from court to court, and there, in the presence of ladies, singing his songs to tunes of his own composing. His face is studious and melancholy; he accompanies himself with a lute. The logs are heaped high in the fire-place; the torches flare and smoke about the walls. In the wavering glare the cups of ale and trenchers loaded with flesh stand on the table. The knight and his followers - their armor thrown aside, but their leathern garments showing the stain and imprint from the steel that so often covers them—alternately revel and listen. Somewhat apart, on a dais perhaps, or in some overlooking balcony, sits the castle's mistress, with her ladies. The labor of the castle household goes forward. The yeoman strings his bow afresh, or replenishes his quivers; skins are sewed into garments; jesses are made for the falcons and leashes for the dogs; the ladies are busy with the embroidery of scarfs; the serving-women go in and out. Meanwhile the minstrel strikes vigorously his rude instrument, singing song after song, or reciting by the hour his rhythmical story. His voice rings often through a tumult; he closes his song, to resume it the next day if the storm prevents the chase, or when evening again comes round.

What the knight had in the castle the peasant and burgher in the plain below would imitate in a humbler way. At the other end of the scale, in the courts of princes, there was a scene far more brilliant, halls with magnificent hangings; guests in garments bought of merchants fresh from Venice, laden with splendid fabrics from the East; the gleam

of gold, the flash of jewels. When it happened that the castle lord, or the master of the hut, or the king in the palace, was a man of ready mind and lively fancy, we can understand how he too should have sometimes remembered strains, to repeat them, or indeed himself have invented lays. So did many a plain farmer; so did Walther von der Vogelweide and Hartmann von Aue; in a higher rank so did Duke Heinrich of Breslau, the Kaiser Friedrich II., and the princes, his sons, and, in another land, Richard Coeur de Lion.

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Of the poetry of the Hohenstauffen period a broad division into two classes may be made: (first, what was current among the people ;(second, what was liked in the courts and castles. To the popular poetry belong certain great epics, founded upon national traditions which for centuries, the monks had tried to crush out, -with partial success, and yet which, tough as the bears in the woods from which they came, in many instances lived on tenaciously in the mouths of the folk. In the courts and castles, however, when the crusades had begun to bring the Germans into contact with the outside world,—the chivalry of France sweeping along the highways and down the streams, and the Italian cities, with their finer life, becoming known,- there was an aping of foreign models; the old national material seemed far too rough, and the minstrels translated or rewrought the stories of troubadour and trouvère. The line of division between the two classes is not precise. Although it was utterly unfashionable, a national subject sometimes received a

hearing in a castle hall; a story of the troubadours sometimes reached a peasant's hearth. There are poets coming from both directions who approach sometimes stand on-the dividing line. Speaking generally, however, the broad division may be made into Court and Popular Poetry; the former is characterized by a preference for foreign subjects and a finer structure; the latter by a preference for Teutonic traditions, and by a rougher form. The Popular Poetry will be first considered.

1

August Koberstein: Geschichte der deutschen National Literatur.

CHAPTER II.

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.

Of the bequests made to us of the Popular Poetry of the time of the Hohenstauffen, by far the most important, in fact the most important literary memorial of any kind, is the epic of between nine and ten thousand lines known as the Nibelungen Lied. The manuscripts which have preserved for us the poem come from about the year 1200. For full a thousand years before that, however, many of the lays from which it was composed had been in existence; some indeed proceed from a still remoter antiquity, sung by primitive minstrels when the Germans were at their wildest, untouched by Christianity or civilization. These lays had been handed down orally, until at length a poet of genius elaborated them and intrusted them to parchment. What may have been that poet's name cannot be said with certainty. Although no doubt a man of courtly culture, he took the songs current on the lips of the people, racy with their life, adapting them with skill, while retaining all their spirit. The work of the unknown genius who wrote the Nibelungen Lied has come, in our time, to be prized immeasurably. It is set side by side with Homer; it is reverently studied by minds of the highest power; it has be

come a text-book in the schools, as containing figures worthy to become the ideals of youth.

Who are the Nibelungen, concerning whom the lay is written? It is a race of supernatural attributes who are possessed of a certain wonderful treasure or hoard. Siegfried, the hero of the poem, has wrested from them this treasure, and thereby obtained immeasurable wealth. He has also found a mantle which has power to make its wearer invisible, and a sword, "Balmung," a blade of the trustiest. "Vain were it to enquire where that Nibelungen land especially is; its very name is Nebelland, — mist-land. The Nibelungen, that muster in thousands and tens of thousands, though they march to the Rhine or Danube, and we see their strong limbs and shining armor, we could almost fancy to be children of the air."1

We cannot tell where their land is. Siegfried has subdued them and taken their treasure; henceforth he and his followers are called Nibelungen. In fact, to whomsoever, for the time being, the treasure has been transferred, the name Nibelungen is assigned. After Siegfried's death, when, as we shall see, the hoard falls to his slayers, they in turn are spoken of as the Nibelungen, the name passing with the possession. Before the opening of the poem, Siegfried, the hero, has made himself famous. He has not only conquered the mysterious Nibelungen, but slain in fight a remarkable dragon; bathing in his blood, he has made himself invulnerable.

1 Carlyle: The Nibelungen Lied.