Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/313

 PROSE AND POPULAR READING 301 Mentz, Berthold von Henneberg, contains a remark- able passage on the spread of books and the rage of the day for writing. It reminds one of the words in the ' Seelenflihrer ' : ' Everybody nowadays wants to read and to write.' ' There is no end,' says Breidenbach, ' to the new books that are written. Learned and unlearned write poetry and make books — garrulous old women, twaddling old men, chattering sophists — all pride themselves that they can write. It has actu- ally come to this, that, in plain words, anyone who can use a pen, anyone who can put words together in writing, or can transpose and ?ms-arrange them, flatters himself he has made a new book.' Conspicuous amongst those who contributed to the development of German prose were Heinrich Steinhowel,, a doctor of Ulm, and the Wurtemberg Chancellor, Nicholas von Wyle, both of them translators of fictitious writing from Latin, French, and Italian. Even noble ladies, such as the Duchess Margaret of Lorraine, her daughter the Countess Elizabeth von Nassau-Saar- brticken, and the Archduchess Eleanor of Austria, dis- tinguished themselves by their translations. The latter published at Augsburg in 1483 the romaunt of Pontus and Sidonia, which, for love of her consort, the Arch- duke Sigmund, she had arranged from the French in order that ' much good learning and instruction and comparison might be obtained from it, especially by the young, so be they would hear and understand the good deeds and the great honour and virtue of their parents and ancestors.' l An extraordinary mass of material for narrative — 1 See Wackernagel, Litteratur, pp. 356, 357 ; Holland, pp. 140-142 ; Lindemann, History of German Literature.