It was not very long before he reached the courtyard, where all was still, and, stealing within the shadow of the wall, Fritz seated himself upon the same bench on which he had sat that other evening when the voice had spoken to him of the “greatest treasure.”
One might suppose that the Ivy had been waiting for him, so soon did it begin to speak to Fritz in those same rich, majestic tones. And now it told him many things about the men and women who lived in the castle long ago—about the early landgraves; but more particularly did it dwell upon the good Herman and his time. Among other stories it told how Elizabeth had, by accident, found on her husband the crusader’s cross, and at sight of it had fainted, since it meant that he would leave her.
“But,” the Ivy said, “when Ludwig explained to her the purpose of the crusades, Elizabeth not only consented to his going, but went with him a part way on his journey. However, Ludwig never reached the Holy Land, but died of a fever just as he was to set sail from Italy.”
This was the only allusion which the Ivy made to Saint Elizabeth; but it told Fritz of much that happened during the times in which she lived. It mentioned, for instance, how a knowledge of the arts and crafts had been brought by the crusaders from the East.
“There were no glass windows in the Wartburg,” the Ivy said, “until the time of the Landgrave Herman. He had glass panes put into the windows of the banquet-hall; but in the other windows the panes were all of mica; for glass, the art of making which was brought by the crusaders from the Orient, was very rare and costly.
“Now, while speaking of the East,” the Ivy went on to say, “I must tell you something about a certain great room in the Wartburg called the Armory. There you will find some rare specimens of old plate armour and suits of mail—these latter dating as far back as the crusades. One who gives it any thought can trace from these a gradual unfoldment in the history of armour. For instance, that of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was crude and very simple. The fifteenth century brought an increase in the use of plates; but it was in the sixteenth century, by a well-devised fitting together, that the highest development in armour was attained.”
Fritz found himself listening with keen interest to all that the Ivy told him; and, after a pause, it went on speaking of the armour and its history.
“Persons usually have a wrong conception of the armour worn in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,” the voice continued. “They picture the knight as going forth in a glittering mail shirt woven out of steel; while in reality his coat and hose, as well as his head-covering, were of leather with iron rings sewn on. Only in the East did they then understand the art of weaving the steel mail shirt out of rings. But as every separate ring had to be made by hand, such equipment was very costly; for wire drawing was not discovered until the fourteenth century.
“I wonder,” said the Ivy, after a moment’s silence, and so suddenly that Fritz was startled, “I wonder if you can tell me why the use of armour began to decline in the seventeenth century?”
“I am sorry to say that I haven’t the slightest idea,” was Fritz’s answer.