Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/593

 interest are the other popular epics, which also date from the beginning of the thirteenth century; they are mostly related to the saga-cycle concerning Dietrich von Bern. The most notable are the "Rosengarten," "Alpharts Tod," "Laurin," "Eckenlied," and "Rabenschlacht." Three other epics, "Ortnit," "Hugdietrich," and "Wolfdietrich," take their subjects from the Langobardic saga-cycle; in them the influence of the Crusades is very noticeable.

Lyric poetry also flourished brilliantly in this period. Lyric poetry of a popular kind seems to have existed in Austrian territory long before the Romance influence came in from the North-west; but it was under this Romance influence that the lyric attained its characteristic form.

Minne, i.e., the conventional cult of woman, is the leading motif, but other times, religious or political, are not wanting, and the Spruch, a poem of gnomic or sententious character, was also in great favour. Most of the minnesingers were of knightly rank. Tradition mentions Heinrich von Veldeke as the pioneer of minnesong. He was followed by Friedrich von Hansen, Heinrich von Morungen, and Reinmar von Hagenau. A disciple of the last-named, the Austrian, Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1165-1230), is the greatest and most versatile lyric poet of medieval Germany. He is equally great in the Minnelied and in the Spruch. He was a stanch partisan of the emperors in their fight against the papacy, and many of his poems are bitter invectives against pope and clergy. But he never attacked the doctrines of the Church; his religious fervour is attested by such poems as that in honour of the Trinity. With his successors the Minnesang enters on its decline. Ulrich von Lichtenstein's life, as revealed in his autobiography, "Frauendienst" (1255), shows to what absurdities the worship of woman could go. Neidhart von Reuenthal (d. about 1245) holds up to ridicule the rude life of the peasants and so introduces an element of coarseness into the aristocratic art. Lastly, Reinmar von Zweter (d. about. 1260) must be mentioned as a distinguished gnomic poet.

The didactic spirit, which now becomes prominent, is exhibited in longer poems, like "Der wälsche Gast" (1215) of an Italian priest Thomasin of Zirclaere, and especially in Freidank's "Bescheidenheit" (c. 1215-30), i.e., wisdom born of experience, a collection of rhymed sayings. Though these works are strictly pious in tone, outspoken criticism of papal and ecclesiastical matters is frequently indulged in.

Prose was very backward in this period. Latin was the language for history and law. About 1230 appeared the "Sachsenspiegel," a code of Saxon law written in Low German by Eike von Repgowe, and this example produced in Upper Germany the "Schwabenspiegel" (before 1280). The first chronicle in German prose, the "Sachsenchronik," was written by a Saxon cleric (before 1250).

A great impetus was given to German prose by the preaching of the mendicant friars, who were rising into prominence early in the thirteenth century. They reached the hearts of the people, on whom the aristocratic literature of chivalry had no influence. The sermons of David of Augsburg (d. 1272) are not preserved. His disciple, Berthold of Ratisbon (d. 1272), was immensely popular as a preacher. His dramatic, passionate eloquence, born of the sincerity of conviction, turned thousands of his hearers to repentance and a better life.

—The decline of the knightly caste brought with it a decline of the literature of which this caste had been the chief support. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were not favourable to the development of an artistic literature. The Empire was losing its power and drifting into anarchy, the emperors were bent chiefly on increasing their dynastic power, while the princes strove to make themselves independent of imperial authority. They were no longer patrons of poetry. The clergy also in great part, followed worldly pursuits and undermined the reverence in which they had been held. The rise of the cities and their commerce was fatal to the prestige of knighthood and its ideals; life became more practical, more utilitarian, less aesthetic, and as a consequence the didactic tone becomes more and more prominent in literature. The universities which sprung up in Germany during this period — the first being founded at Prague (1348) — widened the gap between the learned classes and the people and prepared the way for Humanism, which towards the end of the fifteenth century begins to be a force in German letters. The influence of Humanism was not wholly beneficial. It was a foreign institution and fostered Latin as the language of scholarship at the expense of the native idiom. Gradually the Humanists turned against the dominant Scholastic philosophy, and soon a spirit of revolt manifested itself against the Church and its authority. The schisms within the Church and the worldliness of many of its dignitaries stimulated this spirit, which took a violent form, notably in the Hussite movement. The way was thus prepared for the great Lutheran revolt.

The romance of chivalry degenerated into allegory and tedious description, of which a typical instance is the "Theuerdank" (1517), an allegorical description of Emperor Maximilian's courtship of Mary of Burgundy, written at the suggestion of the emperor himself. The heroic epic fared no better, its tone became coarse and vulgar. Rhymed chronicles still supplied the place of histories, the most noteworthy being the