~326 min read • Updated Apr 2, 2026
Latin Revival in the Middle Ages
Every age is an age of imagination, for in human life bread alone is not enough and imagination is the main sustenance of life. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Europe were somewhat more romantic than most eras. Christian Europeans, who had inherited all the mysterious mythical beings of antiquity, accepted the Christian epic with all the beauty and terror of their own imagination. They created love and war, art and religion; they saw the Crusades and brought back a thousand legends and wonders from the East; and in any case they undertook to write the longest love and imaginary stories in human history.
The increase of wealth and leisure, the growth in the number of literate people among the common folk, the progress of cities and the middle class, the rise of universities, and the glorification of woman in religion and chivalry all combined to cause a boom in literature. As the number of schools increased, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Livy, Sallust, Lucan, Seneca, Statius, Juvenal, Quintilian, Suetonius, Apuleius, Sidonius, and even writers of licentiousness like Martial and Petronius illuminated the secure corners of monasteries or school environments and perhaps the interior of palaces with the light of their art. From Jerome to Alcuin, Heloise, and Hildebert, Christian people stole moments from their prayers to silently hum the music of the Aeneid. The University of Orléans especially cherished the classical works of pagan Rome, so much so that one horrified corrector complained that there they worshipped the ancient gods rather than Jesus or the Virgin Mary. The twelfth century was almost the Age of Ovid; it was then that Ovid displaced Virgil, who had become the court poet under Alcuin in Charlemagne’s time. Monks, noble ladies, and wandering scholars all read Ovid’s works such as the Metamorphoses, Art of Love, and Heroides with delight.
Medieval Latin Language and Historiography
From the study of these classical works a medieval Latin language emerged whose variety and interest is one of the most pleasing wonders of literary exploration. Saint Bernard, who placed no value on human intellectual virtues, wrote letters with amorous delicacy, reproachful eloquence, and a masterful style in Latin. The sermons of Pietro Damiani, Bernard, Abelard, and Berthold of Regensburg kept Latin alive as a living language.
Monastic chroniclers wrote in very poor Latin, yet they did not claim to satisfy aesthetic tastes. These monks primarily recorded all matters related to the development and history of their monasteries: elections, buildings, deaths of abbots, miracles, and monastic disputes. They added notes on eclipses, comets, droughts, floods, famines, plagues, and ominous signs of their time. Some extended their writings to include national and even international events. A few examined their sources with a critical eye or investigated causes; most were careless and added zeros to statistics to give them life. All dealt with miracles, and their credulity was touching. Thus French chroniclers believed that the original Trojans settled in France, and that Charlemagne had conquered Spain and captured Jerusalem. The Deeds of the Franks (c. 1100) gave a relatively honest description of the First Crusade, but the Deeds of the Romans (c. 1280) provided a mixture of history and legend for Chaucer, Shakespeare, and a thousand other storytellers and dreamers. Geoffrey of Monmouth turned the History of the Kings of Britain into a collection of national myths from which poets drew the legends of King Lear and Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Tristram, Perceval, and the Holy Grail. Nevertheless, living literature still consisted of the chatty and honest chronicles of Jocelin, monk of Bury St. Edmunds (d. 1200), and Salimbene of Parma (c. 1280).
Around 1208, Saxo Longus, later called Saxo Grammaticus, dedicated his Deeds of the Danes to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund. Although somewhat pompous and strangely full of credulity, the book offered a lively and clear narrative, and its events had more continuity than those of most other Western chronicles of the time. In the third book we encounter the story of Amleth (Hamlet), Prince of Jutland, whose uncle kills his father, seizes the throne, and marries his mother. Saxo says that Amleth “feigned stupidity and pretended to have no sense. This clever action saved his life.” The courtiers of the new fratricidal king tested Amleth by placing a beautiful woman in his path; he accepted her advances but won her love and loyalty. The courtiers tested him with cunning questions, but Amleth “mixed deceit and truth so wisely that none of his words could be accepted as truth.” From these hints Shakespeare created his play.
During these centuries five Latin historians, although retaining the chronicle style, rose from chronicling to true historiography. William of Malmesbury arranged the material in his two books Deeds of the Bishops and Deeds of the Kings of England to present an interesting, coherent, reliable, and fair story of the clergy and kings of Britain. Orderic Vitalis, born in Shrewsbury in northern England and dedicated to monastic service from childhood, was sent at age ten to the monastery of Saint-Évroul in Normandy, where he spent the remaining sixty-eight years of his life and never saw his parents again. He devoted eighteen years to writing a five-volume Ecclesiastical History. It is said that during those eighteen years he never stopped working except on very cold winter days when his fingers were too frozen to write. It is remarkable how a man so limited by environment could write so well about diverse matters, both spiritual and secular, plus incidental notes on the history of literature, customs, and daily life. The Bishop of Freising in his book On the Two Cities recounted the history of religion and the secular world from Adam to 1146 and proudly wrote a biography of his nephew Frederick Barbarossa, though the hero had not yet reached the midpoint of his activity when the historian died. William of Tyre, a Frenchman born in Palestine, rose to chancellor in the court of Baldwin IV, King of Christian Jerusalem, and then to Archbishop of Tyre. He learned French, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and some Hebrew and wrote in elegant Latin the History of Events Beyond the Sea, the most reliable source on the early stages of the Crusades. Everywhere in narrating events he sought natural causes, and the fairness with which he described the qualities of Nur ad-Din and Saladin helped create the good opinion that Christian Europe formed of these two infidels. Matthew Paris was a monk of St. Albans in England. As historian of his monastery and then as court historian to King Henry III of England, he undertook to write his interesting book Chronica Majora between 1235 and 1259. Matthew wrote clearly, precisely, and with unexpected prejudices. He condemned greed because he believed it had “alienated people from the Pope” and sided with Frederick II in the war between the papacy and the emperor. He filled his pages with descriptions of miracles and told the story of the Wandering Jew (1228), but he candidly wrote how the people of London watched with doubt when drops of Christ’s blood were transferred to Westminster Abbey (1247). Matthew Paris drew several maps of England in his book, the finest of their kind in that age; the drawings and illustrations within it were probably his own work. We admire his diligence and knowledge, but the portrait he drew of the Prophet Muhammad (1236) is a striking illustration of how little a literate Christian could know of Islamic history.
The greatest historians of this period were two Frenchmen who both wrote in their own language and shared with the troubadours and trouvères of the age the honor of making French a literary language. Geoffroy de Villehardouin was a noble warrior with little formal education, but precisely because he knew nothing of the rhetorical tricks of the schools, he wrote his History of the Conquest of Constantinople (1207) in a style of French whose fluency, simplicity, and precision free of eloquence made it one of the classical models of historiography. Of course the importance of the book does not come from Villehardouin’s impartiality; his involvement in the Fourth Crusade was far too great for him to view that unprecedented betrayal with complete detachment; yet because he had personally taken part and observed and felt the events so closely, his book gained a freshness that partly protected it from the ravages of time. Almost a century later another Frenchman, Jean Sire de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, after serving Louis IX on crusade and in France, wrote his History of Saint Louis (1309) at the age of eighty-five. We are grateful to him for describing ordinary historical figures with candid honesty free of affectation and for recounting in full detail the interesting tales and customs of his time; thanks to his writings we become so familiar with the bitter taste of the age that even Villehardouin’s pages cannot create such a feeling. When he has mortgaged almost all his property and prepared for the crusade, we leave his palace with him; he himself explains that he dared not look back, fearing that seeing his wife and children who had bowed their heads behind him and whom he might never see again would break his heart. Joinville did not have Villehardouin’s sharp and subtle mind, but he was a sensible man and knew that the chaste King of France was made of the same clay as other humans. When Louis again invited him to join a crusade, Joinville, seeing that nothing would come of this great journey, refused to go, and when the chaste king asked him, “If you were to be a leper or commit one of the mortal sins, which of the two would you choose?”:
I, who had never lied to him, answered that in my view committing thirty mortal sins would be better than being a leper. When the monks left his presence, he called me alone to him, ordered me to sit at his feet, and said, “How could you say such a thing?” … And I told the king that I would say the same again. And he replied, “You spoke hastily and foolishly. For you must know that no leper is more horrible than a man who has committed a great sin.” … He asked me whether I had washed the feet of the poor on Maundy Thursday. I said, “My lord, it would make me sick. I will not wash the feet of such lowly persons.” The king said, “Truly you have spoken unwisely, for what God did for our instruction you should not consider beneath you. Therefore I pray for you that first for the love of God and then for love of me you may accustom yourself to washing the feet of the poor.”
But the lives of all saints were not as honest as this one. The concept of history and rational conscience in the Middle Ages was so immature and imperfect that the authors of these edifying accounts apparently felt that if their readers took these details as literal truth and accepted them, much good would result and little harm would be done to anyone. Perhaps the authors in most cases heard stories that were circulating orally and believed what they had heard was true. If we accept the lives of the saints simply as a collection of legends, we will find them full of charm and interesting points. For example, consider how Saint Christopher entered the ranks of the saints. At first he was a giant six and a half meters tall who came from Canaan; he entered the service of a king because he had heard that this king was the most powerful man in the world. One day when the devil’s name was mentioned, the king crossed himself; Christopher concluded that the devil was stronger than the king, and so he bound himself to the devil’s service, but as soon as he saw a cross by the roadside the devil fled, and Christopher, having realized by reason that Jesus Christ must be stronger than the devil, dedicated himself to Jesus. Christopher found it difficult to fast during Christian Lent because he had such a large body; moreover, his large tongue stumbled when reading even the simplest prayers. A chaste hermit placed him beside a rushing river whose waters drowned many who tried to cross it every year; Christopher carried travelers on his shoulders and transported them safely from one side of the river to the other without getting wet or harmed. One day Christopher carried a child on his shoulders; he asked why the child was so heavy; the child replied that he carried the weight of the world. And when they safely reached the other side, the child thanked Christopher and said, “I am Jesus Christ,” and disappeared; at that moment Christopher’s staff, which he had planted in the sand, suddenly burst into bloom. But let us see who Saint George, the patron saint of Britain, was and where he came from. Near Silene in Libya there was a dragon whose breath was poisonous; to protect themselves from the dragon’s venom, the villagers once a year by lot chose a young boy or maiden and made him or her the dragon’s food. Once the lot fell upon the king’s virgin daughter. When the appointed day came, the maiden went to the pond where the dragon lived. Suddenly Saint George saw her and asked why she was weeping. The maiden said, “O young man, I am sure you have a great and noble heart, but quickly go your way and leave me alone.” George refused and forced the girl to answer. And when he learned the story, he told her, “Have no fear, for I will help you in the name of Jesus Christ.” At that moment the dragon raised its head from the water. George made the sign of the cross upon himself, commended himself to Christ, attacked, and thrust his spear into the creature’s breast. Then he told the maiden to throw her girdle around the wounded dragon’s neck. She did so, and the dragon, like any hero who surrenders to so powerful a spell, thereafter blindly followed the maiden everywhere. These stories and other delightful legends were collected around 1290 by Jacopo da Varagine, Archbishop of Genoa, who related a story for every day of the year dedicated to a saint, and called his collection Readings on the Saints.
Jacopo’s collection was very popular with medieval readers. Everyone called the book the Golden Legend. The Church declared that some of these stories could not be believed, but the people accepted them all, loved them, and perhaps were more deceived about life than the simple-minded people of our own age who eagerly read popular legends.
Revival of Drama
Classical drama had died before the Middle Ages began, having degenerated from its ancient form into pantomime and farce and finally giving way to exciting spectacles of chivalry and animal combats. Two lines of performance that drew from ancient art and preserved continuity remained: the first was a set of wordless rituals connected with agricultural festivals of the peoples; the second was farces performed by wandering minstrels and jesters in noble palaces or village squares.
But in the Middle Ages, as in ancient Greece, the main source of drama was collective religious prayer and worship. The Mass itself was considered a majestic form of drama; the sanctuary of the church was a sacred stage for this performance; those responsible for its execution all wore symbolic costumes; the priest and his attendants engaged in dialogue; the responses exchanged between the priest and the choir or between different groups of choristers exactly mirrored the same evolutionary line of drama that in ancient Greece had turned “dialogue” into sacred Dionysian performances. In the ceremonies of certain holy days the dramatic element was markedly strengthened and completed. During Christmas, in certain eleventh-century rituals, people dressed as shepherds entered the church, and a boy among the choristers playing the role of the “angel” announced the birth of Jesus to them, and all worshipped a wax or plaster image of the infant; from an eastern door of the church three “kings” entered and an artificial star drawn by a wire above their heads guided the three to the manger that was the birthplace of Christ. On December 28 some churches arranged a “lament” representing the “martyrdom of the Christian innocents”: the choir boys moved together through the aisles and nave, threw themselves on the ground as if slain by King Herod, rose from the ground, and then climbed the steps of the sanctuary as a sign of ascending to the heavenly paradise. The oldest surviving example of such a Passion play was a work in the style of Euripides written by Gregory of Nazianzus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in 380, and from that date until now the Passion play has preserved its influence among Christian peoples. As far as recorded history shows, the first performance of this kind before a spectator audience was in Siena in 1200; it is likely that such plays were presented to the people long before this date.
Just as the Church used architecture, sculpture, painting, and music to implant the important events of the Christian epic in people’s minds, in the same way it tried to appeal to the Christian imagination and make the flame of their faith burn brighter by adding to the splendor and details of the dramatic aspects of the great Christian festivals. Sometimes “tropes” or texts created specifically to add musical details to the liturgy were turned into small plays; for example, in the monastery of Saint Gall a tenth-century manuscript for Easter rituals was found that contained instructions for the choristers: it divided the group into angels and the three Marys and assigned each a role as follows:
Angels: O servants of Christ, whom do you seek in this tomb?
Three Marys: This host of cherubim, we seek Christ who was crucified.
Angels: He is not here; he has risen again as he foretold. Go and proclaim that he is risen.
All choristers: Alleluia, the Lord is risen.
Gradually from the twelfth century onward religious plays became too complex and elaborate to be presented inside covered spaces. A platform was built outside the church area and the play was performed with actors chosen from the people who had been trained to memorize long roles. The oldest surviving example of this type of play is the Play of Adam from the twelfth century, written in French with “stage directions” in red ink and in Latin for the players.
In this play Adam and Eve, dressed in white, are represented in the Garden of Eden artificially constructed with flowers and plants in front of the church; devils appear wearing tight red trousers that from that time onward became characteristic of these evil beings in the theater; they run through the audience; twist their bodies; and make horrible grimaces. Then these creatures first offer the forbidden fruit to Adam, who refuses, and then give it to Eve, who accepts; and finally Eve persuades Adam to eat the fruit. In this way the devils bind Adam and Eve, who have disobeyed God’s command by eating of the tree of knowledge, with iron chains and drag them toward hell. Hell in this play is a hole in the ground from which the joyful voices of the damned are heard. In the second act Cain attempts to kill Abel and says to him, “Abel, you are a dead man.” Abel asks, “Why am I a dead man?” Cain says, “Do you want to know why I want to kill you … I will tell you why. Because you pay too much attention to yourself before God.” Then Cain throws himself upon Abel and strikes him with the intent to kill. But the author of the Play of Adam is merciful, for within the “stage directions” he has written for the players he has included the sentence that “Abel must place a quilt under his clothing so that the blows struck upon him do not take effect.”
Plays based on events from the Bible were called mysteries (from the Latin ministerium, meaning “service”), whose purpose was to embody and make real past events, which is what the word “drama” came to mean. Wherever the story concerned events after the Bible it was called a miracle play, which usually dealt with the wonderful deeds of the Virgin Mary or the saints. Hilary, one of Abelard’s students, composed several short plays (c. 1125) that were a mixture of Latin and French. By the middle of the thirteenth century vernacular languages had become the means by which these “miracles” were regularly presented to the common people; wit and humor, which grew wider in scope day by day, played an important part in these plays; and their subjects became increasingly concerned with non-religious matters.
Meanwhile farces developed independently toward drama. This evolution is well illustrated by two short plays that have come down to us from those centuries and were written by a hunchback from Arras named Adam de la Halle (c. 1260). One of them, the Play of Adam, is about the author himself. His intention was to become a priest, but he falls in love with a beautiful woman named Marie. “It was a beautiful and shining day in summer, mild and pleasant with the soul-stirring songs of birds. In the high woods near the stream … my eyes fell upon the face of a maiden who is now my wife, the same one who now has a pale and yellow face. … The desire I had for her is now satisfied.” Then he frankly and pleasantly tells this to his wife and prepares to travel to Paris and enter the university there. Then the author, in a disconnected and meaningless way, introduces a physician, a madman, a monk who begs from people and promises them miracles, and a group of fairies who are singing; his action is exactly like inserting a ballet into a new opera. Adam offends one of the fairies, and the fairy in revenge curses him never to be separated from his wife. From such nonsense and rubbish drama gradually and step by step advanced and rose to the plays of Bernard Shaw.
While government was emerging from clerical control, the place of performance also moved from the area in front of the church to the city square or the marketplace. No theater building existed. Usually a temporary stage was erected for several plays performed on the occasion of some summer festivals. Benches were provided for ordinary people, and brightly decorated boxes were reserved for the nobility. Houses around such an area could be used as backdrops and “stage properties.” In religious plays the actors were usually young theology students; in secular plays urban “mimes” or wandering minstrels and actors took part; women almost never played any roles. As soon as the scenes and subjects of the plays gradually moved away from the church and religion, the tendency of writers and actors toward obscene material and vulgar dialogue increased and the Church, which had itself given birth to serious drama, found itself forced to reject the “ludi” of the villages as indecent farces. For this reason Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, placed plays, even “miracles,” in the same category as participation in drinking parties and the Feast of Fools and declared that no Christian should take part in such gatherings; and by virtue of such orders issued by himself he excommunicated every actor who took part in these performances. Saint Thomas was more lenient in this matter; he declared that God had ordained acting for the relief of human hearts, and that any actor who performed this work in a worthy manner might receive God’s favors and escape the torments of hell.
Epics and Sagas
The emergence of literature from the realm of religion and religious subjects went hand in hand with the rise of national languages. Generally, until the twelfth century only clerics knew Latin, and writers who wished to make their thoughts and intentions known to the common people were forced to use vernacular languages. As soon as the social system expanded, the number of readers increased, and to meet such a need national literature came into being. French literature began in the eleventh century, German literature in the twelfth, and the literatures of the English, Spanish, and Italian peoples in the thirteenth century.
The natural initial form of this vernacular literature was folk songs. The song became a ballad, and ballads were expanded and turned into short epics such as Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poem of the Cid. The Chanson de Roland was probably formed around 1130 from the combination of ballads belonging to the ninth or tenth centuries. This epic, in four thousand simple and fluent lines in a meter with stress on the final syllable, tells the story of Roland’s death at Roncevaux. After Charlemagne subdues Moorish Spain, he returns with his troops toward France; the traitor Ganelon reveals their route to the enemy, and Roland voluntarily agrees to take on the dangerous task of rear guard for the army. In the narrow and winding pass of the Pyrenees a vast host of Basque forces attacks Roland’s small troop from the cliffs above. Roland’s friend Oliver asks him to blow his great horn to call Charlemagne for help, but Roland with full pride refuses to ask for help. He, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, who have given up their lives, fight at the head of their troops until almost all of them are killed. Oliver, struck with mortal blows on the head and blinded by blood flowing into his eyes, mistakes Roland for one of the enemy and strikes him a heavy blow so that Roland’s helmet is split from crown to near the piece that covers his nose, but Roland is not harmed:
With the falling of this blow Roland looks at him and softly and gently asks him, “O noble friend, do you strike me in earnest? I am Roland whom you love with all your heart. I have never before seen you draw your sword against me in any way.” Oliver says, “Now I hear your voice, I do not see you. May God see you and save you! Did I strike a blow upon you? Forgive me!” Roland answers, “I am not wounded. Here and before God I forgive you.” And with these words one bows to the other, and with such love the two part from each other.
Finally Roland blows his jeweled horn so hard that blood flows from his temples. Charlemagne hears it and, while “his white beard flutters in the wind,” turns back to save him and his troops. But the way back is long. “The mountains are high and wide and dark, the valleys deep and the rivers rushing.” Meanwhile Roland mourns over Oliver’s corpse and says to him, “O noble friend, we have seen many days and years together. Never have you done me wrong nor I you. If you have left this world, life is all pain.” The archbishop too, who is dying, begs Roland to flee and save himself; Roland refuses and continues to fight until his attackers flee, but he himself has received mortal wounds. Then, with the last strength he has, he breaks his jeweled sword Durandal on a rock so that it will not fall into the hands of the infidels. Then “Count Roland, facing Spain, rested beneath a pine tree. … In that state many events passed through his mind; he remembered the lands he had conquered, sweet France, his family, and Charlemagne who had raised him, and he wept.” Then Roland raises his glove as a sign of vassalage and surrender before God, and when Charlemagne arrives he finds him dead. No translation can reproduce the simple and noble grandeur seen in the original of this epic, and no one can fully understand the power and tender feelings of this national epic, which every French child learns along with his daily prayers, unless he has drunk love and pride for France with his mother’s milk.
Around 1160 an anonymous poet, through romantic imagination, elevated the qualities and bravery of the famous Spanish commander known as the Cid or Rodrigo Díaz (d. 1099) to the highest degree and gave Spain a national epic with his poem entitled the Poem of the Cid. Here too the main subject is the struggle of Christian knights against the Moors inhabiting Spain, the elevation of the nobility, honor, and courage of the feudal age, and more the glory of war than servitude before a beloved. Thus Rodrigo, when exiled by an ungrateful king, leaves his wife and children in a convent and swears that he will not live with them again unless he emerges victorious from five wars. He sets out to fight the Moors; the first half of this poem consists of resounding victories that involuntarily recall Homer’s Iliad. The Cid, during the wars, steals from the Jews, distributes alms among the poor, and feeds a leper and eats from the same bowl and sleeps in the same bed himself, and realizes that the leper is Eleazar whom Jesus had brought back from the world of the dead to the world of the living. Of course the hero of this poem differs in reality from the Cid we know from history, but the damage it does to historical facts is no greater than that of the Chanson de Roland, which raises Charlemagne to the height of perfection. The Poem of the Cid became a stimulant and intoxicating drug for Spanish pride and thought; hundreds of ballads were composed about the hero of this poem and a hundred more or less historical stories were written. In the world there is little that can be found as bitter as truth and as universally distasteful as it.
No one has yet explained why a small country like Iceland, which is assailed by the forces of nature and whose connection with everywhere is cut off by the sea, should have produced in this period a literature whose scope and brilliance had no proportion to its geographical position and area. Two things helped the birth of Icelandic writers: one was a rich source of historical traditions that is usually dear to every distant or isolated population and is preserved orally from generation to generation; the other was the habit of reading or listening to others, which is usually a good pastime for the long winter nights. In the twelfth century, in addition to the libraries of the monasteries of this island, there were also many private libraries. When writing became a virtue that everyone became familiar with, the common people, just like the clergy, wrote down in literary style all the information and knowledge belonging to their race and nation that had once been the special property of poets.
According to one of the rarest coincidences, the foremost writer of Iceland in the thirteenth century was at the same time the richest person on the island and twice “law speaker” or, as the Icelanders themselves called it, “guardian of the laws.” Snorri Sturluson loved life more than learning; he undertook long journeys, participated intensely in politics and disputes, and was killed at the age of sixty-two by his son-in-law. His book entitled Heimskringla or “the circle of the world,” “a style free of ornament and concise” that is natural for a working man, described the history and legends of the Norse people. His other work, the Prose Edda, offered a summary of biblical history, a summary of Norse mythology, an essay on poetic meters and rhythms, a treatise on the art of poetry, and an unparalleled explanation of the origin of the flood of art and how this gift was distributed. Two warring and hostile groups of gods, by spitting into a vessel, made peace with each other; from their spittle a demigod named Kvasir was created who, like Prometheus, taught wisdom to the sons of men. Small beings killed Kvasir and by mixing his blood with wine made a mead that whoever drank a draught of it would receive the gift of singing. Odin, the All-Father, found his way to the place where the small beings had hidden this mead, drank all of it, and flew toward the heavens. But some of this poetic mead that had filled his heart poured out in a way that is less true of public fountains. This divine stream fell to earth in the form of an inspiring drizzle, and whoever benefited from this source of grace instinctively gained the poetic gift. These nonsense tales of a learned man were as consistent with rational standards as history.
Icelandic literature in this period was astonishingly rich and alive with the humor, vitality, and poetic interest and delicacy that fill its prose. During this era hundreds of sagas were written, some short and some as long as a novel, some historical and most a mixture of history and legend. Generally these were memories of a civilized heroic age full of glory and violence intertwined with many disputes and soothed with the balm of love. Snorri’s “Ynglinga Saga” repeatedly tells of Norse warriors who burn one another in noble halls or by drinking cups of fiery mead. The richest of these legends is the story known as the Völsunga Saga. The oldest form of these legends is in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda and the latest complete form is in the story of the Nibelungen Ring, which the German composer Wagner turned into an immortal opera.
The name Völsung was applied to each of the descendants of Völs, one of the Norse kings who was the great-grandson of Odin and the grandfather of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the Nibelungenlied the Nibelungs are the kings of Burgundy; in the Völsunga Saga this people are a short and small race who guard an immensely precious treasure and a golden ring in the Rhine region, which at the same time brings a doom upon whoever possesses the two. Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir who guards the treasure and takes possession of that hoard. During his wanderings he reaches a hill surrounded on all sides by fire and on top of it the Valkyrie Brynhild (a demigoddess descended from Odin) lies asleep. Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild’s beauty, and Brynhild also falls in love with him; the two pledge fidelity to each other; and then, as is the custom of men in many medieval imaginary legends, Sigurd leaves Brynhild and continues his journeys. At the court of Giuki, a king from the Rhine region, Sigurd meets the princess Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother gives Sigurd a magic drink that causes him to forget Brynhild and marry her daughter. Gunnar, Giuki’s son, marries Brynhild and brings her to court. Brynhild, who is bitterly angry at Sigurd’s forgetfulness, arranges for his murder; then she repents, climbs the pyre built to burn Sigurd’s body, kills herself with his sword, and burns beside him in the fire.
The latest of these Icelandic sagas, in form and style, is a story known as the Burnt Njal (c. 1220).
In this saga what clearly distinguishes the characters and sets them apart from one another is more their actions and speech than the description the author gives of each hero. The component parts of the story are well placed beside one another and everything, as if by inherent fate, passes through exciting events until it reaches the main tragedy, which is the burning of Njal’s house along with himself, his wife Bergthora, and his sons, at the hands of a group of his armed enemies led by a man named Flosi who has nothing in mind but taking revenge by shedding the blood of Njal’s sons.
Then Flosi … addressed Njal and said, “Lord Njal, I give you leave to go out, for it is not fitting that you should burn inside the house.” Njal said, “I will not go out, for I am an old man and have not the worthiness to avenge my sons, but I will not live with shame.” Then Flosi said to Bergthora, “Lady, come out, for I will not burn you inside the house for anyone’s sake.” Bergthora said, “I was given to Njal when I was young, and I have promised him that we should share one fate.” Then both returned inside the house.
Bergthora said, “What shall we do now?” Njal said, “We shall go to bed and lie down; I have long wished to rest.” Then Bergthora said to the young Thord, Kari’s son, “I will take you out, and you must not burn here.” The youth said, “Grandmother, you promised me that as long as I wished to stay with you you would never leave me; but I think it is much better to die with you and Njal than to live after you.” Then Bergthora took the boy and carried him to her bed … and placed him between herself and Njal. Then they made the sign of the cross upon themselves and the boy. And they commended their souls to God, and that was the last word others heard from their lips.
The Age of the Small Kingdoms (300–600) had left in the troubled memory of men and minstrels a thousand stories of social chaos, barbarian courage, and criminal love. Some of these tales were carried by emigrants to Norway and Iceland and gave rise to the Völsunga Saga; many of these myths, with similar names and subjects, penetrated Germany and grew into sagas, ballads, and epics. During the twelfth century an anonymous German writer, at a date unknown to us, took such material, piled it together, reshaped it, and from the whole composed the Nibelungenlied or Song of the Nibelungs. The form of this epic is rhythmic and rhymed stanzas in Middle High German; its subject is a mixture of pagan moods and the fiery feelings of a primitive people.
Once in the fourth century, King Gunther and his two brothers ruled over the Burgundian region from their palace in Worms beside the Rhine; in the same palace their younger sister Kriemhild, “no woman in any country was more beautiful than she,” lived with her brothers. At that time King Siegmund ruled over the Netherlands; he gave the government of his richest province, which lay near Xanten beside the Rhine, to his son Siegfried (Sigurd) to hold as a fief. Siegfried, having learned of Kriemhild’s beauty, invited himself to Gunther’s court, was welcomed there, lived there for a year, but never had the opportunity to see Kriemhild. On the other side, the maiden, who had always seen the young men from the high window of her palace busy with spear games in the courtyard, had fallen in love with Siegfried at first sight — Siegfried excelled all his rivals in spear play, and in the wars of the Burgundian people he bravely wielded the sword for them. When Gunther arranged a banquet on the occasion of a victorious peace, he invited the ladies to take part in that feast.
Many noble maidens adorned themselves with great care, and the young men, who had long waited for such an opportunity to win the favor of those beauties, could not have exchanged it for the richest royal lands … suddenly Kriemhild appeared like a dawn breaking from behind black clouds; and he who had long cherished her love did not grow colder at the sight of that fair face … Siegfried became joyful and sad, for in his heart he said, “How can I woo someone like you? Surely this is a vain thought; yet death seems better to me than being a stranger to you.” … When Kriemhild saw that noble beloved before her, her face flushed, and she said, “Noble lord Siegfried, O noble and well-mannered knight, welcome.” Upon hearing these words Siegfried’s courage increased and, with the dignity befitting a knight’s station, he bowed his head before the lady and thanked her. And love, which is powerful, prevented the lover and beloved from revealing the secret within.
Gunther, who has not yet taken a wife, learns of the Icelandic queen Brunhild; but he is told that Brunhild will only give her hand to someone who defeats her in three contests; and if the suitor fails in one of these tests, his head will be paid as forfeit. Siegfried agrees to help Gunther marry Brunhild, on condition that the king gives him Kriemhild as wife. The two quickly and easily, as is characteristic of impatient lovers, cross the sea; Siegfried, having become invisible by wearing a magic cloak, helps Gunther win the tests, and Gunther brings Brunhild, who is unwilling to leave her homeland, as his wife. Eighty-six maidens help Kriemhild prepare magnificent garments for herself. Then two splendid weddings are held at the same time. Gunther marries Brunhild and Siegfried marries Kriemhild.
But when Brunhild’s eyes fall upon Siegfried she feels that he should have been her husband rather than Gunther. On the wedding night when Gunther enters the bridal chamber, Brunhild does not give herself to him, binds him and hangs him from the wall; when Gunther is freed he calls for Siegfried’s help; the next night Siegfried disguises himself as Gunther and lies beside Brunhild; meanwhile Gunther, hidden in the dark room, hears everything and sees nothing. Brunhild throws Siegfried out of the bed and engages him in a bone-crushing and head-breaking fight that obeys no rules or laws. In the heat of the struggle Siegfried says to himself, “Alas! If I am killed by this woman, no woman will ever again honor her husband.” Finally he overcomes Brunhild, and Brunhild promises to be his wife; Siegfried, without showing himself, takes her girdle and ring and leaves the chamber and Gunther returns to his place beside the exhausted and tired queen. Siegfried presents the girdle and ring to Kriemhild and takes her to his father; his father places the crown on her head and proclaims her queen of the Netherlands. Siegfried, using the treasure of the Nibelungs, dresses his wife and her maidens in garments so costly and magnificent that women had never before seen their like.
Shortly after these events, Kriemhild visits Brunhild in Worms; Brunhild, who has become envious of Kriemhild’s magnificent clothes and ornaments, reminds her guest that Siegfried is Gunther’s vassal. Kriemhild, in reproach, shows Brunhild the girdle and ring to let her know that in reality Siegfried had overcome her, not Gunther. Hagen, Gunther’s grim half-brother, incites him against Siegfried; the two invite Siegfried to a hunt, and when he bends over a stream to drink water, Hagen pierces his side with a spear. Kriemhild, seeing her brave husband dead, “lies all that day and night in a swoon.” As Siegfried’s widow she inherits the Nibelung treasure, but Hagen persuades Gunther to deprive Kriemhild of that wealth. Gunther, his brothers, and Hagen bury the treasure in the Rhine and swear never to reveal its hiding place to anyone.
For thirteen years Kriemhild nurtured the thought of taking revenge on Hagen and his brothers, but no opportunity presented itself. Then she accepts a marriage proposal from Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, after the death of his wife, and as his queen sets out for Vienna to live there. “Etzel’s rule was so famous that the bravest knights, whether Christian or pagan, constantly came to his court … there you would see something you never see now, namely Christians and pagans together. Regardless of the great difference in their beliefs, the king gave them gifts so generously that all of them had great wealth.” There Kriemhild “ruled in perfect chastity” for thirteen years and apparently put the thought of revenge out of her mind. In reality she asks Etzel to invite her brothers along with Hagen to a banquet; despite Hagen’s warning they accept Etzel’s invitation and come with a large armed retinue of sword-wielding peasants and knights. While the king and his full brothers along with Hagen and the knights are seated at Etzel’s banquet table, outside the hall, on Kriemhild’s orders, the sword-wielding peasants are killed. When this news reaches Hagen he immediately jumps up and reaches for his weapon; inside the hall a bloody battle breaks out between the Burgundians and the Huns (which may be a memory of the real war between these two tribes in 437); Hagen with the first blow cuts off the head of Ortlieb, Kriemhild and Etzel’s five-year-old son, and throws the severed head into Kriemhild’s lap. When almost all the Burgundians are killed, Kriemhild’s brother Gernot asks Etzel to allow whoever among the guests is still alive to leave the hall. The Hunnish knights agree to this request, but Kriemhild prevents them from doing so, so the slaughter continues. Her younger brother Giselher, who was only five years old when Siegfried was killed, clings to Kriemhild’s skirt and says, “O dear sister, what have I done that I deserve to die at the hands of the Huns? I have always been faithful to you and have done you no harm; O dear sister, I came here trusting in your love. Now you must forgive us.” Kriemhild agrees to their escape on condition that they hand Hagen over to her. Gernot raises his voice and says, “May God never bring such a day. Death for all of us would be much better than making one the blood price for ourselves.” Kriemhild drives the Huns out of the palace, locks the doors on the Burgundians, and orders the building to be set on fire. The Burgundians, tormented by heat and thirst, scream in pain; Hagen orders them to quench their thirst by drinking the blood of the slain, and all do so. Some come out from among the burning timbers and debris, and the battle in the palace courtyard continues until only Gunther and Hagen remain from the Burgundian host. Dietrich, famous as the Goth, fights, overcomes Hagen, and brings him bound before Kriemhild. Kriemhild asks him where he has hidden the Nibelung treasure; Hagen says that as long as Gunther is alive he will refuse to reveal his secret; for this reason Gunther, who is also captive, is killed on his sister’s orders; when his head is brought before Hagen, he still refuses and says to Kriemhild, “Now no one knows where the treasure is hidden except God and me; and you, O devilish woman, will never know more than this.” Kriemhild takes Hagen’s sword and with it immediately strikes him down. Then one of her warriors, the famous Goth Hildebrand, who has grown weary of this woman’s bloodthirstiness, kills Kriemhild.
This is a horrible story that in cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and violence yields to no similar story in the history of world literature. Of course we have not done full justice to the matter, for from a series of banquets and feasts, heroic combats, hunting parties, and interesting episodes of the women’s world of that epic we have selected only the most gruesome events and moments; but the main and bitter subject of the tale is exactly what has been briefly mentioned, namely the story of a gentle and mild-mannered maiden who, because of a diabolical event, turns into a criminal and bloodthirsty woman. It is strange that in this tale so little of Christianity remains; it almost resembles a Greek tragedy of the goddess of revenge, except that, unlike Greek custom, it displays violence openly on the stage. In this course of depravity almost all the virtues and excellences of the feudal age, even the respect that a guest should have in the eyes of his host, sink under water. Until our own time no event has been able to go beyond the barbarity of such a story.
Troubadours
At the end of the eleventh century, an age when one would apparently expect all European literature to have taken on the religious fervor of Christians for the Crusades, a school of lyric poetry arose in the southern regions of France that was aristocratic, pagan, and anti-religious; its style showed traces of Arab influence and spoke of woman’s victory over the chastity and purity imposed upon her by the theory of the Fall. This poetic style spread from Toulouse to Paris and from there with Eleanor of Aquitaine to London and captured the heart of her son, the Lionheart Richard I; it created the German “Minnesang” and in Italy gave rise to a delicate style among the class of troubadour poets that prepared the ground for the appearance of Dante. The origin and birth of this style is linked with the name of Eleanor’s grandfather, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. This bold youth at the age of eleven (1087) declared himself almost the independent ruler of southwestern France. He joined the First Crusade and composed lyrics in praise of the victory of Western heroes in that struggle, but like many nobles of his domain, which had become a center of heretics, he had little respect for the Church and with full humor mocked the priests. In an old Provençal biography it is written that the Duke of Aquitaine “was one of the most courteous men in the world and had a great talent for seducing and deceiving ladies; he was a brave knight who loved much, and knew well how to sing and compose poetry; and for a very long time he traveled the whole country in order to ensnare ladies.” Although married, he courted the beautiful Viscountess of Châtellerault and lived openly with that woman. When the brave and outspoken Bishop of Angoulême warned him that he must cease his filthy deeds, the Duke replied, “As soon as the hair on your head needs combing, I will give up the Viscountess.” After he had been excommunicated, one day he met the Bishop of Poitiers and said to him, “Pray for me, or I will kill you.” The Bishop bent his neck and said, “Strike!” William refused and said, “No — I do not love you enough to send you to paradise.” The style the Duke used in his amorous letters to noble ladies laid the foundation for a new style in composing epistles. But he was not only a man of words; he had a short but glorious life and died at the age of fifty-six (1137). He left Eleanor a vast domain, a sound taste and love of poetry, and an amorous nature.
Eleanor gathered poets in Toulouse, and that group willingly composed and sang songs for her and her courtiers in praise of women’s beauty and the spells they cast. Bernard de Ventadour, whose poems in Petrarch’s view were only slightly inferior to his own lyrics, began to compose poems that praised the beauty of the Viscountess of Ventadour; the Viscountess took these poems so seriously that her husband was forced to imprison her in a tower of his residential palace. Bernard, encouraged by this, turned his attention to composing poems in praise of Eleanor’s own beauty and brilliance, and then turned to the soul; and when Eleanor first gave her heart to the King of France and then to the King of England, Bernard poured the highest inner feelings into a famous lament. One generation later another famous troubadour named Bertran de Born became a very close friend of Richard I and a victorious rival in winning the heart of the most beautiful woman of the age, the Lady Maent de Montignac.
Another troubadour named Peire Vidal accompanied Richard on crusade; he lived in poverty with love and wrote poetry; and finally received an estate from Count Raymond VI, lord of Toulouse. We know the names of 446 other troubadours; but the works of these four alone are a handful that speak of thousands of love lyrics and songs by others.
Some of this group were wandering minstrels and vagabonds, and most were lesser nobles who had talent and a great love of singing; four of them were kings: Richard I, Frederick II, Alfonso II, and Peter III, King of Aragon. For a century (1150–1250) this group ruled over the literature of southern France and shaped the manners and customs of a newly emerging aristocratic class that was moving from rural barbarism to a stage of chivalry that, by its rule, paid for war with humility and courtesy and compensated for adultery with grace and dignity. The language of the troubadours was Langue d’Oc or the Romance language of southern France and northeastern Spain. The name of these singing or lyric minstrels, troubadours, is an unsolved puzzle; it is likely that this word derives from the Romance verb “trobar,” meaning “to find” or “to invent,” just as the Italian word “trovatore” apparently derives from “trovare”; but some scholars think the word must come from the Arabic “tarab.” This group of singers called their art the “science of tarab”; but their idea of tarab was not something superficial; for this reason anyone who wished to join this circle was required to receive long training in literature, music, the art of speaking, and courtesy toward women; this group dressed like the nobility, always wore a cloak with a border of gold embroidery and expensive furs; most moved armed and in armor like knights, took part in military festivals, and for the ladies they admired, if they did not lay down their lives, at least used both pen and sword. They composed poetry only for the aristocratic class; usually they themselves composed the music for their lyrics and hired minstrels to sing these songs in banquets or military festivals; but most of them also played the lute and drew passionate feelings from the lyrics.
Probably the outburst of feeling itself was a literary style; the burning passion, the fulfillment of heavenly promises, and the melancholy despair of the troubadours all counted as poetic expressions and poetic necessity; husbands apparently knew these burning and melting feelings as nothing more than this and were less jealous than most men. Since marriage among the nobility was usually a matter of transferring property and assets, just as is mentioned in French legends, love and romance came after marriage, and except for a few exceptional stories, all love stories in medieval literature, from Francesca and Beatrice in the south to Isolde and Guinevere in the north, are tales of illicit love. Since in general it was not possible to reach union with a married lady, this very fact gave rise to the poems of the troubadours; when human desires are fulfilled, it becomes difficult to let the steed of imagination gallop about them, and wherever there are no obstacles or impediments, there is no literature. In history we encounter the names of a few troubadours who attained the greatest desires, that is, fulfillment from the ladies to whom they sang praises, but such cases must be counted as violations of the literary customs of the age; for normally the poet was required to quench his thirst with a kiss or the touch of a hand. Such self-restraint required refinement and perfection; and in the thirteenth century the poems of this group of troubadours — perhaps also under the influence of the cult of the Virgin Mary — rose from the level of carnal pleasures to the height of spiritual grace and purity. But in the works of these men little trace of asceticism and piety is seen. The aversion that members of this group had toward chastity and purity led them to oppose the Church. Several of them mocked bishops and ridiculed hell and supported the Albigensian heretics, and where Saint Louis with all his chastity had failed, they celebrated the victory of an unbelieving king like Frederick in the crusades. Guiraut Ademar had only one crusade he approved of, and that was because it removed a husband who was a thorn in his path. Raimon Jordan preferred one night with his beloved to life in the promised paradise.
The styles of versification were far more important to the troubadours than the rules of moral principles. A chanson was a lyric; a planh was a lament or elegy that the poet composed on the death of a friend or beloved; a tenson was a poetic debate on a subject such as love, morality, or chivalry; a sirventes was a song composed for war or enmity or attacking a political rival. A sestina was a complicated sequence of six successive rhymed stanzas each having six lines; this style of lyric composition was invented by Arnaut Daniel and greatly pleased Dante; a pastourelle was a dialogue between a troubadour and a shepherdess; an aubade or alba was a dawn song and usually warned the lover and beloved that the coming of day would soon reveal their secret; a serena or serenade was a night song; and a ballada was a narrative poem. Here is an example of an aubade, or a piece about the coming of dawn, from an anonymous poet who puts the words in the mouth of a Juliet of the twelfth century:
In the garden where the white hawthorn has spread its leaves, my lady has lain beside her beloved, until the watchman cries that dawn has come — alas, the dawn that is cause for sorrow! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O God, let not that night, the dear night, ever end.
Or let my beloved leave me, or let the watchman stop singing “dawn” — yes, that dawn that is the slayer of peace! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O dear and sweet beloved, your lips, our lips still press together! See how in the meadow the birds begin to sing.
May love be our portion, for the portion of envy is only pain! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! From that sweet breeze that blows from far away, have I not drunk sip by sip from the breath of my beloved, yes from the warm breath of the comforter who is so dear and full of joy.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! This is the dawn that the maiden who keeps good manners well sees, and many people look upon the fitting behavior of this beauty; her heart never betrays love.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes!
By the middle of the thirteenth century, partly because of the increasing artificiality of the styles and feelings of such lyrics, and partly because of the destruction of southern France by the Albigensian Crusade, the troubadour movement came to an end. In those turbulent days of the religious wars, many castles that were the refuge of these lyricists fell, and when Toulouse itself was subjected to a double siege, the chivalric system that had been established in the Aquitaine region collapsed.
Some minstrels fled to Spain and some to Italy, and it was in Italy that the art of lyric poetry again flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century, and both Dante and Petrarch were among the new stars of the world of lyric poetry. It was the “science of tarab” and the virtues and courtesy of this group that helped create a code and instruction for chivalry and turned a group of wild people from northern Europe into a class of nobles. From that time until now literature has been under the influence of those delicate melodies and perhaps it is thanks to the perfume of their praise that the sweet scent of love now perfumes the soul of man.
Minnesingers
The troubadour movement spread from France to the southern regions of Germany and flourished there in the golden age of the Hohenstaufen. German poets were called minnesingers (singers of love). The subject of their poems was “service in the way of love” and “service to the lady,” both of which were considered part of the chivalry of that era. We know the names of about three hundred of these minnesingers, because a large amount of their poetry has survived. Some of this group belonged to the lower nobility; most were poor people dependent on the favors and gifts of emperors or dukes. Although this group strictly used a special rule for determining poetic meters and rhythms, many of them were illiterate, and they dictated the words and music of their songs or, in other words, recited them aloud for others to record; to this day the German word for poems is Dichtung, which also means “dictation.” Usually these singers had minstrels read the songs, and sometimes they themselves read such pieces. In history we encounter mention of the great Sängerkrieg (song contest) that was held in 1207 at Wartburg Castle; it is said that two famous singers, Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach, both took part in this contest. The minnesingers helped for more than a century to raise the status of woman in Germany; and ladies of the nobility became the source and inspiration of a culture more refined than Germany would again see its like before Schiller and Goethe.
Wolfram and Walther von der Vogelweide have been counted among the minnesingers, for both wrote love songs, but Wolfram and his piece Parzival are better discussed under the heading of romances or imaginary love legends. Walther von der Vogelweide was born before 1170 in a place in Tyrol. He was a poor knight who made his situation worse by engaging in poetry and song. At the age of twenty he sang for a living in the houses of nobles. In those years of youth he spoke of love with the same freedom of sensual pleasure as his rivals frowned upon. His song entitled Under the Linden Tree has remained to this day like a precious gem in Germany:
Under the linden trees on the heath grass a bed had been made for us two; there one could see flowers crushed and grass trampled.
From among the thick bushes in the little valley of Tandaradei! The nightingale sings sweetly.
I had hurried there through the grass.
I, the most blessed of maidens! had been caught there.
For my fortune is forever good. There he kissed me many times Tandaradei! Look how red my lips are! With haste mixed with joy he made a bower for us both from the blossoms there.
Still that secluded place must be a faded jest for those who tread the same path and look at the place where that day — Tandaradei! my head rested among the red flowers.
How ashamed I would be if anyone (now I say God forbid!) had been present there then.
There we both lay, but no one knew of this secret except my beloved and me. And the little nightingale, Tandaradei! which I know will not betray my secret.
As Walther grew older his perception matured and he gradually observed in woman a delicacy and grace more pleasing than any physical attraction, and he concluded that the reward of the union of man and woman through marriage is far greater than any superficial pleasurable excitement arising from variety. On this subject he says in one piece: “Happy is the man and happy is the woman whose hearts are true to each other; the value and worth of their lives increases; all the days and years of their lives are blessed.” Walther condemned the praise that other lyricists of his time poured at the feet of courtly ladies; he declared that the word wip (the same word as Weib, meaning “woman”) is a far higher title than Vrouwe (the same word as Frau, meaning “lady”); women and noble men of good character form the true aristocracy. In his view, “German ladies are as beautiful as divine angels; whoever slanders them laughs at his own beard.” In 1197 Emperor Henry VI died; and Germany suffered chaos for a generation until Frederick II came of age. The patronage of learning by the nobility declined and Walther, who no longer had a patron, wandered from court to court, and unfortunately in competition with shameless jesters and noisy magicians was forced to sing for his bread. In the account book of Wolfger, Bishop of Passau, one interesting item reads: “November 12, 1203, five solidi paid to Walther von der Vogelweide to buy a fur coat to protect himself against the winter cold.” This was a doubly pious act of a Christian, for Walther was one of the fervent members of the Ghibelline party, tuned his lute to oppose the popes, constantly criticized the wrongdoings of the Church, and was angry at why the money of the German people was being sent across the Alps to fill the papal treasury in the name of Saint Peter’s penny. With all this he was a devout Christian, composed a magnificent “Crusade Song”; but he was able at times to rise above the battlefield and see all human beings as brothers, as he says in one piece:
Humanity receives life from one virgin maiden, we all resemble one another inside and out, our mouths are all satisfied with the same kind of food, and when their bones are all ground together, you say which one was the living man, and from this crowd that the worms have so emptied, which now is the servant and which the master. Christians, Jews, and pagans all serve and God holds all creation under His care.
After a quarter century of wandering and poverty, Walther received an estate and a regular income from Frederick II (1221) and from then on was able to spend the remaining seven years of his life in perfect peace. He regretted that he was older and weaker than to be able to go on crusade; he asked God for forgiveness that he was unable to love his enemies, and in a poem he left his possessions for his survivors in this way: “To the envious I leave my bad luck; to the liars my troubles; to the false lovers my follies; to the ladies my heartache.” His body was buried in Würzburg Cathedral; beside his grave a memorial stone tells of Germany’s affection for the greatest poet of this age.
After Walther’s death the minnesinger movement indulged itself with the exaggerations of the period and shared in the disasters that shattered Germany after the fall of Frederick II. Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his versified autobiography entitled Service to the Lady describes how he was raised in an environment full of feelings of service to ladies. Ulrich chose a woman as his goddess, and because he had a harelip and feared that the lady would be repelled by the sight of his face, he ordered his lip to be sewn, and took part in military festivals for the love of his beloved. When he was told that the woman was astonished that Ulrich still possessed the finger that she thought he had lost in the path of her honor, Ulrich cut off that particular finger and, as a sign of respect for his beloved’s word, sent it to her. When fortune helped and Ulrich succeeded in drinking the water in which the lady had washed her hands, he no longer knew himself for joy. And when he received a letter from his beloved, because he could not read, he carried it in his pocket for weeks until he found a trusted person who could read the letter for him. After he was granted the favor of his beloved’s mercy, he stood for two full days in beggar’s rags among a group of lepers at the door of the lady’s palace waiting. The lady allowed him to enter, and when she saw that he was a persistent man she ordered him to be wrapped in a sheet, lowered from the window of her bedroom, and placed on the ground. Throughout this period Ulrich had one wife and several children.
The minnesinger movement ended with some pomp and glory with the songs of Heinrich von Meißen — who was called Frauenlob (praiser of women) because of his songs in praise of woman’s status. When he died in 1317 in Mainz, the ladies of the city, singing melodious laments, carried his body to the cathedral and poured so much wine on his coffin that it flowed like a stream through the whole church. After him the art of singing left the hands of knights and fell to the middle class. The romantic spirit of woman-worship faded and in the fourteenth century gave way to the robust pleasure and art of urban minnesingers or singers and lyricists and announced the rise of the bourgeoisie to the world of poetry and song.
Romances
The emergence of literature from the realm of religion and religious subjects went hand in hand with the rise of national languages. Generally, until the twelfth century only clerics knew Latin, and writers who wished to make their thoughts and intentions known to the common people were forced to use vernacular languages. As soon as the social system expanded, the number of readers increased, and to meet such a need national literature came into being. French literature began in the eleventh century, German literature in the twelfth, and the literatures of the English, Spanish, and Italian peoples in the thirteenth century.
The natural initial form of this vernacular literature was folk songs. The song became a ballad, and ballads were expanded and turned into short epics such as Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poem of the Cid. The Chanson de Roland was probably formed around 1130 from the combination of ballads belonging to the ninth or tenth centuries. This epic, in four thousand simple and fluent lines in a meter with stress on the final syllable, tells the story of Roland’s death at Roncevaux. After Charlemagne subdues Moorish Spain, he returns with his troops toward France; the traitor Ganelon reveals their route to the enemy, and Roland voluntarily agrees to take on the dangerous task of rear guard for the army. In the narrow and winding pass of the Pyrenees a vast host of Basque forces attacks Roland’s small troop from the cliffs above. Roland’s friend Oliver asks him to blow his great horn to call Charlemagne for help, but Roland with full pride refuses to ask for help. He, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, who have given up their lives, fight at the head of their troops until almost all of them are killed. Oliver, struck with mortal blows on the head and blinded by blood flowing into his eyes, mistakes Roland for one of the enemy and strikes him a heavy blow so that Roland’s helmet is split from crown to near the piece that covers his nose, but Roland is not harmed:
With the falling of this blow Roland looks at him and softly and gently asks him, “O noble friend, do you strike me in earnest? I am Roland whom you love with all your heart. I have never before seen you draw your sword against me in any way.” Oliver says, “Now I hear your voice, I do not see you. May God see you and save you! Did I strike a blow upon you? Forgive me!” Roland answers, “I am not wounded. Here and before God I forgive you.” And with these words one bows to the other, and with such love the two part from each other.
Finally Roland blows his jeweled horn so hard that blood flows from his temples. Charlemagne hears it and, while “his white beard flutters in the wind,” turns back to save him and his troops. But the way back is long. “The mountains are high and wide and dark, the valleys deep and the rivers rushing.” Meanwhile Roland mourns over Oliver’s corpse and says to him, “O noble friend, we have seen many days and years together. Never have you done me wrong nor I you. If you have left this world, life is all pain.” The archbishop too, who is dying, begs Roland to flee and save himself; Roland refuses and continues to fight until his attackers flee, but he himself has received mortal wounds. Then, with the last strength he has, he breaks his jeweled sword Durandal on a rock so that it will not fall into the hands of the infidels. Then “Count Roland, facing Spain, rested beneath a pine tree. … In that state many events passed through his mind; he remembered the lands he had conquered, sweet France, his family, and Charlemagne who had raised him, and he wept.” Then Roland raises his glove as a sign of vassalage and surrender before God, and when Charlemagne arrives he finds him dead. No translation can reproduce the simple and noble grandeur seen in the original of this epic, and no one can fully understand the power and tender feelings of this national epic, which every French child learns along with his daily prayers, unless he has drunk love and pride for France with his mother’s milk.
Around 1160 an anonymous poet, through romantic imagination, elevated the qualities and bravery of the famous Spanish commander known as the Cid or Rodrigo Díaz (d. 1099) to the highest degree and gave Spain a national epic with his poem entitled the Poem of the Cid. Here too the main subject is the struggle of Christian knights against the Moors inhabiting Spain, the elevation of the nobility, honor, and courage of the feudal age, and more the glory of war than servitude before a beloved. Thus Rodrigo, when exiled by an ungrateful king, leaves his wife and children in a convent and swears that he will not live with them again unless he emerges victorious from five wars. He sets out to fight the Moors; the first half of this poem consists of resounding victories that involuntarily recall Homer’s Iliad. The Cid, during the wars, steals from the Jews, distributes alms among the poor, and feeds a leper and eats from the same bowl and sleeps in the same bed himself, and realizes that the leper is Eleazar whom Jesus had brought back from the world of the dead to the world of the living. Of course the hero of this poem differs in reality from the Cid we know from history, but the damage it does to historical facts is no greater than that of the Chanson de Roland, which raises Charlemagne to the height of perfection. The Poem of the Cid became a stimulant and intoxicating drug for Spanish pride and thought; hundreds of ballads were composed about the hero of this poem and a hundred more or less historical stories were written. In the world there is little that can be found as bitter as truth and as universally distasteful as it.
No one has yet explained why a small country like Iceland, which is assailed by the forces of nature and whose connection with everywhere is cut off by the sea, should have produced in this period a literature whose scope and brilliance had no proportion to its geographical position and area. Two things helped the birth of Icelandic writers: one was a rich source of historical traditions that is usually dear to every distant or isolated population and is preserved orally from generation to generation; the other was the habit of reading or listening to others, which is usually a good pastime for the long winter nights. In the twelfth century, in addition to the libraries of the monasteries of this island, there were also many private libraries. When writing became a virtue that everyone became familiar with, the common people, just like the clergy, wrote down in literary style all the information and knowledge belonging to their race and nation that had once been the special property of poets.
According to one of the rarest coincidences, the foremost writer of Iceland in the thirteenth century was at the same time the richest person on the island and twice “law speaker” or, as the Icelanders themselves called it, “guardian of the laws.” Snorri Sturluson loved life more than learning; he undertook long journeys, participated intensely in politics and disputes, and was killed at the age of sixty-two by his son-in-law. His book entitled Heimskringla or “the circle of the world,” “a style free of ornament and concise” that is natural for a working man, described the history and legends of the Norse people. His other work, the Prose Edda, offered a summary of biblical history, a summary of Norse mythology, an essay on poetic meters and rhythms, a treatise on the art of poetry, and an unparalleled explanation of the origin of the flood of art and how this gift was distributed. Two warring and hostile groups of gods, by spitting into a vessel, made peace with each other; from their spittle a demigod named Kvasir was created who, like Prometheus, taught wisdom to the sons of men. Small beings killed Kvasir and by mixing his blood with wine made a mead that whoever drank a draught of it would receive the gift of singing. Odin, the All-Father, found his way to the place where the small beings had hidden this mead, drank all of it, and flew toward the heavens. But some of this poetic mead that had filled his heart poured out in a way that is less true of public fountains. This divine stream fell to earth in the form of an inspiring drizzle, and whoever benefited from this source of grace instinctively gained the poetic gift. These nonsense tales of a learned man were as consistent with rational standards as history.
Icelandic literature in this period was astonishingly rich and alive with the humor, vitality, and poetic interest and delicacy that fill its prose. During this era hundreds of sagas were written, some short and some as long as a novel, some historical and most a mixture of history and legend. Generally these were memories of a civilized heroic age full of glory and violence intertwined with many disputes and soothed with the balm of love. Snorri’s “Ynglinga Saga” repeatedly tells of Norse warriors who burn one another in noble halls or by drinking cups of fiery mead. The richest of these legends is the story known as the Völsunga Saga. The oldest form of these legends is in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda and the latest complete form is in the story of the Nibelungen Ring, which the German composer Wagner turned into an immortal opera.
The name Völsung was applied to each of the descendants of Völs, one of the Norse kings who was the great-grandson of Odin and the grandfather of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the Nibelungenlied the Nibelungs are the kings of Burgundy; in the Völsunga Saga this people are a short and small race who guard an immensely precious treasure and a golden ring in the Rhine region, which at the same time brings a doom upon whoever possesses the two. Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir who guards the treasure and takes possession of that hoard. During his wanderings he reaches a hill surrounded on all sides by fire and on top of it the Valkyrie Brynhild (a demigoddess descended from Odin) lies asleep. Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild’s beauty, and Brynhild also falls in love with him; the two pledge fidelity to each other; and then, as is the custom of men in many medieval imaginary legends, Sigurd leaves Brynhild and continues his journeys. At the court of Giuki, a king from the Rhine region, Sigurd meets the princess Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother gives Sigurd a magic drink that causes him to forget Brynhild and marry her daughter. Gunnar, Giuki’s son, marries Brynhild and brings her to court. Brynhild, who is bitterly angry at Sigurd’s forgetfulness, arranges for his murder; then she repents, climbs the pyre built to burn Sigurd’s body, kills herself with his sword, and burns beside him in the fire.
The latest of these Icelandic sagas, in form and style, is a story known as the Burnt Njal (c. 1220).
In this saga what clearly distinguishes the characters and sets them apart from one another is more their actions and speech than the description the author gives of each hero. The component parts of the story are well placed beside one another and everything, as if by inherent fate, passes through exciting events until it reaches the main tragedy, which is the burning of Njal’s house along with himself, his wife Bergthora, and his sons, at the hands of a group of his armed enemies led by a man named Flosi who has nothing in mind but taking revenge by shedding the blood of Njal’s sons.
Then Flosi … addressed Njal and said, “Lord Njal, I give you leave to go out, for it is not fitting that you should burn inside the house.” Njal said, “I will not go out, for I am an old man and have not the worthiness to avenge my sons, but I will not live with shame.” Then Flosi said to Bergthora, “Lady, come out, for I will not burn you inside the house for anyone’s sake.” Bergthora said, “I was given to Njal when I was young, and I have promised him that we should share one fate.” Then both returned inside the house.
Bergthora said, “What shall we do now?” Njal said, “We shall go to bed and lie down; I have long wished to rest.” Then Bergthora said to the young Thord, Kari’s son, “I will take you out, and you must not burn here.” The youth said, “Grandmother, you promised me that as long as I wished to stay with you you would never leave me; but I think it is much better to die with you and Njal than to live after you.” Then Bergthora took the boy and carried him to her bed … and placed him between herself and Njal. Then they made the sign of the cross upon themselves and the boy. And they commended their souls to God, and that was the last word others heard from their lips.
The Age of the Small Kingdoms (300–600) had left in the troubled memory of men and minstrels a thousand stories of social chaos, barbarian courage, and criminal love. Some of these tales were carried by emigrants to Norway and Iceland and gave rise to the Völsunga Saga; many of these myths, with similar names and subjects, penetrated Germany and grew into sagas, ballads, and epics. During the twelfth century an anonymous German writer, at a date unknown to us, took such material, piled it together, reshaped it, and from the whole composed the Nibelungenlied or Song of the Nibelungs. The form of this epic is rhythmic and rhymed stanzas in Middle High German; its subject is a mixture of pagan moods and the fiery feelings of a primitive people.
Once in the fourth century, King Gunther and his two brothers ruled over the Burgundian region from their palace in Worms beside the Rhine; in the same palace their younger sister Kriemhild, “no woman in any country was more beautiful than she,” lived with her brothers. At that time King Siegmund ruled over the Netherlands; he gave the government of his richest province, which lay near Xanten beside the Rhine, to his son Siegfried (Sigurd) to hold as a fief. Siegfried, having learned of Kriemhild’s beauty, invited himself to Gunther’s court, was welcomed there, lived there for a year, but never had the opportunity to see Kriemhild. On the other side, the maiden, who had always seen the young men from the high window of her palace busy with spear games in the courtyard, had fallen in love with Siegfried at first sight — Siegfried excelled all his rivals in spear play, and in the wars of the Burgundian people he bravely wielded the sword for them. When Gunther arranged a banquet on the occasion of a victorious peace, he invited the ladies to take part in that feast.
Many noble maidens adorned themselves with great care, and the young men, who had long waited for such an opportunity to win the favor of those beauties, could not have exchanged it for the richest royal lands … suddenly Kriemhild appeared like a dawn breaking from behind black clouds; and he who had long cherished her love did not grow colder at the sight of that fair face … Siegfried became joyful and sad, for in his heart he said, “How can I woo someone like you? Surely this is a vain thought; yet death seems better to me than being a stranger to you.” … When Kriemhild saw that noble beloved before her, her face flushed, and she said, “Noble lord Siegfried, O noble and well-mannered knight, welcome.” Upon hearing these words Siegfried’s courage increased and, with the dignity befitting a knight’s station, he bowed his head before the lady and thanked her. And love, which is powerful, prevented the lover and beloved from revealing the secret within.
Gunther, who has not yet taken a wife, learns of the Icelandic queen Brunhild; but he is told that Brunhild will only give her hand to someone who defeats her in three contests; and if the suitor fails in one of these tests, his head will be paid as forfeit. Siegfried agrees to help Gunther marry Brunhild, on condition that the king gives him Kriemhild as wife. The two quickly and easily, as is characteristic of impatient lovers, cross the sea; Siegfried, having become invisible by wearing a magic cloak, helps Gunther win the tests, and Gunther brings Brunhild, who is unwilling to leave her homeland, as his wife. Eighty-six maidens help Kriemhild prepare magnificent garments for herself. Then two splendid weddings are held at the same time. Gunther marries Brunhild and Siegfried marries Kriemhild.
But when Brunhild’s eyes fall upon Siegfried she feels that he should have been her husband rather than Gunther. On the wedding night when Gunther enters the bridal chamber, Brunhild does not give herself to him, binds him and hangs him from the wall; when Gunther is freed he calls for Siegfried’s help; the next night Siegfried disguises himself as Gunther and lies beside Brunhild; meanwhile Gunther, hidden in the dark room, hears everything and sees nothing. Brunhild throws Siegfried out of the bed and engages him in a bone-crushing and head-breaking fight that obeys no rules or laws. In the heat of the struggle Siegfried says to himself, “Alas! If I am killed by this woman, no woman will ever again honor her husband.” Finally he overcomes Brunhild, and Brunhild promises to be his wife; Siegfried, without showing himself, takes her girdle and ring and leaves the chamber and Gunther returns to his place beside the exhausted and tired queen. Siegfried presents the girdle and ring to Kriemhild and takes her to his father; his father places the crown on her head and proclaims her queen of the Netherlands. Siegfried, using the treasure of the Nibelungs, dresses his wife and her maidens in garments so costly and magnificent that women had never before seen their like.
Shortly after these events, Kriemhild visits Brunhild in Worms; Brunhild, who has become envious of Kriemhild’s magnificent clothes and ornaments, reminds her guest that Siegfried is Gunther’s vassal. Kriemhild, in reproach, shows Brunhild the girdle and ring to let her know that in reality Siegfried had overcome her, not Gunther. Hagen, Gunther’s grim half-brother, incites him against Siegfried; the two invite Siegfried to a hunt, and when he bends over a stream to drink water, Hagen pierces his side with a spear. Kriemhild, seeing her brave husband dead, “lies all that day and night in a swoon.” As Siegfried’s widow she inherits the Nibelung treasure, but Hagen persuades Gunther to deprive Kriemhild of that wealth. Gunther, his brothers, and Hagen bury the treasure in the Rhine and swear never to reveal its hiding place to anyone.
For thirteen years Kriemhild nurtured the thought of taking revenge on Hagen and his brothers, but no opportunity presented itself. Then she accepts a marriage proposal from Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, after the death of his wife, and as his queen sets out for Vienna to live there. “Etzel’s rule was so famous that the bravest knights, whether Christian or pagan, constantly came to his court … there you would see something you never see now, namely Christians and pagans together. Regardless of the great difference in their beliefs, the king gave them gifts so generously that all of them had great wealth.” There Kriemhild “ruled in perfect chastity” for thirteen years and apparently put the thought of revenge out of her mind. In reality she asks Etzel to invite her brothers along with Hagen to a banquet; despite Hagen’s warning they accept Etzel’s invitation and come with a large armed retinue of sword-wielding peasants and knights. While the king and his full brothers along with Hagen and the knights are seated at Etzel’s banquet table, outside the hall, on Kriemhild’s orders, the sword-wielding peasants are killed. When this news reaches Hagen he immediately jumps up and reaches for his weapon; inside the hall a bloody battle breaks out between the Burgundians and the Huns (which may be a memory of the real war between these two tribes in 437); Hagen with the first blow cuts off the head of Ortlieb, Kriemhild and Etzel’s five-year-old son, and throws the severed head into Kriemhild’s lap. When almost all the Burgundians are killed, Kriemhild’s brother Gernot asks Etzel to allow whoever among the guests is still alive to leave the hall. The Hunnish knights agree to this request, but Kriemhild prevents them from doing so, so the slaughter continues. Her younger brother Giselher, who was only five years old when Siegfried was killed, clings to Kriemhild’s skirt and says, “O dear sister, what have I done that I deserve to die at the hands of the Huns? I have always been faithful to you and have done you no harm; O dear sister, I came here trusting in your love. Now you must forgive us.” Kriemhild agrees to their escape on condition that they hand Hagen over to her. Gernot raises his voice and says, “May God never bring such a day. Death for all of us would be much better than making one the blood price for ourselves.” Kriemhild drives the Huns out of the palace, locks the doors on the Burgundians, and orders the building to be set on fire. The Burgundians, tormented by heat and thirst, scream in pain; Hagen orders them to quench their thirst by drinking the blood of the slain, and all do so. Some come out from among the burning timbers and debris, and the battle in the palace courtyard continues until only Gunther and Hagen remain from the Burgundian host. Dietrich, famous as the Goth, fights, overcomes Hagen, and brings him bound before Kriemhild. Kriemhild asks him where he has hidden the Nibelung treasure; Hagen says that as long as Gunther is alive he will refuse to reveal his secret; for this reason Gunther, who is also captive, is killed on his sister’s orders; when his head is brought before Hagen, he still refuses and says to Kriemhild, “Now no one knows where the treasure is hidden except God and me; and you, O devilish woman, will never know more than this.” Kriemhild takes Hagen’s sword and with it immediately strikes him down. Then one of her warriors, the famous Goth Hildebrand, who has grown weary of this woman’s bloodthirstiness, kills Kriemhild.
This is a horrible story that in cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and violence yields to no similar story in the history of world literature. Of course we have not done full justice to the matter, for from a series of banquets and feasts, heroic combats, hunting parties, and interesting episodes of the women’s world of that epic we have selected only the most gruesome events and moments; but the main and bitter subject of the tale is exactly what has been briefly mentioned, namely the story of a gentle and mild-mannered maiden who, because of a diabolical event, turns into a criminal and bloodthirsty woman. It is strange that in this tale so little of Christianity remains; it almost resembles a Greek tragedy of the goddess of revenge, except that, unlike Greek custom, it displays violence openly on the stage. In this course of depravity almost all the virtues and excellences of the feudal age, even the respect that a guest should have in the eyes of his host, sink under water. Until our own time no event has been able to go beyond the barbarity of such a story.
Troubadours
At the end of the eleventh century, an age when one would apparently expect all European literature to have taken on the religious fervor of Christians for the Crusades, a school of lyric poetry arose in the southern regions of France that was aristocratic, pagan, and anti-religious; its style showed traces of Arab influence and spoke of woman’s victory over the chastity and purity imposed upon her by the theory of the Fall. This poetic style spread from Toulouse to Paris and from there with Eleanor of Aquitaine to London and captured the heart of her son, the Lionheart Richard I; it created the German “Minnesang” and in Italy gave rise to a delicate style among the class of troubadour poets that prepared the ground for the appearance of Dante. The origin and birth of this style is linked with the name of Eleanor’s grandfather, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. This bold youth at the age of eleven (1087) declared himself almost the independent ruler of southwestern France. He joined the First Crusade and composed lyrics in praise of the victory of Western heroes in that struggle, but like many nobles of his domain, which had become a center of heretics, he had little respect for the Church and with full humor mocked the priests. In an old Provençal biography it is written that the Duke of Aquitaine “was one of the most courteous men in the world and had a great talent for seducing and deceiving ladies; he was a brave knight who loved much, and knew well how to sing and compose poetry; and for a very long time he traveled the whole country in order to ensnare ladies.” Although married, he courted the beautiful Viscountess of Châtellerault and lived openly with that woman. When the brave and outspoken Bishop of Angoulême warned him that he must cease his filthy deeds, the Duke replied, “As soon as the hair on your head needs combing, I will give up the Viscountess.” After he had been excommunicated, one day he met the Bishop of Poitiers and said to him, “Pray for me, or I will kill you.” The Bishop bent his neck and said, “Strike!” William refused and said, “No — I do not love you enough to send you to paradise.” The style the Duke used in his amorous letters to noble ladies laid the foundation for a new style in composing epistles. But he was not only a man of words; he had a short but glorious life and died at the age of fifty-six (1137). He left Eleanor a vast domain, a sound taste and love of poetry, and an amorous nature.
Eleanor gathered poets in Toulouse, and that group willingly composed and sang songs for her and her courtiers in praise of women’s beauty and the spells they cast. Bernard de Ventadour, whose poems in Petrarch’s view were only slightly inferior to his own lyrics, began to compose poems that praised the beauty of the Viscountess of Ventadour; the Viscountess took these poems so seriously that her husband was forced to imprison her in a tower of his residential palace. Bernard, encouraged by this, turned his attention to composing poems in praise of Eleanor’s own beauty and brilliance, and then turned to the soul; and when Eleanor first gave her heart to the King of France and then to the King of England, Bernard poured the highest inner feelings into a famous lament. One generation later another famous troubadour named Bertran de Born became a very close friend of Richard I and a victorious rival in winning the heart of the most beautiful woman of the age, the Lady Maent de Montignac.
Another troubadour named Peire Vidal accompanied Richard on crusade; he lived in poverty with love and wrote poetry; and finally received an estate from Count Raymond VI, lord of Toulouse. We know the names of 446 other troubadours; but the works of these four alone are a handful that speak of thousands of love lyrics and songs by others.
Some of this group were wandering minstrels and vagabonds, and most were lesser nobles who had talent and a great love of singing; four of them were kings: Richard I, Frederick II, Alfonso II, and Peter III, King of Aragon. For a century (1150–1250) this group ruled over the literature of southern France and shaped the manners and customs of a newly emerging aristocratic class that was moving from rural barbarism to a stage of chivalry that, by its rule, paid for war with humility and courtesy and compensated for adultery with grace and dignity. The language of the troubadours was Langue d’Oc or the Romance language of southern France and northeastern Spain. The name of these singing or lyric minstrels, troubadours, is an unsolved puzzle; it is likely that this word derives from the Romance verb “trobar,” meaning “to find” or “to invent,” just as the Italian word “trovatore” apparently derives from “trovare”; but some scholars think the word must come from the Arabic “tarab.” This group of singers called their art the “science of tarab”; but their idea of tarab was not something superficial; for this reason anyone who wished to join this circle was required to receive long training in literature, music, the art of speaking, and courtesy toward women; this group dressed like the nobility, always wore a cloak with a border of gold embroidery and expensive furs; most moved armed and in armor like knights, took part in military festivals, and for the ladies they admired, if they did not lay down their lives, at least used both pen and sword. They composed poetry only for the aristocratic class; usually they themselves composed the music for their lyrics and hired minstrels to sing these songs in banquets or military festivals; but most of them also played the lute and drew passionate feelings from the lyrics.
Probably the outburst of feeling itself was a literary style; the burning passion, the fulfillment of heavenly promises, and the melancholy despair of the troubadours all counted as poetic expressions and poetic necessity; husbands apparently knew these burning and melting feelings as nothing more than this and were less jealous than most men. Since marriage among the nobility was usually a matter of transferring property and assets, just as is mentioned in French legends, love and romance came after marriage, and except for a few exceptional stories, all love stories in medieval literature, from Francesca and Beatrice in the south to Isolde and Guinevere in the north, are tales of illicit love. Since in general it was not possible to reach union with a married lady, this very fact gave rise to the poems of the troubadours; when human desires are fulfilled, it becomes difficult to let the steed of imagination gallop about them, and wherever there are no obstacles or impediments, there is no literature. In history we encounter the names of a few troubadours who attained the greatest desires, that is, fulfillment from the ladies to whom they sang praises, but such cases must be counted as violations of the literary customs of the age; for normally the poet was required to quench his thirst with a kiss or the touch of a hand. Such self-restraint required refinement and perfection; and in the thirteenth century the poems of this group of troubadours — perhaps also under the influence of the cult of the Virgin Mary — rose from the level of carnal pleasures to the height of spiritual grace and purity. But in the works of these men little trace of asceticism and piety is seen. The aversion that members of this group had toward chastity and purity led them to oppose the Church. Several of them mocked bishops and ridiculed hell and supported the Albigensian heretics, and where Saint Louis with all his chastity had failed, they celebrated the victory of an unbelieving king like Frederick in the crusades. Guiraut Ademar had only one crusade he approved of, and that was because it removed a husband who was a thorn in his path. Raimon Jordan preferred one night with his beloved to life in the promised paradise.
The styles of versification were far more important to the troubadours than the rules of moral principles. A chanson was a lyric; a planh was a lament or elegy that the poet composed on the death of a friend or beloved; a tenson was a poetic debate on a subject such as love, morality, or chivalry; a sirventes was a song composed for war or enmity or attacking a political rival. A sestina was a complicated sequence of six successive rhymed stanzas each having six lines; this style of lyric composition was invented by Arnaut Daniel and greatly pleased Dante; a pastourelle was a dialogue between a troubadour and a shepherdess; an aubade or alba was a dawn song and usually warned the lover and beloved that the coming of day would soon reveal their secret; a serena or serenade was a night song; and a ballada was a narrative poem. Here is an example of an aubade, or a piece about the coming of dawn, from an anonymous poet who puts the words in the mouth of a Juliet of the twelfth century:
In the garden where the white hawthorn has spread its leaves, my lady has lain beside her beloved, until the watchman cries that dawn has come — alas, the dawn that is cause for sorrow! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O God, let not that night, the dear night, ever end.
Or let my beloved leave me, or let the watchman stop singing “dawn” — yes, that dawn that is the slayer of peace! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O dear and sweet beloved, your lips, our lips still press together! See how in the meadow the birds begin to sing.
May love be our portion, for the portion of envy is only pain! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! From that sweet breeze that blows from far away, have I not drunk sip by sip from the breath of my beloved, yes from the warm breath of the comforter who is so dear and full of joy.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! This is the dawn that the maiden who keeps good manners well sees, and many people look upon the fitting behavior of this beauty; her heart never betrays love.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes!
By the middle of the thirteenth century, partly because of the increasing artificiality of the styles and feelings of such lyrics, and partly because of the destruction of southern France by the Albigensian Crusade, the troubadour movement came to an end. In those turbulent days of the religious wars, many castles that were the refuge of these lyricists fell, and when Toulouse itself was subjected to a double siege, the chivalric system that had been established in the Aquitaine region collapsed.
Some minstrels fled to Spain and some to Italy, and it was in Italy that the art of lyric poetry again flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century, and both Dante and Petrarch were among the new stars of the world of lyric poetry. It was the “science of tarab” and the virtues and courtesy of this group that helped create a code and instruction for chivalry and turned a group of wild people from northern Europe into a class of nobles. From that time until now literature has been under the influence of those delicate melodies and perhaps it is thanks to the perfume of their praise that the sweet scent of love now perfumes the soul of man.
Minnesingers
The troubadour movement spread from France to the southern regions of Germany and flourished there in the golden age of the Hohenstaufen. German poets were called minnesingers (singers of love). The subject of their poems was “service in the way of love” and “service to the lady,” both of which were considered part of the chivalry of that era. We know the names of about three hundred of these minnesingers, because a large amount of their poetry has survived. Some of this group belonged to the lower nobility; most were poor people dependent on the favors and gifts of emperors or dukes. Although this group strictly used a special rule for determining poetic meters and rhythms, many of them were illiterate, and they dictated the words and music of their songs or, in other words, recited them aloud for others to record; to this day the German word for poems is Dichtung, which also means “dictation.” Usually these singers had minstrels read the songs, and sometimes they themselves read such pieces. In history we encounter mention of the great Sängerkrieg (song contest) that was held in 1207 at Wartburg Castle; it is said that two famous singers, Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach, both took part in this contest. The minnesingers helped for more than a century to raise the status of woman in Germany; and ladies of the nobility became the source and inspiration of a culture more refined than Germany would again see its like before Schiller and Goethe.
Wolfram and Walther von der Vogelweide have been counted among the minnesingers, for both wrote love songs, but Wolfram and his piece Parzival are better discussed under the heading of romances or imaginary love legends. Walther von der Vogelweide was born before 1170 in a place in Tyrol. He was a poor knight who made his situation worse by engaging in poetry and song. At the age of twenty he sang for a living in the houses of nobles. In those years of youth he spoke of love with the same freedom of sensual pleasure as his rivals frowned upon. His song entitled Under the Linden Tree has remained to this day like a precious gem in Germany:
Under the linden trees on the heath grass a bed had been made for us two; there one could see flowers crushed and grass trampled.
From among the thick bushes in the little valley of Tandaradei! The nightingale sings sweetly.
I had hurried there through the grass.
I, the most blessed of maidens! had been caught there.
For my fortune is forever good. There he kissed me many times Tandaradei! Look how red my lips are! With haste mixed with joy he made a bower for us both from the blossoms there.
Still that secluded place must be a faded jest for those who tread the same path and look at the place where that day — Tandaradei! my head rested among the red flowers.
How ashamed I would be if anyone (now I say God forbid!) had been present there then.
There we both lay, but no one knew of this secret except my beloved and me. And the little nightingale, Tandaradei! which I know will not betray my secret.
As Walther grew older his perception matured and he gradually observed in woman a delicacy and grace more pleasing than any physical attraction, and he concluded that the reward of the union of man and woman through marriage is far greater than any superficial pleasurable excitement arising from variety. On this subject he says in one piece: “Happy is the man and happy is the woman whose hearts are true to each other; the value and worth of their lives increases; all the days and years of their lives are blessed.” Walther condemned the praise that other lyricists of his time poured at the feet of courtly ladies; he declared that the word wip (the same word as Weib, meaning “woman”) is a far higher title than Vrouwe (the same word as Frau, meaning “lady”); women and noble men of good character form the true aristocracy. In his view, “German ladies are as beautiful as divine angels; whoever slanders them laughs at his own beard.” In 1197 Emperor Henry VI died; and Germany suffered chaos for a generation until Frederick II came of age. The patronage of learning by the nobility declined and Walther, who no longer had a patron, wandered from court to court, and unfortunately in competition with shameless jesters and noisy magicians was forced to sing for his bread. In the account book of Wolfger, Bishop of Passau, one interesting item reads: “November 12, 1203, five solidi paid to Walther von der Vogelweide to buy a fur coat to protect himself against the winter cold.” This was a doubly pious act of a Christian, for Walther was one of the fervent members of the Ghibelline party, tuned his lute to oppose the popes, constantly criticized the wrongdoings of the Church, and was angry at why the money of the German people was being sent across the Alps to fill the papal treasury in the name of Saint Peter’s penny. With all this he was a devout Christian, composed a magnificent “Crusade Song”; but he was able at times to rise above the battlefield and see all human beings as brothers, as he says in one piece:
Humanity receives life from one virgin maiden, we all resemble one another inside and out, our mouths are all satisfied with the same kind of food, and when their bones are all ground together, you say which one was the living man, and from this crowd that the worms have so emptied, which now is the servant and which the master. Christians, Jews, and pagans all serve and God holds all creation under His care.
After a quarter century of wandering and poverty, Walther received an estate and a regular income from Frederick II (1221) and from then on was able to spend the remaining seven years of his life in perfect peace. He regretted that he was older and weaker than to be able to go on crusade; he asked God for forgiveness that he was unable to love his enemies, and in a poem he left his possessions for his survivors in this way: “To the envious I leave my bad luck; to the liars my troubles; to the false lovers my follies; to the ladies my heartache.” His body was buried in Würzburg Cathedral; beside his grave a memorial stone tells of Germany’s affection for the greatest poet of this age.
After Walther’s death the minnesinger movement indulged itself with the exaggerations of the period and shared in the disasters that shattered Germany after the fall of Frederick II. Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his versified autobiography entitled Service to the Lady describes how he was raised in an environment full of feelings of service to ladies. Ulrich chose a woman as his goddess, and because he had a harelip and feared that the lady would be repelled by the sight of his face, he ordered his lip to be sewn, and took part in military festivals for the love of his beloved. When he was told that the woman was astonished that Ulrich still possessed the finger that she thought he had lost in the path of her honor, Ulrich cut off that particular finger and, as a sign of respect for his beloved’s word, sent it to her. When fortune helped and Ulrich succeeded in drinking the water in which the lady had washed her hands, he no longer knew himself for joy. And when he received a letter from his beloved, because he could not read, he carried it in his pocket for weeks until he found a trusted person who could read the letter for him. After he was granted the favor of his beloved’s mercy, he stood for two full days in beggar’s rags among a group of lepers at the door of the lady’s palace waiting. The lady allowed him to enter, and when she saw that he was a persistent man she ordered him to be wrapped in a sheet, lowered from the window of her bedroom, and placed on the ground. Throughout this period Ulrich had one wife and several children.
The minnesinger movement ended with some pomp and glory with the songs of Heinrich von Meißen — who was called Frauenlob (praiser of women) because of his songs in praise of woman’s status. When he died in 1317 in Mainz, the ladies of the city, singing melodious laments, carried his body to the cathedral and poured so much wine on his coffin that it flowed like a stream through the whole church. After him the art of singing left the hands of knights and fell to the middle class. The romantic spirit of woman-worship faded and in the fourteenth century gave way to the robust pleasure and art of urban minnesingers or singers and lyricists and announced the rise of the bourgeoisie to the world of poetry and song.
Romances
The emergence of literature from the realm of religion and religious subjects went hand in hand with the rise of national languages. Generally, until the twelfth century only clerics knew Latin, and writers who wished to make their thoughts and intentions known to the common people were forced to use vernacular languages. As soon as the social system expanded, the number of readers increased, and to meet such a need national literature came into being. French literature began in the eleventh century, German literature in the twelfth, and the literatures of the English, Spanish, and Italian peoples in the thirteenth century.
The natural initial form of this vernacular literature was folk songs. The song became a ballad, and ballads were expanded and turned into short epics such as Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poem of the Cid. The Chanson de Roland was probably formed around 1130 from the combination of ballads belonging to the ninth or tenth centuries. This epic, in four thousand simple and fluent lines in a meter with stress on the final syllable, tells the story of Roland’s death at Roncevaux. After Charlemagne subdues Moorish Spain, he returns with his troops toward France; the traitor Ganelon reveals their route to the enemy, and Roland voluntarily agrees to take on the dangerous task of rear guard for the army. In the narrow and winding pass of the Pyrenees a vast host of Basque forces attacks Roland’s small troop from the cliffs above. Roland’s friend Oliver asks him to blow his great horn to call Charlemagne for help, but Roland with full pride refuses to ask for help. He, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, who have given up their lives, fight at the head of their troops until almost all of them are killed. Oliver, struck with mortal blows on the head and blinded by blood flowing into his eyes, mistakes Roland for one of the enemy and strikes him a heavy blow so that Roland’s helmet is split from crown to near the piece that covers his nose, but Roland is not harmed:
With the falling of this blow Roland looks at him and softly and gently asks him, “O noble friend, do you strike me in earnest? I am Roland whom you love with all your heart. I have never before seen you draw your sword against me in any way.” Oliver says, “Now I hear your voice, I do not see you. May God see you and save you! Did I strike a blow upon you? Forgive me!” Roland answers, “I am not wounded. Here and before God I forgive you.” And with these words one bows to the other, and with such love the two part from each other.
Finally Roland blows his jeweled horn so hard that blood flows from his temples. Charlemagne hears it and, while “his white beard flutters in the wind,” turns back to save him and his troops. But the way back is long. “The mountains are high and wide and dark, the valleys deep and the rivers rushing.” Meanwhile Roland mourns over Oliver’s corpse and says to him, “O noble friend, we have seen many days and years together. Never have you done me wrong nor I you. If you have left this world, life is all pain.” The archbishop too, who is dying, begs Roland to flee and save himself; Roland refuses and continues to fight until his attackers flee, but he himself has received mortal wounds. Then, with the last strength he has, he breaks his jeweled sword Durandal on a rock so that it will not fall into the hands of the infidels. Then “Count Roland, facing Spain, rested beneath a pine tree. … In that state many events passed through his mind; he remembered the lands he had conquered, sweet France, his family, and Charlemagne who had raised him, and he wept.” Then Roland raises his glove as a sign of vassalage and surrender before God, and when Charlemagne arrives he finds him dead. No translation can reproduce the simple and noble grandeur seen in the original of this epic, and no one can fully understand the power and tender feelings of this national epic, which every French child learns along with his daily prayers, unless he has drunk love and pride for France with his mother’s milk.
Around 1160 an anonymous poet, through romantic imagination, elevated the qualities and bravery of the famous Spanish commander known as the Cid or Rodrigo Díaz (d. 1099) to the highest degree and gave Spain a national epic with his poem entitled the Poem of the Cid. Here too the main subject is the struggle of Christian knights against the Moors inhabiting Spain, the elevation of the nobility, honor, and courage of the feudal age, and more the glory of war than servitude before a beloved. Thus Rodrigo, when exiled by an ungrateful king, leaves his wife and children in a convent and swears that he will not live with them again unless he emerges victorious from five wars. He sets out to fight the Moors; the first half of this poem consists of resounding victories that involuntarily recall Homer’s Iliad. The Cid, during the wars, steals from the Jews, distributes alms among the poor, and feeds a leper and eats from the same bowl and sleeps in the same bed himself, and realizes that the leper is Eleazar whom Jesus had brought back from the world of the dead to the world of the living. Of course the hero of this poem differs in reality from the Cid we know from history, but the damage it does to historical facts is no greater than that of the Chanson de Roland, which raises Charlemagne to the height of perfection. The Poem of the Cid became a stimulant and intoxicating drug for Spanish pride and thought; hundreds of ballads were composed about the hero of this poem and a hundred more or less historical stories were written. In the world there is little that can be found as bitter as truth and as universally distasteful as it.
No one has yet explained why a small country like Iceland, which is assailed by the forces of nature and whose connection with everywhere is cut off by the sea, should have produced in this period a literature whose scope and brilliance had no proportion to its geographical position and area. Two things helped the birth of Icelandic writers: one was a rich source of historical traditions that is usually dear to every distant or isolated population and is preserved orally from generation to generation; the other was the habit of reading or listening to others, which is usually a good pastime for the long winter nights. In the twelfth century, in addition to the libraries of the monasteries of this island, there were also many private libraries. When writing became a virtue that everyone became familiar with, the common people, just like the clergy, wrote down in literary style all the information and knowledge belonging to their race and nation that had once been the special property of poets.
According to one of the rarest coincidences, the foremost writer of Iceland in the thirteenth century was at the same time the richest person on the island and twice “law speaker” or, as the Icelanders themselves called it, “guardian of the laws.” Snorri Sturluson loved life more than learning; he undertook long journeys, participated intensely in politics and disputes, and was killed at the age of sixty-two by his son-in-law. His book entitled Heimskringla or “the circle of the world,” “a style free of ornament and concise” that is natural for a working man, described the history and legends of the Norse people. His other work, the Prose Edda, offered a summary of biblical history, a summary of Norse mythology, an essay on poetic meters and rhythms, a treatise on the art of poetry, and an unparalleled explanation of the origin of the flood of art and how this gift was distributed. Two warring and hostile groups of gods, by spitting into a vessel, made peace with each other; from their spittle a demigod named Kvasir was created who, like Prometheus, taught wisdom to the sons of men. Small beings killed Kvasir and by mixing his blood with wine made a mead that whoever drank a draught of it would receive the gift of singing. Odin, the All-Father, found his way to the place where the small beings had hidden this mead, drank all of it, and flew toward the heavens. But some of this poetic mead that had filled his heart poured out in a way that is less true of public fountains. This divine stream fell to earth in the form of an inspiring drizzle, and whoever benefited from this source of grace instinctively gained the poetic gift. These nonsense tales of a learned man were as consistent with rational standards as history.
Icelandic literature in this period was astonishingly rich and alive with the humor, vitality, and poetic interest and delicacy that fill its prose. During this era hundreds of sagas were written, some short and some as long as a novel, some historical and most a mixture of history and legend. Generally these were memories of a civilized heroic age full of glory and violence intertwined with many disputes and soothed with the balm of love. Snorri’s “Ynglinga Saga” repeatedly tells of Norse warriors who burn one another in noble halls or by drinking cups of fiery mead. The richest of these legends is the story known as the Völsunga Saga. The oldest form of these legends is in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda and the latest complete form is in the story of the Nibelungen Ring, which the German composer Wagner turned into an immortal opera.
The name Völsung was applied to each of the descendants of Völs, one of the Norse kings who was the great-grandson of Odin and the grandfather of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the Nibelungenlied the Nibelungs are the kings of Burgundy; in the Völsunga Saga this people are a short and small race who guard an immensely precious treasure and a golden ring in the Rhine region, which at the same time brings a doom upon whoever possesses the two. Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir who guards the treasure and takes possession of that hoard. During his wanderings he reaches a hill surrounded on all sides by fire and on top of it the Valkyrie Brynhild (a demigoddess descended from Odin) lies asleep. Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild’s beauty, and Brynhild also falls in love with him; the two pledge fidelity to each other; and then, as is the custom of men in many medieval imaginary legends, Sigurd leaves Brynhild and continues his journeys. At the court of Giuki, a king from the Rhine region, Sigurd meets the princess Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother gives Sigurd a magic drink that causes him to forget Brynhild and marry her daughter. Gunnar, Giuki’s son, marries Brynhild and brings her to court. Brynhild, who is bitterly angry at Sigurd’s forgetfulness, arranges for his murder; then she repents, climbs the pyre built to burn Sigurd’s body, kills herself with his sword, and burns beside him in the fire.
The latest of these Icelandic sagas, in form and style, is a story known as the Burnt Njal (c. 1220).
In this saga what clearly distinguishes the characters and sets them apart from one another is more their actions and speech than the description the author gives of each hero. The component parts of the story are well placed beside one another and everything, as if by inherent fate, passes through exciting events until it reaches the main tragedy, which is the burning of Njal’s house along with himself, his wife Bergthora, and his sons, at the hands of a group of his armed enemies led by a man named Flosi who has nothing in mind but taking revenge by shedding the blood of Njal’s sons.
Then Flosi … addressed Njal and said, “Lord Njal, I give you leave to go out, for it is not fitting that you should burn inside the house.” Njal said, “I will not go out, for I am an old man and have not the worthiness to avenge my sons, but I will not live with shame.” Then Flosi said to Bergthora, “Lady, come out, for I will not burn you inside the house for anyone’s sake.” Bergthora said, “I was given to Njal when I was young, and I have promised him that we should share one fate.” Then both returned inside the house.
Bergthora said, “What shall we do now?” Njal said, “We shall go to bed and lie down; I have long wished to rest.” Then Bergthora said to the young Thord, Kari’s son, “I will take you out, and you must not burn here.” The youth said, “Grandmother, you promised me that as long as I wished to stay with you you would never leave me; but I think it is much better to die with you and Njal than to live after you.” Then Bergthora took the boy and carried him to her bed … and placed him between herself and Njal. Then they made the sign of the cross upon themselves and the boy. And they commended their souls to God, and that was the last word others heard from their lips.
The Age of the Small Kingdoms (300–600) had left in the troubled memory of men and minstrels a thousand stories of social chaos, barbarian courage, and criminal love. Some of these tales were carried by emigrants to Norway and Iceland and gave rise to the Völsunga Saga; many of these myths, with similar names and subjects, penetrated Germany and grew into sagas, ballads, and epics. During the twelfth century an anonymous German writer, at a date unknown to us, took such material, piled it together, reshaped it, and from the whole composed the Nibelungenlied or Song of the Nibelungs. The form of this epic is rhythmic and rhymed stanzas in Middle High German; its subject is a mixture of pagan moods and the fiery feelings of a primitive people.
Once in the fourth century, King Gunther and his two brothers ruled over the Burgundian region from their palace in Worms beside the Rhine; in the same palace their younger sister Kriemhild, “no woman in any country was more beautiful than she,” lived with her brothers. At that time King Siegmund ruled over the Netherlands; he gave the government of his richest province, which lay near Xanten beside the Rhine, to his son Siegfried (Sigurd) to hold as a fief. Siegfried, having learned of Kriemhild’s beauty, invited himself to Gunther’s court, was welcomed there, lived there for a year, but never had the opportunity to see Kriemhild. On the other side, the maiden, who had always seen the young men from the high window of her palace busy with spear games in the courtyard, had fallen in love with Siegfried at first sight — Siegfried excelled all his rivals in spear play, and in the wars of the Burgundian people he bravely wielded the sword for them. When Gunther arranged a banquet on the occasion of a victorious peace, he invited the ladies to take part in that feast.
Many noble maidens adorned themselves with great care, and the young men, who had long waited for such an opportunity to win the favor of those beauties, could not have exchanged it for the richest royal lands … suddenly Kriemhild appeared like a dawn breaking from behind black clouds; and he who had long cherished her love did not grow colder at the sight of that fair face … Siegfried became joyful and sad, for in his heart he said, “How can I woo someone like you? Surely this is a vain thought; yet death seems better to me than being a stranger to you.” … When Kriemhild saw that noble beloved before her, her face flushed, and she said, “Noble lord Siegfried, O noble and well-mannered knight, welcome.” Upon hearing these words Siegfried’s courage increased and, with the dignity befitting a knight’s station, he bowed his head before the lady and thanked her. And love, which is powerful, prevented the lover and beloved from revealing the secret within.
Gunther, who has not yet taken a wife, learns of the Icelandic queen Brunhild; but he is told that Brunhild will only give her hand to someone who defeats her in three contests; and if the suitor fails in one of these tests, his head will be paid as forfeit. Siegfried agrees to help Gunther marry Brunhild, on condition that the king gives him Kriemhild as wife. The two quickly and easily, as is characteristic of impatient lovers, cross the sea; Siegfried, having become invisible by wearing a magic cloak, helps Gunther win the tests, and Gunther brings Brunhild, who is unwilling to leave her homeland, as his wife. Eighty-six maidens help Kriemhild prepare magnificent garments for herself. Then two splendid weddings are held at the same time. Gunther marries Brunhild and Siegfried marries Kriemhild.
But when Brunhild’s eyes fall upon Siegfried she feels that he should have been her husband rather than Gunther. On the wedding night when Gunther enters the bridal chamber, Brunhild does not give herself to him, binds him and hangs him from the wall; when Gunther is freed he calls for Siegfried’s help; the next night Siegfried disguises himself as Gunther and lies beside Brunhild; meanwhile Gunther, hidden in the dark room, hears everything and sees nothing. Brunhild throws Siegfried out of the bed and engages him in a bone-crushing and head-breaking fight that obeys no rules or laws. In the heat of the struggle Siegfried says to himself, “Alas! If I am killed by this woman, no woman will ever again honor her husband.” Finally he overcomes Brunhild, and Brunhild promises to be his wife; Siegfried, without showing himself, takes her girdle and ring and leaves the chamber and Gunther returns to his place beside the exhausted and tired queen. Siegfried presents the girdle and ring to Kriemhild and takes her to his father; his father places the crown on her head and proclaims her queen of the Netherlands. Siegfried, using the treasure of the Nibelungs, dresses his wife and her maidens in garments so costly and magnificent that women had never before seen their like.
Shortly after these events, Kriemhild visits Brunhild in Worms; Brunhild, who has become envious of Kriemhild’s magnificent clothes and ornaments, reminds her guest that Siegfried is Gunther’s vassal. Kriemhild, in reproach, shows Brunhild the girdle and ring to let her know that in reality Siegfried had overcome her, not Gunther. Hagen, Gunther’s grim half-brother, incites him against Siegfried; the two invite Siegfried to a hunt, and when he bends over a stream to drink water, Hagen pierces his side with a spear. Kriemhild, seeing her brave husband dead, “lies all that day and night in a swoon.” As Siegfried’s widow she inherits the Nibelung treasure, but Hagen persuades Gunther to deprive Kriemhild of that wealth. Gunther, his brothers, and Hagen bury the treasure in the Rhine and swear never to reveal its hiding place to anyone.
For thirteen years Kriemhild nurtured the thought of taking revenge on Hagen and his brothers, but no opportunity presented itself. Then she accepts a marriage proposal from Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, after the death of his wife, and as his queen sets out for Vienna to live there. “Etzel’s rule was so famous that the bravest knights, whether Christian or pagan, constantly came to his court … there you would see something you never see now, namely Christians and pagans together. Regardless of the great difference in their beliefs, the king gave them gifts so generously that all of them had great wealth.” There Kriemhild “ruled in perfect chastity” for thirteen years and apparently put the thought of revenge out of her mind. In reality she asks Etzel to invite her brothers along with Hagen to a banquet; despite Hagen’s warning they accept Etzel’s invitation and come with a large armed retinue of sword-wielding peasants and knights. While the king and his full brothers along with Hagen and the knights are seated at Etzel’s banquet table, outside the hall, on Kriemhild’s orders, the sword-wielding peasants are killed. When this news reaches Hagen he immediately jumps up and reaches for his weapon; inside the hall a bloody battle breaks out between the Burgundians and the Huns (which may be a memory of the real war between these two tribes in 437); Hagen with the first blow cuts off the head of Ortlieb, Kriemhild and Etzel’s five-year-old son, and throws the severed head into Kriemhild’s lap. When almost all the Burgundians are killed, Kriemhild’s brother Gernot asks Etzel to allow whoever among the guests is still alive to leave the hall. The Hunnish knights agree to this request, but Kriemhild prevents them from doing so, so the slaughter continues. Her younger brother Giselher, who was only five years old when Siegfried was killed, clings to Kriemhild’s skirt and says, “O dear sister, what have I done that I deserve to die at the hands of the Huns? I have always been faithful to you and have done you no harm; O dear sister, I came here trusting in your love. Now you must forgive us.” Kriemhild agrees to their escape on condition that they hand Hagen over to her. Gernot raises his voice and says, “May God never bring such a day. Death for all of us would be much better than making one the blood price for ourselves.” Kriemhild drives the Huns out of the palace, locks the doors on the Burgundians, and orders the building to be set on fire. The Burgundians, tormented by heat and thirst, scream in pain; Hagen orders them to quench their thirst by drinking the blood of the slain, and all do so. Some come out from among the burning timbers and debris, and the battle in the palace courtyard continues until only Gunther and Hagen remain from the Burgundian host. Dietrich, famous as the Goth, fights, overcomes Hagen, and brings him bound before Kriemhild. Kriemhild asks him where he has hidden the Nibelung treasure; Hagen says that as long as Gunther is alive he will refuse to reveal his secret; for this reason Gunther, who is also captive, is killed on his sister’s orders; when his head is brought before Hagen, he still refuses and says to Kriemhild, “Now no one knows where the treasure is hidden except God and me; and you, O devilish woman, will never know more than this.” Kriemhild takes Hagen’s sword and with it immediately strikes him down. Then one of her warriors, the famous Goth Hildebrand, who has grown weary of this woman’s bloodthirstiness, kills Kriemhild.
This is a horrible story that in cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and violence yields to no similar story in the history of world literature. Of course we have not done full justice to the matter, for from a series of banquets and feasts, heroic combats, hunting parties, and interesting episodes of the women’s world of that epic we have selected only the most gruesome events and moments; but the main and bitter subject of the tale is exactly what has been briefly mentioned, namely the story of a gentle and mild-mannered maiden who, because of a diabolical event, turns into a criminal and bloodthirsty woman. It is strange that in this tale so little of Christianity remains; it almost resembles a Greek tragedy of the goddess of revenge, except that, unlike Greek custom, it displays violence openly on the stage. In this course of depravity almost all the virtues and excellences of the feudal age, even the respect that a guest should have in the eyes of his host, sink under water. Until our own time no event has been able to go beyond the barbarity of such a story.
Troubadours
At the end of the eleventh century, an age when one would apparently expect all European literature to have taken on the religious fervor of Christians for the Crusades, a school of lyric poetry arose in the southern regions of France that was aristocratic, pagan, and anti-religious; its style showed traces of Arab influence and spoke of woman’s victory over the chastity and purity imposed upon her by the theory of the Fall. This poetic style spread from Toulouse to Paris and from there with Eleanor of Aquitaine to London and captured the heart of her son, the Lionheart Richard I; it created the German “Minnesang” and in Italy gave rise to a delicate style among the class of troubadour poets that prepared the ground for the appearance of Dante. The origin and birth of this style is linked with the name of Eleanor’s grandfather, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. This bold youth at the age of eleven (1087) declared himself almost the independent ruler of southwestern France. He joined the First Crusade and composed lyrics in praise of the victory of Western heroes in that struggle, but like many nobles of his domain, which had become a center of heretics, he had little respect for the Church and with full humor mocked the priests. In an old Provençal biography it is written that the Duke of Aquitaine “was one of the most courteous men in the world and had a great talent for seducing and deceiving ladies; he was a brave knight who loved much, and knew well how to sing and compose poetry; and for a very long time he traveled the whole country in order to ensnare ladies.” Although married, he courted the beautiful Viscountess of Châtellerault and lived openly with that woman. When the brave and outspoken Bishop of Angoulême warned him that he must cease his filthy deeds, the Duke replied, “As soon as the hair on your head needs combing, I will give up the Viscountess.” After he had been excommunicated, one day he met the Bishop of Poitiers and said to him, “Pray for me, or I will kill you.” The Bishop bent his neck and said, “Strike!” William refused and said, “No — I do not love you enough to send you to paradise.” The style the Duke used in his amorous letters to noble ladies laid the foundation for a new style in composing epistles. But he was not only a man of words; he had a short but glorious life and died at the age of fifty-six (1137). He left Eleanor a vast domain, a sound taste and love of poetry, and an amorous nature.
Eleanor gathered poets in Toulouse, and that group willingly composed and sang songs for her and her courtiers in praise of women’s beauty and the spells they cast. Bernard de Ventadour, whose poems in Petrarch’s view were only slightly inferior to his own lyrics, began to compose poems that praised the beauty of the Viscountess of Ventadour; the Viscountess took these poems so seriously that her husband was forced to imprison her in a tower of his residential palace. Bernard, encouraged by this, turned his attention to composing poems in praise of Eleanor’s own beauty and brilliance, and then turned to the soul; and when Eleanor first gave her heart to the King of France and then to the King of England, Bernard poured the highest inner feelings into a famous lament. One generation later another famous troubadour named Bertran de Born became a very close friend of Richard I and a victorious rival in winning the heart of the most beautiful woman of the age, the Lady Maent de Montignac.
Another troubadour named Peire Vidal accompanied Richard on crusade; he lived in poverty with love and wrote poetry; and finally received an estate from Count Raymond VI, lord of Toulouse. We know the names of 446 other troubadours; but the works of these four alone are a handful that speak of thousands of love lyrics and songs by others.
Some of this group were wandering minstrels and vagabonds, and most were lesser nobles who had talent and a great love of singing; four of them were kings: Richard I, Frederick II, Alfonso II, and Peter III, King of Aragon. For a century (1150–1250) this group ruled over the literature of southern France and shaped the manners and customs of a newly emerging aristocratic class that was moving from rural barbarism to a stage of chivalry that, by its rule, paid for war with humility and courtesy and compensated for adultery with grace and dignity. The language of the troubadours was Langue d’Oc or the Romance language of southern France and northeastern Spain. The name of these singing or lyric minstrels, troubadours, is an unsolved puzzle; it is likely that this word derives from the Romance verb “trobar,” meaning “to find” or “to invent,” just as the Italian word “trovatore” apparently derives from “trovare”; but some scholars think the word must come from the Arabic “tarab.” This group of singers called their art the “science of tarab”; but their idea of tarab was not something superficial; for this reason anyone who wished to join this circle was required to receive long training in literature, music, the art of speaking, and courtesy toward women; this group dressed like the nobility, always wore a cloak with a border of gold embroidery and expensive furs; most moved armed and in armor like knights, took part in military festivals, and for the ladies they admired, if they did not lay down their lives, at least used both pen and sword. They composed poetry only for the aristocratic class; usually they themselves composed the music for their lyrics and hired minstrels to sing these songs in banquets or military festivals; but most of them also played the lute and drew passionate feelings from the lyrics.
Probably the outburst of feeling itself was a literary style; the burning passion, the fulfillment of heavenly promises, and the melancholy despair of the troubadours all counted as poetic expressions and poetic necessity; husbands apparently knew these burning and melting feelings as nothing more than this and were less jealous than most men. Since marriage among the nobility was usually a matter of transferring property and assets, just as is mentioned in French legends, love and romance came after marriage, and except for a few exceptional stories, all love stories in medieval literature, from Francesca and Beatrice in the south to Isolde and Guinevere in the north, are tales of illicit love. Since in general it was not possible to reach union with a married lady, this very fact gave rise to the poems of the troubadours; when human desires are fulfilled, it becomes difficult to let the steed of imagination gallop about them, and wherever there are no obstacles or impediments, there is no literature. In history we encounter the names of a few troubadours who attained the greatest desires, that is, fulfillment from the ladies to whom they sang praises, but such cases must be counted as violations of the literary customs of the age; for normally the poet was required to quench his thirst with a kiss or the touch of a hand. Such self-restraint required refinement and perfection; and in the thirteenth century the poems of this group of troubadours — perhaps also under the influence of the cult of the Virgin Mary — rose from the level of carnal pleasures to the height of spiritual grace and purity. But in the works of these men little trace of asceticism and piety is seen. The aversion that members of this group had toward chastity and purity led them to oppose the Church. Several of them mocked bishops and ridiculed hell and supported the Albigensian heretics, and where Saint Louis with all his chastity had failed, they celebrated the victory of an unbelieving king like Frederick in the crusades. Guiraut Ademar had only one crusade he approved of, and that was because it removed a husband who was a thorn in his path. Raimon Jordan preferred one night with his beloved to life in the promised paradise.
The styles of versification were far more important to the troubadours than the rules of moral principles. A chanson was a lyric; a planh was a lament or elegy that the poet composed on the death of a friend or beloved; a tenson was a poetic debate on a subject such as love, morality, or chivalry; a sirventes was a song composed for war or enmity or attacking a political rival. A sestina was a complicated sequence of six successive rhymed stanzas each having six lines; this style of lyric composition was invented by Arnaut Daniel and greatly pleased Dante; a pastourelle was a dialogue between a troubadour and a shepherdess; an aubade or alba was a dawn song and usually warned the lover and beloved that the coming of day would soon reveal their secret; a serena or serenade was a night song; and a ballada was a narrative poem. Here is an example of an aubade, or a piece about the coming of dawn, from an anonymous poet who puts the words in the mouth of a Juliet of the twelfth century:
In the garden where the white hawthorn has spread its leaves, my lady has lain beside her beloved, until the watchman cries that dawn has come — alas, the dawn that is cause for sorrow! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O God, let not that night, the dear night, ever end.
Or let my beloved leave me, or let the watchman stop singing “dawn” — yes, that dawn that is the slayer of peace! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O dear and sweet beloved, your lips, our lips still press together! See how in the meadow the birds begin to sing.
May love be our portion, for the portion of envy is only pain! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! From that sweet breeze that blows from far away, have I not drunk sip by sip from the breath of my beloved, yes from the warm breath of the comforter who is so dear and full of joy.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! This is the dawn that the maiden who keeps good manners well sees, and many people look upon the fitting behavior of this beauty; her heart never betrays love.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes!
By the middle of the thirteenth century, partly because of the increasing artificiality of the styles and feelings of such lyrics, and partly because of the destruction of southern France by the Albigensian Crusade, the troubadour movement came to an end. In those turbulent days of the religious wars, many castles that were the refuge of these lyricists fell, and when Toulouse itself was subjected to a double siege, the chivalric system that had been established in the Aquitaine region collapsed.
Some minstrels fled to Spain and some to Italy, and it was in Italy that the art of lyric poetry again flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century, and both Dante and Petrarch were among the new stars of the world of lyric poetry. It was the “science of tarab” and the virtues and courtesy of this group that helped create a code and instruction for chivalry and turned a group of wild people from northern Europe into a class of nobles. From that time until now literature has been under the influence of those delicate melodies and perhaps it is thanks to the perfume of their praise that the sweet scent of love now perfumes the soul of man.
Minnesingers
The troubadour movement spread from France to the southern regions of Germany and flourished there in the golden age of the Hohenstaufen. German poets were called minnesingers (singers of love). The subject of their poems was “service in the way of love” and “service to the lady,” both of which were considered part of the chivalry of that era. We know the names of about three hundred of these minnesingers, because a large amount of their poetry has survived. Some of this group belonged to the lower nobility; most were poor people dependent on the favors and gifts of emperors or dukes. Although this group strictly used a special rule for determining poetic meters and rhythms, many of them were illiterate, and they dictated the words and music of their songs or, in other words, recited them aloud for others to record; to this day the German word for poems is Dichtung, which also means “dictation.” Usually these singers had minstrels read the songs, and sometimes they themselves read such pieces. In history we encounter mention of the great Sängerkrieg (song contest) that was held in 1207 at Wartburg Castle; it is said that two famous singers, Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach, both took part in this contest. The minnesingers helped for more than a century to raise the status of woman in Germany; and ladies of the nobility became the source and inspiration of a culture more refined than Germany would again see its like before Schiller and Goethe.
Wolfram and Walther von der Vogelweide have been counted among the minnesingers, for both wrote love songs, but Wolfram and his piece Parzival are better discussed under the heading of romances or imaginary love legends. Walther von der Vogelweide was born before 1170 in a place in Tyrol. He was a poor knight who made his situation worse by engaging in poetry and song. At the age of twenty he sang for a living in the houses of nobles. In those years of youth he spoke of love with the same freedom of sensual pleasure as his rivals frowned upon. His song entitled Under the Linden Tree has remained to this day like a precious gem in Germany:
Under the linden trees on the heath grass a bed had been made for us two; there one could see flowers crushed and grass trampled.
From among the thick bushes in the little valley of Tandaradei! The nightingale sings sweetly.
I had hurried there through the grass.
I, the most blessed of maidens! had been caught there.
For my fortune is forever good. There he kissed me many times Tandaradei! Look how red my lips are! With haste mixed with joy he made a bower for us both from the blossoms there.
Still that secluded place must be a faded jest for those who tread the same path and look at the place where that day — Tandaradei! my head rested among the red flowers.
How ashamed I would be if anyone (now I say God forbid!) had been present there then.
There we both lay, but no one knew of this secret except my beloved and me. And the little nightingale, Tandaradei! which I know will not betray my secret.
As Walther grew older his perception matured and he gradually observed in woman a delicacy and grace more pleasing than any physical attraction, and he concluded that the reward of the union of man and woman through marriage is far greater than any superficial pleasurable excitement arising from variety. On this subject he says in one piece: “Happy is the man and happy is the woman whose hearts are true to each other; the value and worth of their lives increases; all the days and years of their lives are blessed.” Walther condemned the praise that other lyricists of his time poured at the feet of courtly ladies; he declared that the word wip (the same word as Weib, meaning “woman”) is a far higher title than Vrouwe (the same word as Frau, meaning “lady”); women and noble men of good character form the true aristocracy. In his view, “German ladies are as beautiful as divine angels; whoever slanders them laughs at his own beard.” In 1197 Emperor Henry VI died; and Germany suffered chaos for a generation until Frederick II came of age. The patronage of learning by the nobility declined and Walther, who no longer had a patron, wandered from court to court, and unfortunately in competition with shameless jesters and noisy magicians was forced to sing for his bread. In the account book of Wolfger, Bishop of Passau, one interesting item reads: “November 12, 1203, five solidi paid to Walther von der Vogelweide to buy a fur coat to protect himself against the winter cold.” This was a doubly pious act of a Christian, for Walther was one of the fervent members of the Ghibelline party, tuned his lute to oppose the popes, constantly criticized the wrongdoings of the Church, and was angry at why the money of the German people was being sent across the Alps to fill the papal treasury in the name of Saint Peter’s penny. With all this he was a devout Christian, composed a magnificent “Crusade Song”; but he was able at times to rise above the battlefield and see all human beings as brothers, as he says in one piece:
Humanity receives life from one virgin maiden, we all resemble one another inside and out, our mouths are all satisfied with the same kind of food, and when their bones are all ground together, you say which one was the living man, and from this crowd that the worms have so emptied, which now is the servant and which the master. Christians, Jews, and pagans all serve and God holds all creation under His care.
After a quarter century of wandering and poverty, Walther received an estate and a regular income from Frederick II (1221) and from then on was able to spend the remaining seven years of his life in perfect peace. He regretted that he was older and weaker than to be able to go on crusade; he asked God for forgiveness that he was unable to love his enemies, and in a poem he left his possessions for his survivors in this way: “To the envious I leave my bad luck; to the liars my troubles; to the false lovers my follies; to the ladies my heartache.” His body was buried in Würzburg Cathedral; beside his grave a memorial stone tells of Germany’s affection for the greatest poet of this age.
After Walther’s death the minnesinger movement indulged itself with the exaggerations of the period and shared in the disasters that shattered Germany after the fall of Frederick II. Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his versified autobiography entitled Service to the Lady describes how he was raised in an environment full of feelings of service to ladies. Ulrich chose a woman as his goddess, and because he had a harelip and feared that the lady would be repelled by the sight of his face, he ordered his lip to be sewn, and took part in military festivals for the love of his beloved. When he was told that the woman was astonished that Ulrich still possessed the finger that she thought he had lost in the path of her honor, Ulrich cut off that particular finger and, as a sign of respect for his beloved’s word, sent it to her. When fortune helped and Ulrich succeeded in drinking the water in which the lady had washed her hands, he no longer knew himself for joy. And when he received a letter from his beloved, because he could not read, he carried it in his pocket for weeks until he found a trusted person who could read the letter for him. After he was granted the favor of his beloved’s mercy, he stood for two full days in beggar’s rags among a group of lepers at the door of the lady’s palace waiting. The lady allowed him to enter, and when she saw that he was a persistent man she ordered him to be wrapped in a sheet, lowered from the window of her bedroom, and placed on the ground. Throughout this period Ulrich had one wife and several children.
The minnesinger movement ended with some pomp and glory with the songs of Heinrich von Meißen — who was called Frauenlob (praiser of women) because of his songs in praise of woman’s status. When he died in 1317 in Mainz, the ladies of the city, singing melodious laments, carried his body to the cathedral and poured so much wine on his coffin that it flowed like a stream through the whole church. After him the art of singing left the hands of knights and fell to the middle class. The romantic spirit of woman-worship faded and in the fourteenth century gave way to the robust pleasure and art of urban minnesingers or singers and lyricists and announced the rise of the bourgeoisie to the world of poetry and song.
Romances
The emergence of literature from the realm of religion and religious subjects went hand in hand with the rise of national languages. Generally, until the twelfth century only clerics knew Latin, and writers who wished to make their thoughts and intentions known to the common people were forced to use vernacular languages. As soon as the social system expanded, the number of readers increased, and to meet such a need national literature came into being. French literature began in the eleventh century, German literature in the twelfth, and the literatures of the English, Spanish, and Italian peoples in the thirteenth century.
The natural initial form of this vernacular literature was folk songs. The song became a ballad, and ballads were expanded and turned into short epics such as Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poem of the Cid. The Chanson de Roland was probably formed around 1130 from the combination of ballads belonging to the ninth or tenth centuries. This epic, in four thousand simple and fluent lines in a meter with stress on the final syllable, tells the story of Roland’s death at Roncevaux. After Charlemagne subdues Moorish Spain, he returns with his troops toward France; the traitor Ganelon reveals their route to the enemy, and Roland voluntarily agrees to take on the dangerous task of rear guard for the army. In the narrow and winding pass of the Pyrenees a vast host of Basque forces attacks Roland’s small troop from the cliffs above. Roland’s friend Oliver asks him to blow his great horn to call Charlemagne for help, but Roland with full pride refuses to ask for help. He, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, who have given up their lives, fight at the head of their troops until almost all of them are killed. Oliver, struck with mortal blows on the head and blinded by blood flowing into his eyes, mistakes Roland for one of the enemy and strikes him a heavy blow so that Roland’s helmet is split from crown to near the piece that covers his nose, but Roland is not harmed:
With the falling of this blow Roland looks at him and softly and gently asks him, “O noble friend, do you strike me in earnest? I am Roland whom you love with all your heart. I have never before seen you draw your sword against me in any way.” Oliver says, “Now I hear your voice, I do not see you. May God see you and save you! Did I strike a blow upon you? Forgive me!” Roland answers, “I am not wounded. Here and before God I forgive you.” And with these words one bows to the other, and with such love the two part from each other.
Finally Roland blows his jeweled horn so hard that blood flows from his temples. Charlemagne hears it and, while “his white beard flutters in the wind,” turns back to save him and his troops. But the way back is long. “The mountains are high and wide and dark, the valleys deep and the rivers rushing.” Meanwhile Roland mourns over Oliver’s corpse and says to him, “O noble friend, we have seen many days and years together. Never have you done me wrong nor I you. If you have left this world, life is all pain.” The archbishop too, who is dying, begs Roland to flee and save himself; Roland refuses and continues to fight until his attackers flee, but he himself has received mortal wounds. Then, with the last strength he has, he breaks his jeweled sword Durandal on a rock so that it will not fall into the hands of the infidels. Then “Count Roland, facing Spain, rested beneath a pine tree. … In that state many events passed through his mind; he remembered the lands he had conquered, sweet France, his family, and Charlemagne who had raised him, and he wept.” Then Roland raises his glove as a sign of vassalage and surrender before God, and when Charlemagne arrives he finds him dead. No translation can reproduce the simple and noble grandeur seen in the original of this epic, and no one can fully understand the power and tender feelings of this national epic, which every French child learns along with his daily prayers, unless he has drunk love and pride for France with his mother’s milk.
Around 1160 an anonymous poet, through romantic imagination, elevated the qualities and bravery of the famous Spanish commander known as the Cid or Rodrigo Díaz (d. 1099) to the highest degree and gave Spain a national epic with his poem entitled the Poem of the Cid. Here too the main subject is the struggle of Christian knights against the Moors inhabiting Spain, the elevation of the nobility, honor, and courage of the feudal age, and more the glory of war than servitude before a beloved. Thus Rodrigo, when exiled by an ungrateful king, leaves his wife and children in a convent and swears that he will not live with them again unless he emerges victorious from five wars. He sets out to fight the Moors; the first half of this poem consists of resounding victories that involuntarily recall Homer’s Iliad. The Cid, during the wars, steals from the Jews, distributes alms among the poor, and feeds a leper and eats from the same bowl and sleeps in the same bed himself, and realizes that the leper is Eleazar whom Jesus had brought back from the world of the dead to the world of the living. Of course the hero of this poem differs in reality from the Cid we know from history, but the damage it does to historical facts is no greater than that of the Chanson de Roland, which raises Charlemagne to the height of perfection. The Poem of the Cid became a stimulant and intoxicating drug for Spanish pride and thought; hundreds of ballads were composed about the hero of this poem and a hundred more or less historical stories were written. In the world there is little that can be found as bitter as truth and as universally distasteful as it.
No one has yet explained why a small country like Iceland, which is assailed by the forces of nature and whose connection with everywhere is cut off by the sea, should have produced in this period a literature whose scope and brilliance had no proportion to its geographical position and area. Two things helped the birth of Icelandic writers: one was a rich source of historical traditions that is usually dear to every distant or isolated population and is preserved orally from generation to generation; the other was the habit of reading or listening to others, which is usually a good pastime for the long winter nights. In the twelfth century, in addition to the libraries of the monasteries of this island, there were also many private libraries. When writing became a virtue that everyone became familiar with, the common people, just like the clergy, wrote down in literary style all the information and knowledge belonging to their race and nation that had once been the special property of poets.
According to one of the rarest coincidences, the foremost writer of Iceland in the thirteenth century was at the same time the richest person on the island and twice “law speaker” or, as the Icelanders themselves called it, “guardian of the laws.” Snorri Sturluson loved life more than learning; he undertook long journeys, participated intensely in politics and disputes, and was killed at the age of sixty-two by his son-in-law. His book entitled Heimskringla or “the circle of the world,” “a style free of ornament and concise” that is natural for a working man, described the history and legends of the Norse people. His other work, the Prose Edda, offered a summary of biblical history, a summary of Norse mythology, an essay on poetic meters and rhythms, a treatise on the art of poetry, and an unparalleled explanation of the origin of the flood of art and how this gift was distributed. Two warring and hostile groups of gods, by spitting into a vessel, made peace with each other; from their spittle a demigod named Kvasir was created who, like Prometheus, taught wisdom to the sons of men. Small beings killed Kvasir and by mixing his blood with wine made a mead that whoever drank a draught of it would receive the gift of singing. Odin, the All-Father, found his way to the place where the small beings had hidden this mead, drank all of it, and flew toward the heavens. But some of this poetic mead that had filled his heart poured out in a way that is less true of public fountains. This divine stream fell to earth in the form of an inspiring drizzle, and whoever benefited from this source of grace instinctively gained the poetic gift. These nonsense tales of a learned man were as consistent with rational standards as history.
Icelandic literature in this period was astonishingly rich and alive with the humor, vitality, and poetic interest and delicacy that fill its prose. During this era hundreds of sagas were written, some short and some as long as a novel, some historical and most a mixture of history and legend. Generally these were memories of a civilized heroic age full of glory and violence intertwined with many disputes and soothed with the balm of love. Snorri’s “Ynglinga Saga” repeatedly tells of Norse warriors who burn one another in noble halls or by drinking cups of fiery mead. The richest of these legends is the story known as the Völsunga Saga. The oldest form of these legends is in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda and the latest complete form is in the story of the Nibelungen Ring, which the German composer Wagner turned into an immortal opera.
The name Völsung was applied to each of the descendants of Völs, one of the Norse kings who was the great-grandson of Odin and the grandfather of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the Nibelungenlied the Nibelungs are the kings of Burgundy; in the Völsunga Saga this people are a short and small race who guard an immensely precious treasure and a golden ring in the Rhine region, which at the same time brings a doom upon whoever possesses the two. Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir who guards the treasure and takes possession of that hoard. During his wanderings he reaches a hill surrounded on all sides by fire and on top of it the Valkyrie Brynhild (a demigoddess descended from Odin) lies asleep. Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild’s beauty, and Brynhild also falls in love with him; the two pledge fidelity to each other; and then, as is the custom of men in many medieval imaginary legends, Sigurd leaves Brynhild and continues his journeys. At the court of Giuki, a king from the Rhine region, Sigurd meets the princess Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother gives Sigurd a magic drink that causes him to forget Brynhild and marry her daughter. Gunnar, Giuki’s son, marries Brynhild and brings her to court. Brynhild, who is bitterly angry at Sigurd’s forgetfulness, arranges for his murder; then she repents, climbs the pyre built to burn Sigurd’s body, kills herself with his sword, and burns beside him in the fire.
The latest of these Icelandic sagas, in form and style, is a story known as the Burnt Njal (c. 1220).
In this saga what clearly distinguishes the characters and sets them apart from one another is more their actions and speech than the description the author gives of each hero. The component parts of the story are well placed beside one another and everything, as if by inherent fate, passes through exciting events until it reaches the main tragedy, which is the burning of Njal’s house along with himself, his wife Bergthora, and his sons, at the hands of a group of his armed enemies led by a man named Flosi who has nothing in mind but taking revenge by shedding the blood of Njal’s sons.
Then Flosi … addressed Njal and said, “Lord Njal, I give you leave to go out, for it is not fitting that you should burn inside the house.” Njal said, “I will not go out, for I am an old man and have not the worthiness to avenge my sons, but I will not live with shame.” Then Flosi said to Bergthora, “Lady, come out, for I will not burn you inside the house for anyone’s sake.” Bergthora said, “I was given to Njal when I was young, and I have promised him that we should share one fate.” Then both returned inside the house.
Bergthora said, “What shall we do now?” Njal said, “We shall go to bed and lie down; I have long wished to rest.” Then Bergthora said to the young Thord, Kari’s son, “I will take you out, and you must not burn here.” The youth said, “Grandmother, you promised me that as long as I wished to stay with you you would never leave me; but I think it is much better to die with you and Njal than to live after you.” Then Bergthora took the boy and carried him to her bed … and placed him between herself and Njal. Then they made the sign of the cross upon themselves and the boy. And they commended their souls to God, and that was the last word others heard from their lips.
The Age of the Small Kingdoms (300–600) had left in the troubled memory of men and minstrels a thousand stories of social chaos, barbarian courage, and criminal love. Some of these tales were carried by emigrants to Norway and Iceland and gave rise to the Völsunga Saga; many of these myths, with similar names and subjects, penetrated Germany and grew into sagas, ballads, and epics. During the twelfth century an anonymous German writer, at a date unknown to us, took such material, piled it together, reshaped it, and from the whole composed the Nibelungenlied or Song of the Nibelungs. The form of this epic is rhythmic and rhymed stanzas in Middle High German; its subject is a mixture of pagan moods and the fiery feelings of a primitive people.
Once in the fourth century, King Gunther and his two brothers ruled over the Burgundian region from their palace in Worms beside the Rhine; in the same palace their younger sister Kriemhild, “no woman in any country was more beautiful than she,” lived with her brothers. At that time King Siegmund ruled over the Netherlands; he gave the government of his richest province, which lay near Xanten beside the Rhine, to his son Siegfried (Sigurd) to hold as a fief. Siegfried, having learned of Kriemhild’s beauty, invited himself to Gunther’s court, was welcomed there, lived there for a year, but never had the opportunity to see Kriemhild. On the other side, the maiden, who had always seen the young men from the high window of her palace busy with spear games in the courtyard, had fallen in love with Siegfried at first sight — Siegfried excelled all his rivals in spear play, and in the wars of the Burgundian people he bravely wielded the sword for them. When Gunther arranged a banquet on the occasion of a victorious peace, he invited the ladies to take part in that feast.
Many noble maidens adorned themselves with great care, and the young men, who had long waited for such an opportunity to win the favor of those beauties, could not have exchanged it for the richest royal lands … suddenly Kriemhild appeared like a dawn breaking from behind black clouds; and he who had long cherished her love did not grow colder at the sight of that fair face … Siegfried became joyful and sad, for in his heart he said, “How can I woo someone like you? Surely this is a vain thought; yet death seems better to me than being a stranger to you.” … When Kriemhild saw that noble beloved before her, her face flushed, and she said, “Noble lord Siegfried, O noble and well-mannered knight, welcome.” Upon hearing these words Siegfried’s courage increased and, with the dignity befitting a knight’s station, he bowed his head before the lady and thanked her. And love, which is powerful, prevented the lover and beloved from revealing the secret within.
Gunther, who has not yet taken a wife, learns of the Icelandic queen Brunhild; but he is told that Brunhild will only give her hand to someone who defeats her in three contests; and if the suitor fails in one of these tests, his head will be paid as forfeit. Siegfried agrees to help Gunther marry Brunhild, on condition that the king gives him Kriemhild as wife. The two quickly and easily, as is characteristic of impatient lovers, cross the sea; Siegfried, having become invisible by wearing a magic cloak, helps Gunther win the tests, and Gunther brings Brunhild, who is unwilling to leave her homeland, as his wife. Eighty-six maidens help Kriemhild prepare magnificent garments for herself. Then two splendid weddings are held at the same time. Gunther marries Brunhild and Siegfried marries Kriemhild.
But when Brunhild’s eyes fall upon Siegfried she feels that he should have been her husband rather than Gunther. On the wedding night when Gunther enters the bridal chamber, Brunhild does not give herself to him, binds him and hangs him from the wall; when Gunther is freed he calls for Siegfried’s help; the next night Siegfried disguises himself as Gunther and lies beside Brunhild; meanwhile Gunther, hidden in the dark room, hears everything and sees nothing. Brunhild throws Siegfried out of the bed and engages him in a bone-crushing and head-breaking fight that obeys no rules or laws. In the heat of the struggle Siegfried says to himself, “Alas! If I am killed by this woman, no woman will ever again honor her husband.” Finally he overcomes Brunhild, and Brunhild promises to be his wife; Siegfried, without showing himself, takes her girdle and ring and leaves the chamber and Gunther returns to his place beside the exhausted and tired queen. Siegfried presents the girdle and ring to Kriemhild and takes her to his father; his father places the crown on her head and proclaims her queen of the Netherlands. Siegfried, using the treasure of the Nibelungs, dresses his wife and her maidens in garments so costly and magnificent that women had never before seen their like.
Shortly after these events, Kriemhild visits Brunhild in Worms; Brunhild, who has become envious of Kriemhild’s magnificent clothes and ornaments, reminds her guest that Siegfried is Gunther’s vassal. Kriemhild, in reproach, shows Brunhild the girdle and ring to let her know that in reality Siegfried had overcome her, not Gunther. Hagen, Gunther’s grim half-brother, incites him against Siegfried; the two invite Siegfried to a hunt, and when he bends over a stream to drink water, Hagen pierces his side with a spear. Kriemhild, seeing her brave husband dead, “lies all that day and night in a swoon.” As Siegfried’s widow she inherits the Nibelung treasure, but Hagen persuades Gunther to deprive Kriemhild of that wealth. Gunther, his brothers, and Hagen bury the treasure in the Rhine and swear never to reveal its hiding place to anyone.
For thirteen years Kriemhild nurtured the thought of taking revenge on Hagen and his brothers, but no opportunity presented itself. Then she accepts a marriage proposal from Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, after the death of his wife, and as his queen sets out for Vienna to live there. “Etzel’s rule was so famous that the bravest knights, whether Christian or pagan, constantly came to his court … there you would see something you never see now, namely Christians and pagans together. Regardless of the great difference in their beliefs, the king gave them gifts so generously that all of them had great wealth.” There Kriemhild “ruled in perfect chastity” for thirteen years and apparently put the thought of revenge out of her mind. In reality she asks Etzel to invite her brothers along with Hagen to a banquet; despite Hagen’s warning they accept Etzel’s invitation and come with a large armed retinue of sword-wielding peasants and knights. While the king and his full brothers along with Hagen and the knights are seated at Etzel’s banquet table, outside the hall, on Kriemhild’s orders, the sword-wielding peasants are killed. When this news reaches Hagen he immediately jumps up and reaches for his weapon; inside the hall a bloody battle breaks out between the Burgundians and the Huns (which may be a memory of the real war between these two tribes in 437); Hagen with the first blow cuts off the head of Ortlieb, Kriemhild and Etzel’s five-year-old son, and throws the severed head into Kriemhild’s lap. When almost all the Burgundians are killed, Kriemhild’s brother Gernot asks Etzel to allow whoever among the guests is still alive to leave the hall. The Hunnish knights agree to this request, but Kriemhild prevents them from doing so, so the slaughter continues. Her younger brother Giselher, who was only five years old when Siegfried was killed, clings to Kriemhild’s skirt and says, “O dear sister, what have I done that I deserve to die at the hands of the Huns? I have always been faithful to you and have done you no harm; O dear sister, I came here trusting in your love. Now you must forgive us.” Kriemhild agrees to their escape on condition that they hand Hagen over to her. Gernot raises his voice and says, “May God never bring such a day. Death for all of us would be much better than making one the blood price for ourselves.” Kriemhild drives the Huns out of the palace, locks the doors on the Burgundians, and orders the building to be set on fire. The Burgundians, tormented by heat and thirst, scream in pain; Hagen orders them to quench their thirst by drinking the blood of the slain, and all do so. Some come out from among the burning timbers and debris, and the battle in the palace courtyard continues until only Gunther and Hagen remain from the Burgundian host. Dietrich, famous as the Goth, fights, overcomes Hagen, and brings him bound before Kriemhild. Kriemhild asks him where he has hidden the Nibelung treasure; Hagen says that as long as Gunther is alive he will refuse to reveal his secret; for this reason Gunther, who is also captive, is killed on his sister’s orders; when his head is brought before Hagen, he still refuses and says to Kriemhild, “Now no one knows where the treasure is hidden except God and me; and you, O devilish woman, will never know more than this.” Kriemhild takes Hagen’s sword and with it immediately strikes him down. Then one of her warriors, the famous Goth Hildebrand, who has grown weary of this woman’s bloodthirstiness, kills Kriemhild.
This is a horrible story that in cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and violence yields to no similar story in the history of world literature. Of course we have not done full justice to the matter, for from a series of banquets and feasts, heroic combats, hunting parties, and interesting episodes of the women’s world of that epic we have selected only the most gruesome events and moments; but the main and bitter subject of the tale is exactly what has been briefly mentioned, namely the story of a gentle and mild-mannered maiden who, because of a diabolical event, turns into a criminal and bloodthirsty woman. It is strange that in this tale so little of Christianity remains; it almost resembles a Greek tragedy of the goddess of revenge, except that, unlike Greek custom, it displays violence openly on the stage. In this course of depravity almost all the virtues and excellences of the feudal age, even the respect that a guest should have in the eyes of his host, sink under water. Until our own time no event has been able to go beyond the barbarity of such a story.
Troubadours
At the end of the eleventh century, an age when one would apparently expect all European literature to have taken on the religious fervor of Christians for the Crusades, a school of lyric poetry arose in the southern regions of France that was aristocratic, pagan, and anti-religious; its style showed traces of Arab influence and spoke of woman’s victory over the chastity and purity imposed upon her by the theory of the Fall. This poetic style spread from Toulouse to Paris and from there with Eleanor of Aquitaine to London and captured the heart of her son, the Lionheart Richard I; it created the German “Minnesang” and in Italy gave rise to a delicate style among the class of troubadour poets that prepared the ground for the appearance of Dante. The origin and birth of this style is linked with the name of Eleanor’s grandfather, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. This bold youth at the age of eleven (1087) declared himself almost the independent ruler of southwestern France. He joined the First Crusade and composed lyrics in praise of the victory of Western heroes in that struggle, but like many nobles of his domain, which had become a center of heretics, he had little respect for the Church and with full humor mocked the priests. In an old Provençal biography it is written that the Duke of Aquitaine “was one of the most courteous men in the world and had a great talent for seducing and deceiving ladies; he was a brave knight who loved much, and knew well how to sing and compose poetry; and for a very long time he traveled the whole country in order to ensnare ladies.” Although married, he courted the beautiful Viscountess of Châtellerault and lived openly with that woman. When the brave and outspoken Bishop of Angoulême warned him that he must cease his filthy deeds, the Duke replied, “As soon as the hair on your head needs combing, I will give up the Viscountess.” After he had been excommunicated, one day he met the Bishop of Poitiers and said to him, “Pray for me, or I will kill you.” The Bishop bent his neck and said, “Strike!” William refused and said, “No — I do not love you enough to send you to paradise.” The style the Duke used in his amorous letters to noble ladies laid the foundation for a new style in composing epistles. But he was not only a man of words; he had a short but glorious life and died at the age of fifty-six (1137). He left Eleanor a vast domain, a sound taste and love of poetry, and an amorous nature.
Eleanor gathered poets in Toulouse, and that group willingly composed and sang songs for her and her courtiers in praise of women’s beauty and the spells they cast. Bernard de Ventadour, whose poems in Petrarch’s view were only slightly inferior to his own lyrics, began to compose poems that praised the beauty of the Viscountess of Ventadour; the Viscountess took these poems so seriously that her husband was forced to imprison her in a tower of his residential palace. Bernard, encouraged by this, turned his attention to composing poems in praise of Eleanor’s own beauty and brilliance, and then turned to the soul; and when Eleanor first gave her heart to the King of France and then to the King of England, Bernard poured the highest inner feelings into a famous lament. One generation later another famous troubadour named Bertran de Born became a very close friend of Richard I and a victorious rival in winning the heart of the most beautiful woman of the age, the Lady Maent de Montignac.
Another troubadour named Peire Vidal accompanied Richard on crusade; he lived in poverty with love and wrote poetry; and finally received an estate from Count Raymond VI, lord of Toulouse. We know the names of 446 other troubadours; but the works of these four alone are a handful that speak of thousands of love lyrics and songs by others.
Some of this group were wandering minstrels and vagabonds, and most were lesser nobles who had talent and a great love of singing; four of them were kings: Richard I, Frederick II, Alfonso II, and Peter III, King of Aragon. For a century (1150–1250) this group ruled over the literature of southern France and shaped the manners and customs of a newly emerging aristocratic class that was moving from rural barbarism to a stage of chivalry that, by its rule, paid for war with humility and courtesy and compensated for adultery with grace and dignity. The language of the troubadours was Langue d’Oc or the Romance language of southern France and northeastern Spain. The name of these singing or lyric minstrels, troubadours, is an unsolved puzzle; it is likely that this word derives from the Romance verb “trobar,” meaning “to find” or “to invent,” just as the Italian word “trovatore” apparently derives from “trovare”; but some scholars think the word must come from the Arabic “tarab.” This group of singers called their art the “science of tarab”; but their idea of tarab was not something superficial; for this reason anyone who wished to join this circle was required to receive long training in literature, music, the art of speaking, and courtesy toward women; this group dressed like the nobility, always wore a cloak with a border of gold embroidery and expensive furs; most moved armed and in armor like knights, took part in military festivals, and for the ladies they admired, if they did not lay down their lives, at least used both pen and sword. They composed poetry only for the aristocratic class; usually they themselves composed the music for their lyrics and hired minstrels to sing these songs in banquets or military festivals; but most of them also played the lute and drew passionate feelings from the lyrics.
Probably the outburst of feeling itself was a literary style; the burning passion, the fulfillment of heavenly promises, and the melancholy despair of the troubadours all counted as poetic expressions and poetic necessity; husbands apparently knew these burning and melting feelings as nothing more than this and were less jealous than most men. Since marriage among the nobility was usually a matter of transferring property and assets, just as is mentioned in French legends, love and romance came after marriage, and except for a few exceptional stories, all love stories in medieval literature, from Francesca and Beatrice in the south to Isolde and Guinevere in the north, are tales of illicit love. Since in general it was not possible to reach union with a married lady, this very fact gave rise to the poems of the troubadours; when human desires are fulfilled, it becomes difficult to let the steed of imagination gallop about them, and wherever there are no obstacles or impediments, there is no literature. In history we encounter the names of a few troubadours who attained the greatest desires, that is, fulfillment from the ladies to whom they sang praises, but such cases must be counted as violations of the literary customs of the age; for normally the poet was required to quench his thirst with a kiss or the touch of a hand. Such self-restraint required refinement and perfection; and in the thirteenth century the poems of this group of troubadours — perhaps also under the influence of the cult of the Virgin Mary — rose from the level of carnal pleasures to the height of spiritual grace and purity. But in the works of these men little trace of asceticism and piety is seen. The aversion that members of this group had toward chastity and purity led them to oppose the Church. Several of them mocked bishops and ridiculed hell and supported the Albigensian heretics, and where Saint Louis with all his chastity had failed, they celebrated the victory of an unbelieving king like Frederick in the crusades. Guiraut Ademar had only one crusade he approved of, and that was because it removed a husband who was a thorn in his path. Raimon Jordan preferred one night with his beloved to life in the promised paradise.
The styles of versification were far more important to the troubadours than the rules of moral principles. A chanson was a lyric; a planh was a lament or elegy that the poet composed on the death of a friend or beloved; a tenson was a poetic debate on a subject such as love, morality, or chivalry; a sirventes was a song composed for war or enmity or attacking a political rival. A sestina was a complicated sequence of six successive rhymed stanzas each having six lines; this style of lyric composition was invented by Arnaut Daniel and greatly pleased Dante; a pastourelle was a dialogue between a troubadour and a shepherdess; an aubade or alba was a dawn song and usually warned the lover and beloved that the coming of day would soon reveal their secret; a serena or serenade was a night song; and a ballada was a narrative poem. Here is an example of an aubade, or a piece about the coming of dawn, from an anonymous poet who puts the words in the mouth of a Juliet of the twelfth century:
In the garden where the white hawthorn has spread its leaves, my lady has lain beside her beloved, until the watchman cries that dawn has come — alas, the dawn that is cause for sorrow! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O God, let not that night, the dear night, ever end.
Or let my beloved leave me, or let the watchman stop singing “dawn” — yes, that dawn that is the slayer of peace! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O dear and sweet beloved, your lips, our lips still press together! See how in the meadow the birds begin to sing.
May love be our portion, for the portion of envy is only pain! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! From that sweet breeze that blows from far away, have I not drunk sip by sip from the breath of my beloved, yes from the warm breath of the comforter who is so dear and full of joy.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! This is the dawn that the maiden who keeps good manners well sees, and many people look upon the fitting behavior of this beauty; her heart never betrays love.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes!
By the middle of the thirteenth century, partly because of the increasing artificiality of the styles and feelings of such lyrics, and partly because of the destruction of southern France by the Albigensian Crusade, the troubadour movement came to an end. In those turbulent days of the religious wars, many castles that were the refuge of these lyricists fell, and when Toulouse itself was subjected to a double siege, the chivalric system that had been established in the Aquitaine region collapsed.
Some minstrels fled to Spain and some to Italy, and it was in Italy that the art of lyric poetry again flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century, and both Dante and Petrarch were among the new stars of the world of lyric poetry. It was the “science of tarab” and the virtues and courtesy of this group that helped create a code and instruction for chivalry and turned a group of wild people from northern Europe into a class of nobles. From that time until now literature has been under the influence of those delicate melodies and perhaps it is thanks to the perfume of their praise that the sweet scent of love now perfumes the soul of man.
Minnesingers
The troubadour movement spread from France to the southern regions of Germany and flourished there in the golden age of the Hohenstaufen. German poets were called minnesingers (singers of love). The subject of their poems was “service in the way of love” and “service to the lady,” both of which were considered part of the chivalry of that era. We know the names of about three hundred of these minnesingers, because a large amount of their poetry has survived. Some of this group belonged to the lower nobility; most were poor people dependent on the favors and gifts of emperors or dukes. Although this group strictly used a special rule for determining poetic meters and rhythms, many of them were illiterate, and they dictated the words and music of their songs or, in other words, recited them aloud for others to record; to this day the German word for poems is Dichtung, which also means “dictation.” Usually these singers had minstrels read the songs, and sometimes they themselves read such pieces. In history we encounter mention of the great Sängerkrieg (song contest) that was held in 1207 at Wartburg Castle; it is said that two famous singers, Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach, both took part in this contest. The minnesingers helped for more than a century to raise the status of woman in Germany; and ladies of the nobility became the source and inspiration of a culture more refined than Germany would again see its like before Schiller and Goethe.
Wolfram and Walther von der Vogelweide have been counted among the minnesingers, for both wrote love songs, but Wolfram and his piece Parzival are better discussed under the heading of romances or imaginary love legends. Walther von der Vogelweide was born before 1170 in a place in Tyrol. He was a poor knight who made his situation worse by engaging in poetry and song. At the age of twenty he sang for a living in the houses of nobles. In those years of youth he spoke of love with the same freedom of sensual pleasure as his rivals frowned upon. His song entitled Under the Linden Tree has remained to this day like a precious gem in Germany:
Under the linden trees on the heath grass a bed had been made for us two; there one could see flowers crushed and grass trampled.
From among the thick bushes in the little valley of Tandaradei! The nightingale sings sweetly.
I had hurried there through the grass.
I, the most blessed of maidens! had been caught there.
For my fortune is forever good. There he kissed me many times Tandaradei! Look how red my lips are! With haste mixed with joy he made a bower for us both from the blossoms there.
Still that secluded place must be a faded jest for those who tread the same path and look at the place where that day — Tandaradei! my head rested among the red flowers.
How ashamed I would be if anyone (now I say God forbid!) had been present there then.
There we both lay, but no one knew of this secret except my beloved and me. And the little nightingale, Tandaradei! which I know will not betray my secret.
As Walther grew older his perception matured and he gradually observed in woman a delicacy and grace more pleasing than any physical attraction, and he concluded that the reward of the union of man and woman through marriage is far greater than any superficial pleasurable excitement arising from variety. On this subject he says in one piece: “Happy is the man and happy is the woman whose hearts are true to each other; the value and worth of their lives increases; all the days and years of their lives are blessed.” Walther condemned the praise that other lyricists of his time poured at the feet of courtly ladies; he declared that the word wip (the same word as Weib, meaning “woman”) is a far higher title than Vrouwe (the same word as Frau, meaning “lady”); women and noble men of good character form the true aristocracy. In his view, “German ladies are as beautiful as divine angels; whoever slanders them laughs at his own beard.” In 1197 Emperor Henry VI died; and Germany suffered chaos for a generation until Frederick II came of age. The patronage of learning by the nobility declined and Walther, who no longer had a patron, wandered from court to court, and unfortunately in competition with shameless jesters and noisy magicians was forced to sing for his bread. In the account book of Wolfger, Bishop of Passau, one interesting item reads: “November 12, 1203, five solidi paid to Walther von der Vogelweide to buy a fur coat to protect himself against the winter cold.” This was a doubly pious act of a Christian, for Walther was one of the fervent members of the Ghibelline party, tuned his lute to oppose the popes, constantly criticized the wrongdoings of the Church, and was angry at why the money of the German people was being sent across the Alps to fill the papal treasury in the name of Saint Peter’s penny. With all this he was a devout Christian, composed a magnificent “Crusade Song”; but he was able at times to rise above the battlefield and see all human beings as brothers, as he says in one piece:
Humanity receives life from one virgin maiden, we all resemble one another inside and out, our mouths are all satisfied with the same kind of food, and when their bones are all ground together, you say which one was the living man, and from this crowd that the worms have so emptied, which now is the servant and which the master. Christians, Jews, and pagans all serve and God holds all creation under His care.
After a quarter century of wandering and poverty, Walther received an estate and a regular income from Frederick II (1221) and from then on was able to spend the remaining seven years of his life in perfect peace. He regretted that he was older and weaker than to be able to go on crusade; he asked God for forgiveness that he was unable to love his enemies, and in a poem he left his possessions for his survivors in this way: “To the envious I leave my bad luck; to the liars my troubles; to the false lovers my follies; to the ladies my heartache.” His body was buried in Würzburg Cathedral; beside his grave a memorial stone tells of Germany’s affection for the greatest poet of this age.
After Walther’s death the minnesinger movement indulged itself with the exaggerations of the period and shared in the disasters that shattered Germany after the fall of Frederick II. Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his versified autobiography entitled Service to the Lady describes how he was raised in an environment full of feelings of service to ladies. Ulrich chose a woman as his goddess, and because he had a harelip and feared that the lady would be repelled by the sight of his face, he ordered his lip to be sewn, and took part in military festivals for the love of his beloved. When he was told that the woman was astonished that Ulrich still possessed the finger that she thought he had lost in the path of her honor, Ulrich cut off that particular finger and, as a sign of respect for his beloved’s word, sent it to her. When fortune helped and Ulrich succeeded in drinking the water in which the lady had washed her hands, he no longer knew himself for joy. And when he received a letter from his beloved, because he could not read, he carried it in his pocket for weeks until he found a trusted person who could read the letter for him. After he was granted the favor of his beloved’s mercy, he stood for two full days in beggar’s rags among a group of lepers at the door of the lady’s palace waiting. The lady allowed him to enter, and when she saw that he was a persistent man she ordered him to be wrapped in a sheet, lowered from the window of her bedroom, and placed on the ground. Throughout this period Ulrich had one wife and several children.
The minnesinger movement ended with some pomp and glory with the songs of Heinrich von Meißen — who was called Frauenlob (praiser of women) because of his songs in praise of woman’s status. When he died in 1317 in Mainz, the ladies of the city, singing melodious laments, carried his body to the cathedral and poured so much wine on his coffin that it flowed like a stream through the whole church. After him the art of singing left the hands of knights and fell to the middle class. The romantic spirit of woman-worship faded and in the fourteenth century gave way to the robust pleasure and art of urban minnesingers or singers and lyricists and announced the rise of the bourgeoisie to the world of poetry and song.
Romances
The emergence of literature from the realm of religion and religious subjects went hand in hand with the rise of national languages. Generally, until the twelfth century only clerics knew Latin, and writers who wished to make their thoughts and intentions known to the common people were forced to use vernacular languages. As soon as the social system expanded, the number of readers increased, and to meet such a need national literature came into being. French literature began in the eleventh century, German literature in the twelfth, and the literatures of the English, Spanish, and Italian peoples in the thirteenth century.
The natural initial form of this vernacular literature was folk songs. The song became a ballad, and ballads were expanded and turned into short epics such as Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poem of the Cid. The Chanson de Roland was probably formed around 1130 from the combination of ballads belonging to the ninth or tenth centuries. This epic, in four thousand simple and fluent lines in a meter with stress on the final syllable, tells the story of Roland’s death at Roncevaux. After Charlemagne subdues Moorish Spain, he returns with his troops toward France; the traitor Ganelon reveals their route to the enemy, and Roland voluntarily agrees to take on the dangerous task of rear guard for the army. In the narrow and winding pass of the Pyrenees a vast host of Basque forces attacks Roland’s small troop from the cliffs above. Roland’s friend Oliver asks him to blow his great horn to call Charlemagne for help, but Roland with full pride refuses to ask for help. He, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, who have given up their lives, fight at the head of their troops until almost all of them are killed. Oliver, struck with mortal blows on the head and blinded by blood flowing into his eyes, mistakes Roland for one of the enemy and strikes him a heavy blow so that Roland’s helmet is split from crown to near the piece that covers his nose, but Roland is not harmed:
With the falling of this blow Roland looks at him and softly and gently asks him, “O noble friend, do you strike me in earnest? I am Roland whom you love with all your heart. I have never before seen you draw your sword against me in any way.” Oliver says, “Now I hear your voice, I do not see you. May God see you and save you! Did I strike a blow upon you? Forgive me!” Roland answers, “I am not wounded. Here and before God I forgive you.” And with these words one bows to the other, and with such love the two part from each other.
Finally Roland blows his jeweled horn so hard that blood flows from his temples. Charlemagne hears it and, while “his white beard flutters in the wind,” turns back to save him and his troops. But the way back is long. “The mountains are high and wide and dark, the valleys deep and the rivers rushing.” Meanwhile Roland mourns over Oliver’s corpse and says to him, “O noble friend, we have seen many days and years together. Never have you done me wrong nor I you. If you have left this world, life is all pain.” The archbishop too, who is dying, begs Roland to flee and save himself; Roland refuses and continues to fight until his attackers flee, but he himself has received mortal wounds. Then, with the last strength he has, he breaks his jeweled sword Durandal on a rock so that it will not fall into the hands of the infidels. Then “Count Roland, facing Spain, rested beneath a pine tree. … In that state many events passed through his mind; he remembered the lands he had conquered, sweet France, his family, and Charlemagne who had raised him, and he wept.” Then Roland raises his glove as a sign of vassalage and surrender before God, and when Charlemagne arrives he finds him dead. No translation can reproduce the simple and noble grandeur seen in the original of this epic, and no one can fully understand the power and tender feelings of this national epic, which every French child learns along with his daily prayers, unless he has drunk love and pride for France with his mother’s milk.
Around 1160 an anonymous poet, through romantic imagination, elevated the qualities and bravery of the famous Spanish commander known as the Cid or Rodrigo Díaz (d. 1099) to the highest degree and gave Spain a national epic with his poem entitled the Poem of the Cid. Here too the main subject is the struggle of Christian knights against the Moors inhabiting Spain, the elevation of the nobility, honor, and courage of the feudal age, and more the glory of war than servitude before a beloved. Thus Rodrigo, when exiled by an ungrateful king, leaves his wife and children in a convent and swears that he will not live with them again unless he emerges victorious from five wars. He sets out to fight the Moors; the first half of this poem consists of resounding victories that involuntarily recall Homer’s Iliad. The Cid, during the wars, steals from the Jews, distributes alms among the poor, and feeds a leper and eats from the same bowl and sleeps in the same bed himself, and realizes that the leper is Eleazar whom Jesus had brought back from the world of the dead to the world of the living. Of course the hero of this poem differs in reality from the Cid we know from history, but the damage it does to historical facts is no greater than that of the Chanson de Roland, which raises Charlemagne to the height of perfection. The Poem of the Cid became a stimulant and intoxicating drug for Spanish pride and thought; hundreds of ballads were composed about the hero of this poem and a hundred more or less historical stories were written. In the world there is little that can be found as bitter as truth and as universally distasteful as it.
No one has yet explained why a small country like Iceland, which is assailed by the forces of nature and whose connection with everywhere is cut off by the sea, should have produced in this period a literature whose scope and brilliance had no proportion to its geographical position and area. Two things helped the birth of Icelandic writers: one was a rich source of historical traditions that is usually dear to every distant or isolated population and is preserved orally from generation to generation; the other was the habit of reading or listening to others, which is usually a good pastime for the long winter nights. In the twelfth century, in addition to the libraries of the monasteries of this island, there were also many private libraries. When writing became a virtue that everyone became familiar with, the common people, just like the clergy, wrote down in literary style all the information and knowledge belonging to their race and nation that had once been the special property of poets.
According to one of the rarest coincidences, the foremost writer of Iceland in the thirteenth century was at the same time the richest person on the island and twice “law speaker” or, as the Icelanders themselves called it, “guardian of the laws.” Snorri Sturluson loved life more than learning; he undertook long journeys, participated intensely in politics and disputes, and was killed at the age of sixty-two by his son-in-law. His book entitled Heimskringla or “the circle of the world,” “a style free of ornament and concise” that is natural for a working man, described the history and legends of the Norse people. His other work, the Prose Edda, offered a summary of biblical history, a summary of Norse mythology, an essay on poetic meters and rhythms, a treatise on the art of poetry, and an unparalleled explanation of the origin of the flood of art and how this gift was distributed. Two warring and hostile groups of gods, by spitting into a vessel, made peace with each other; from their spittle a demigod named Kvasir was created who, like Prometheus, taught wisdom to the sons of men. Small beings killed Kvasir and by mixing his blood with wine made a mead that whoever drank a draught of it would receive the gift of singing. Odin, the All-Father, found his way to the place where the small beings had hidden this mead, drank all of it, and flew toward the heavens. But some of this poetic mead that had filled his heart poured out in a way that is less true of public fountains. This divine stream fell to earth in the form of an inspiring drizzle, and whoever benefited from this source of grace instinctively gained the poetic gift. These nonsense tales of a learned man were as consistent with rational standards as history.
Icelandic literature in this period was astonishingly rich and alive with the humor, vitality, and poetic interest and delicacy that fill its prose. During this era hundreds of sagas were written, some short and some as long as a novel, some historical and most a mixture of history and legend. Generally these were memories of a civilized heroic age full of glory and violence intertwined with many disputes and soothed with the balm of love. Snorri’s “Ynglinga Saga” repeatedly tells of Norse warriors who burn one another in noble halls or by drinking cups of fiery mead. The richest of these legends is the story known as the Völsunga Saga. The oldest form of these legends is in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda and the latest complete form is in the story of the Nibelungen Ring, which the German composer Wagner turned into an immortal opera.
The name Völsung was applied to each of the descendants of Völs, one of the Norse kings who was the great-grandson of Odin and the grandfather of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the Nibelungenlied the Nibelungs are the kings of Burgundy; in the Völsunga Saga this people are a short and small race who guard an immensely precious treasure and a golden ring in the Rhine region, which at the same time brings a doom upon whoever possesses the two. Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir who guards the treasure and takes possession of that hoard. During his wanderings he reaches a hill surrounded on all sides by fire and on top of it the Valkyrie Brynhild (a demigoddess descended from Odin) lies asleep. Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild’s beauty, and Brynhild also falls in love with him; the two pledge fidelity to each other; and then, as is the custom of men in many medieval imaginary legends, Sigurd leaves Brynhild and continues his journeys. At the court of Giuki, a king from the Rhine region, Sigurd meets the princess Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother gives Sigurd a magic drink that causes him to forget Brynhild and marry her daughter. Gunnar, Giuki’s son, marries Brynhild and brings her to court. Brynhild, who is bitterly angry at Sigurd’s forgetfulness, arranges for his murder; then she repents, climbs the pyre built to burn Sigurd’s body, kills herself with his sword, and burns beside him in the fire.
The latest of these Icelandic sagas, in form and style, is a story known as the Burnt Njal (c. 1220).
In this saga what clearly distinguishes the characters and sets them apart from one another is more their actions and speech than the description the author gives of each hero. The component parts of the story are well placed beside one another and everything, as if by inherent fate, passes through exciting events until it reaches the main tragedy, which is the burning of Njal’s house along with himself, his wife Bergthora, and his sons, at the hands of a group of his armed enemies led by a man named Flosi who has nothing in mind but taking revenge by shedding the blood of Njal’s sons.
Then Flosi … addressed Njal and said, “Lord Njal, I give you leave to go out, for it is not fitting that you should burn inside the house.” Njal said, “I will not go out, for I am an old man and have not the worthiness to avenge my sons, but I will not live with shame.” Then Flosi said to Bergthora, “Lady, come out, for I will not burn you inside the house for anyone’s sake.” Bergthora said, “I was given to Njal when I was young, and I have promised him that we should share one fate.” Then both returned inside the house.
Bergthora said, “What shall we do now?” Njal said, “We shall go to bed and lie down; I have long wished to rest.” Then Bergthora said to the young Thord, Kari’s son, “I will take you out, and you must not burn here.” The youth said, “Grandmother, you promised me that as long as I wished to stay with you you would never leave me; but I think it is much better to die with you and Njal than to live after you.” Then Bergthora took the boy and carried him to her bed … and placed him between herself and Njal. Then they made the sign of the cross upon themselves and the boy. And they commended their souls to God, and that was the last word others heard from their lips.
The Age of the Small Kingdoms (300–600) had left in the troubled memory of men and minstrels a thousand stories of social chaos, barbarian courage, and criminal love. Some of these tales were carried by emigrants to Norway and Iceland and gave rise to the Völsunga Saga; many of these myths, with similar names and subjects, penetrated Germany and grew into sagas, ballads, and epics. During the twelfth century an anonymous German writer, at a date unknown to us, took such material, piled it together, reshaped it, and from the whole composed the Nibelungenlied or Song of the Nibelungs. The form of this epic is rhythmic and rhymed stanzas in Middle High German; its subject is a mixture of pagan moods and the fiery feelings of a primitive people.
Once in the fourth century, King Gunther and his two brothers ruled over the Burgundian region from their palace in Worms beside the Rhine; in the same palace their younger sister Kriemhild, “no woman in any country was more beautiful than she,” lived with her brothers. At that time King Siegmund ruled over the Netherlands; he gave the government of his richest province, which lay near Xanten beside the Rhine, to his son Siegfried (Sigurd) to hold as a fief. Siegfried, having learned of Kriemhild’s beauty, invited himself to Gunther’s court, was welcomed there, lived there for a year, but never had the opportunity to see Kriemhild. On the other side, the maiden, who had always seen the young men from the high window of her palace busy with spear games in the courtyard, had fallen in love with Siegfried at first sight — Siegfried excelled all his rivals in spear play, and in the wars of the Burgundian people he bravely wielded the sword for them. When Gunther arranged a banquet on the occasion of a victorious peace, he invited the ladies to take part in that feast.
Many noble maidens adorned themselves with great care, and the young men, who had long waited for such an opportunity to win the favor of those beauties, could not have exchanged it for the richest royal lands … suddenly Kriemhild appeared like a dawn breaking from behind black clouds; and he who had long cherished her love did not grow colder at the sight of that fair face … Siegfried became joyful and sad, for in his heart he said, “How can I woo someone like you? Surely this is a vain thought; yet death seems better to me than being a stranger to you.” … When Kriemhild saw that noble beloved before her, her face flushed, and she said, “Noble lord Siegfried, O noble and well-mannered knight, welcome.” Upon hearing these words Siegfried’s courage increased and, with the dignity befitting a knight’s station, he bowed his head before the lady and thanked her. And love, which is powerful, prevented the lover and beloved from revealing the secret within.
Gunther, who has not yet taken a wife, learns of the Icelandic queen Brunhild; but he is told that Brunhild will only give her hand to someone who defeats her in three contests; and if the suitor fails in one of these tests, his head will be paid as forfeit. Siegfried agrees to help Gunther marry Brunhild, on condition that the king gives him Kriemhild as wife. The two quickly and easily, as is characteristic of impatient lovers, cross the sea; Siegfried, having become invisible by wearing a magic cloak, helps Gunther win the tests, and Gunther brings Brunhild, who is unwilling to leave her homeland, as his wife. Eighty-six maidens help Kriemhild prepare magnificent garments for herself. Then two splendid weddings are held at the same time. Gunther marries Brunhild and Siegfried marries Kriemhild.
But when Brunhild’s eyes fall upon Siegfried she feels that he should have been her husband rather than Gunther. On the wedding night when Gunther enters the bridal chamber, Brunhild does not give herself to him, binds him and hangs him from the wall; when Gunther is freed he calls for Siegfried’s help; the next night Siegfried disguises himself as Gunther and lies beside Brunhild; meanwhile Gunther, hidden in the dark room, hears everything and sees nothing. Brunhild throws Siegfried out of the bed and engages him in a bone-crushing and head-breaking fight that obeys no rules or laws. In the heat of the struggle Siegfried says to himself, “Alas! If I am killed by this woman, no woman will ever again honor her husband.” Finally he overcomes Brunhild, and Brunhild promises to be his wife; Siegfried, without showing himself, takes her girdle and ring and leaves the chamber and Gunther returns to his place beside the exhausted and tired queen. Siegfried presents the girdle and ring to Kriemhild and takes her to his father; his father places the crown on her head and proclaims her queen of the Netherlands. Siegfried, using the treasure of the Nibelungs, dresses his wife and her maidens in garments so costly and magnificent that women had never before seen their like.
Shortly after these events, Kriemhild visits Brunhild in Worms; Brunhild, who has become envious of Kriemhild’s magnificent clothes and ornaments, reminds her guest that Siegfried is Gunther’s vassal. Kriemhild, in reproach, shows Brunhild the girdle and ring to let her know that in reality Siegfried had overcome her, not Gunther. Hagen, Gunther’s grim half-brother, incites him against Siegfried; the two invite Siegfried to a hunt, and when he bends over a stream to drink water, Hagen pierces his side with a spear. Kriemhild, seeing her brave husband dead, “lies all that day and night in a swoon.” As Siegfried’s widow she inherits the Nibelung treasure, but Hagen persuades Gunther to deprive Kriemhild of that wealth. Gunther, his brothers, and Hagen bury the treasure in the Rhine and swear never to reveal its hiding place to anyone.
For thirteen years Kriemhild nurtured the thought of taking revenge on Hagen and his brothers, but no opportunity presented itself. Then she accepts a marriage proposal from Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, after the death of his wife, and as his queen sets out for Vienna to live there. “Etzel’s rule was so famous that the bravest knights, whether Christian or pagan, constantly came to his court … there you would see something you never see now, namely Christians and pagans together. Regardless of the great difference in their beliefs, the king gave them gifts so generously that all of them had great wealth.” There Kriemhild “ruled in perfect chastity” for thirteen years and apparently put the thought of revenge out of her mind. In reality she asks Etzel to invite her brothers along with Hagen to a banquet; despite Hagen’s warning they accept Etzel’s invitation and come with a large armed retinue of sword-wielding peasants and knights. While the king and his full brothers along with Hagen and the knights are seated at Etzel’s banquet table, outside the hall, on Kriemhild’s orders, the sword-wielding peasants are killed. When this news reaches Hagen he immediately jumps up and reaches for his weapon; inside the hall a bloody battle breaks out between the Burgundians and the Huns (which may be a memory of the real war between these two tribes in 437); Hagen with the first blow cuts off the head of Ortlieb, Kriemhild and Etzel’s five-year-old son, and throws the severed head into Kriemhild’s lap. When almost all the Burgundians are killed, Kriemhild’s brother Gernot asks Etzel to allow whoever among the guests is still alive to leave the hall. The Hunnish knights agree to this request, but Kriemhild prevents them from doing so, so the slaughter continues. Her younger brother Giselher, who was only five years old when Siegfried was killed, clings to Kriemhild’s skirt and says, “O dear sister, what have I done that I deserve to die at the hands of the Huns? I have always been faithful to you and have done you no harm; O dear sister, I came here trusting in your love. Now you must forgive us.” Kriemhild agrees to their escape on condition that they hand Hagen over to her. Gernot raises his voice and says, “May God never bring such a day. Death for all of us would be much better than making one the blood price for ourselves.” Kriemhild drives the Huns out of the palace, locks the doors on the Burgundians, and orders the building to be set on fire. The Burgundians, tormented by heat and thirst, scream in pain; Hagen orders them to quench their thirst by drinking the blood of the slain, and all do so. Some come out from among the burning timbers and debris, and the battle in the palace courtyard continues until only Gunther and Hagen remain from the Burgundian host. Dietrich, famous as the Goth, fights, overcomes Hagen, and brings him bound before Kriemhild. Kriemhild asks him where he has hidden the Nibelung treasure; Hagen says that as long as Gunther is alive he will refuse to reveal his secret; for this reason Gunther, who is also captive, is killed on his sister’s orders; when his head is brought before Hagen, he still refuses and says to Kriemhild, “Now no one knows where the treasure is hidden except God and me; and you, O devilish woman, will never know more than this.” Kriemhild takes Hagen’s sword and with it immediately strikes him down. Then one of her warriors, the famous Goth Hildebrand, who has grown weary of this woman’s bloodthirstiness, kills Kriemhild.
This is a horrible story that in cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and violence yields to no similar story in the history of world literature. Of course we have not done full justice to the matter, for from a series of banquets and feasts, heroic combats, hunting parties, and interesting episodes of the women’s world of that epic we have selected only the most gruesome events and moments; but the main and bitter subject of the tale is exactly what has been briefly mentioned, namely the story of a gentle and mild-mannered maiden who, because of a diabolical event, turns into a criminal and bloodthirsty woman. It is strange that in this tale so little of Christianity remains; it almost resembles a Greek tragedy of the goddess of revenge, except that, unlike Greek custom, it displays violence openly on the stage. In this course of depravity almost all the virtues and excellences of the feudal age, even the respect that a guest should have in the eyes of his host, sink under water. Until our own time no event has been able to go beyond the barbarity of such a story.
Troubadours
At the end of the eleventh century, an age when one would apparently expect all European literature to have taken on the religious fervor of Christians for the Crusades, a school of lyric poetry arose in the southern regions of France that was aristocratic, pagan, and anti-religious; its style showed traces of Arab influence and spoke of woman’s victory over the chastity and purity imposed upon her by the theory of the Fall. This poetic style spread from Toulouse to Paris and from there with Eleanor of Aquitaine to London and captured the heart of her son, the Lionheart Richard I; it created the German “Minnesang” and in Italy gave rise to a delicate style among the class of troubadour poets that prepared the ground for the appearance of Dante. The origin and birth of this style is linked with the name of Eleanor’s grandfather, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. This bold youth at the age of eleven (1087) declared himself almost the independent ruler of southwestern France. He joined the First Crusade and composed lyrics in praise of the victory of Western heroes in that struggle, but like many nobles of his domain, which had become a center of heretics, he had little respect for the Church and with full humor mocked the priests. In an old Provençal biography it is written that the Duke of Aquitaine “was one of the most courteous men in the world and had a great talent for seducing and deceiving ladies; he was a brave knight who loved much, and knew well how to sing and compose poetry; and for a very long time he traveled the whole country in order to ensnare ladies.” Although married, he courted the beautiful Viscountess of Châtellerault and lived openly with that woman. When the brave and outspoken Bishop of Angoulême warned him that he must cease his filthy deeds, the Duke replied, “As soon as the hair on your head needs combing, I will give up the Viscountess.” After he had been excommunicated, one day he met the Bishop of Poitiers and said to him, “Pray for me, or I will kill you.” The Bishop bent his neck and said, “Strike!” William refused and said, “No — I do not love you enough to send you to paradise.” The style the Duke used in his amorous letters to noble ladies laid the foundation for a new style in composing epistles. But he was not only a man of words; he had a short but glorious life and died at the age of fifty-six (1137). He left Eleanor a vast domain, a sound taste and love of poetry, and an amorous nature.
Eleanor gathered poets in Toulouse, and that group willingly composed and sang songs for her and her courtiers in praise of women’s beauty and the spells they cast. Bernard de Ventadour, whose poems in Petrarch’s view were only slightly inferior to his own lyrics, began to compose poems that praised the beauty of the Viscountess of Ventadour; the Viscountess took these poems so seriously that her husband was forced to imprison her in a tower of his residential palace. Bernard, encouraged by this, turned his attention to composing poems in praise of Eleanor’s own beauty and brilliance, and then turned to the soul; and when Eleanor first gave her heart to the King of France and then to the King of England, Bernard poured the highest inner feelings into a famous lament. One generation later another famous troubadour named Bertran de Born became a very close friend of Richard I and a victorious rival in winning the heart of the most beautiful woman of the age, the Lady Maent de Montignac.
Another troubadour named Peire Vidal accompanied Richard on crusade; he lived in poverty with love and wrote poetry; and finally received an estate from Count Raymond VI, lord of Toulouse. We know the names of 446 other troubadours; but the works of these four alone are a handful that speak of thousands of love lyrics and songs by others.
Some of this group were wandering minstrels and vagabonds, and most were lesser nobles who had talent and a great love of singing; four of them were kings: Richard I, Frederick II, Alfonso II, and Peter III, King of Aragon. For a century (1150–1250) this group ruled over the literature of southern France and shaped the manners and customs of a newly emerging aristocratic class that was moving from rural barbarism to a stage of chivalry that, by its rule, paid for war with humility and courtesy and compensated for adultery with grace and dignity. The language of the troubadours was Langue d’Oc or the Romance language of southern France and northeastern Spain. The name of these singing or lyric minstrels, troubadours, is an unsolved puzzle; it is likely that this word derives from the Romance verb “trobar,” meaning “to find” or “to invent,” just as the Italian word “trovatore” apparently derives from “trovare”; but some scholars think the word must come from the Arabic “tarab.” This group of singers called their art the “science of tarab”; but their idea of tarab was not something superficial; for this reason anyone who wished to join this circle was required to receive long training in literature, music, the art of speaking, and courtesy toward women; this group dressed like the nobility, always wore a cloak with a border of gold embroidery and expensive furs; most moved armed and in armor like knights, took part in military festivals, and for the ladies they admired, if they did not lay down their lives, at least used both pen and sword. They composed poetry only for the aristocratic class; usually they themselves composed the music for their lyrics and hired minstrels to sing these songs in banquets or military festivals; but most of them also played the lute and drew passionate feelings from the lyrics.
Probably the outburst of feeling itself was a literary style; the burning passion, the fulfillment of heavenly promises, and the melancholy despair of the troubadours all counted as poetic expressions and poetic necessity; husbands apparently knew these burning and melting feelings as nothing more than this and were less jealous than most men. Since marriage among the nobility was usually a matter of transferring property and assets, just as is mentioned in French legends, love and romance came after marriage, and except for a few exceptional stories, all love stories in medieval literature, from Francesca and Beatrice in the south to Isolde and Guinevere in the north, are tales of illicit love. Since in general it was not possible to reach union with a married lady, this very fact gave rise to the poems of the troubadours; when human desires are fulfilled, it becomes difficult to let the steed of imagination gallop about them, and wherever there are no obstacles or impediments, there is no literature. In history we encounter the names of a few troubadours who attained the greatest desires, that is, fulfillment from the ladies to whom they sang praises, but such cases must be counted as violations of the literary customs of the age; for normally the poet was required to quench his thirst with a kiss or the touch of a hand. Such self-restraint required refinement and perfection; and in the thirteenth century the poems of this group of troubadours — perhaps also under the influence of the cult of the Virgin Mary — rose from the level of carnal pleasures to the height of spiritual grace and purity. But in the works of these men little trace of asceticism and piety is seen. The aversion that members of this group had toward chastity and purity led them to oppose the Church. Several of them mocked bishops and ridiculed hell and supported the Albigensian heretics, and where Saint Louis with all his chastity had failed, they celebrated the victory of an unbelieving king like Frederick in the crusades. Guiraut Ademar had only one crusade he approved of, and that was because it removed a husband who was a thorn in his path. Raimon Jordan preferred one night with his beloved to life in the promised paradise.
The styles of versification were far more important to the troubadours than the rules of moral principles. A chanson was a lyric; a planh was a lament or elegy that the poet composed on the death of a friend or beloved; a tenson was a poetic debate on a subject such as love, morality, or chivalry; a sirventes was a song composed for war or enmity or attacking a political rival. A sestina was a complicated sequence of six successive rhymed stanzas each having six lines; this style of lyric composition was invented by Arnaut Daniel and greatly pleased Dante; a pastourelle was a dialogue between a troubadour and a shepherdess; an aubade or alba was a dawn song and usually warned the lover and beloved that the coming of day would soon reveal their secret; a serena or serenade was a night song; and a ballada was a narrative poem. Here is an example of an aubade, or a piece about the coming of dawn, from an anonymous poet who puts the words in the mouth of a Juliet of the twelfth century:
In the garden where the white hawthorn has spread its leaves, my lady has lain beside her beloved, until the watchman cries that dawn has come — alas, the dawn that is cause for sorrow! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O God, let not that night, the dear night, ever end.
Or let my beloved leave me, or let the watchman stop singing “dawn” — yes, that dawn that is the slayer of peace! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O dear and sweet beloved, your lips, our lips still press together! See how in the meadow the birds begin to sing.
May love be our portion, for the portion of envy is only pain! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! From that sweet breeze that blows from far away, have I not drunk sip by sip from the breath of my beloved, yes from the warm breath of the comforter who is so dear and full of joy.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! This is the dawn that the maiden who keeps good manners well sees, and many people look upon the fitting behavior of this beauty; her heart never betrays love.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes!
By the middle of the thirteenth century, partly because of the increasing artificiality of the styles and feelings of such lyrics, and partly because of the destruction of southern France by the Albigensian Crusade, the troubadour movement came to an end. In those turbulent days of the religious wars, many castles that were the refuge of these lyricists fell, and when Toulouse itself was subjected to a double siege, the chivalric system that had been established in the Aquitaine region collapsed.
Some minstrels fled to Spain and some to Italy, and it was in Italy that the art of lyric poetry again flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century, and both Dante and Petrarch were among the new stars of the world of lyric poetry. It was the “science of tarab” and the virtues and courtesy of this group that helped create a code and instruction for chivalry and turned a group of wild people from northern Europe into a class of nobles. From that time until now literature has been under the influence of those delicate melodies and perhaps it is thanks to the perfume of their praise that the sweet scent of love now perfumes the soul of man.
Minnesingers
The troubadour movement spread from France to the southern regions of Germany and flourished there in the golden age of the Hohenstaufen. German poets were called minnesingers (singers of love). The subject of their poems was “service in the way of love” and “service to the lady,” both of which were considered part of the chivalry of that era. We know the names of about three hundred of these minnesingers, because a large amount of their poetry has survived. Some of this group belonged to the lower nobility; most were poor people dependent on the favors and gifts of emperors or dukes. Although this group strictly used a special rule for determining poetic meters and rhythms, many of them were illiterate, and they dictated the words and music of their songs or, in other words, recited them aloud for others to record; to this day the German word for poems is Dichtung, which also means “dictation.” Usually these singers had minstrels read the songs, and sometimes they themselves read such pieces. In history we encounter mention of the great Sängerkrieg (song contest) that was held in 1207 at Wartburg Castle; it is said that two famous singers, Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach, both took part in this contest. The minnesingers helped for more than a century to raise the status of woman in Germany; and ladies of the nobility became the source and inspiration of a culture more refined than Germany would again see its like before Schiller and Goethe.
Wolfram and Walther von der Vogelweide have been counted among the minnesingers, for both wrote love songs, but Wolfram and his piece Parzival are better discussed under the heading of romances or imaginary love legends. Walther von der Vogelweide was born before 1170 in a place in Tyrol. He was a poor knight who made his situation worse by engaging in poetry and song. At the age of twenty he sang for a living in the houses of nobles. In those years of youth he spoke of love with the same freedom of sensual pleasure as his rivals frowned upon. His song entitled Under the Linden Tree has remained to this day like a precious gem in Germany:
Under the linden trees on the heath grass a bed had been made for us two; there one could see flowers crushed and grass trampled.
From among the thick bushes in the little valley of Tandaradei! The nightingale sings sweetly.
I had hurried there through the grass.
I, the most blessed of maidens! had been caught there.
For my fortune is forever good. There he kissed me many times Tandaradei! Look how red my lips are! With haste mixed with joy he made a bower for us both from the blossoms there.
Still that secluded place must be a faded jest for those who tread the same path and look at the place where that day — Tandaradei! my head rested among the red flowers.
How ashamed I would be if anyone (now I say God forbid!) had been present there then.
There we both lay, but no one knew of this secret except my beloved and me. And the little nightingale, Tandaradei! which I know will not betray my secret.
As Walther grew older his perception matured and he gradually observed in woman a delicacy and grace more pleasing than any physical attraction, and he concluded that the reward of the union of man and woman through marriage is far greater than any superficial pleasurable excitement arising from variety. On this subject he says in one piece: “Happy is the man and happy is the woman whose hearts are true to each other; the value and worth of their lives increases; all the days and years of their lives are blessed.” Walther condemned the praise that other lyricists of his time poured at the feet of courtly ladies; he declared that the word wip (the same word as Weib, meaning “woman”) is a far higher title than Vrouwe (the same word as Frau, meaning “lady”); women and noble men of good character form the true aristocracy. In his view, “German ladies are as beautiful as divine angels; whoever slanders them laughs at his own beard.” In 1197 Emperor Henry VI died; and Germany suffered chaos for a generation until Frederick II came of age. The patronage of learning by the nobility declined and Walther, who no longer had a patron, wandered from court to court, and unfortunately in competition with shameless jesters and noisy magicians was forced to sing for his bread. In the account book of Wolfger, Bishop of Passau, one interesting item reads: “November 12, 1203, five solidi paid to Walther von der Vogelweide to buy a fur coat to protect himself against the winter cold.” This was a doubly pious act of a Christian, for Walther was one of the fervent members of the Ghibelline party, tuned his lute to oppose the popes, constantly criticized the wrongdoings of the Church, and was angry at why the money of the German people was being sent across the Alps to fill the papal treasury in the name of Saint Peter’s penny. With all this he was a devout Christian, composed a magnificent “Crusade Song”; but he was able at times to rise above the battlefield and see all human beings as brothers, as he says in one piece:
Humanity receives life from one virgin maiden, we all resemble one another inside and out, our mouths are all satisfied with the same kind of food, and when their bones are all ground together, you say which one was the living man, and from this crowd that the worms have so emptied, which now is the servant and which the master. Christians, Jews, and pagans all serve and God holds all creation under His care.
After a quarter century of wandering and poverty, Walther received an estate and a regular income from Frederick II (1221) and from then on was able to spend the remaining seven years of his life in perfect peace. He regretted that he was older and weaker than to be able to go on crusade; he asked God for forgiveness that he was unable to love his enemies, and in a poem he left his possessions for his survivors in this way: “To the envious I leave my bad luck; to the liars my troubles; to the false lovers my follies; to the ladies my heartache.” His body was buried in Würzburg Cathedral; beside his grave a memorial stone tells of Germany’s affection for the greatest poet of this age.
After Walther’s death the minnesinger movement indulged itself with the exaggerations of the period and shared in the disasters that shattered Germany after the fall of Frederick II. Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his versified autobiography entitled Service to the Lady describes how he was raised in an environment full of feelings of service to ladies. Ulrich chose a woman as his goddess, and because he had a harelip and feared that the lady would be repelled by the sight of his face, he ordered his lip to be sewn, and took part in military festivals for the love of his beloved. When he was told that the woman was astonished that Ulrich still possessed the finger that she thought he had lost in the path of her honor, Ulrich cut off that particular finger and, as a sign of respect for his beloved’s word, sent it to her. When fortune helped and Ulrich succeeded in drinking the water in which the lady had washed her hands, he no longer knew himself for joy. And when he received a letter from his beloved, because he could not read, he carried it in his pocket for weeks until he found a trusted person who could read the letter for him. After he was granted the favor of his beloved’s mercy, he stood for two full days in beggar’s rags among a group of lepers at the door of the lady’s palace waiting. The lady allowed him to enter, and when she saw that he was a persistent man she ordered him to be wrapped in a sheet, lowered from the window of her bedroom, and placed on the ground. Throughout this period Ulrich had one wife and several children.
The minnesinger movement ended with some pomp and glory with the songs of Heinrich von Meißen — who was called Frauenlob (praiser of women) because of his songs in praise of woman’s status. When he died in 1317 in Mainz, the ladies of the city, singing melodious laments, carried his body to the cathedral and poured so much wine on his coffin that it flowed like a stream through the whole church. After him the art of singing left the hands of knights and fell to the middle class. The romantic spirit of woman-worship faded and in the fourteenth century gave way to the robust pleasure and art of urban minnesingers or singers and lyricists and announced the rise of the bourgeoisie to the world of poetry and song.
Romances
The emergence of literature from the realm of religion and religious subjects went hand in hand with the rise of national languages. Generally, until the twelfth century only clerics knew Latin, and writers who wished to make their thoughts and intentions known to the common people were forced to use vernacular languages. As soon as the social system expanded, the number of readers increased, and to meet such a need national literature came into being. French literature began in the eleventh century, German literature in the twelfth, and the literatures of the English, Spanish, and Italian peoples in the thirteenth century.
The natural initial form of this vernacular literature was folk songs. The song became a ballad, and ballads were expanded and turned into short epics such as Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poem of the Cid. The Chanson de Roland was probably formed around 1130 from the combination of ballads belonging to the ninth or tenth centuries. This epic, in four thousand simple and fluent lines in a meter with stress on the final syllable, tells the story of Roland’s death at Roncevaux. After Charlemagne subdues Moorish Spain, he returns with his troops toward France; the traitor Ganelon reveals their route to the enemy, and Roland voluntarily agrees to take on the dangerous task of rear guard for the army. In the narrow and winding pass of the Pyrenees a vast host of Basque forces attacks Roland’s small troop from the cliffs above. Roland’s friend Oliver asks him to blow his great horn to call Charlemagne for help, but Roland with full pride refuses to ask for help. He, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, who have given up their lives, fight at the head of their troops until almost all of them are killed. Oliver, struck with mortal blows on the head and blinded by blood flowing into his eyes, mistakes Roland for one of the enemy and strikes him a heavy blow so that Roland’s helmet is split from crown to near the piece that covers his nose, but Roland is not harmed:
With the falling of this blow Roland looks at him and softly and gently asks him, “O noble friend, do you strike me in earnest? I am Roland whom you love with all your heart. I have never before seen you draw your sword against me in any way.” Oliver says, “Now I hear your voice, I do not see you. May God see you and save you! Did I strike a blow upon you? Forgive me!” Roland answers, “I am not wounded. Here and before God I forgive you.” And with these words one bows to the other, and with such love the two part from each other.
Finally Roland blows his jeweled horn so hard that blood flows from his temples. Charlemagne hears it and, while “his white beard flutters in the wind,” turns back to save him and his troops. But the way back is long. “The mountains are high and wide and dark, the valleys deep and the rivers rushing.” Meanwhile Roland mourns over Oliver’s corpse and says to him, “O noble friend, we have seen many days and years together. Never have you done me wrong nor I you. If you have left this world, life is all pain.” The archbishop too, who is dying, begs Roland to flee and save himself; Roland refuses and continues to fight until his attackers flee, but he himself has received mortal wounds. Then, with the last strength he has, he breaks his jeweled sword Durandal on a rock so that it will not fall into the hands of the infidels. Then “Count Roland, facing Spain, rested beneath a pine tree. … In that state many events passed through his mind; he remembered the lands he had conquered, sweet France, his family, and Charlemagne who had raised him, and he wept.” Then Roland raises his glove as a sign of vassalage and surrender before God, and when Charlemagne arrives he finds him dead. No translation can reproduce the simple and noble grandeur seen in the original of this epic, and no one can fully understand the power and tender feelings of this national epic, which every French child learns along with his daily prayers, unless he has drunk love and pride for France with his mother’s milk.
Around 1160 an anonymous poet, through romantic imagination, elevated the qualities and bravery of the famous Spanish commander known as the Cid or Rodrigo Díaz (d. 1099) to the highest degree and gave Spain a national epic with his poem entitled the Poem of the Cid. Here too the main subject is the struggle of Christian knights against the Moors inhabiting Spain, the elevation of the nobility, honor, and courage of the feudal age, and more the glory of war than servitude before a beloved. Thus Rodrigo, when exiled by an ungrateful king, leaves his wife and children in a convent and swears that he will not live with them again unless he emerges victorious from five wars. He sets out to fight the Moors; the first half of this poem consists of resounding victories that involuntarily recall Homer’s Iliad. The Cid, during the wars, steals from the Jews, distributes alms among the poor, and feeds a leper and eats from the same bowl and sleeps in the same bed himself, and realizes that the leper is Eleazar whom Jesus had brought back from the world of the dead to the world of the living. Of course the hero of this poem differs in reality from the Cid we know from history, but the damage it does to historical facts is no greater than that of the Chanson de Roland, which raises Charlemagne to the height of perfection. The Poem of the Cid became a stimulant and intoxicating drug for Spanish pride and thought; hundreds of ballads were composed about the hero of this poem and a hundred more or less historical stories were written. In the world there is little that can be found as bitter as truth and as universally distasteful as it.
No one has yet explained why a small country like Iceland, which is assailed by the forces of nature and whose connection with everywhere is cut off by the sea, should have produced in this period a literature whose scope and brilliance had no proportion to its geographical position and area. Two things helped the birth of Icelandic writers: one was a rich source of historical traditions that is usually dear to every distant or isolated population and is preserved orally from generation to generation; the other was the habit of reading or listening to others, which is usually a good pastime for the long winter nights. In the twelfth century, in addition to the libraries of the monasteries of this island, there were also many private libraries. When writing became a virtue that everyone became familiar with, the common people, just like the clergy, wrote down in literary style all the information and knowledge belonging to their race and nation that had once been the special property of poets.
According to one of the rarest coincidences, the foremost writer of Iceland in the thirteenth century was at the same time the richest person on the island and twice “law speaker” or, as the Icelanders themselves called it, “guardian of the laws.” Snorri Sturluson loved life more than learning; he undertook long journeys, participated intensely in politics and disputes, and was killed at the age of sixty-two by his son-in-law. His book entitled Heimskringla or “the circle of the world,” “a style free of ornament and concise” that is natural for a working man, described the history and legends of the Norse people. His other work, the Prose Edda, offered a summary of biblical history, a summary of Norse mythology, an essay on poetic meters and rhythms, a treatise on the art of poetry, and an unparalleled explanation of the origin of the flood of art and how this gift was distributed. Two warring and hostile groups of gods, by spitting into a vessel, made peace with each other; from their spittle a demigod named Kvasir was created who, like Prometheus, taught wisdom to the sons of men. Small beings killed Kvasir and by mixing his blood with wine made a mead that whoever drank a draught of it would receive the gift of singing. Odin, the All-Father, found his way to the place where the small beings had hidden this mead, drank all of it, and flew toward the heavens. But some of this poetic mead that had filled his heart poured out in a way that is less true of public fountains. This divine stream fell to earth in the form of an inspiring drizzle, and whoever benefited from this source of grace instinctively gained the poetic gift. These nonsense tales of a learned man were as consistent with rational standards as history.
Icelandic literature in this period was astonishingly rich and alive with the humor, vitality, and poetic interest and delicacy that fill its prose. During this era hundreds of sagas were written, some short and some as long as a novel, some historical and most a mixture of history and legend. Generally these were memories of a civilized heroic age full of glory and violence intertwined with many disputes and soothed with the balm of love. Snorri’s “Ynglinga Saga” repeatedly tells of Norse warriors who burn one another in noble halls or by drinking cups of fiery mead. The richest of these legends is the story known as the Völsunga Saga. The oldest form of these legends is in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda and the latest complete form is in the story of the Nibelungen Ring, which the German composer Wagner turned into an immortal opera.
The name Völsung was applied to each of the descendants of Völs, one of the Norse kings who was the great-grandson of Odin and the grandfather of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the Nibelungenlied the Nibelungs are the kings of Burgundy; in the Völsunga Saga this people are a short and small race who guard an immensely precious treasure and a golden ring in the Rhine region, which at the same time brings a doom upon whoever possesses the two. Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir who guards the treasure and takes possession of that hoard. During his wanderings he reaches a hill surrounded on all sides by fire and on top of it the Valkyrie Brynhild (a demigoddess descended from Odin) lies asleep. Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild’s beauty, and Brynhild also falls in love with him; the two pledge fidelity to each other; and then, as is the custom of men in many medieval imaginary legends, Sigurd leaves Brynhild and continues his journeys. At the court of Giuki, a king from the Rhine region, Sigurd meets the princess Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother gives Sigurd a magic drink that causes him to forget Brynhild and marry her daughter. Gunnar, Giuki’s son, marries Brynhild and brings her to court. Brynhild, who is bitterly angry at Sigurd’s forgetfulness, arranges for his murder; then she repents, climbs the pyre built to burn Sigurd’s body, kills herself with his sword, and burns beside him in the fire.
The latest of these Icelandic sagas, in form and style, is a story known as the Burnt Njal (c. 1220).
In this saga what clearly distinguishes the characters and sets them apart from one another is more their actions and speech than the description the author gives of each hero. The component parts of the story are well placed beside one another and everything, as if by inherent fate, passes through exciting events until it reaches the main tragedy, which is the burning of Njal’s house along with himself, his wife Bergthora, and his sons, at the hands of a group of his armed enemies led by a man named Flosi who has nothing in mind but taking revenge by shedding the blood of Njal’s sons.
Then Flosi … addressed Njal and said, “Lord Njal, I give you leave to go out, for it is not fitting that you should burn inside the house.” Njal said, “I will not go out, for I am an old man and have not the worthiness to avenge my sons, but I will not live with shame.” Then Flosi said to Bergthora, “Lady, come out, for I will not burn you inside the house for anyone’s sake.” Bergthora said, “I was given to Njal when I was young, and I have promised him that we should share one fate.” Then both returned inside the house.
Bergthora said, “What shall we do now?” Njal said, “We shall go to bed and lie down; I have long wished to rest.” Then Bergthora said to the young Thord, Kari’s son, “I will take you out, and you must not burn here.” The youth said, “Grandmother, you promised me that as long as I wished to stay with you you would never leave me; but I think it is much better to die with you and Njal than to live after you.” Then Bergthora took the boy and carried him to her bed … and placed him between herself and Njal. Then they made the sign of the cross upon themselves and the boy. And they commended their souls to God, and that was the last word others heard from their lips.
The Age of the Small Kingdoms (300–600) had left in the troubled memory of men and minstrels a thousand stories of social chaos, barbarian courage, and criminal love. Some of these tales were carried by emigrants to Norway and Iceland and gave rise to the Völsunga Saga; many of these myths, with similar names and subjects, penetrated Germany and grew into sagas, ballads, and epics. During the twelfth century an anonymous German writer, at a date unknown to us, took such material, piled it together, reshaped it, and from the whole composed the Nibelungenlied or Song of the Nibelungs. The form of this epic is rhythmic and rhymed stanzas in Middle High German; its subject is a mixture of pagan moods and the fiery feelings of a primitive people.
Once in the fourth century, King Gunther and his two brothers ruled over the Burgundian region from their palace in Worms beside the Rhine; in the same palace their younger sister Kriemhild, “no woman in any country was more beautiful than she,” lived with her brothers. At that time King Siegmund ruled over the Netherlands; he gave the government of his richest province, which lay near Xanten beside the Rhine, to his son Siegfried (Sigurd) to hold as a fief. Siegfried, having learned of Kriemhild’s beauty, invited himself to Gunther’s court, was welcomed there, lived there for a year, but never had the opportunity to see Kriemhild. On the other side, the maiden, who had always seen the young men from the high window of her palace busy with spear games in the courtyard, had fallen in love with Siegfried at first sight — Siegfried excelled all his rivals in spear play, and in the wars of the Burgundian people he bravely wielded the sword for them. When Gunther arranged a banquet on the occasion of a victorious peace, he invited the ladies to take part in that feast.
Many noble maidens adorned themselves with great care, and the young men, who had long waited for such an opportunity to win the favor of those beauties, could not have exchanged it for the richest royal lands … suddenly Kriemhild appeared like a dawn breaking from behind black clouds; and he who had long cherished her love did not grow colder at the sight of that fair face … Siegfried became joyful and sad, for in his heart he said, “How can I woo someone like you? Surely this is a vain thought; yet death seems better to me than being a stranger to you.” … When Kriemhild saw that noble beloved before her, her face flushed, and she said, “Noble lord Siegfried, O noble and well-mannered knight, welcome.” Upon hearing these words Siegfried’s courage increased and, with the dignity befitting a knight’s station, he bowed his head before the lady and thanked her. And love, which is powerful, prevented the lover and beloved from revealing the secret within.
Gunther, who has not yet taken a wife, learns of the Icelandic queen Brunhild; but he is told that Brunhild will only give her hand to someone who defeats her in three contests; and if the suitor fails in one of these tests, his head will be paid as forfeit. Siegfried agrees to help Gunther marry Brunhild, on condition that the king gives him Kriemhild as wife. The two quickly and easily, as is characteristic of impatient lovers, cross the sea; Siegfried, having become invisible by wearing a magic cloak, helps Gunther win the tests, and Gunther brings Brunhild, who is unwilling to leave her homeland, as his wife. Eighty-six maidens help Kriemhild prepare magnificent garments for herself. Then two splendid weddings are held at the same time. Gunther marries Brunhild and Siegfried marries Kriemhild.
But when Brunhild’s eyes fall upon Siegfried she feels that he should have been her husband rather than Gunther. On the wedding night when Gunther enters the bridal chamber, Brunhild does not give herself to him, binds him and hangs him from the wall; when Gunther is freed he calls for Siegfried’s help; the next night Siegfried disguises himself as Gunther and lies beside Brunhild; meanwhile Gunther, hidden in the dark room, hears everything and sees nothing. Brunhild throws Siegfried out of the bed and engages him in a bone-crushing and head-breaking fight that obeys no rules or laws. In the heat of the struggle Siegfried says to himself, “Alas! If I am killed by this woman, no woman will ever again honor her husband.” Finally he overcomes Brunhild, and Brunhild promises to be his wife; Siegfried, without showing himself, takes her girdle and ring and leaves the chamber and Gunther returns to his place beside the exhausted and tired queen. Siegfried presents the girdle and ring to Kriemhild and takes her to his father; his father places the crown on her head and proclaims her queen of the Netherlands. Siegfried, using the treasure of the Nibelungs, dresses his wife and her maidens in garments so costly and magnificent that women had never before seen their like.
Shortly after these events, Kriemhild visits Brunhild in Worms; Brunhild, who has become envious of Kriemhild’s magnificent clothes and ornaments, reminds her guest that Siegfried is Gunther’s vassal. Kriemhild, in reproach, shows Brunhild the girdle and ring to let her know that in reality Siegfried had overcome her, not Gunther. Hagen, Gunther’s grim half-brother, incites him against Siegfried; the two invite Siegfried to a hunt, and when he bends over a stream to drink water, Hagen pierces his side with a spear. Kriemhild, seeing her brave husband dead, “lies all that day and night in a swoon.” As Siegfried’s widow she inherits the Nibelung treasure, but Hagen persuades Gunther to deprive Kriemhild of that wealth. Gunther, his brothers, and Hagen bury the treasure in the Rhine and swear never to reveal its hiding place to anyone.
For thirteen years Kriemhild nurtured the thought of taking revenge on Hagen and his brothers, but no opportunity presented itself. Then she accepts a marriage proposal from Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, after the death of his wife, and as his queen sets out for Vienna to live there. “Etzel’s rule was so famous that the bravest knights, whether Christian or pagan, constantly came to his court … there you would see something you never see now, namely Christians and pagans together. Regardless of the great difference in their beliefs, the king gave them gifts so generously that all of them had great wealth.” There Kriemhild “ruled in perfect chastity” for thirteen years and apparently put the thought of revenge out of her mind. In reality she asks Etzel to invite her brothers along with Hagen to a banquet; despite Hagen’s warning they accept Etzel’s invitation and come with a large armed retinue of sword-wielding peasants and knights. While the king and his full brothers along with Hagen and the knights are seated at Etzel’s banquet table, outside the hall, on Kriemhild’s orders, the sword-wielding peasants are killed. When this news reaches Hagen he immediately jumps up and reaches for his weapon; inside the hall a bloody battle breaks out between the Burgundians and the Huns (which may be a memory of the real war between these two tribes in 437); Hagen with the first blow cuts off the head of Ortlieb, Kriemhild and Etzel’s five-year-old son, and throws the severed head into Kriemhild’s lap. When almost all the Burgundians are killed, Kriemhild’s brother Gernot asks Etzel to allow whoever among the guests is still alive to leave the hall. The Hunnish knights agree to this request, but Kriemhild prevents them from doing so, so the slaughter continues. Her younger brother Giselher, who was only five years old when Siegfried was killed, clings to Kriemhild’s skirt and says, “O dear sister, what have I done that I deserve to die at the hands of the Huns? I have always been faithful to you and have done you no harm; O dear sister, I came here trusting in your love. Now you must forgive us.” Kriemhild agrees to their escape on condition that they hand Hagen over to her. Gernot raises his voice and says, “May God never bring such a day. Death for all of us would be much better than making one the blood price for ourselves.” Kriemhild drives the Huns out of the palace, locks the doors on the Burgundians, and orders the building to be set on fire. The Burgundians, tormented by heat and thirst, scream in pain; Hagen orders them to quench their thirst by drinking the blood of the slain, and all do so. Some come out from among the burning timbers and debris, and the battle in the palace courtyard continues until only Gunther and Hagen remain from the Burgundian host. Dietrich, famous as the Goth, fights, overcomes Hagen, and brings him bound before Kriemhild. Kriemhild asks him where he has hidden the Nibelung treasure; Hagen says that as long as Gunther is alive he will refuse to reveal his secret; for this reason Gunther, who is also captive, is killed on his sister’s orders; when his head is brought before Hagen, he still refuses and says to Kriemhild, “Now no one knows where the treasure is hidden except God and me; and you, O devilish woman, will never know more than this.” Kriemhild takes Hagen’s sword and with it immediately strikes him down. Then one of her warriors, the famous Goth Hildebrand, who has grown weary of this woman’s bloodthirstiness, kills Kriemhild.
This is a horrible story that in cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and violence yields to no similar story in the history of world literature. Of course we have not done full justice to the matter, for from a series of banquets and feasts, heroic combats, hunting parties, and interesting episodes of the women’s world of that epic we have selected only the most gruesome events and moments; but the main and bitter subject of the tale is exactly what has been briefly mentioned, namely the story of a gentle and mild-mannered maiden who, because of a diabolical event, turns into a criminal and bloodthirsty woman. It is strange that in this tale so little of Christianity remains; it almost resembles a Greek tragedy of the goddess of revenge, except that, unlike Greek custom, it displays violence openly on the stage. In this course of depravity almost all the virtues and excellences of the feudal age, even the respect that a guest should have in the eyes of his host, sink under water. Until our own time no event has been able to go beyond the barbarity of such a story.
Troubadours
At the end of the eleventh century, an age when one would apparently expect all European literature to have taken on the religious fervor of Christians for the Crusades, a school of lyric poetry arose in the southern regions of France that was aristocratic, pagan, and anti-religious; its style showed traces of Arab influence and spoke of woman’s victory over the chastity and purity imposed upon her by the theory of the Fall. This poetic style spread from Toulouse to Paris and from there with Eleanor of Aquitaine to London and captured the heart of her son, the Lionheart Richard I; it created the German “Minnesang” and in Italy gave rise to a delicate style among the class of troubadour poets that prepared the ground for the appearance of Dante. The origin and birth of this style is linked with the name of Eleanor’s grandfather, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. This bold youth at the age of eleven (1087) declared himself almost the independent ruler of southwestern France. He joined the First Crusade and composed lyrics in praise of the victory of Western heroes in that struggle, but like many nobles of his domain, which had become a center of heretics, he had little respect for the Church and with full humor mocked the priests. In an old Provençal biography it is written that the Duke of Aquitaine “was one of the most courteous men in the world and had a great talent for seducing and deceiving ladies; he was a brave knight who loved much, and knew well how to sing and compose poetry; and for a very long time he traveled the whole country in order to ensnare ladies.” Although married, he courted the beautiful Viscountess of Châtellerault and lived openly with that woman. When the brave and outspoken Bishop of Angoulême warned him that he must cease his filthy deeds, the Duke replied, “As soon as the hair on your head needs combing, I will give up the Viscountess.” After he had been excommunicated, one day he met the Bishop of Poitiers and said to him, “Pray for me, or I will kill you.” The Bishop bent his neck and said, “Strike!” William refused and said, “No — I do not love you enough to send you to paradise.” The style the Duke used in his amorous letters to noble ladies laid the foundation for a new style in composing epistles. But he was not only a man of words; he had a short but glorious life and died at the age of fifty-six (1137). He left Eleanor a vast domain, a sound taste and love of poetry, and an amorous nature.
Eleanor gathered poets in Toulouse, and that group willingly composed and sang songs for her and her courtiers in praise of women’s beauty and the spells they cast. Bernard de Ventadour, whose poems in Petrarch’s view were only slightly inferior to his own lyrics, began to compose poems that praised the beauty of the Viscountess of Ventadour; the Viscountess took these poems so seriously that her husband was forced to imprison her in a tower of his residential palace. Bernard, encouraged by this, turned his attention to composing poems in praise of Eleanor’s own beauty and brilliance, and then turned to the soul; and when Eleanor first gave her heart to the King of France and then to the King of England, Bernard poured the highest inner feelings into a famous lament. One generation later another famous troubadour named Bertran de Born became a very close friend of Richard I and a victorious rival in winning the heart of the most beautiful woman of the age, the Lady Maent de Montignac.
Another troubadour named Peire Vidal accompanied Richard on crusade; he lived in poverty with love and wrote poetry; and finally received an estate from Count Raymond VI, lord of Toulouse. We know the names of 446 other troubadours; but the works of these four alone are a handful that speak of thousands of love lyrics and songs by others.
Some of this group were wandering minstrels and vagabonds, and most were lesser nobles who had talent and a great love of singing; four of them were kings: Richard I, Frederick II, Alfonso II, and Peter III, King of Aragon. For a century (1150–1250) this group ruled over the literature of southern France and shaped the manners and customs of a newly emerging aristocratic class that was moving from rural barbarism to a stage of chivalry that, by its rule, paid for war with humility and courtesy and compensated for adultery with grace and dignity. The language of the troubadours was Langue d’Oc or the Romance language of southern France and northeastern Spain. The name of these singing or lyric minstrels, troubadours, is an unsolved puzzle; it is likely that this word derives from the Romance verb “trobar,” meaning “to find” or “to invent,” just as the Italian word “trovatore” apparently derives from “trovare”; but some scholars think the word must come from the Arabic “tarab.” This group of singers called their art the “science of tarab”; but their idea of tarab was not something superficial; for this reason anyone who wished to join this circle was required to receive long training in literature, music, the art of speaking, and courtesy toward women; this group dressed like the nobility, always wore a cloak with a border of gold embroidery and expensive furs; most moved armed and in armor like knights, took part in military festivals, and for the ladies they admired, if they did not lay down their lives, at least used both pen and sword. They composed poetry only for the aristocratic class; usually they themselves composed the music for their lyrics and hired minstrels to sing these songs in banquets or military festivals; but most of them also played the lute and drew passionate feelings from the lyrics.
Probably the outburst of feeling itself was a literary style; the burning passion, the fulfillment of heavenly promises, and the melancholy despair of the troubadours all counted as poetic expressions and poetic necessity; husbands apparently knew these burning and melting feelings as nothing more than this and were less jealous than most men. Since marriage among the nobility was usually a matter of transferring property and assets, just as is mentioned in French legends, love and romance came after marriage, and except for a few exceptional stories, all love stories in medieval literature, from Francesca and Beatrice in the south to Isolde and Guinevere in the north, are tales of illicit love. Since in general it was not possible to reach union with a married lady, this very fact gave rise to the poems of the troubadours; when human desires are fulfilled, it becomes difficult to let the steed of imagination gallop about them, and wherever there are no obstacles or impediments, there is no literature. In history we encounter the names of a few troubadours who attained the greatest desires, that is, fulfillment from the ladies to whom they sang praises, but such cases must be counted as violations of the literary customs of the age; for normally the poet was required to quench his thirst with a kiss or the touch of a hand. Such self-restraint required refinement and perfection; and in the thirteenth century the poems of this group of troubadours — perhaps also under the influence of the cult of the Virgin Mary — rose from the level of carnal pleasures to the height of spiritual grace and purity. But in the works of these men little trace of asceticism and piety is seen. The aversion that members of this group had toward chastity and purity led them to oppose the Church. Several of them mocked bishops and ridiculed hell and supported the Albigensian heretics, and where Saint Louis with all his chastity had failed, they celebrated the victory of an unbelieving king like Frederick in the crusades. Guiraut Ademar had only one crusade he approved of, and that was because it removed a husband who was a thorn in his path. Raimon Jordan preferred one night with his beloved to life in the promised paradise.
The styles of versification were far more important to the troubadours than the rules of moral principles. A chanson was a lyric; a planh was a lament or elegy that the poet composed on the death of a friend or beloved; a tenson was a poetic debate on a subject such as love, morality, or chivalry; a sirventes was a song composed for war or enmity or attacking a political rival. A sestina was a complicated sequence of six successive rhymed stanzas each having six lines; this style of lyric composition was invented by Arnaut Daniel and greatly pleased Dante; a pastourelle was a dialogue between a troubadour and a shepherdess; an aubade or alba was a dawn song and usually warned the lover and beloved that the coming of day would soon reveal their secret; a serena or serenade was a night song; and a ballada was a narrative poem. Here is an example of an aubade, or a piece about the coming of dawn, from an anonymous poet who puts the words in the mouth of a Juliet of the twelfth century:
In the garden where the white hawthorn has spread its leaves, my lady has lain beside her beloved, until the watchman cries that dawn has come — alas, the dawn that is cause for sorrow! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O God, let not that night, the dear night, ever end.
Or let my beloved leave me, or let the watchman stop singing “dawn” — yes, that dawn that is the slayer of peace! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O dear and sweet beloved, your lips, our lips still press together! See how in the meadow the birds begin to sing.
May love be our portion, for the portion of envy is only pain! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! From that sweet breeze that blows from far away, have I not drunk sip by sip from the breath of my beloved, yes from the warm breath of the comforter who is so dear and full of joy.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! This is the dawn that the maiden who keeps good manners well sees, and many people look upon the fitting behavior of this beauty; her heart never betrays love.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes!
By the middle of the thirteenth century, partly because of the increasing artificiality of the styles and feelings of such lyrics, and partly because of the destruction of southern France by the Albigensian Crusade, the troubadour movement came to an end. In those turbulent days of the religious wars, many castles that were the refuge of these lyricists fell, and when Toulouse itself was subjected to a double siege, the chivalric system that had been established in the Aquitaine region collapsed.
Some minstrels fled to Spain and some to Italy, and it was in Italy that the art of lyric poetry again flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century, and both Dante and Petrarch were among the new stars of the world of lyric poetry. It was the “science of tarab” and the virtues and courtesy of this group that helped create a code and instruction for chivalry and turned a group of wild people from northern Europe into a class of nobles. From that time until now literature has been under the influence of those delicate melodies and perhaps it is thanks to the perfume of their praise that the sweet scent of love now perfumes the soul of man.
Minnesingers
The troubadour movement spread from France to the southern regions of Germany and flourished there in the golden age of the Hohenstaufen. German poets were called minnesingers (singers of love). The subject of their poems was “service in the way of love” and “service to the lady,” both of which were considered part of the chivalry of that era. We know the names of about three hundred of these minnesingers, because a large amount of their poetry has survived. Some of this group belonged to the lower nobility; most were poor people dependent on the favors and gifts of emperors or dukes. Although this group strictly used a special rule for determining poetic meters and rhythms, many of them were illiterate, and they dictated the words and music of their songs or, in other words, recited them aloud for others to record; to this day the German word for poems is Dichtung, which also means “dictation.” Usually these singers had minstrels read the songs, and sometimes they themselves read such pieces. In history we encounter mention of the great Sängerkrieg (song contest) that was held in 1207 at Wartburg Castle; it is said that two famous singers, Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach, both took part in this contest. The minnesingers helped for more than a century to raise the status of woman in Germany; and ladies of the nobility became the source and inspiration of a culture more refined than Germany would again see its like before Schiller and Goethe.
Wolfram and Walther von der Vogelweide have been counted among the minnesingers, for both wrote love songs, but Wolfram and his piece Parzival are better discussed under the heading of romances or imaginary love legends. Walther von der Vogelweide was born before 1170 in a place in Tyrol. He was a poor knight who made his situation worse by engaging in poetry and song. At the age of twenty he sang for a living in the houses of nobles. In those years of youth he spoke of love with the same freedom of sensual pleasure as his rivals frowned upon. His song entitled Under the Linden Tree has remained to this day like a precious gem in Germany:
Under the linden trees on the heath grass a bed had been made for us two; there one could see flowers crushed and grass trampled.
From among the thick bushes in the little valley of Tandaradei! The nightingale sings sweetly.
I had hurried there through the grass.
I, the most blessed of maidens! had been caught there.
For my fortune is forever good. There he kissed me many times Tandaradei! Look how red my lips are! With haste mixed with joy he made a bower for us both from the blossoms there.
Still that secluded place must be a faded jest for those who tread the same path and look at the place where that day — Tandaradei! my head rested among the red flowers.
How ashamed I would be if anyone (now I say God forbid!) had been present there then.
There we both lay, but no one knew of this secret except my beloved and me. And the little nightingale, Tandaradei! which I know will not betray my secret.
As Walther grew older his perception matured and he gradually observed in woman a delicacy and grace more pleasing than any physical attraction, and he concluded that the reward of the union of man and woman through marriage is far greater than any superficial pleasurable excitement arising from variety. On this subject he says in one piece: “Happy is the man and happy is the woman whose hearts are true to each other; the value and worth of their lives increases; all the days and years of their lives are blessed.” Walther condemned the praise that other lyricists of his time poured at the feet of courtly ladies; he declared that the word wip (the same word as Weib, meaning “woman”) is a far higher title than Vrouwe (the same word as Frau, meaning “lady”); women and noble men of good character form the true aristocracy. In his view, “German ladies are as beautiful as divine angels; whoever slanders them laughs at his own beard.” In 1197 Emperor Henry VI died; and Germany suffered chaos for a generation until Frederick II came of age. The patronage of learning by the nobility declined and Walther, who no longer had a patron, wandered from court to court, and unfortunately in competition with shameless jesters and noisy magicians was forced to sing for his bread. In the account book of Wolfger, Bishop of Passau, one interesting item reads: “November 12, 1203, five solidi paid to Walther von der Vogelweide to buy a fur coat to protect himself against the winter cold.” This was a doubly pious act of a Christian, for Walther was one of the fervent members of the Ghibelline party, tuned his lute to oppose the popes, constantly criticized the wrongdoings of the Church, and was angry at why the money of the German people was being sent across the Alps to fill the papal treasury in the name of Saint Peter’s penny. With all this he was a devout Christian, composed a magnificent “Crusade Song”; but he was able at times to rise above the battlefield and see all human beings as brothers, as he says in one piece:
Humanity receives life from one virgin maiden, we all resemble one another inside and out, our mouths are all satisfied with the same kind of food, and when their bones are all ground together, you say which one was the living man, and from this crowd that the worms have so emptied, which now is the servant and which the master. Christians, Jews, and pagans all serve and God holds all creation under His care.
After a quarter century of wandering and poverty, Walther received an estate and a regular income from Frederick II (1221) and from then on was able to spend the remaining seven years of his life in perfect peace. He regretted that he was older and weaker than to be able to go on crusade; he asked God for forgiveness that he was unable to love his enemies, and in a poem he left his possessions for his survivors in this way: “To the envious I leave my bad luck; to the liars my troubles; to the false lovers my follies; to the ladies my heartache.” His body was buried in Würzburg Cathedral; beside his grave a memorial stone tells of Germany’s affection for the greatest poet of this age.
After Walther’s death the minnesinger movement indulged itself with the exaggerations of the period and shared in the disasters that shattered Germany after the fall of Frederick II. Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his versified autobiography entitled Service to the Lady describes how he was raised in an environment full of feelings of service to ladies. Ulrich chose a woman as his goddess, and because he had a harelip and feared that the lady would be repelled by the sight of his face, he ordered his lip to be sewn, and took part in military festivals for the love of his beloved. When he was told that the woman was astonished that Ulrich still possessed the finger that she thought he had lost in the path of her honor, Ulrich cut off that particular finger and, as a sign of respect for his beloved’s word, sent it to her. When fortune helped and Ulrich succeeded in drinking the water in which the lady had washed her hands, he no longer knew himself for joy. And when he received a letter from his beloved, because he could not read, he carried it in his pocket for weeks until he found a trusted person who could read the letter for him. After he was granted the favor of his beloved’s mercy, he stood for two full days in beggar’s rags among a group of lepers at the door of the lady’s palace waiting. The lady allowed him to enter, and when she saw that he was a persistent man she ordered him to be wrapped in a sheet, lowered from the window of her bedroom, and placed on the ground. Throughout this period Ulrich had one wife and several children.
The minnesinger movement ended with some pomp and glory with the songs of Heinrich von Meißen — who was called Frauenlob (praiser of women) because of his songs in praise of woman’s status. When he died in 1317 in Mainz, the ladies of the city, singing melodious laments, carried his body to the cathedral and poured so much wine on his coffin that it flowed like a stream through the whole church. After him the art of singing left the hands of knights and fell to the middle class. The romantic spirit of woman-worship faded and in the fourteenth century gave way to the robust pleasure and art of urban minnesingers or singers and lyricists and announced the rise of the bourgeoisie to the world of poetry and song.
Romances
The emergence of literature from the realm of religion and religious subjects went hand in hand with the rise of national languages. Generally, until the twelfth century only clerics knew Latin, and writers who wished to make their thoughts and intentions known to the common people were forced to use vernacular languages. As soon as the social system expanded, the number of readers increased, and to meet such a need national literature came into being. French literature began in the eleventh century, German literature in the twelfth, and the literatures of the English, Spanish, and Italian peoples in the thirteenth century.
The natural initial form of this vernacular literature was folk songs. The song became a ballad, and ballads were expanded and turned into short epics such as Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poem of the Cid. The Chanson de Roland was probably formed around 1130 from the combination of ballads belonging to the ninth or tenth centuries. This epic, in four thousand simple and fluent lines in a meter with stress on the final syllable, tells the story of Roland’s death at Roncevaux. After Charlemagne subdues Moorish Spain, he returns with his troops toward France; the traitor Ganelon reveals their route to the enemy, and Roland voluntarily agrees to take on the dangerous task of rear guard for the army. In the narrow and winding pass of the Pyrenees a vast host of Basque forces attacks Roland’s small troop from the cliffs above. Roland’s friend Oliver asks him to blow his great horn to call Charlemagne for help, but Roland with full pride refuses to ask for help. He, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, who have given up their lives, fight at the head of their troops until almost all of them are killed. Oliver, struck with mortal blows on the head and blinded by blood flowing into his eyes, mistakes Roland for one of the enemy and strikes him a heavy blow so that Roland’s helmet is split from crown to near the piece that covers his nose, but Roland is not harmed:
With the falling of this blow Roland looks at him and softly and gently asks him, “O noble friend, do you strike me in earnest? I am Roland whom you love with all your heart. I have never before seen you draw your sword against me in any way.” Oliver says, “Now I hear your voice, I do not see you. May God see you and save you! Did I strike a blow upon you? Forgive me!” Roland answers, “I am not wounded. Here and before God I forgive you.” And with these words one bows to the other, and with such love the two part from each other.
Finally Roland blows his jeweled horn so hard that blood flows from his temples. Charlemagne hears it and, while “his white beard flutters in the wind,” turns back to save him and his troops. But the way back is long. “The mountains are high and wide and dark, the valleys deep and the rivers rushing.” Meanwhile Roland mourns over Oliver’s corpse and says to him, “O noble friend, we have seen many days and years together. Never have you done me wrong nor I you. If you have left this world, life is all pain.” The archbishop too, who is dying, begs Roland to flee and save himself; Roland refuses and continues to fight until his attackers flee, but he himself has received mortal wounds. Then, with the last strength he has, he breaks his jeweled sword Durandal on a rock so that it will not fall into the hands of the infidels. Then “Count Roland, facing Spain, rested beneath a pine tree. … In that state many events passed through his mind; he remembered the lands he had conquered, sweet France, his family, and Charlemagne who had raised him, and he wept.” Then Roland raises his glove as a sign of vassalage and surrender before God, and when Charlemagne arrives he finds him dead. No translation can reproduce the simple and noble grandeur seen in the original of this epic, and no one can fully understand the power and tender feelings of this national epic, which every French child learns along with his daily prayers, unless he has drunk love and pride for France with his mother’s milk.
Around 1160 an anonymous poet, through romantic imagination, elevated the qualities and bravery of the famous Spanish commander known as the Cid or Rodrigo Díaz (d. 1099) to the highest degree and gave Spain a national epic with his poem entitled the Poem of the Cid. Here too the main subject is the struggle of Christian knights against the Moors inhabiting Spain, the elevation of the nobility, honor, and courage of the feudal age, and more the glory of war than servitude before a beloved. Thus Rodrigo, when exiled by an ungrateful king, leaves his wife and children in a convent and swears that he will not live with them again unless he emerges victorious from five wars. He sets out to fight the Moors; the first half of this poem consists of resounding victories that involuntarily recall Homer’s Iliad. The Cid, during the wars, steals from the Jews, distributes alms among the poor, and feeds a leper and eats from the same bowl and sleeps in the same bed himself, and realizes that the leper is Eleazar whom Jesus had brought back from the world of the dead to the world of the living. Of course the hero of this poem differs in reality from the Cid we know from history, but the damage it does to historical facts is no greater than that of the Chanson de Roland, which raises Charlemagne to the height of perfection. The Poem of the Cid became a stimulant and intoxicating drug for Spanish pride and thought; hundreds of ballads were composed about the hero of this poem and a hundred more or less historical stories were written. In the world there is little that can be found as bitter as truth and as universally distasteful as it.
No one has yet explained why a small country like Iceland, which is assailed by the forces of nature and whose connection with everywhere is cut off by the sea, should have produced in this period a literature whose scope and brilliance had no proportion to its geographical position and area. Two things helped the birth of Icelandic writers: one was a rich source of historical traditions that is usually dear to every distant or isolated population and is preserved orally from generation to generation; the other was the habit of reading or listening to others, which is usually a good pastime for the long winter nights. In the twelfth century, in addition to the libraries of the monasteries of this island, there were also many private libraries. When writing became a virtue that everyone became familiar with, the common people, just like the clergy, wrote down in literary style all the information and knowledge belonging to their race and nation that had once been the special property of poets.
According to one of the rarest coincidences, the foremost writer of Iceland in the thirteenth century was at the same time the richest person on the island and twice “law speaker” or, as the Icelanders themselves called it, “guardian of the laws.” Snorri Sturluson loved life more than learning; he undertook long journeys, participated intensely in politics and disputes, and was killed at the age of sixty-two by his son-in-law. His book entitled Heimskringla or “the circle of the world,” “a style free of ornament and concise” that is natural for a working man, described the history and legends of the Norse people. His other work, the Prose Edda, offered a summary of biblical history, a summary of Norse mythology, an essay on poetic meters and rhythms, a treatise on the art of poetry, and an unparalleled explanation of the origin of the flood of art and how this gift was distributed. Two warring and hostile groups of gods, by spitting into a vessel, made peace with each other; from their spittle a demigod named Kvasir was created who, like Prometheus, taught wisdom to the sons of men. Small beings killed Kvasir and by mixing his blood with wine made a mead that whoever drank a draught of it would receive the gift of singing. Odin, the All-Father, found his way to the place where the small beings had hidden this mead, drank all of it, and flew toward the heavens. But some of this poetic mead that had filled his heart poured out in a way that is less true of public fountains. This divine stream fell to earth in the form of an inspiring drizzle, and whoever benefited from this source of grace instinctively gained the poetic gift. These nonsense tales of a learned man were as consistent with rational standards as history.
Icelandic literature in this period was astonishingly rich and alive with the humor, vitality, and poetic interest and delicacy that fill its prose. During this era hundreds of sagas were written, some short and some as long as a novel, some historical and most a mixture of history and legend. Generally these were memories of a civilized heroic age full of glory and violence intertwined with many disputes and soothed with the balm of love. Snorri’s “Ynglinga Saga” repeatedly tells of Norse warriors who burn one another in noble halls or by drinking cups of fiery mead. The richest of these legends is the story known as the Völsunga Saga. The oldest form of these legends is in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda and the latest complete form is in the story of the Nibelungen Ring, which the German composer Wagner turned into an immortal opera.
The name Völsung was applied to each of the descendants of Völs, one of the Norse kings who was the great-grandson of Odin and the grandfather of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the Nibelungenlied the Nibelungs are the kings of Burgundy; in the Völsunga Saga this people are a short and small race who guard an immensely precious treasure and a golden ring in the Rhine region, which at the same time brings a doom upon whoever possesses the two. Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir who guards the treasure and takes possession of that hoard. During his wanderings he reaches a hill surrounded on all sides by fire and on top of it the Valkyrie Brynhild (a demigoddess descended from Odin) lies asleep. Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild’s beauty, and Brynhild also falls in love with him; the two pledge fidelity to each other; and then, as is the custom of men in many medieval imaginary legends, Sigurd leaves Brynhild and continues his journeys. At the court of Giuki, a king from the Rhine region, Sigurd meets the princess Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother gives Sigurd a magic drink that causes him to forget Brynhild and marry her daughter. Gunnar, Giuki’s son, marries Brynhild and brings her to court. Brynhild, who is bitterly angry at Sigurd’s forgetfulness, arranges for his murder; then she repents, climbs the pyre built to burn Sigurd’s body, kills herself with his sword, and burns beside him in the fire.
The latest of these Icelandic sagas, in form and style, is a story known as the Burnt Njal (c. 1220).
In this saga what clearly distinguishes the characters and sets them apart from one another is more their actions and speech than the description the author gives of each hero. The component parts of the story are well placed beside one another and everything, as if by inherent fate, passes through exciting events until it reaches the main tragedy, which is the burning of Njal’s house along with himself, his wife Bergthora, and his sons, at the hands of a group of his armed enemies led by a man named Flosi who has nothing in mind but taking revenge by shedding the blood of Njal’s sons.
Then Flosi … addressed Njal and said, “Lord Njal, I give you leave to go out, for it is not fitting that you should burn inside the house.” Njal said, “I will not go out, for I am an old man and have not the worthiness to avenge my sons, but I will not live with shame.” Then Flosi said to Bergthora, “Lady, come out, for I will not burn you inside the house for anyone’s sake.” Bergthora said, “I was given to Njal when I was young, and I have promised him that we should share one fate.” Then both returned inside the house.
Bergthora said, “What shall we do now?” Njal said, “We shall go to bed and lie down; I have long wished to rest.” Then Bergthora said to the young Thord, Kari’s son, “I will take you out, and you must not burn here.” The youth said, “Grandmother, you promised me that as long as I wished to stay with you you would never leave me; but I think it is much better to die with you and Njal than to live after you.” Then Bergthora took the boy and carried him to her bed … and placed him between herself and Njal. Then they made the sign of the cross upon themselves and the boy. And they commended their souls to God, and that was the last word others heard from their lips.
The Age of the Small Kingdoms (300–600) had left in the troubled memory of men and minstrels a thousand stories of social chaos, barbarian courage, and criminal love. Some of these tales were carried by emigrants to Norway and Iceland and gave rise to the Völsunga Saga; many of these myths, with similar names and subjects, penetrated Germany and grew into sagas, ballads, and epics. During the twelfth century an anonymous German writer, at a date unknown to us, took such material, piled it together, reshaped it, and from the whole composed the Nibelungenlied or Song of the Nibelungs. The form of this epic is rhythmic and rhymed stanzas in Middle High German; its subject is a mixture of pagan moods and the fiery feelings of a primitive people.
Once in the fourth century, King Gunther and his two brothers ruled over the Burgundian region from their palace in Worms beside the Rhine; in the same palace their younger sister Kriemhild, “no woman in any country was more beautiful than she,” lived with her brothers. At that time King Siegmund ruled over the Netherlands; he gave the government of his richest province, which lay near Xanten beside the Rhine, to his son Siegfried (Sigurd) to hold as a fief. Siegfried, having learned of Kriemhild’s beauty, invited himself to Gunther’s court, was welcomed there, lived there for a year, but never had the opportunity to see Kriemhild. On the other side, the maiden, who had always seen the young men from the high window of her palace busy with spear games in the courtyard, had fallen in love with Siegfried at first sight — Siegfried excelled all his rivals in spear play, and in the wars of the Burgundian people he bravely wielded the sword for them. When Gunther arranged a banquet on the occasion of a victorious peace, he invited the ladies to take part in that feast.
Many noble maidens adorned themselves with great care, and the young men, who had long waited for such an opportunity to win the favor of those beauties, could not have exchanged it for the richest royal lands … suddenly Kriemhild appeared like a dawn breaking from behind black clouds; and he who had long cherished her love did not grow colder at the sight of that fair face … Siegfried became joyful and sad, for in his heart he said, “How can I woo someone like you? Surely this is a vain thought; yet death seems better to me than being a stranger to you.” … When Kriemhild saw that noble beloved before her, her face flushed, and she said, “Noble lord Siegfried, O noble and well-mannered knight, welcome.” Upon hearing these words Siegfried’s courage increased and, with the dignity befitting a knight’s station, he bowed his head before the lady and thanked her. And love, which is powerful, prevented the lover and beloved from revealing the secret within.
Gunther, who has not yet taken a wife, learns of the Icelandic queen Brunhild; but he is told that Brunhild will only give her hand to someone who defeats her in three contests; and if the suitor fails in one of these tests, his head will be paid as forfeit. Siegfried agrees to help Gunther marry Brunhild, on condition that the king gives him Kriemhild as wife. The two quickly and easily, as is characteristic of impatient lovers, cross the sea; Siegfried, having become invisible by wearing a magic cloak, helps Gunther win the tests, and Gunther brings Brunhild, who is unwilling to leave her homeland, as his wife. Eighty-six maidens help Kriemhild prepare magnificent garments for herself. Then two splendid weddings are held at the same time. Gunther marries Brunhild and Siegfried marries Kriemhild.
But when Brunhild’s eyes fall upon Siegfried she feels that he should have been her husband rather than Gunther. On the wedding night when Gunther enters the bridal chamber, Brunhild does not give herself to him, binds him and hangs him from the wall; when Gunther is freed he calls for Siegfried’s help; the next night Siegfried disguises himself as Gunther and lies beside Brunhild; meanwhile Gunther, hidden in the dark room, hears everything and sees nothing. Brunhild throws Siegfried out of the bed and engages him in a bone-crushing and head-breaking fight that obeys no rules or laws. In the heat of the struggle Siegfried says to himself, “Alas! If I am killed by this woman, no woman will ever again honor her husband.” Finally he overcomes Brunhild, and Brunhild promises to be his wife; Siegfried, without showing himself, takes her girdle and ring and leaves the chamber and Gunther returns to his place beside the exhausted and tired queen. Siegfried presents the girdle and ring to Kriemhild and takes her to his father; his father places the crown on her head and proclaims her queen of the Netherlands. Siegfried, using the treasure of the Nibelungs, dresses his wife and her maidens in garments so costly and magnificent that women had never before seen their like.
Shortly after these events, Kriemhild visits Brunhild in Worms; Brunhild, who has become envious of Kriemhild’s magnificent clothes and ornaments, reminds her guest that Siegfried is Gunther’s vassal. Kriemhild, in reproach, shows Brunhild the girdle and ring to let her know that in reality Siegfried had overcome her, not Gunther. Hagen, Gunther’s grim half-brother, incites him against Siegfried; the two invite Siegfried to a hunt, and when he bends over a stream to drink water, Hagen pierces his side with a spear. Kriemhild, seeing her brave husband dead, “lies all that day and night in a swoon.” As Siegfried’s widow she inherits the Nibelung treasure, but Hagen persuades Gunther to deprive Kriemhild of that wealth. Gunther, his brothers, and Hagen bury the treasure in the Rhine and swear never to reveal its hiding place to anyone.
For thirteen years Kriemhild nurtured the thought of taking revenge on Hagen and his brothers, but no opportunity presented itself. Then she accepts a marriage proposal from Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, after the death of his wife, and as his queen sets out for Vienna to live there. “Etzel’s rule was so famous that the bravest knights, whether Christian or pagan, constantly came to his court … there you would see something you never see now, namely Christians and pagans together. Regardless of the great difference in their beliefs, the king gave them gifts so generously that all of them had great wealth.” There Kriemhild “ruled in perfect chastity” for thirteen years and apparently put the thought of revenge out of her mind. In reality she asks Etzel to invite her brothers along with Hagen to a banquet; despite Hagen’s warning they accept Etzel’s invitation and come with a large armed retinue of sword-wielding peasants and knights. While the king and his full brothers along with Hagen and the knights are seated at Etzel’s banquet table, outside the hall, on Kriemhild’s orders, the sword-wielding peasants are killed. When this news reaches Hagen he immediately jumps up and reaches for his weapon; inside the hall a bloody battle breaks out between the Burgundians and the Huns (which may be a memory of the real war between these two tribes in 437); Hagen with the first blow cuts off the head of Ortlieb, Kriemhild and Etzel’s five-year-old son, and throws the severed head into Kriemhild’s lap. When almost all the Burgundians are killed, Kriemhild’s brother Gernot asks Etzel to allow whoever among the guests is still alive to leave the hall. The Hunnish knights agree to this request, but Kriemhild prevents them from doing so, so the slaughter continues. Her younger brother Giselher, who was only five years old when Siegfried was killed, clings to Kriemhild’s skirt and says, “O dear sister, what have I done that I deserve to die at the hands of the Huns? I have always been faithful to you and have done you no harm; O dear sister, I came here trusting in your love. Now you must forgive us.” Kriemhild agrees to their escape on condition that they hand Hagen over to her. Gernot raises his voice and says, “May God never bring such a day. Death for all of us would be much better than making one the blood price for ourselves.” Kriemhild drives the Huns out of the palace, locks the doors on the Burgundians, and orders the building to be set on fire. The Burgundians, tormented by heat and thirst, scream in pain; Hagen orders them to quench their thirst by drinking the blood of the slain, and all do so. Some come out from among the burning timbers and debris, and the battle in the palace courtyard continues until only Gunther and Hagen remain from the Burgundian host. Dietrich, famous as the Goth, fights, overcomes Hagen, and brings him bound before Kriemhild. Kriemhild asks him where he has hidden the Nibelung treasure; Hagen says that as long as Gunther is alive he will refuse to reveal his secret; for this reason Gunther, who is also captive, is killed on his sister’s orders; when his head is brought before Hagen, he still refuses and says to Kriemhild, “Now no one knows where the treasure is hidden except God and me; and you, O devilish woman, will never know more than this.” Kriemhild takes Hagen’s sword and with it immediately strikes him down. Then one of her warriors, the famous Goth Hildebrand, who has grown weary of this woman’s bloodthirstiness, kills Kriemhild.
This is a horrible story that in cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and violence yields to no similar story in the history of world literature. Of course we have not done full justice to the matter, for from a series of banquets and feasts, heroic combats, hunting parties, and interesting episodes of the women’s world of that epic we have selected only the most gruesome events and moments; but the main and bitter subject of the tale is exactly what has been briefly mentioned, namely the story of a gentle and mild-mannered maiden who, because of a diabolical event, turns into a criminal and bloodthirsty woman. It is strange that in this tale so little of Christianity remains; it almost resembles a Greek tragedy of the goddess of revenge, except that, unlike Greek custom, it displays violence openly on the stage. In this course of depravity almost all the virtues and excellences of the feudal age, even the respect that a guest should have in the eyes of his host, sink under water. Until our own time no event has been able to go beyond the barbarity of such a story.
Troubadours
At the end of the eleventh century, an age when one would apparently expect all European literature to have taken on the religious fervor of Christians for the Crusades, a school of lyric poetry arose in the southern regions of France that was aristocratic, pagan, and anti-religious; its style showed traces of Arab influence and spoke of woman’s victory over the chastity and purity imposed upon her by the theory of the Fall. This poetic style spread from Toulouse to Paris and from there with Eleanor of Aquitaine to London and captured the heart of her son, the Lionheart Richard I; it created the German “Minnesang” and in Italy gave rise to a delicate style among the class of troubadour poets that prepared the ground for the appearance of Dante. The origin and birth of this style is linked with the name of Eleanor’s grandfather, William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. This bold youth at the age of eleven (1087) declared himself almost the independent ruler of southwestern France. He joined the First Crusade and composed lyrics in praise of the victory of Western heroes in that struggle, but like many nobles of his domain, which had become a center of heretics, he had little respect for the Church and with full humor mocked the priests. In an old Provençal biography it is written that the Duke of Aquitaine “was one of the most courteous men in the world and had a great talent for seducing and deceiving ladies; he was a brave knight who loved much, and knew well how to sing and compose poetry; and for a very long time he traveled the whole country in order to ensnare ladies.” Although married, he courted the beautiful Viscountess of Châtellerault and lived openly with that woman. When the brave and outspoken Bishop of Angoulême warned him that he must cease his filthy deeds, the Duke replied, “As soon as the hair on your head needs combing, I will give up the Viscountess.” After he had been excommunicated, one day he met the Bishop of Poitiers and said to him, “Pray for me, or I will kill you.” The Bishop bent his neck and said, “Strike!” William refused and said, “No — I do not love you enough to send you to paradise.” The style the Duke used in his amorous letters to noble ladies laid the foundation for a new style in composing epistles. But he was not only a man of words; he had a short but glorious life and died at the age of fifty-six (1137). He left Eleanor a vast domain, a sound taste and love of poetry, and an amorous nature.
Eleanor gathered poets in Toulouse, and that group willingly composed and sang songs for her and her courtiers in praise of women’s beauty and the spells they cast. Bernard de Ventadour, whose poems in Petrarch’s view were only slightly inferior to his own lyrics, began to compose poems that praised the beauty of the Viscountess of Ventadour; the Viscountess took these poems so seriously that her husband was forced to imprison her in a tower of his residential palace. Bernard, encouraged by this, turned his attention to composing poems in praise of Eleanor’s own beauty and brilliance, and then turned to the soul; and when Eleanor first gave her heart to the King of France and then to the King of England, Bernard poured the highest inner feelings into a famous lament. One generation later another famous troubadour named Bertran de Born became a very close friend of Richard I and a victorious rival in winning the heart of the most beautiful woman of the age, the Lady Maent de Montignac.
Another troubadour named Peire Vidal accompanied Richard on crusade; he lived in poverty with love and wrote poetry; and finally received an estate from Count Raymond VI, lord of Toulouse. We know the names of 446 other troubadours; but the works of these four alone are a handful that speak of thousands of love lyrics and songs by others.
Some of this group were wandering minstrels and vagabonds, and most were lesser nobles who had talent and a great love of singing; four of them were kings: Richard I, Frederick II, Alfonso II, and Peter III, King of Aragon. For a century (1150–1250) this group ruled over the literature of southern France and shaped the manners and customs of a newly emerging aristocratic class that was moving from rural barbarism to a stage of chivalry that, by its rule, paid for war with humility and courtesy and compensated for adultery with grace and dignity. The language of the troubadours was Langue d’Oc or the Romance language of southern France and northeastern Spain. The name of these singing or lyric minstrels, troubadours, is an unsolved puzzle; it is likely that this word derives from the Romance verb “trobar,” meaning “to find” or “to invent,” just as the Italian word “trovatore” apparently derives from “trovare”; but some scholars think the word must come from the Arabic “tarab.” This group of singers called their art the “science of tarab”; but their idea of tarab was not something superficial; for this reason anyone who wished to join this circle was required to receive long training in literature, music, the art of speaking, and courtesy toward women; this group dressed like the nobility, always wore a cloak with a border of gold embroidery and expensive furs; most moved armed and in armor like knights, took part in military festivals, and for the ladies they admired, if they did not lay down their lives, at least used both pen and sword. They composed poetry only for the aristocratic class; usually they themselves composed the music for their lyrics and hired minstrels to sing these songs in banquets or military festivals; but most of them also played the lute and drew passionate feelings from the lyrics.
Probably the outburst of feeling itself was a literary style; the burning passion, the fulfillment of heavenly promises, and the melancholy despair of the troubadours all counted as poetic expressions and poetic necessity; husbands apparently knew these burning and melting feelings as nothing more than this and were less jealous than most men. Since marriage among the nobility was usually a matter of transferring property and assets, just as is mentioned in French legends, love and romance came after marriage, and except for a few exceptional stories, all love stories in medieval literature, from Francesca and Beatrice in the south to Isolde and Guinevere in the north, are tales of illicit love. Since in general it was not possible to reach union with a married lady, this very fact gave rise to the poems of the troubadours; when human desires are fulfilled, it becomes difficult to let the steed of imagination gallop about them, and wherever there are no obstacles or impediments, there is no literature. In history we encounter the names of a few troubadours who attained the greatest desires, that is, fulfillment from the ladies to whom they sang praises, but such cases must be counted as violations of the literary customs of the age; for normally the poet was required to quench his thirst with a kiss or the touch of a hand. Such self-restraint required refinement and perfection; and in the thirteenth century the poems of this group of troubadours — perhaps also under the influence of the cult of the Virgin Mary — rose from the level of carnal pleasures to the height of spiritual grace and purity. But in the works of these men little trace of asceticism and piety is seen. The aversion that members of this group had toward chastity and purity led them to oppose the Church. Several of them mocked bishops and ridiculed hell and supported the Albigensian heretics, and where Saint Louis with all his chastity had failed, they celebrated the victory of an unbelieving king like Frederick in the crusades. Guiraut Ademar had only one crusade he approved of, and that was because it removed a husband who was a thorn in his path. Raimon Jordan preferred one night with his beloved to life in the promised paradise.
The styles of versification were far more important to the troubadours than the rules of moral principles. A chanson was a lyric; a planh was a lament or elegy that the poet composed on the death of a friend or beloved; a tenson was a poetic debate on a subject such as love, morality, or chivalry; a sirventes was a song composed for war or enmity or attacking a political rival. A sestina was a complicated sequence of six successive rhymed stanzas each having six lines; this style of lyric composition was invented by Arnaut Daniel and greatly pleased Dante; a pastourelle was a dialogue between a troubadour and a shepherdess; an aubade or alba was a dawn song and usually warned the lover and beloved that the coming of day would soon reveal their secret; a serena or serenade was a night song; and a ballada was a narrative poem. Here is an example of an aubade, or a piece about the coming of dawn, from an anonymous poet who puts the words in the mouth of a Juliet of the twelfth century:
In the garden where the white hawthorn has spread its leaves, my lady has lain beside her beloved, until the watchman cries that dawn has come — alas, the dawn that is cause for sorrow! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O God, let not that night, the dear night, ever end.
Or let my beloved leave me, or let the watchman stop singing “dawn” — yes, that dawn that is the slayer of peace! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! O dear and sweet beloved, your lips, our lips still press together! See how in the meadow the birds begin to sing.
May love be our portion, for the portion of envy is only pain! O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! From that sweet breeze that blows from far away, have I not drunk sip by sip from the breath of my beloved, yes from the warm breath of the comforter who is so dear and full of joy.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes! This is the dawn that the maiden who keeps good manners well sees, and many people look upon the fitting behavior of this beauty; her heart never betrays love.
O God! O God! how soon the dawn comes!
By the middle of the thirteenth century, partly because of the increasing artificiality of the styles and feelings of such lyrics, and partly because of the destruction of southern France by the Albigensian Crusade, the troubadour movement came to an end. In those turbulent days of the religious wars, many castles that were the refuge of these lyricists fell, and when Toulouse itself was subjected to a double siege, the chivalric system that had been established in the Aquitaine region collapsed.
Some minstrels fled to Spain and some to Italy, and it was in Italy that the art of lyric poetry again flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century, and both Dante and Petrarch were among the new stars of the world of lyric poetry. It was the “science of tarab” and the virtues and courtesy of this group that helped create a code and instruction for chivalry and turned a group of wild people from northern Europe into a class of nobles. From that time until now literature has been under the influence of those delicate melodies and perhaps it is thanks to the perfume of their praise that the sweet scent of love now perfumes the soul of man.
Minnesingers
The troubadour movement spread from France to the southern regions of Germany and flourished there in the golden age of the Hohenstaufen. German poets were called minnesingers (singers of love). The subject of their poems was “service in the way of love” and “service to the lady,” both of which were considered part of the chivalry of that era. We know the names of about three hundred of these minnesingers, because a large amount of their poetry has survived. Some of this group belonged to the lower nobility; most were poor people dependent on the favors and gifts of emperors or dukes. Although this group strictly used a special rule for determining poetic meters and rhythms, many of them were illiterate, and they dictated the words and music of their songs or, in other words, recited them aloud for others to record; to this day the German word for poems is Dichtung, which also means “dictation.” Usually these singers had minstrels read the songs, and sometimes they themselves read such pieces. In history we encounter mention of the great Sängerkrieg (song contest) that was held in 1207 at Wartburg Castle; it is said that two famous singers, Tannhäuser and Wolfram von Eschenbach, both took part in this contest. The minnesingers helped for more than a century to raise the status of woman in Germany; and ladies of the nobility became the source and inspiration of a culture more refined than Germany would again see its like before Schiller and Goethe.
Wolfram and Walther von der Vogelweide have been counted among the minnesingers, for both wrote love songs, but Wolfram and his piece Parzival are better discussed under the heading of romances or imaginary love legends. Walther von der Vogelweide was born before 1170 in a place in Tyrol. He was a poor knight who made his situation worse by engaging in poetry and song. At the age of twenty he sang for a living in the houses of nobles. In those years of youth he spoke of love with the same freedom of sensual pleasure as his rivals frowned upon. His song entitled Under the Linden Tree has remained to this day like a precious gem in Germany:
Under the linden trees on the heath grass a bed had been made for us two; there one could see flowers crushed and grass trampled.
From among the thick bushes in the little valley of Tandaradei! The nightingale sings sweetly.
I had hurried there through the grass.
I, the most blessed of maidens! had been caught there.
For my fortune is forever good. There he kissed me many times Tandaradei! Look how red my lips are! With haste mixed with joy he made a bower for us both from the blossoms there.
Still that secluded place must be a faded jest for those who tread the same path and look at the place where that day — Tandaradei! my head rested among the red flowers.
How ashamed I would be if anyone (now I say God forbid!) had been present there then.
There we both lay, but no one knew of this secret except my beloved and me. And the little nightingale, Tandaradei! which I know will not betray my secret.
As Walther grew older his perception matured and he gradually observed in woman a delicacy and grace more pleasing than any physical attraction, and he concluded that the reward of the union of man and woman through marriage is far greater than any superficial pleasurable excitement arising from variety. On this subject he says in one piece: “Happy is the man and happy is the woman whose hearts are true to each other; the value and worth of their lives increases; all the days and years of their lives are blessed.” Walther condemned the praise that other lyricists of his time poured at the feet of courtly ladies; he declared that the word wip (the same word as Weib, meaning “woman”) is a far higher title than Vrouwe (the same word as Frau, meaning “lady”); women and noble men of good character form the true aristocracy. In his view, “German ladies are as beautiful as divine angels; whoever slanders them laughs at his own beard.” In 1197 Emperor Henry VI died; and Germany suffered chaos for a generation until Frederick II came of age. The patronage of learning by the nobility declined and Walther, who no longer had a patron, wandered from court to court, and unfortunately in competition with shameless jesters and noisy magicians was forced to sing for his bread. In the account book of Wolfger, Bishop of Passau, one interesting item reads: “November 12, 1203, five solidi paid to Walther von der Vogelweide to buy a fur coat to protect himself against the winter cold.” This was a doubly pious act of a Christian, for Walther was one of the fervent members of the Ghibelline party, tuned his lute to oppose the popes, constantly criticized the wrongdoings of the Church, and was angry at why the money of the German people was being sent across the Alps to fill the papal treasury in the name of Saint Peter’s penny. With all this he was a devout Christian, composed a magnificent “Crusade Song”; but he was able at times to rise above the battlefield and see all human beings as brothers, as he says in one piece:
Humanity receives life from one virgin maiden, we all resemble one another inside and out, our mouths are all satisfied with the same kind of food, and when their bones are all ground together, you say which one was the living man, and from this crowd that the worms have so emptied, which now is the servant and which the master. Christians, Jews, and pagans all serve and God holds all creation under His care.
After a quarter century of wandering and poverty, Walther received an estate and a regular income from Frederick II (1221) and from then on was able to spend the remaining seven years of his life in perfect peace. He regretted that he was older and weaker than to be able to go on crusade; he asked God for forgiveness that he was unable to love his enemies, and in a poem he left his possessions for his survivors in this way: “To the envious I leave my bad luck; to the liars my troubles; to the false lovers my follies; to the ladies my heartache.” His body was buried in Würzburg Cathedral; beside his grave a memorial stone tells of Germany’s affection for the greatest poet of this age.
After Walther’s death the minnesinger movement indulged itself with the exaggerations of the period and shared in the disasters that shattered Germany after the fall of Frederick II. Ulrich von Liechtenstein in his versified autobiography entitled Service to the Lady describes how he was raised in an environment full of feelings of service to ladies. Ulrich chose a woman as his goddess, and because he had a harelip and feared that the lady would be repelled by the sight of his face, he ordered his lip to be sewn, and took part in military festivals for the love of his beloved. When he was told that the woman was astonished that Ulrich still possessed the finger that she thought he had lost in the path of her honor, Ulrich cut off that particular finger and, as a sign of respect for his beloved’s word, sent it to her. When fortune helped and Ulrich succeeded in drinking the water in which the lady had washed her hands, he no longer knew himself for joy. And when he received a letter from his beloved, because he could not read, he carried it in his pocket for weeks until he found a trusted person who could read the letter for him. After he was granted the favor of his beloved’s mercy, he stood for two full days in beggar’s rags among a group of lepers at the door of the lady’s palace waiting. The lady allowed him to enter, and when she saw that he was a persistent man she ordered him to be wrapped in a sheet, lowered from the window of her bedroom, and placed on the ground. Throughout this period Ulrich had one wife and several children.
The minnesinger movement ended with some pomp and glory with the songs of Heinrich von Meißen — who was called Frauenlob (praiser of women) because of his songs in praise of woman’s status. When he died in 1317 in Mainz, the ladies of the city, singing melodious laments, carried his body to the cathedral and poured so much wine on his coffin that it flowed like a stream through the whole church. After him the art of singing left the hands of knights and fell to the middle class. The romantic spirit of woman-worship faded and in the fourteenth century gave way to the robust pleasure and art of urban minnesingers or singers and lyricists and announced the rise of the bourgeoisie to the world of poetry and song.
Romances
The emergence of literature from the realm of religion and religious subjects went hand in hand with the rise of national languages. Generally, until the twelfth century only clerics knew Latin, and writers who wished to make their thoughts and intentions known to the common people were forced to use vernacular languages. As soon as the social system expanded, the number of readers increased, and to meet such a need national literature came into being. French literature began in the eleventh century, German literature in the twelfth, and the literatures of the English, Spanish, and Italian peoples in the thirteenth century.
The natural initial form of this vernacular literature was folk songs. The song became a ballad, and ballads were expanded and turned into short epics such as Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poem of the Cid. The Chanson de Roland was probably formed around 1130 from the combination of ballads belonging to the ninth or tenth centuries. This epic, in four thousand simple and fluent lines in a meter with stress on the final syllable, tells the story of Roland’s death at Roncevaux. After Charlemagne subdues Moorish Spain, he returns with his troops toward France; the traitor Ganelon reveals their route to the enemy, and Roland voluntarily agrees to take on the dangerous task of rear guard for the army. In the narrow and winding pass of the Pyrenees a vast host of Basque forces attacks Roland’s small troop from the cliffs above. Roland’s friend Oliver asks him to blow his great horn to call Charlemagne for help, but Roland with full pride refuses to ask for help. He, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin, who have given up their lives, fight at the head of their troops until almost all of them are killed. Oliver, struck with mortal blows on the head and blinded by blood flowing into his eyes, mistakes Roland for one of the enemy and strikes him a heavy blow so that Roland’s helmet is split from crown to near the piece that covers his nose, but Roland is not harmed:
With the falling of this blow Roland looks at him and softly and gently asks him, “O noble friend, do you strike me in earnest? I am Roland whom you love with all your heart. I have never before seen you draw your sword against me in any way.” Oliver says, “Now I hear your voice, I do not see you. May God see you and save you! Did I strike a blow upon you? Forgive me!” Roland answers, “I am not wounded. Here and before God I forgive you.” And with these words one bows to the other, and with such love the two part from each other.
Finally Roland blows his jeweled horn so hard that blood flows from his temples. Charlemagne hears it and, while “his white beard flutters in the wind,” turns back to save him and his troops. But the way back is long. “The mountains are high and wide and dark, the valleys deep and the rivers rushing.” Meanwhile Roland mourns over Oliver’s corpse and says to him, “O noble friend, we have seen many days and years together. Never have you done me wrong nor I you. If you have left this world, life is all pain.” The archbishop too, who is dying, begs Roland to flee and save himself; Roland refuses and continues to fight until his attackers flee, but he himself has received mortal wounds. Then, with the last strength he has, he breaks his jeweled sword Durandal on a rock so that it will not fall into the hands of the infidels. Then “Count Roland, facing Spain, rested beneath a pine tree. … In that state many events passed through his mind; he remembered the lands he had conquered, sweet France, his family, and Charlemagne who had raised him, and he wept.” Then Roland raises his glove as a sign of vassalage and surrender before God, and when Charlemagne arrives he finds him dead. No translation can reproduce the simple and noble grandeur seen in the original of this epic, and no one can fully understand the power and tender feelings of this national epic, which every French child learns along with his daily prayers, unless he has drunk love and pride for France with his mother’s milk.
Around 1160 an anonymous poet, through romantic imagination, elevated the qualities and bravery of the famous Spanish commander known as the Cid or Rodrigo Díaz (d. 1099) to the highest degree and gave Spain a national epic with his poem entitled the Poem of the Cid. Here too the main subject is the struggle of Christian knights against the Moors inhabiting Spain, the elevation of the nobility, honor, and courage of the feudal age, and more the glory of war than servitude before a beloved. Thus Rodrigo, when exiled by an ungrateful king, leaves his wife and children in a convent and swears that he will not live with them again unless he emerges victorious from five wars. He sets out to fight the Moors; the first half of this poem consists of resounding victories that involuntarily recall Homer’s Iliad. The Cid, during the wars, steals from the Jews, distributes alms among the poor, and feeds a leper and eats from the same bowl and sleeps in the same bed himself, and realizes that the leper is Eleazar whom Jesus had brought back from the world of the dead to the world of the living. Of course the hero of this poem differs in reality from the Cid we know from history, but the damage it does to historical facts is no greater than that of the Chanson de Roland, which raises Charlemagne to the height of perfection. The Poem of the Cid became a stimulant and intoxicating drug for Spanish pride and thought; hundreds of ballads were composed about the hero of this poem and a hundred more or less historical stories were written. In the world there is little that can be found as bitter as truth and as universally distasteful as it.
No one has yet explained why a small country like Iceland, which is assailed by the forces of nature and whose connection with everywhere is cut off by the sea, should have produced in this period a literature whose scope and brilliance had no proportion to its geographical position and area. Two things helped the birth of Icelandic writers: one was a rich source of historical traditions that is usually dear to every distant or isolated population and is preserved orally from generation to generation; the other was the habit of reading or listening to others, which is usually a good pastime for the long winter nights. In the twelfth century, in addition to the libraries of the monasteries of this island, there were also many private libraries. When writing became a virtue that everyone became familiar with, the common people, just like the clergy, wrote down in literary style all the information and knowledge belonging to their race and nation that had once been the special property of poets.
According to one of the rarest coincidences, the foremost writer of Iceland in the thirteenth century was at the same time the richest person on the island and twice “law speaker” or, as the Icelanders themselves called it, “guardian of the laws.” Snorri Sturluson loved life more than learning; he undertook long journeys, participated intensely in politics and disputes, and was killed at the age of sixty-two by his son-in-law. His book entitled Heimskringla or “the circle of the world,” “a style free of ornament and concise” that is natural for a working man, described the history and legends of the Norse people. His other work, the Prose Edda, offered a summary of biblical history, a summary of Norse mythology, an essay on poetic meters and rhythms, a treatise on the art of poetry, and an unparalleled explanation of the origin of the flood of art and how this gift was distributed. Two warring and hostile groups of gods, by spitting into a vessel, made peace with each other; from their spittle a demigod named Kvasir was created who, like Prometheus, taught wisdom to the sons of men. Small beings killed Kvasir and by mixing his blood with wine made a mead that whoever drank a draught of it would receive the gift of singing. Odin, the All-Father, found his way to the place where the small beings had hidden this mead, drank all of it, and flew toward the heavens. But some of this poetic mead that had filled his heart poured out in a way that is less true of public fountains. This divine stream fell to earth in the form of an inspiring drizzle, and whoever benefited from this source of grace instinctively gained the poetic gift. These nonsense tales of a learned man were as consistent with rational standards as history.
Icelandic literature in this period was astonishingly rich and alive with the humor, vitality, and poetic interest and delicacy that fill its prose. During this era hundreds of sagas were written, some short and some as long as a novel, some historical and most a mixture of history and legend. Generally these were memories of a civilized heroic age full of glory and violence intertwined with many disputes and soothed with the balm of love. Snorri’s “Ynglinga Saga” repeatedly tells of Norse warriors who burn one another in noble halls or by drinking cups of fiery mead. The richest of these legends is the story known as the Völsunga Saga. The oldest form of these legends is in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda and the latest complete form is in the story of the Nibelungen Ring, which the German composer Wagner turned into an immortal opera.
The name Völsung was applied to each of the descendants of Völs, one of the Norse kings who was the great-grandson of Odin and the grandfather of Sigurd (Siegfried). In the Nibelungenlied the Nibelungs are the kings of Burgundy; in the Völsunga Saga this people are a short and small race who guard an immensely precious treasure and a golden ring in the Rhine region, which at the same time brings a doom upon whoever possesses the two. Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir who guards the treasure and takes possession of that hoard. During his wanderings he reaches a hill surrounded on all sides by fire and on top of it the Valkyrie Brynhild (a demigoddess descended from Odin) lies asleep. Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild’s beauty, and Brynhild also falls in love with him; the two pledge fidelity to each other; and then, as is the custom of men in many medieval imaginary legends, Sigurd leaves Brynhild and continues his journeys. At the court of Giuki, a king from the Rhine region, Sigurd meets the princess Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother gives Sigurd a magic drink that causes him to forget Brynhild and marry her daughter. Gunnar, Giuki’s son, marries Brynhild and brings her to court. Brynhild, who is bitterly angry at Sigurd’s forgetfulness, arranges for his murder; then she repents, climbs the pyre built to burn Sigurd’s body, kills herself with his sword, and burns beside him in the fire.
The latest of these Icelandic sagas, in form and style, is a story known as the Burnt Njal (c. 1220).
In this saga what clearly distinguishes the characters and sets them apart from one another is more their actions and speech than the description the author gives of each hero. The component parts of the story are well placed beside one another and everything, as if by inherent fate, passes through exciting events until it reaches the main tragedy, which is the burning of Njal’s house along with himself, his wife Bergthora, and his sons, at the hands of a group of his armed enemies led by a man named Flosi who has nothing in mind but taking revenge by shedding the blood of Njal’s sons.
Then Flosi … addressed Njal and said, “Lord Njal, I give you leave to go out, for it is not fitting that you should burn inside the house.” Njal said, “I will not go out, for I am an old man and have not the worthiness to avenge my sons, but I will not live with shame.” Then Flosi said to Bergthora, “Lady, come out, for I will not burn you inside the house for anyone’s sake.” Bergthora said, “I was given to Njal when I was young, and I have promised him that we should share one fate.” Then both returned inside the house.
Bergthora said, “What shall we do now?” Njal said, “We shall go to bed and lie down; I have long wished to rest.” Then Bergthora said to the young Thord, Kari’s son, “I will take you out, and you must not burn here.” The youth said, “Grandmother, you promised me that as long as I wished to stay with you you would never leave me; but I think it is much better to die with you and Njal than to live after you.” Then Bergthora took the boy and carried him to her bed … and placed him between herself and Njal. Then they made the sign of the cross upon themselves and the boy. And they commended their souls to God, and that was the last word others heard from their lips.
The Age of the Small Kingdoms (300–600) had left in the troubled memory of men and minstrels a thousand stories of social chaos, barbarian courage, and criminal love. Some of these tales were carried by emigrants to Norway and Iceland and gave rise to the Völsunga Saga; many of these myths, with similar names and subjects, penetrated Germany and grew into sagas, ballads, and epics. During the twelfth century an anonymous German writer, at a date unknown to us, took such material, piled it together, reshaped it, and from the whole composed the Nibelungenlied or Song of the
Written & researched by Dr. Shahin Siami