Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/238

 226 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE CHAPTEB IV POrULAK LIFE AS REFLECTED BY ART During its period of glory German art was a faithful reflex of German life and character, and of all the lead- ing phenomena of this stirring and eventful age. All things that had any bearing on life were taken cogni- sance of by art. Whatever asserted itself in life found its highest expression in art. Amongst the ruling characteristics of German life at that time, next to religious earnestness, was fresh and hearty humour. The sport of the intellect with contrasts, which forms the kernel as it were of humour, if not exclusively the attribute of Christian art and literature, is at any rate a very marked feature of it. For as it was Christianity that first brought out in con- scious relief the height and depth of the human spirit, as well as the relations between human freedom and the eternal laws of God, and thus established a hrm centre round which the play with ' opposites ' might move, so long, therefore, as personal, domestic, and public life all rested on the basis of Christianity, so long as the Church was a centre of unity of the com- plicated organism of society in the Middle Ages, the humorous vein in the national life flowed on with vigour and freshness, branching out in every direction, and enlivening every department of life. Witness the p>icturesqueness and poetry of the popular manners,