Referring now to the history of St. Cunigund, we read in the papal bull of Innocent III., by which she was canonized in the year 1200, that "she consecrated
her virginity to the Lord, and preserved it intact,—so that when at one time by the instigation of the enemy of mankind a suspicion had been raised against her, she, to prove her innocence, walked with bare feet over burning ploughshares, and came off unscathed." Again, we read in a slightly more recent German chronicle, as follows: "The Devil, who hates all the righteous, and is ever seeking to bring them to shame, stirred up the Emperor against his wife, persuading him, through a certain duke, that in contempt of her husband she had committed adultery with another man. The empress offered to undergo an ordeal, and a great many bishops came to see it carried out. Whereupon seven glowing ploughshares were laid on the ground, over which the empress was forced to walk in bare feet, to attest her innocence, ... which, when the king saw, he prostrated himself before her with all his nobles." Adalbert's Life of St. Henry (which is, at the latest, of the 12th century), agreeing in all essentials with these accounts, adds an important particular, explaining how it was that the Devil brought the queen's honor into question, namely, that he was seen by many to go in and out of her private chamber, in the likeness of a handsome young man.—St. Cunigund is said to have undergone the ordeal at Bamberg, in the year 1017. The story, however, is without foundation, not being mentioned by any contemporary writers, but first appearing in various legends, towards the year 1200.
But St. Cunigund is by no means the first German empress of whom the story under consideration is told. A writer contemporary with her, who has nothing to say about the miracle just recounted, relates some
thing very similar of another empress, one hundred and thirty years earlier, namely, of Richardis, wife of Charles III. The tale runs that this Charles, in the year 887, accused his queen of unlawful connection with a Bishop. Her Majesty offered to subject herself to the Judgment of God, either by duel or by the ordeal of burning ploughshares. It is not said that either test was applied, but only that the queen retired into a cloister which she had herself founded. This is the contemporary account. A century and a half later we are told that an ordeal by water was actually undergone, which again is changed by later writers into an ordeal by fire,—the empress passing through the flames in a waxed garment, without receiving the least harm; in memory of which, a day was kept, five centuries after, in honor of St. Richardis, in the monastery to which she withdrew.
Several other similar cases might be mentioned, but it will suffice to refer to only one more, more ancient than any of those already cited. Paulus Diaconus (who wrote about the year 800) relates that a Lombard queen, Gundiberg (of the 7th century), having been charged with infidelity, one of her servants asked permission of the king to fight in the lists for his mistress's honor, and conquered his antagonist in the presence of all the people. The same story is told, more in detail, by Aimoin, a somewhat more recent writer, of another Gundeberg, likewise of the 7th century. A Lombard nobleman makes insolent proposals to his queen, and meets with a most emphatic repulse. Upon this he goes to the king with a story that the queen has been three days conspiring to poison her husband, and put her accomplice in his place. The
tale is believed, and the queen shut up in prison. The Frankish king, a relation of the injured woman, remonstrates on the injustice of condemnation without trial, and the king consents to submit the question to a duel. The champion of innocence is victorious, and the real criminal is condignly punished. This form of the legend, the oldest of all that have been cited, approaches very near to the Danish and English ballads.
Our conclusion would therefore be, with Grundtvig, that the ballads of Sir Aldingar, Ravengaard and Memering, and the rest, are of common derivation with the legends of St. Cunigund, Gundeberg, &c., and that all these are offshoots of a story which, "beginning far back in the infancy of the Gothic race and their poetry, is continually turning up, now here and now there, without having a proper home in any definite time or assignable place." Many circumstances corroborative of this view might be added, but we must content ourselves with obviating a possible objection. An invariable feature in the story is the judicium Dei by which the innocence of the accused wife is established, but there is much difference in the various forms of the legend as to the kind of ordeal employed, and some minds may here find difficulty. A close observation, however, will show such a connection between the different accounts as to prove an original unity. Even the earlier legends of St. Cunigund do not agree on this point; one makes her to have walked over burning ploughshares, another to have carried red-hot iron in her hands. The Icelandic copy of the ballad has both of these: the queen "carries iron and walks on steel"; and there is also a "judgment by
iron bands." All these three tests are found in the Faroe ballad, which brings in Memering besides, and thus furnishes a transition to the Danish, which says nothing about the trial by fire, and has only the duel. Finally the English ballad completes the circle with the pile at which the queen was to be burned, in case she should not be able to prove her innocence by the duel.
At a time uncertain, but earlier than the 14th century, this legend was transplanted into the literature of Southern Europe. It is found in various Spanish chronicles, the earliest the Historia de Cataluña of Bernardo Desclot, written about 1300; also in a Provençal and a French chronicle of the 17th century. In most of these the part of the queen's champion is assigned to the well-known Raimund Berengar, Count of Barcelona, who, in the year 1113, took Majorca from the Moors. The popularity of the story is further proved by the Spanish romance, El Conde de Barcelona y la Emperatriz de Alemania; the French romance L'Histoire de Palanus, Comte de Lyon; and a novel of Bandello, the 44th of the Second Part. This last was re-written and published in 1713, with slight changes, as an original tale, by Mme de Fontaines (Histoire de la Comtesse de Savoie), whence Voltaire borrowed materials for two of his tragedies, Tancrède and Artémire.
By the circuitous route of Spain the story returns to England in a romance of the 15th century, The Erle of Tolous (Ritson, Metr. Rom. iii. p. 93). Nearly related with this romance is the German story-book (derived from the French) on which Hans Sachs founded his tragedy, Der Ritter Golmi mit der Herzo