DEDICATION.
To my dear Friend Solomon Hertzel.
Without your knowledge I dedicate this work to you, who have taken so kind an interest in it, whose excellent library has so often helped when other sources failed, and where, as industrious collectors, we have examined so many old flying sheets and manuscripts.
To you also these records of the olden times, in which the private life and feelings of the writers are portrayed, are especially valuable, for by them a clear light is thrown on events in our political history which till now have been only occasionally noticed, and we may discover from them how the German people have felt, suffered, and lived.
If these records of individuals can be judiciously arranged according to periods and their position in life, it appears to me that an instructive insight may be obtained into the gradual development of the mind of the German people.
I have endeavoured to carry this out from the middle ages to the beginning of the present era.
What I have added of my own is simple explanation: I have avoided saying anything where it could be given in the original; only where the old records fail to give a complete picture have I supplied the deficiency.
As there are very few who can read the language of the fifteenth, or even the seventeenth, century with ease, I have thought it necessary to translate the records into modern German, but at the same time to preserve something of the old style.
Accept kindly then, my friend, what of right belongs to you, for your flag waves on every vessel that I launch; and I trust that the freight that I have this time prepared, may meet with your hearty approbation.
GUSTAV FREYTAG.