Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/293

 POPULAR POETRY 281 rescues lier soul from the devils, and Jesus receives it into glory : ' Welcome, lPy beloved daughter ! Thou shalt be happy in My kingdom. The sin thou hast committed is forgiven thee, for Mary, My beloved mother, has interceded for thee ; St. Nicholas also ; therefore be in peace.' And the hymns of the earthly processions are united with the heavenly songs of joy. Even in the profane and coarse carnival songs by Hans Eosenpltit and the barber Hans Folz, where the riotous peasants, the avaricious Jews, the cheating tradesmen, and unworthy priests are so severely satirised, the Church and the faith are universally respected, and often defended, as we find in the case where Hans Folz in 1483, in the play entitled ' The Bohemian Error,' represents the Hussite heresy (which had many followers in Nuremberg) as an inheritance from Judas Iscariot. These carnival plays, which were so very popular at Nuremberg, and to a less degree at Ingolstadt, Bamberg, Ltibeck, Lucerne, and Basle, had nothing whatever in common with the Mystery Plays. The severest sarcasms or burlesques of the latter differed materially from the coarse jokes, the words of double meaning, and the dissoluteness of the former, in which not alone the rabble, but the young scions of the wealthy Nuremberg merchant princes, delighted. It is easy to understand how luxury should prevail in a citv like Nuremberg, which, according to Rosen- pliit, was peopled in the fifteenth century by seven different nationalities — Hungarians, Slavs, Turks, Arabs, French, English, and Hollanders.