The Pictures of German Life Throughout History. Gustav Freytag

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      CHAPTER III.

      THE TRAVELLING STUDENT.

       Table of Contents

      (1509, and following years.)

      The fifteenth century passed away. To us Germans it appears an introduction to the great events of the following one,--a period of earnest but imperfect striving towards improvement. The excitement of the masses in the great half-Sclave population of the Roman empire had brought death and destruction over the German provinces, and the fanaticism of the Hussites had appeared to exhaust itself in the burning ruins of hundreds of cities and villages; but the same feeling had stirred the hearts of two generations, and in the next century the flame again blazed forth, more powerful and unquenchable, a pillar of fire to all Europe. The house of Luxemburg had passed away; its last heirs had mortgaged the Hungarian crown to the Austrian Hapsburgers, and bequeathed to them their claims to the wide and insecure acquisitions of their race. In the next century Charles V. made them the greatest dynasty of the world. It was a century of strife and reckless egotism, and on all sides arose knightly associations and confederacies; but it was also a time when the German mind, having become more practical in its tendencies, arrived at the greatest of all new discoveries,--the art of printing; when, in spite of fighting on the highways and bloody quarrels within the cities, commerce and trade began to flourish; when citizens and peasants acquired the habits of regular soldiers; when the German merchant established his supremacy on the northern seas, while the Italian navigator pressed on through the mists of boundless oceans, to unknown regions of the earth; finally, it was the time in which the Alpine mules bore, together with the spices of the East and the papal bulls, the manuscripts of a foreign nation, by means of which a new enlightenment was spread over Germany,--the early dawn of modern life.

      With the sixteenth century began the greatest spiritual movement that ever roused a nation. This century has for ever impressed its seal on the spirit and temper of the German people. A wonderful time, in which a great nation anxiously yearning after its God, sought peace for the burdened soul, and a moral and mental aim for a life hitherto so poor and joyless.

      This effort of the popular mind to found a new collective life by a deep apprehension of the eternal, produced a political development in Germany which is strikingly distinct from that of other nations. The whole powers of the nation were so engrossed in this passionate struggle, that it sank into a state of extreme exhaustion: the political concentration of Germany was delayed for centuries; most fearful civil wars were followed by a deathlike lassitude; German was divided from German, and a deep chasm was formed between the new and the middle ages. The result was, that a large portion of the German people, who might carry back their history in uninterrupted continuity up to the struggles of Arius and Arminus, now regard the time of the Hohenstaufen, and even the imperial government of the first Maximilian, as a dark tradition; for their state polity, their rights, and their municipal laws are hardly as old as those of the free states of North America. The oldest of the proud nations that arose from the ruins of the Roman empire, is now in many respects the youngest member of the European family. But whatever may have been the influence of the sixteenth century on the political formation of the fatherland, every German should look back to it with respect, for we owe to it all which now is our hope and pride; our power of self-sacrifice, our morality and freedom of mind, an irresistible impulse for truth, our art, and our unrivalled system of science, and lastly, the great obligation which our ancestors have imposed upon us of accomplishing what they failed in. It is especially now, in the midst of a political struggle for German national life, that it would be useful to us to consider how this struggle began three centuries and a half ago.

      Whoever attempts to examine the German mind at the beginning of the sixteenth century, will observe a secret restlessness, something like that of migratory birds when spring approaches; this indefinite impulse reproduced frequently the old German love of wandering. Many causes combined to make the poor restless and desirous of novelty. The number of vagrants, young and old, such as pedlers, pilgrims, beggars, and travelling students, was very great; many of the adventurers went to France, but the greater part to Italy.

      Wonderful reports came from distant lands. Beyond the Mediterranean, in the countries contiguous to Jerusalem (which was annually visited by the German pilgrims), a new race and a new and obnoxious religion had spread itself. Every pilgrim who came from the south related in the hostelries tales of the warlike power of the Turks, of their polygamy, of the Christian children whom they stole and brought up as slaves, and of danger to the Christian islands and seaports. On the other hand the fancy was led from the terrors of endless seas to the new gold lands,--countries like paradise, coloured tribes who knew nothing of God, and endless booty and dominion for believing Christians. To this was added the news from Italy itself,--how discontented the inhabitants were with the pope, how wanton the simony, and how wicked the princes of the Church.

      And those who brought these tidings into the city and country were no longer timid traders or poor pilgrims, but sunburnt hardy troopers, bold in aspect, and well accoutred; children of neighbours, and trustworthy men, who had accompanied the Emperor as mercenaries to Italy, where they had fought with Italians, Spaniards, and Swiss, and now returned home with all kinds of booty, gold in their purses, and the golden chains of knighthood round their necks. The youths of the village gazed with respect on the warrior who thrust his halberd into the ground before the inn, and took possession of the rooms for himself and his guests, as if he were a nobleman or a prince; for he, the peasant's son, had trodden under foot Italian knights, and dipped deep into the money coffers of Italian princes; had obtained full dispensation from the Pope for his deeds, and, it was even whispered, a secret blessing which made him invulnerable. The lower orders began for the first time to have an idea of their own strength and capacities; they felt that they also were men; the hunting-spear hung in their huts, and they carried the long knife in their belt. But what was their position at home? The use of their hands and their teams was required by the landed nobleman for his fields; to him belonged the forest and the game within it, and the fish in their waters; and when the peasant died, his heir was obliged to give up the best of his herd, or its worth in money. In every feud in which the nobleman was engaged they were the victims: the enemy's soldiers fell upon their cattle, and they themselves were shot down with arrows, and imprisoned in dark dungeons till they were able to pay ransom. The Church also sought after their sheaves and concealed money. Dishonest, cunning, and voluptuous were the deans, who rode through СКАЧАТЬ