Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/174

152 loyalty to truth itself as an ideal. Wolfram's poem of Parzival has this; and by virtue of this same ideal, Walter von der Vogelweide's judgments upon life and emperors and popes are whole and steady, unveiling the sham, condemning the lie and defying the liar. In them dawns the spirit of Luther and the German Reformation, with its love of truth stronger than its love of art.

Chronologically these last illustrations of German traits belong to the mediaeval time; and in fact the Nibelungenlied and Kudrun, and much more Wolfram's Parzival and Walter's poems, are mediaeval, because to some extent affected by that interplay of influences which made the mediaeval genius. On the other hand, the almost contemporaneous Norse Sagas and the somewhat older Eddic poems exhibit Teutonic traits in their northern integrity. For the Norse period of free and independent growth continued long after the distinctive barbarism of other Teutons had become mediaevalized. There resulted under the strenuous conditions of Norse life that unique heightening of energy which is manifested in the deeds of the Viking age and reflected in Norse literature.

This time of extreme activity opens in the eighth century, toward the end of which Viking ravagers began