Then followed the feuds of Grumbach and Cologne, the disputes of Jülich, and the disorders of Bohemia; one quarrel more contemptible than the other, and the leaders of both parties equally incapable. The end was the Thirty years' war.
CHAPTER VIII.
A BURGHER FAMILY.
(1488-1542.)
Our narrative descends from the highest sphere of German life to the lower circles, in the individual families of which the characteristic life of the time may be traced. A series of examples shall lead us from the hardships of the peasant to the life of the privileged classes.
From all times the peasantry have been the great source, from which fresh family vigour has ascended into the guilds of the cities and the closets of the learned. Therefore the basis of the prosperity of a people lies in the simple occupations of the peasant, in that human labour in which mind and body, work and rest, joy and sorrow, are regulated by Nature herself; whenever such labour is repressed, limited, and fettered, the whole nation becomes diseased. The destruction of the free peasant has more than once undermined the political existence of states, as for example in Poland; and indeed it caused the deadly weakness of the great Roman empire and the decay of the ancient world. The more abundantly and freely fresh vigour ascends from the lower strata into the higher circles, the more powerful and energetic will be the political life of the nation. And again, the less declining families are prevented, by artificial supports, from falling into the great mass of the people, the more rapid and vigorous will be the ascent of those who are struggling upwards.
It was by favouring in a remarkable degree the rise of families out of this great source of national vigour, that the Reformation revived the youth of the nation. The abolition of enforced celibacy was one of the greatest steps towards social progress; it secures still the ascendency of the Protestant over the Roman Catholic districts. Up to the time of Luther, the greatest portion of the German popular strength which arose from the cottage of the labourer, was destined to wither beneath the consecrating oil. It is true the marriage of priests had never entirely ceased during the middle ages. There was even a cardinal who was regularly married; his wife established herself with him, in spite of the Pope and College of Cardinals, and was able, when weeping by the side of the corpse, to relate to the sympathizing Romans the astounding fact that her husband had been always true to her. And in Germany, the housekeepers of the priests, the Papemeiers of Reineke Fuchs, formed a numerous and not unpretending class. But the country priests were obliged to buy tolerance for such unions from the bishop and curie. But however the higher ecclesiastical authorities may have favoured such a system, it was considered as immoral by conscientious pastors, and some even had scruples as to the propriety of their celebrating the mass. But the people looked with hatred and scorn on these profligate unions, and one of the greatest evils was, that the children remained as long as they lived under the curse of their birth; hardly any branch of trade was open to them; even the guilds of artisans would not receive them. They became either working men or vagrants. Yet such lasting unions of the Roman Catholic priests were generally, in the time of Luther, a benefit to their parishes, for we see in hundreds of pamphlets how recklessly the roving sensuality of the priests destroyed the family life of their parishes. With the Protestants, on the contrary, the ecclesiastical order became the medium by which the countryman rose to a higher sphere of activity. By his village life and little farm, the pastor became closely united with the peasantry, and was at the same time the preserver of the highest education of those centuries. So important has been the influence of the Protestant clergy on the intellectual development of Germany, that the ancestors, even to the third and fourth generation, of most of the great poets, artists, and learned men, and the intellectual members of the German bureaucracy, lived in a Protestant parsonage.
What follows will portray the life of a family which at the end of the fifteenth century migrated from the village to the city, and in the third generation became the ruling family in a great commercial town. It may be seen from this narrative, that though family life was not then deficient in hearty and naive cheerfulness, yet the conception of life and duty was rough, and the amount of benevolence small, though family feeling was strong.
United with violence and robbery, we find the commencement of a very modern system of police; the first prosecutions on account of offences of the press.
We are to a certain extent aware that three hundred years ago, the life of individuals was of less value than now; but we shall yet learn with astonishment from the old narrative, how frequently deeds of violence and blood disturbed the peace of households. We find that in a quiet burgher family the grandfather was the victim of premeditated murder; the father killed another in self-defence, and the son was attacked on the public road by highwaymen, one of whom he killed, but was mortally wounded by the other. Lastly, it will interest many to observe how the great theologian who then divided Christendom into two camps, exercised an influence as family counsellor even on the shores of the Baltic, and how by his word he brought the souls of strangers to obedience and reverence.