The Pictures of German Life Throughout History. Gustav Freytag

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СКАЧАТЬ When we heard this terrible noise and tumult, we were woefully frightened, and every one that was able fled to the towers of the gate, church, or any other tower that was accessible; but we could not get into the stronghold, as the enemy had surrounded it, and whoever attempted to enter it was slain. As the people of the city thus concealed themselves, the Hussites went in great troops about the town; some rushed to the churches, others to the best houses; about eight came to my house and forced themselves up into the shop, and placed two of their number with naked swords at the door, and let no one enter the house till they had plundered and divided the whole of my shop and goods. My wife was at that time in the midst of her confinement, God be merciful to her, and she had in her room many valuable things, such as her bed-linen and her clothes; they treated her however with such respect, that no one entered her room. But two of them who were well known to her, and to whom she had shown great kindness, went to the door of her room, told her how they pitied her, and brought her secretly a coverlet and bed-cover, and said, 'Good woman, they will soon set fire to the city, therefore lose no time in being carried to the cellar with all that you desire to save, for we shall be off immediately.' When they had pillaged all the houses they would gladly have left the town, but could not, for the inhabitants who had taken refuge in the towers and gate-houses, threw down stones upon them, so that they could not pass through the gates, however much they wished it. At last they found an old gate which for many years had been walled up; this they broke open, and carried through it all their plunder, with which they loaded their waggons, and intended to return to Bohemia; they fired the city, and marched off to Landshut. When the troops of the provincial states assembled at Bögendorf beheld such a great smoke and fire, they said to one another, 'It is indeed at Bolkenhain, or in its neighbourhood;' then they started off at full speed for Landshut, and overtook their enemies. When therefore the Bohemians and Hussites began to retrace their steps, they perceived a great host of our town-people coming towards them over the Galgenberg; so they in great fear took to flight. Then our people fell upon them, and the men who had charge of the waggons loaded with our goods, abandoned them and fled for refuge into the woods; thus we deprived them of their plunder, and made many prisoners, both horse and foot, who were distributed among the cities."--So writes Martin of Bolkenhain.

      This endless war ruined German Silesia: the plains lay waste and desolate, and most of the German peasantry in this century of fire and sword sank into a state little removed from that of the Sclave serfs. The smaller cities were burnt down and impoverished, and only a few of the larger ones have since attained any degree of importance. The Silesian nobles became rude and predatory; they learnt from the Bohemians to steal cattle, to seize merchants and traders, and to levy contributions on the cities. The princes in their endless disputes with one another allied themselves sometimes with the Bohemians, and shared their booty with them; indeed, some of them took pleasure in a wild robber life, carrying it on even in their own country. These deeds of violence and lamentable struggles continued quite into the sixteenth century, till the Reformation gave a new bent to this lively and impressible race, and brought with it new sufferings.

      Through all these times the Silesians retained their love of orderly arrangements, even in the most desperate situations. When, for example, in the year 1488, Duke Hans of Sagen, one of the lawless characters who figured in the border wars, imprisoned seven honourable counsellors of his own city, Glogau, in a tower, and starved them to death because they had refused to act contrary to a solemn engagement; these seven martyrs, in a truly German manner, punctually and conscientiously kept a diary of their sufferings, and left in writing, prayers to the Almighty for mercy and a happy death; but it is a truly Silesian and almost modern trait, that the writer of this fearful journal had a certain gloomy pleasure in reflecting on his painful fate, and in the last lines he wrote before his death, he endeavoured to depict the destitution of his situation by mentioning that he had been obliged to use the black of the burnt wick as ink.^[9]

      In the century of the reformation, the Silesians, as might be expected of a people of such quick susceptibilities, were for the most part zealous for the new teaching. They had been bound by strong ties to the old Church, like most of the other races; for it was partly at the call of the Church that their ancestors had come into that country; notwithstanding which, almost the whole people freed themselves from Rome, and manfully ventured life and property for their convictions. And most severely was their constancy tried; for the supreme power, which had been in Polish and Bohemian hands, had now fallen into those of the House of Austria.^[10] Of all the countries under the power of the House of Hapsburg, Silesia is the only one which did not make a sacrifice of the new faith to the iron hand of reaction, but maintained a desperate resistance even into the eighteenth century. These were indeed two most unhappy centuries; the Thirty years' war laid the country waste, and not a third part of the former population escaped from the brutality of the soldiers, or from pestilence, or famine. But just at this time, when the whole of Germany had become one vast burial-ground, in which not even the loud wail of sorrow was heard, the genius of Silesia, as the representative of Germany, entered on the only domain in which advance was possible. Whilst they were still exchanging blows with the Imperial soldiers, they took pleasure in poetry and songs. Already the delicate and polished writings of the vapid Opitz gave pleasure amidst the coarse language of the camp; but truly refreshing to the heart was the short; humorous laugh of Logau, at a period when nothing was to be seen save sad or angry faces. The whole of the educated Silesians were eager to sympathize with Opitz, Logau, Gryphius, and Günther, and to vie with them in making heroic verses. Their songs have few charms for us, but we must always feel thankful to them that they had the power of giving expression to the ideal feelings of Germany. It was a great thing to be able to show at such a time, when the coarse and the commonplace overlaid the German life, that there was still something beautiful on earth, and a more intellectual enjoyment than could be found in dissolute revelry, and also that behind the grey and colourless sky which overspread the land, there was another world, full of brilliant colours, and of nobler and more refined feelings.

      But whilst the songs of the Silesian "Swans and Nightingales" were held in honour by the other German races, and the fame of the Silesian poets rose high, the worldly position of the Silesians themselves was lamentable. The Thirty years' war was followed by a century of persecution and oppression, which so diminished their energies, that at last it appeared as if they would fall into the same condition as that in which they had found the Sclaves,--a death-like apathy, and a future without hope. The Silesians never became utterly downcast, for they took every opportunity of enjoying themselves, but it was only in feasting and revelry. When, however, the misery of the country was at the highest, the Prussian drum sounded on the frontier from Müncheberg, and the trumpets of the Ziethen hussars pealed along the same roads on which five hundred years before the first song of the German colonists had resounded with the good words, "We come in God's name."

      The Germanizing of the country was not thoroughly accomplished till it was conquered by Prussia; it is only since that time that the Silesians have become conscious of being an integral part of the German nation. What was begun by the Sclave Piastens of the thirteenth, was concluded by the German Hohenzollern of the eighteenth, century.

      CHAPTER II.

      A GERMAN LADY OF THE ROYAL COURT.

       Table of Contents

      (about 1440.)

      Many incidents may be found in the descriptions of the struggles between the Silesians and Hussites, which are characteristic of the minds and manners of the people in their epic period. We are made sensible of the great dissimilarity between the past and present by the style of Martin's narration. In his scanty yet graphic description he gives us the facts, but makes no reflections on them. The writer undoubtedly feels how noble and manly was the death of the Pastor Megerlein; but he does not consider it necessary, and, indeed, seems to want the facility and confidence requisite, to give expression to his judgment.

      Decisions СКАЧАТЬ