Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/544

Rh Decline of chivalry. Litera- ture in the cities. 52.6 respect of the Germans for their own language. The preachers, however, were the principal founders of prose style. Preaching became about the middle of the 13th century an agency of great power in the life of Germany. A number of the clergy, dissatisﬁed with the technicalities of scholasticism, and with the mere forms under which spiritual aspiration was often crushed, strove to attain to a fresh vision of religious truth, and to kindle their own enthusiasm in the minds of others. Of this generous band the most popular was Brother Berthold, a Franciscan monk, a man of a. noble and commanding temper, and an orator of the highest rank. Love for the poor was his dominant motive, and he sometimes expressed it in language a modern socialist might envy. Having something of the imaginative glow of the minneszinger, he gave such colour to his abstract teaching as made it at once intelligible and attractive. Of a less poetical nature than Bertholr], Master Eckhart, the next early master of religious prose, was more deeply philosophical. Although familiar with the scholastic systems, he broke away from their method, and became the founder of the mystical school which was one of the most potent factors in preparing the way for the Reformation. Eckhart’s reasonings are sometimes hard to follow, but he is not a confused thinker; his obscurity arises rather from the nature of his themes than from his mode of handling them. He occasionally touches profound depths in the spiritual nature of man, and it is refreshing to pass from the formal hairsplitting of the scholastic philosophers to the large conceptions of a mind which obeys its own laws and is evidently in direct contact with the problems it seeks to solve. III. The Later Jliddle A_qe.—After the fall of the lfohenstaufen dynasty the age of chivalry in Germany virtually came to an end. The breaking up of the old duchies set free a large number of petty nobles from their allegiance to mediate lords; and as there was no longer a strong central authority, either to hold them in check or to provide them with such outlets for their energy as they had found in the crusades and in the imperial expeditions into Italy, nearly the whole class sank from the high level to which it had temporarily risen. Many knights became mere robbers, and thought themselves honourably employed in taking part in the innumerable little wars which shattered the prosperity of the nation. Men of this kind were not very likely to inherit the free and poetic spirit of Walther von der Vogelweide. In the course of the Hth and 15th centuries attempts were still made by Volkenstein, Muskatbliit, and other writers to imitate his style; but in their hands the lyre of the minnes'2'mger gave forth only feeble or discordant notes. For a long time the princes were no more inclined to literature than the nobles; they were too much occupied with mutual jealousies, and with incessant attempts to shake themselves free of the crown, to give heed to anything so removed from practical interests as poetry. It so happened that during this period the cities rose to a position of higher importance than they had ever before occupied. There was a while when it even seemed possible that by their leagues, and by alliance with those emperors who had insight enough to recognize their strength, they might become the preponderating element in the state. Driven from the castles of the princes and the towers of the nobles, literature took refuge in these young and growing centres of a vigorous life. Not one or two here and there, but multitudes of honest citizens, became possessed by the desire to distinguish themselves in the arts in which they had been so much surpassed by the nobles of a previous generation. Unfortunately, they had no literary training; they were not familiar with any great models; few of them had leisure for the cultivation of style; and the character of their G 1'] R M A N Y [LITEIL-'IUIu-J. daily employments was not such as to kindle thoughts that demand poetic utterance. At that time every trade had its guild; and they now formed guilds of poetry, the task of whose members was in intervals of leisure to pro- duce songs according to a body of strict rules, as in hours of business they produced shoes or leaves. The rules were called the “Tabulatur,” and the rank of each member was determined by his skill in applying them. The lowest stage was that of a man who had simply been received into the guild ; the highest, that of a master, who had invented a new melody. Between these were the scholar, the friend of the school, the singer, and the poet. Literature produced under such conditions could not have nmch vitality. It amused the versiﬁers, and de- veloped a certain keenness in the detection of outward faults; but the spirit of poetry was wanting, and there is hardly a “ meistersitnger” whose name is worthy of being remembered. Much more important than these tedious manufacturers of verse were the unknown authors of the earliest attempts at dramatic composition. In the 10th century Hroswitha, the abbess of Gandersheim, wrote Latin imitations of Terence ; but they were without influence on the p1'ogress of culture. The real beginnings of the modern drama were the crude representations of scriptural subjects with which the clergy strove to replace certain pagan festivals. These representations gradually passed into the “Mysteries” or “ Miracle Plays,” in which there was a rough endeavour to dramatize the events celebrated at Easter and other sacred seasons. They were acted at ﬁrst in churches, but after- wards in open courts and market places; and for many hours, sometimes day after day, they were listened to by enormous audiences. The fragment of a Swiss “ illystcry” of the 13th century has survived; but the earliest that has come down to 11s in a complete form is a play of the first half of the 14th century, treating of the parable of the ten virgins. Like those of France and England, these medi- zeval German dramas display little imagination ; and they are often astonishingly grotesque in their handling of the most awful themes. Along with them grew up what were known as “ Shrove Tuesday Plays,” dialogues setting forth some scene of noisy fun, such as a quarrel between a husband and wife, with a few wise saws interspersed. They were declaimed without much ceremony in the public room of an inn, or before the door of a prominent citizen, and gave ample occasion for impromptu wit. lTuremberg seems to have been particularly fond of “ Shrove Tuesday Plays,” for one of its poets, Hans Itosenbliit, who ﬂourished about the middle of the 15th century, was the most prolific author of them. A little later he was extensively imitated by Hans Folz, a Nuremberg barber and meistersitnger. ll eister- Sanger, Beginni ot' the drama. )1 iraele plays. By far the most interesting writers of the 14th century _[y_.1ic, were the mystics, who continued the movement started by Eckhart. Johannes Tauler of Strasburg (1300—61) had not the originality and force of his predecessor, but the ultimate mysteries of the world had an intense fascination for him, and his tender and sensitive spirit opened itself to lights which ﬁnd no way of entrance into more robust and logical intelleets. He did not in the main pass beyond the specu- lations of Eckhart, but he added grace and ﬁnish to their expression, and made them a greater popular power than they could have become through the master’s writings. Heinrich Suso, of Constance (1300-65), who has been called “ the minneszinger of the love of God,” made the doc- trines of Eckhart an occasion for the outpourings of a full and sometimes extravagant fancy. Eckhart’s teaching was also put into shape by an unknown author, whose Work was afterwards published by Luther under the title E3/92 de-utsch T/aeologia. To all these writers the phenomenal world is in its nature evil, but it is also unreal; the only reality