1260.
The chief service of the Hohenstaufens to Germany lay in their direct and generous encouragement of art, learning and literature. They took up the work commenced by Charlemagne and so disastrously thwarted by his son Ludwig the Pious, and in the course of a hundred years they developed what might be called a golden age of architecture and epic poetry, so strongly does it contrast with the four centuries before and the three succeeding it. The immediate connection between Germany and Italy, where the most of Roman culture had survived and the higher forms of civilization were first restored, was in this single respect a great advantage to the former country. We cannot ascertain how many of the nobler characteristics of knighthood, in that age, sprang from the religious spirit which prompted the Crusades, and how many originated from intercourse with the refined and high-spirited Saracens; both elements, undoubtedly, tended to revive the almost forgotten love of poetry in the German race.
1270. GERMAN EPIC POEMS.
When the knights of Provence and Italy became as proud of their songs as of their feats of arms; when minstrels accompanied the court of Frederick II. and the Emperor himself wrote poems in rivalry with them; when the Duke of Austria and the Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia invited the best poets of the time to visit them and received them as distinguished guests, and when wandering minstrels and story-tellers repeated their works in a simpler form to the people everywhere, it was not long before a new literature was created. Walter von der Vogelweide, who accompanied Frederick II. to Jerusalem, wrote not only songs of love and poems in praise of Nature, but satires against the Pope and the priesthood. Godfrey of Strasburg produced an epic poem describing the times of king Arthur of the Round Table, and Wolfram of Eschenbach, in his "Parcival," celebrated the search for the Holy Grail; while inferior poets related the histories of Alexander the Great, the Siege of Troy, or Charlemagne's knight, Roland. Among the people arose the story of Reynard the Fox, and a multitude of fables; and finally, during the thirteenth century, was produced the celebrated Nibelungenlied, or Song of the Nibelungen, wherein traditions of Siegfried of the Netherlands, Theodoric the Ostrogoth and Attila with his Huns are mixed together in a powerful story of love, rivalry and revenge. The most of these poems are written in a Suabian dialect, which is now called the "Middle (or Mediæval) High-German."
Among the historical writers were Bishop Otto of Friesing, whose chronicles of the time are very valuable, and Saxo Grammaticus, in whose history of Denmark Shakspeare found the material for his play of Hamlet. Albertus Magnus, the Bishop of Ratisbon, was so distinguished as a mathematician and man of science that the people believed him to be a sorcerer. There was, in short, a general intellectual awakening throughout Germany, and, although afterwards discouraged by many of the 276 smaller powers, it was favored by others and could not be suppressed. Besides, greater changes were approaching. A hundred years after Frederick II.'s death gunpowder was discovered, and the common soldier became the equal of the knight. In another hundred years, Gutenberg invented printing, and then followed, rapidly, the Discovery of America and the Reformation.
CHAPTER XX.
FROM RUDOLF OF HAPSBURG TO LUDWIG THE BAVARIAN.
(1273—1347.)
- Rudolf of Hapsburg.
- —His Election as Emperor.
- —Meeting with Pope Gregory X.
- —War with Ottokar II. of Bohemia.
- —Rudolf's Victories.
- —Diet of Augsburg.
- —Suppression of Robber-Knights.
- —Rudolf's Second Marriage.
- —His Death.
- —His Character and Habits.
- —Adolf of Nassau elected.
- —His Rapacity and Dishonesty.
- —Albert of Hapsburg Rival Emperor.
- —Adolf's Death.
- —Albert's Character.
- —Quarrel with Pope Bonifacius.
- —Albert's Plans.
- —Revolt of the Swiss Cantons.
- —John Parricida murders the Emperor.
- —The Popes remove to Avignon.
- —Henry of Luxemburg elected Emperor.
- —His Efforts to restore Peace.
- —His Welcome to Italy, and Coronation.
- —He is Poisoned.
- —Ludwig of Bavaria elected.
- —Battle of Morgarten.
- —Frederick of Austria captured.
- —The Papal "Interdict."
- —Conspiracy of Leopold of Austria.
- —Ludwig's Visit to Italy.
- —His Superstition and Cowardice.
- —His Efforts to be reconciled to the Pope.
- —Treachery of Philip VI. of France.
- —The Convention at Rense.
- —Alliance with England.
- —Ludwig's Unpopularity.
- —Karl of Bohemia Rival Emperor.
- —Ludwig's Death.
- —The German Cities.
1272.