"Even so did the monks of Altenberg now resolve to devolve upon the ass the business which had proved too weighty for themselves. The highly-honoured Neddy was conducted accordingly to the gate of the castle, laden with the money to be expended for the building, and with the insignia of the convent, and then left to take whatever way might in his wisdom seem good to him. "Slowly and deliberately did he pace down towards the valley, the monks following at a reverential distance. Now and then the sagacious animal stopped, and cropped a thistle, doubtless to give himself time for reflection, and occasionally he stood still and looked around, as if to consider the capabilities of the place. He went on till he entered a shady grove, that afforded a delicious refuge from the burning rays of the afternoon sun, and stopped where a bright rivulet, trickling from the Spechtshard, and marking its course by a strip of the liveliest green, fell into the beautiful Dhun. The monks watched him with breathless expectation, for here they thought would be a delightful spot, and they dreaded lest he should go farther. The respectable animal, after due consideration, slowly stooped and tasted the water; and then, that he might omit no means of forming a correct judgment, began to try a little of the fragrant grass that grew in rich abundance on the bank. At length he lay down, and having apparently quite made up his mind, rolled over "heels upwards," and gave vent to his feelings in the trumpet tones of a loud and joyful bray. His sonorous voice was drowned in the exulting psalms of the monks—and on this, the loveliest spot of the whole valley, the sacred edifice was erected."
If the ass was a great favourite with the monk, it was still more so with the populace. With no other animal was so much of the rough humour of the middle ages associated. It might be worth consideration how far the introduction of the ass in certain religious or semi-religious festivals—as in the feast of the ass—has aided in investing him with that peculiar grave humour which modern wits associate with him. Apropos of this feast of the ass, we may as well correct a general error which Robertson has led his readers into, when he describes it as "a festival in commemoration of the Virgin Mary's flight into Egypt." The Virgin Mary appears to have had nothing to do with it, and the ass from which the festival took its name was not that on which she fled into Egypt, but the ass of Balaam. We rely on the authority of Maitland, whose "Essays on the Dark Ages" we have before alluded to—a not very amiable writer, by the way, and far more acrimonious than the importance of his contributions to our knowledge entitles him to be, but evidently a very formidable antagonist to those who deal in loose and careless statements. "The dramatis personæ of this celebrated interlude," he tells us, "were miscellaneous enough. There were Jews and Gentiles, as the representatives of their several bodies—Moses and Aaron and the prophets—Virgilius Maro—Nebuchadnezzar—The Sibyl, &. &c. Among them, however, was Balaam on his ass; and this (not, one would think, the most important or striking part of the show) seems to have suited the popular taste, and given the name to the whole performance and festival. I should have supposed, that Nebuchadnezzar's delivering over the three children to his armed men, and then burning them in a furnace made on purpose, in the middle of the church, would have been a more imposing part of the spectacle; but I pretend not to decide in matters of taste, and certainly Balaam's ass appears to have been the favourite. The plan of the piece seems to have been, that each of the persons was called out in his turn to sing or say something suitable to his character, and among others, 'Balaam ornatus, sedens super asinam,' having spurs on his heels, and holding the reins in his hands, struck and spurred his ass, and a youth holding a sword in his hand, barred his progress. Whereupon another youth, under the belly of the ass, and speaking for the abused animal, cries out, 'Why, &c., &c.'"—in the well-known terms of the colloquy.
"Indeed the ass," says the same writer in a note, "seems to be always a favourite with the public, and to give the tone and title wherever he appears. In the twelfth century, an order of monks was formed whose humility (or at least their rule) did not permit them to ride on horseback. The public (I hope to the satisfaction of these humble men) entirely overlooked them, eclipsed as they were by the animals on which they rode, and called it ordo Asinorum."
There is an account here of "Prussia in the Old Times," which will be read with interest; the more so as we suspect it is a portion of history not very familiar to English readers. We mean the period from the conquest of Prussia, and its conversion to Christianity by the knights of the Teutonic Order, to the year 1526, when Albert, Grand-master of that order, made a treaty with Sigismund, king of Poland, with whom he had been at war, by which it was stipulated that Albert should hold the duchy as lay prince, doing homage—how times have changed!—to the king of Poland!
We shall devote our remaining space, however, to some extracts from Mrs P. Sinnett's account of the peasant war, the subject which occupies the whole of the second volume.
In every historical or biographical work which treats of the Reformation in Germany, there will be found a short, and only a short, notice of the peasant war, which broke out on the preaching of Luther, and of the fury of the anabaptists and others; and in every such notice the reader will find it uniformly stated that these disturbances and insurrections, though assuming a religious character, were in their origin substantially of a political or social nature, springing, in short, from the misery and destitution of the lower orders. But we do not know where the English reader will find this general statement so well verified, or so fully developed, as in the little work before us. In every part of Germany we see partial insurrections repeatedly taking place, all having the same unhappy origin; and our wonder is, not that the preaching of the Reformation should have communicated a new vitality to these insurrectionary movements, but that, after being allied with religious feeling, and religious sanction and enthusiasm, they were not still more tremendous in their results.
Here is one of the earliest of these insurrections: it is a type of the class. The chapter is headed
"THE DRUMMER OF NIKLASHAUSEN.
"Franconia, (the greatest part of which is now included in the kingdom of Bavaria) was the smallest of the circles of the empire, though excelling them all in fertility, and most of them in beauty. The valley of the Maine, which flows through it, is so rich in vineyards, that it has been said, it alone might furnish wine to all Germany; and the river also opens for it a communication with the Rhine, Holland, and the ocean, by which it might receive the produce of all other lands. Towards the north, where the hills of Thuringia, and the Pine Mountains are less productive, its comparative barrenness is compensated by its riches in minerals and wood. It is, in short, as a German writer says, 'a beautiful and blessed land,'—yet here it was that the peasantry were suffering the greatest extremities of want and oppression, and here began the first of the series of revolts that preceded the great outbreak of 1525. It was in the year 1476 that a shepherd lad of Wurzburg, named Hans Boheim, but commonly known as Hans the Drummer, or the piper—for he was in the habit of playing on both instruments at weddings, church festivals, and such occasions—began to meditate on all he saw and heard,—'to see visions, and to dream dreams;' and one day—it was about the time of mid-Lent—there appeared to him no less a person than the 'Glorious Queen of Heaven' herself. The life he had hitherto led now appeared profane and sinful; he burned his drum in the presence of the people, and began to preach to them to repent of their sins, 'for the kingdom of heaven was at hand;' and he commanded them at the same time to lay aside all costly attire, cords of silk and silver, pointed-toed shoes and all manner of vanity. The people hearkened to the new prophet, and great numbers came every holiday flocking to Niklashausen to hear him. Soon he enlarged his theme. 'The Blessed Virgin,' he said, 'had not only commanded him to preach the renunciation of all the pomps and vanities of the world, but likewise to announce the speedy abolition of all existing authorities; there should be no lords spiritual or temporal, neither prince nor pope, neither king nor kaiser; but all should be as brothers; that all taxes and tributes, tithes and dues, should be done away with; and wood and water, spring and meadow, be free to all men.'"
In reading this paragraph, one is at first struck with the superfluous incongruity of preaching against "costly attire and silk and silver cords" to the ragged and shoeless populace that formed the chief part of the drummer's audience. But a little reflection suggests that, in the first place, it gives a preacher a great hold over a mob, to inveigh against the sins of their superiors, and that, in the next place, there is a very easy transition from inveighing against the sins of the rich, to disputing their privileges, and comtemning their power and authority.