (Leipzig, 1838, 4 vols.), I, 212-217; a selection may also be found in K. Lachmann and M. Haupt, "Des Minncsangs FriihHng" (Leipzig, 1888), 42 sqq.; in Friedrich PfafT, "Der Minnesang des 12 his 14 Jahr- hunderts" (Ktirschners Deutsche National-Litteratur, VIII, pt. I, 17-24); and in Karl Bartsch, "Deutsche Liederdichter des 12 his 14 Jahrhunderts" (4th edition, by W. Golther, Berlin, 1901).

Lehfeld, Ucbcr Friedrich vmi Hansen in Paul and Braune, Bdtrhge, II, 345-405; SpiRGATis, Die Lieder Friedrichs von Hausen (Tiibingen, 1876). and the critical introductions to the above-mentioned editions.

Arthur F. J. Remy.

Friends, Society op (Qu.\kers), the official desig- nation of an Anglo-American religious sect originally styling themselves " Children of Truth " and " Children of Light", but " in scorn by the world called Quakers". The founder of the sect, George Fox, son of a well-to- do weaver, was born at Fenny Drayton in Leicester- shire, England, July, 1624. His parents, upright people and strict adherents of the established religion, destined him for the Church; but since the boy, at an early period, felt a strong aversion to a "hireling ministry", he was, after receiving the bare rudiments of education, apprenticed to a shoemaker. He grew to manhood a pure and honest youth, free from the vices of his age, and "endued", says Sewel, "with a gravity and stayedness of mind seldom seen in chil- dren". In his nineteenth year, while at a fair with two friends, who were "professors" of religion, he was so shocked by a proposal they made him to join them in drinkini; lu<:ilths, that he abandoned their company. Returning lionie, lie spent a sleepless night, in the course of which he thought he heard a voice from heaven crying out to him: "Thou seest how young men go together into vanity, and old people into the earth; thou must forsake all, young and old, keep out of all, and be a stranger unto all." Interpreting the injunction literally. Fox left his father's house, penni- less and with Bible in hand to wander about the country in search of light. His mental anguish at times bordered on despair. He sought counsel from renowned "professors"; but their advice that he should take a wife, or sing psalms, or smoke tobacco, was not calculated to solve the problems which per- plexed his soul. Fi iiling no food or consolation in the teachings of the Church of ICngUuid or of the innumer- able dissenting .si'Cts which flooded the land, he was thrown back upon himself and forced to accept his