WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION
Woman, it has been said, always needs a background. She has one in early sixteenth century Germany a splendid background of material prosperity.
The great free cities were at the zenith of their power. Organized labor had triumphed. The guilds and the merchant corporations had done their work well. From the sturdy, self-respecting German handworker, modestly offering his own wares for sale, had been evolved the governing patrician. Prince, pope, emperor, even foreign potentates, bowed before the German patrician, for he held the purse strings of the world. Not a sovereign in all Europe dared enter into a campaign without permission of the Fuggers, the great merchant-bankers of Augsburg.
In their magnificent free cities the patricians of Germany lived in far more than royal splendor. The chronicler, Wimpheling, writes: "It was not an uncommon thing to eat from gold and silver plates at merchants' tables as I, myself, did in company with eleven other guests at Cologne."
Æneas Sylvius exclaims to Martin Mayer, Chancellor of Mainz: "How is it that even in your inns you always serve drinks in silver vessels? What shall I say of the knights and of the bits of their horses which are of pure gold, of their rings, girdles, and helmets blazing in gold, of the spears and sheaths studded thickly with diamonds? What riches are displayed in your altar decorations! How beautiful are the reliquaries set in pearls and gold! How magnificent your priests' vestments! What riches in your sacristies!"
Dress received much attention. Women revelled in embroideries of gold and silver, plaited skirts with expensive galloon borders, mantles of ermine, sable and marten; crowns of gold and precious stones; pearl embroidered smocks and the daintiest, finest linen ever woven. Even the burghers' wives and daughters braided gold and silver into their back hair and curls and wore gems of rare value.
At frequent intervals, sumptuary laws designed to lessen feminine extravagance were passed, but, like all such laws since the days of Eve's figleaf, they failed. The women invariably got the better of the city fathers. In Mainz one of the most beautiful young dames of the town, acting as the representative of a large number of society women, appealed, personally, to Prince Albert, Archbishop of Brandenburg, against a decree of the Council concerning feminine attire. That handsome, Lothario-priest, Prince Albert, was not the man to resist the pleading of a pretty woman. Dismissing his fair petitioner with a kiss and the gift of a beautiful jewelled bracelet, he at once ordered the repeal of the hateful law.
But the great sociological preacher, Geiler von Kaisersberg, was no debonair voluptuary. The fairest woman's face could never persuade him to look leniently upon feminine vanity. He shouts:
"The authorities ought to forbid the abominably short skirts that are worn! Look at the belts which encircle their waists, sometimes they are of silk, sometimes of gold, sometimes so costly that the jeweller charges from forty to fifty florins for making them. They drag long trains through the dirt without thinking of the nakedness of Christ among his poor. Some have so many dresses that, during the week, they have two dresses for each day, morning and afternoon. They have many others for dancing, and they would rather see them eaten by moths than give their cost to the poor. We see women letting their hair hang down their backs in cues like men, and wearing cock's feathers in the astoundingly ugly bonnets on their heads. What a shame and a sin! Do you not see there is no one without donkey ears on her head? It is a shame that women wear hats with ears. Some paint themselves many times a day and have false teeth and hair. O Woman! are you not fearful, with the hair of strangers on your heads? It may be the hair of some dead woman to the injury of your souls!"
The Renaissance was a period of transition a liberation of mental force which, from Italy, spread itself, invigoratingly, over the rest of Europe. The modern world was rolling into light. With a gun in his hands, the peasant soldier was the equal, physically at least, of his former master. The art of printing and the invention of cheap paper had given wings to thought and knowledge. Trade had penetrated strange lands. Every returning sailor and adventurer brought back tales more fascinating than fairy lore of mysterious golden islands newly discovered in the west. Wonder and imagination were awakened. Money was plentiful. In the German cities a leisure class existed. Conditions were ripe for culture, and Humanism came.