WOMAN

VOLUME VIII

WOMEN OF THE TEUTONIC NATIONS

by

HERMANN SCHOENFELD,PH.D., LL. D.

PROFESSOR OF GERMANIC LITERATURE IN THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

EMMA CARRYING HER LOVER
After the painting by G. L. P. Saint-Ange

Charlemagne had so great an affection for his children, legitimate and natural, that he prevented his daughters, of whom Emma was one, from marrying, in order not to lose their company. They were reputed to be very beautiful. Being debarred from marriage, they sought unlawful love adventures, and gave birth to illegitimate children. The romantic story of Emma's nightly meetings with Eginhard, and of her carrying her learned lover through the freshly fallen snow to conceal his footprints, is an unauthenticated legend.

Woman

In all ages and in all countries

VOLUME VIII

WOMEN OF THE TEUTONIC NATIONS

BY

HERMANN SCHOENFELD, PH.D., LL.D.

Professor of Germanic Literature in the George Washington University

Illustrated

PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PUBLISHERS

THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY

Dedicated to

MADAME CHRISTIAN HEURICH
NEE KEYSER

PREFACE

Adequately to write the history of the woman of any race would mean the writing of the history of the nation itself. There is no phase of the cultural life of any people that is not founded upon the physical and moral nature of its women. On the other hand, mental and moral heredity, both through paternity and maternity, determines the character and innermost being of woman. If we knew all the preponderating influences of heredity for ages, we could with almost mathematical accuracy compute the traits of human biology in every case. The forces of environment, tremendous though they are, modify, but do not alter in any way the original nature of man, which is established and standardized "by eternal and immutable laws." Anthropology is continuously progressing toward a firm scientific foundation, and is beginning to organize even the vast domain of psychology into a well-defined system. The interdependence between physical, mental, and moral traits is well recognized, but its exact determination is impossible, owing to the infinite complexity of the endless ancestral potencies.

So much is established, however: Teutonic woman, as she appears in history, is the product of two groups of influences, the one group, inherited nature; the other, environment; she is the exact sum of these antecedent causes. And only so far as these causes differ does the Teutonic woman differ from her sister of any other race of other times and climes.

In this book of a purely historical, literary, and cultural character must be excluded all that refers to the physiological and ethnographical characteristics of the Teutonic woman and of her Slavic sister. Nor are we concerned with the theory of their evolution, i. e., the search of the physical principles according to which the consequences of their existence are true to the laws of their antecedents. Many eminent scientists have tried their great faculties on this subject of universal interest and importance. Standard works of a scientific character, like Floss's Das Weib in der Natur und Volherhunde, abound in scientific and medical bibliography.

Our limited task is merely to deal succinctly with the most general evolution of the social position and the cultural status of the Teutonic and, even more briefly, of the Slavic woman at the various epochs of their respective histories, and how far the history of civilization among those races was influenced by them, how far the symptoms of national morality and the degree of culture were shaped by feminine achievements, proclivities, virtues, and vices. Two thousand years of the richest, almost unfathomable, history had to be traversed in the attempt to glean the essential red thread from the enormous masses of facts which in their entirety would be inaccessible even to the most universal historical scholar. Most difficult of all the periods is perhaps the question of the present and actual women's movement, which is now in its liveliest flux and in a most variable condition both in the German and in the Slavic world. It is impossible as yet to systematize the entirety of the problems and the requirements which have resulted in recent times from the transformation of society with regard to the position of woman among the two modern peoples. Many of the questions belong to the domain of private and public law, of political economy, of sociology, of education in all its phases. The leaders of state and church and society, the higher schools and universities, are signally undecided concerning the final solution, though the mist of the conflict of opinion begins slowly to clear away. Even under the changed conditions of modern society, one party still clings to the old tradition of the family ideal of wifehood and motherhood, which is no longer possible in all cases, as of yore, and considers extra-domestic activity as abnormal, unhealthy, transient; the other extremists desire to wipe out the natural differences and the limitations prescribed by sex to human activity and capacity. A middle ground and a rational solution will certainly be found during this century.

The author has strenuously endeavored to avail himself for every period of all the source material and the secondary works accessible to him in the Library of Congress and in the other libraries of the national capital. The chapters on the Reformation Period, the Era of Desolation, and on Woman Held in Tightening Bonds, a long period of dreariness so distressing and humiliating to German pride, were prepared with skill and scholarship by Miss Sarah H. Porter, A. M., at the time a graduate student in the author's department. Credit for the chapter on Russian Woman belongs to Mr. Alexis V. Babine, of the Library of Congress.

The author also expresses sincere gratitude to the publishers, and especially to Mr. J. A. Burgan, the publishers' editor, for his careful revision of the English text and for the generous, vigilant aid extended to the author throughout the entire work.
HERMANN SCHOENFELD.
The George Washington University.

CHAPTER I

THE WOMEN OF THE PAGAN TEUTONS

Women were valued by the primeval Teutonic race, as by all other races of the human family, as mere chattels means whereby the profit or the pleasure of man might be maintained or increased. The custom of burning the wife or wives with the dead master and husband was, from the prehistoric times until far into the light of historic days, prevalent in the tribes of the Teutonic family. Sacrifices of widows were especially prescribed in eastern Germanic law, and the low status of woman among the Teutons of the early times is sufficiently indicated by the established and quasi-legalized right and prerogative of the husband, as the owner of the female chattel, to bequeath, give, sell, or hire her person or services to strangers, guests, or friends; or even to kill her if she committed adultery, or if want and distress made such a course expedient.

We must admit the harshness and cruelty to which woman, according to the most ancient conscience of the Teutonic race, could lawfully be subjected. Evidences that her status was outside of the pale of right and law is manifest in all historical proofs. Traces of the old status still abound. One lies in the present refinement of woman's actual position a refinement which cannot obscure its real origin from the student of culture and civilization.

It is certain that the prehistoric Germanic community began with the communal use of women for pleasure or profit. This common use could be broken and suppressed only by marriage by capture. If the man wished to have exclusive possession of a wife, he had to procure her from outside his own community. Besides this exogamic marriage, an endogamic marriage was later recognized as conferring title, on the condition that the man reconciled the woman's blood relatives by the payment of a definite compensation. This system of marriage by capture survived the Migration period, and was found in Sweden even in the early Middle Ages.

Marriage by treaty also existed even in prehistoric times. This compact (Gifta) is always between the blood relatives of the bride and the bridegroom. It is a presentation, a giving away (Verschenkung) of the bride. The parent or guardian gives her away, an act which requires no consent of the bride, but only a counter gift, or rather purchase money, from the bridegroom. Thus a kind of purchase, the symbolic pursuit of the bride (Brautlauf) as an imitation of the ancient marriage by capture, and the technical consummation of marriage (Beilager), for which the man, however, owes her a gift (Morgengabe), are the phases of marriage.

Polygamy is the rule at first. The northern Teutons, especially the Scandinavians, practised an unmitigated polygamy down to a very late period, and only yielded after a most persistent struggle with the ethics of Christianity. As late as the eighth century the bitter accusations of the churchmen against Pepin of Heristal for having two wives, and their arraignment of Charlemagne's sins of concupiscence, show how ineradicable this ancient Teutonic usage was. However, as early as B.C. 57, Cæsar mentions King Ariovistus's marriage to two wives as an exception to Teutonic custom, due, perhaps, to political motives. Tacitus praises the Germans as those who, with few exceptions, live in monogamy, and though Tacitus is not an unimpeachable authority, owing to the fact that he wished to idealize the vigorous race as a model to the decadent Roman world of his time, his statements seem to prove that at the dawn of Christianity southern and western German tribes at least had the highest conception of family purity. Later on, under the teachings of Christianity, polygamy was first modified, then abolished; and marriage by capture was either suppressed or treated as a crime.

Upon the status of women among the Teutonic tribes the study of philology sheds some light. From it we learn that the Gothic quind, woman (in general), and queue, married woman, signifies the child-bearing one, from the verb quinan, gignere; or wip (Saxon wif, Old Norse vif), indicating the root of wib, motion, the mobile being; though frouwa, frau (Old Norse, freyja), means originally "joyous, mild, gracious," and is used to signify "illustrious ladies" down to the thirteenth century.

The female child was allowed to live only by grace of the father. If this right of the father over the life of his female child appears barbarous, we must understand that the valuation of life in primitive times is always very low. Not only among the early Teutons, but also among the early Romans and Slavs, a custom prevailed by which the children might kill their old or incurably sick parents, because of the conception that life is valuable only so long as physical vigor dwells in the body. Believing this, it is easy to conclude that when vigor departed death was a blessing, the bestowal of which parents could legitimately expect from their children.

The daughter was bought from the father for marriage purposes for a value, and, without recourse, she was placed in the absolute possession of the buyer, who might be an entire stranger to her. Friendship, favor, or material advantage might induce the buyer to transfer his wife to whomsoever he chose. Nothing was left to her but resignation, and, obeying a stern necessity, she followed her husband and taskmaster to death, "not to sweeten his after-life, but to continue her dreary service."

The Norse sources are full of tragic examples of immolation. When the bright sun god Baldur, the wisest, most eloquent, and mildest of all the Ases, is finally slain, at the instigation of the evil god Loki, by a twig of mistletoe in the hands of the blind god Hodur, his wife, the goddess Nanna, is burned with him. Likewise, the Valkyrie Brunhild, in the Old Norse version of the Siegfried legend, kills herself so that she may be burned with her beloved Sigurd. Hakon Jarl, the last great partisan of paganism in Scandinavia, woos in his old age beautiful Gunhild, but she is unwilling to expose her blooming youth to the risk of being burned with her aged husband.

The toil and trouble of life rested upon woman's weak shoulders; the menial work at home and in the field was her lot. The man roved in war or on the hunting ground, and while at home was an impassive onlooker of her labors. He gave himself up to the enjoyment of his barbarous pleasures of drinking mead, lying idly on the skins of the wild beasts killed by his rude weapons, or gambling with such desperateness as sometimes to impel him, when all else was lost, to stake wife and children, nay, his own person, on the result of chance. Freedom and absolute liberty of life was the manly ideal, since according to the word of Cæsar "trained and accustomed from childhood to no business or discipline (outside of war and hunt, to be sure,) they do nothing at all against their own will."

A highly important occupation of the ancient Teutonic woman was the brewing of beer from barley and other grain. Thus, the Edda relates that King Alrek of Hordaland decides the question which of his two wives he is to discard, in order to terminate their eternal altercations in his household, by the superior skill of one of them in brewing beer. Also the making and the care of wine, which the Teutons learned to know and appreciate from the Romans, belonged to the sphere of woman, for women not infrequently served as cupbearers to the men in their halls. It is, however, true that the Suevi, at least, forbade the importation of wine within their realm, because they believed that men by its use became effeminate and unfit for heavy labors.

Even though we assume the menial labors of the household to have been done by slaves, yet we learn that royal women took an active part in washing. The pernicious strife between Brunhild and Gudrun breaks out in the business of veil washing. (In the old Norse version.)

In its beginnings Teutonic family life was undoubtedly hard; it was, however, destined to emerge from its early barbarity and one-sidedness into a strong, sound, and healthy moral relation between the sexes. Only thus could have been produced a race now dominant throughout the world, and always capable, by this development, of the best and highest progress in political advancement.

When first the light of history is shed by the two great historians, Cæsar and Tacitus, upon the Teutonic family eastward of the Rhine and northward of the Danube, woman has already conquered and appropriated to herself many traits of Freya and Frigg, the divine mothers of the Teutons. Something holy and providential is perceived and acknowledged in woman's nature: she has already become priestess and prophetess and a political power in the state.

Of the sacrificing and prophesying priestesses of the Cimbri, the first Teutons who knocked powerfully at the gates of Italy, we shall speak later. When, in B. C. 58, Cæsar offered battle daily to Ariovistus, the Suevian king who had broken into Gaul and installed himself there, the latter, though a fierce and heroic warrior, did not accept it. Cæsar learned from Teutonic prisoners that the prophetesses, in consequence of lots and divinations, forbade the king, if he hoped for victory, to engage in battle with the Romans before the new moon. The battle was, however, forced by Cæsar and it ended with the total rout of the Teutons. Cæsar's envoy, Procillus, who had been held in chains by Ariovistus according to the barbarian fashion, escaped from his captors and related to Cæsar his terrible experiences in the camp of the king. It had been a vital question whether Procillus should be burned at the stake or kept for a future occasion, and this was thrice determined in his favor by the lots cast in his presence by the wise women. Here, as elsewhere, women interpreted the decree of fate. Tacitus mentions Albruna (called Aliruna by Grimm) as an ancient prophetess venerated by the Germans during the expeditions of Drusus and Tiberius in the interior of Germania.

The greatest veneration, however, ever enjoyed by a prophetess, fell to the lot of Veleda during the heroic war of liberation waged against the Romans by the Batavi, a branch of the Chatti, under their great leader Civilis. Veleda's influence extended far beyond the theatre of the uprising on the "Island of the Batavi." Johannes Scherr, the historian of German civilization, finds in her name an allusion to Valkyrie, Vala, Volur, thus indicating the quasi-deification of Veleda. In reality, she belonged to the tribe of the Bructeri. She received embassies, formed alliances, and the most precious portions of the booty fell to her share. Her power was at its height when she correctly predicted the defeat of the Roman army. She dwelt solitary and inaccessible in a tower and was the Pythia of the Low-Rhenish tribes. Approach to her was forbidden in order to increase her divine prestige. On the downfall of Civilis, she was brought to Rome as a captive to enhance the triumph of the Roman conqueror, Crealis, the general of Emperor Vespasianus.

There are many other such divine women mentioned in the ancient books, though the records of their deeds are scanty. Ganna is a prophetess among the Semnones at the time of Emperor Domitianus. The Langobardian Gambara and the Alemannian Thiota belong to a late time, probably the ninth century.

From these few examples it appears clearly that in spite of the harsh treatment of woman by the more ancient Germans the veneration of her is inherent in the Teutonic soul. Hence prophetesses gradually become goddesses in the consciousness of the people; hence the depth of the later cult of the Virgin Mary (Marienkultus), and the extraordinary sentimental and poetic evolution of the Love Service (Minnediensf) which inspired and enriched what was perhaps, the greatest period of German literature and life.

The oldest traces of German literature left to us are, in fact, charms pronounced by such deified women. The Old Saxon word idis (from ict, ictn, work, activity, i.e., the working, active, skilful one) means originally "divine virgin," especially a goddess of fate. This is illustrated in the two charms found in Merseburg thus the first story runs: The gods Phol and Wodan rode into the forest; suddenly Baldur's horse sprained his foot. Sindgund and her sister Sunna uttered a charm over him. Volla and her sister Freya did the same; but all in vain. Then Wodan, who understood such things well, uttered his charm. He charmed away the sprain in the bone, the blood, and the joint. He uttered the potent formula: "Bone to bone, blood to blood, joint to joint, as if they were glued." Great as the art of the four heavenly women is in the treatment of wounds, it is yet inferior to that of Wodan. But it is an indication of the Teutonic conception that the curing of the sick and the tending of the wounded appertains to the domain of woman.

It will furnish a more accurate idea of the alliterative form of this most ancient Germanic poetry if we place here a clever translation by Professor Gummere of the story just told:

"Phol and Wodan fared to the holt:

Then Haider's foal's foot was wrenched.

Then Sinthgunt besang it and Sunna, her sister:

Then Fryja besang it and Volla, her sister:

Then Wodan besang it, who well knew how,

The wrenching of bone, the wrenching of blood,

The wrenching of limb: Bone to bone, blood to blood,

Limb to limb, as if it were limed."

The second Merseburg charm attributes to the Idisi (wise women) the power, on the battlefield, of loosening prisoners' bonds. This is apparent from its text, which runs:

"Once sat (wise) women (idisi), sat hither and thither.

Some bound bonds; some hindered the host;

Some unfastened the fetters:

Spring from fetters; fly from the foe."

It describes the activity of the heavenly women, the Valkyries, in battle. They are, according to the charm, divided into three detachments; the first, binds prisoners in the rear of the army which they favor; the second, engages the foe; the third group appears in the rear of the enemy where the prisoners are secured, and, touching their fetters, utters the formula of deliverance: "Escape from your bonds, flee from the enemy."

Though Weinhold, perhaps the foremost scholar on the position and achievements of early Germanic womanhood, does not concede the existence of a real priestcraft among the ancient Teutons, he gives, nevertheless, numberless examples of their great influence and prophetic mission. Like the above-mentioned mythological women, mortal women were supposed to know secret charms to make the weapons of their men victorious: some possessing the charm over the blade (Schwertsegeri). This spell was worked by scratching secret runes (letters) upon the handle or blade of the sword while calling thrice the name of the sword god Tyr.

The most potent influence of Teutonic women rests upon their guardianship of the sacred runes, which are a primeval, Teutonic method of searching the future: the power of divination. The Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian word run signifies a letter, a writing, or literally a secret, mystery, confidential speech, counsel. A letter was also called runstaef. Little staffs with significant signs and symbols were thrown by women, as dice are cast, to the accompaniment of prayers and charms, and from the result of the cast prophecies were made. Odin (Wodan) himself taught the wise women the greatest of runes "which [in this connection] means both writing and magic, and many other arts of life." Whittier, Kallundborg Church, says of them: "Of the Troll of the Church they sing the rune: By the Northern Sea in the harvest moon."

The runes or charms are twofold. The good and wholesome ones are called galdr; the pernicious ones, carrying with them sickness, madness, and death, are called soidr. The women of magic possessed of the art of the runes were called volur or seidkona, and wandered through the land in fantastic attire, a dark cloak set with pearls around their limbs, a cap of black lambskin on the head, a staff with a brass button, set with stones, in their hand. Wherever they appeared, they were reverently invited to a feast and propitiated in every way, that they might be induced to practise beneficent magic arts during the night. They enjoyed an almost semi-divine veneration. There were, however, "balewise women" against whom the Scandinavian warrior was warned. "The sons of men need an eye of foresight wherever the fray rages, for balewise [horrible, hideous] women often stand near the way [with baleful runes] blunting swords and minds."

A still higher, more divine and poetic mission than that of bond breakers is assigned to the Valkyries i.e., choosers of the slain or Walmaids. Odin, the supreme god of the Germanic Olympus, sends them out to every battlefield to turn the tide of battle and to make choice of those who are to be slain. Glittering in their armor and their waving golden hair, bright as the sun, they ride through the air and above the sea with shields and helmets and sparkling breastplates to execute the orders of the war god, whose handmaidens they are. With their spears they designate the heroes who shall fall and whom they afterward conduct to Valhalle (Valholl), the hall of the slain, the heaven longed for by the Germanic warrior. This magnificent hall is in Asgard, the garden of the Ases, the gods of Old Norse mythology. Here Odin receives and welcomes the gods and all the einherjes, the brave warriors who died in battle.

The hall is resplendent with gold; spears support its ceiling, it is roofed with shields, and coats of mail adorn it. According to the Elder Edda it has six hundred and forty doors, through which nine hundred and sixty einherjes may enter side by side. The Valkyries make it a perfect paradise. As the servants of the divine host they bear the drink, take care of the mead horns and wait upon the table. Here they appear in the loveliness of their peaceful, housewifely mission. This unwarlike side of their nature should be emphasized, for it is apt to be forgotten when we think of Valkyries as spirits of the clouds flying over land and sea, driven by the wind, messengers of the storm god, shining in lightning, rattling in thunder.

Nowhere does the poetry inherent in the primitive Germanic conscience, in spite of all its apparent, warlike savagery, appear in a brighter light than in the many sagas relative to those superhuman, semi-divine beings. Their conception sheds a brilliant light upon the soul life of the primitive German as we consider it in connection with womanhood, and especially with womanhood elevated to the level of the divine.

In one way might the Valkyries be brought into subjection to man. A hero who surprised them bathing in the quiet forest lake obtained power over them if he succeeded in carrying off their feather garments, for he thus prevented them from flying away. In this respect the swan-maiden and the Valkyries are identical. A swan-maiden thus surprised must then follow the hero as his wife, until she perchance finds again her feather garment, for this will permit her to fly away as a swan. One of the loveliest passages in the Nibelungenlied is the story where fierce Hagen, the slayer of the sunny hero Siegfried, surprises the prophetesses of the Danube by stealing their raiment, and thereby forces them to reveal to him the future fate of himself and of the Burgundians wandering to the court of the Hunnish king Attila, or Etzel:

"Spake one of the mere women Hadburg was her name:

Here will we tell you, Hagen, O noble knight of fame;

If you now, gallant swordsman, our raiment but restore,

Your journey to Hunland, and all that waits you more.

"Her words were glad to Hagen and made his spirits glad.

He gave them back their raiment. No sooner were they clad

In all their magic garments they made him understand

In truth the fate that waited his ride to Etzel's land.

"It was the second mere-wife, Sigelind, who spake:

'O Son of Aldriana, Hagen, my warning take!

'Twas yearning for the raiment my sister's falsehood made;

And if thou goest to Hunland, Lord Hagen, thou'rt betrayed.'"

The number of the Valkyries varies; more than a dozen are named in the Elder Edda. The belief prevailed that heroic women of transcendent beauty could become Valkyries through Odin's choice and love. In the Norse sagas we find Valkyries in the suites of great kings. In the poems of the Edda, which deal with the Volsungs and the Hniflungs, with their wonderful power, there are accounts of love between Valkyries and earthly heroes, ending in the premature tragic death of the hero. Best known and of the highest poetic value is the Volsung-saga of Brunhild (Brynhildr), the daughter of Odin, immortalized again in Richard Wagner's music-drama, Die Walküre.

In defiance of the order of Odin, Brunhild chooses victory for her favorite, Siegmund the Volsung. At the last decisive moment of the battle the Father of the Universe appears. Siegmund's spear is broken to splinters by Odin's sword, and he himself sinks dead to the ground to expiate the crime against Hunding's marital honor. The disobedient Valkyrie tries to flee from the terrible wrath of Odin; but he overtakes her and decrees that she shall lie and sleep until a man discovers her and kisses her lips; to him shall she then belong. Moved by the sorrow of the proud maiden and mindful of his former love for her, Odin modifies his punishment by surrounding the sleeping beauty with a blazing fire, to frighten back every cowardly and unworthy man. Finally, after long, long years, Siegmund's son, the incomparable hero Siegfried (Sigurd), penetrates the fire and carries away the divine bride, kissed to life again, whose passionate outburst of delight is characteristic of the fallen Valkyrie:

"Hail to thee, Day!

Hail to you, Sons of Day!

Hail to thee, Night and thy daughter Earth!

Hail to thee, fruit-bearing field!

Word and wisdom give to us two, and ever-healing hands!"

(H. S.)

In her unbridled passion lies the cause of her destruction and also that of the beloved Sigurd. After their union, Sigurd abandons her for the love of Gudrun, and even inflicts upon her the disgrace of winning her for Gunnar, whom he impersonates. In an altercation with Gudrun, the Nibelung princess, she learns that it was Sigurd, not Gunnar, who conquered her and subjected her. Her wrath is unbounded. She causes the Nibelungs to murder Sigurd, but in reawakened love she kills herself to be united in death with her beloved.

Here we have the source of the lovely fairy tales of Dornroschen and Sneewittchen. In the former, the Valkyrie Brunhild is pictured as a beautiful princess, and the glowing flame becomes a hedge of thorns. Instead of intrepid Siegfried (Sigurd), who penetrates the flames, a fairy prince appears, and rescues the sleeping beauty, through a magic kiss, from the doom of eternal sleep. In the second story, the metamorphosis of Brunhild is accomplished through a poisoned comb which is thrust in Sneewittchen's head: as Brunhild sleeps in her brilliant castle, so the maiden sleeps in the mountains in a glass coffin, guarded by seven dwarfs, until the prince rescues her.

But not in all cases are the divine women thus transformed into lovely fairies. Under the influence of mediæval theology and scholasticism and their hostility toward the lingering ancient faith, they are distorted into malicious, hideous beings witches. Thrud, the name of a Valkyrie, is the mediæval designation for "witch."

In the oldest Germanic sagas we find frequently confounded with the Valkyries, the Norns, the rulers of the fate of gods and men. It is characteristic, indeed, of the Germanic world conception, as, in fact, also of the cognate Greek and Roman mythology, that the fate of men and gods rests in the hands of divine women; for where the Valkyries act by order of Odin, the Norns act independently and by their own free will. They weave the web of men's lives, "stretching it from the radiant dawn to the glowing sunset." The destiny of the world lies with them, and nothing that is, is exempt from their irrevocable decrees. Time and space are embraced in the domain of their influence: Urd (the Past), Verdande (the Present), and Skuld (the Future) supervise, as it were, the judgment place of the gods where they meet in council at the sacred well, Urdharbrunn, at the foot of the ash tree Yggdrasil. It is interesting to note how their influence is reflected and depicted by Shakespeare's genius in Macbeth, where the three witches surely, though perhaps unconsciously, derive their origin from the Norse Norns. In the witches' kitchen in Goethe's Faust is brewed likewise the charm that controls the fateful lives of Faust and Gretchen.

CAPTURE OF THUSNELDA
After the painting by H Konig

It is in the period of Roman attack that we meet for the first time agreat royal character, Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius, the liberator of Germania from a foreign yoke. Her history is the oldest Teutonic love story. Betrothed to another man, she is by force carried away by Arminius from her father Segestes, the friend of the Romans. Betrayed to the latter under Drusus Germanicus, she is captured. Inspired more by the spirit of her husband than by that of her father--no tear, no complaint or entreaty came from Thusnelda's lips at her capture. The news of the capture of his wife and of her slavery exasperated Arminius to mad rage. But in vain he flew to her rescue. With her son and her brother Segimunt she adorned the triumph of Drusus, while traitor Segestes looked on.

Under such circumstances the elevation of woman among the Teutons was more of a religious than of a social character. The Teuton considered woman as a physically weak but spiritually strong being, who had a just claim to protection and reverence. Though it is true that women prophetesses, like Veleda and Albruna with their far-reaching influence, were regarded rather as semi-divine beings than as ordinary women, and though the legal status of woman was thoroughly subordinated to that of man, being in fact about equal to that of a minor child, yet her honor and chastity were held sacred, and her intellectual gifts were highly prized. Her natural physical weakness began to be her strength, and her lack of legal rights was compensated for by her great spiritual influence in family and society.

The potential and inherent virtue, in the Latin sense, and the physical as well as moral vigor of Teutonic men began to assert itself earlier than among many other races further advanced in civilization. It rose unconsciously from the stage of crude sensuality to a free humanity. But we must in no wise modernize the single trait of the ancient veneration of woman, as mentioned above. Though harshness and cruelty were yet the order of the day, nevertheless, gradually the cruel tenets of primitive law began to be softened and modified in practice by many exceptions. This occurred especially in the higher levels of primitive society. The natural affections arising from family ties and blood relationship steadily transformed woman's status in fact, if not in law. What the dim, though growing intellect of the man, trained only for war and the hunt, could not compass, the natural reasoning power of woman, her natural womanly prudence, did accomplish. Concessions regarding the purchase money, which originally subjected her absolutely to the buyer, were made in her favor; the purchase of her body and soul became gradually the acquisition of the right to protect her; the husband's power over his wife's body became more limited; her immolation with her dead husband fell into disuse; the widow's right over her children, even her male children, arose and increased. Womanly power and influence made many a free man dependent, regardless of law; women began to exert a tremendous influence over their husbands, their tribes, their state formations. All the Roman sources preserved to us prove that when the Romans, after the conquest of Gaul, entered upon the gigantic task of subjugating the Germans, women played a prominent part in the political upheaval which then occurred.

It is in the period of Roman attack that we meet for the first time a great royal character, a tragic type of a historical German woman: Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius (Hermann), prince of the Cherusci, the liberator of Germania from a foreign yoke. Her history is the oldest Teutonic love story. History, legend, and poetry have vied in idealizing and immortalizing her. Betrothed to another man, she is by force carried away by Arminius from her father Segestes, Arminius's political adversary, the friend of the Romans. Betrayed to the latter under Drusus Germanicus, she is captured. "Inspired more by the spirit of her husband than by that of her father no tear, no complaint or entreaty came from Thusnelda's lips at her capture; with her hands clasped over her bosom, she looked down silently at her pregnant body. The news of the capture of his wife and of her slavery exasperated Arminius to mad rage. But in vain he flew to her rescue. She was carried to Rome and there bore Thumelicus. With her son and her brother Segimunt she adorned the triumph of Drusus, while the traitor Segestes looked on, as son, daughter, and grandson walked in chains before the carriage of the triumphator." Indeed, Strabo, the celebrated Greek geographer, confirms the story in his Geographica (vii, i, 4): "To them, conquerors of Varus in the Teutoburg forest, Drusus Germanicus owed a splendid triumph at which the foremost enemies were carried personally in triumph: Segimuntos, son of Segestes, chieftain of the Cherusci, and his sister Thusnelda, with Thumelicus, her three years' old son. Segestes, however, who from the beginning had not shared his son's policy, but had rather passed to our side, overwhelmed with honors, beheld how those who ought to have been dearest to him, walked in chains." Here Johannes Scherr makes the pertinent remark that, eighteen centuries before Napoleon had founded the Rhenish Confederacy, there were already in existence princes of that Confederacy; that is, traitors to the German cause.

How long Thusnelda outlived the disgrace is unknown. It is reported, however, that, to accomplish the revenge of the Romans, Thumelicus was trained to be a gladiator at Ravenna, if nothing worse. Gottling, in Thusnelda and Thumelicus, in Contemporaneous Pictures, 1856, seems to have proved that the beautiful marble statue of a German woman in the Loggia de' Lanzi at Florence represents Arminius's wife bearing herself with a wonderful majesty to impress the Romans with her regality.

Now, in contrast to Thusnelda's strength, we have Bissula, a picture of Germanic grace. Ausonius, a poet of the late Roman period, sketches the portrait of this German maiden a prisoner who had been captured in the expeditions of Emperor Valentinianus I. against the Alemanni on the Neckar and Upper Rhine. She fell as booty to the poet, who stood high in pedagogical and political offices. The beauty and grace of this charming Alemannian maiden contrast strangely with the majesty and heroism and tragic bitterness of Armin's wife. The slave Bissula becomes a queen, as the queen had become a slave. Ausonius speaks with enthusiastic tenderness of her shining countenance, her blue eyes and blonde hair. "Art possesses no means," he says, "to imitate so much grace."

"'Bissula, inimitable in wax or in color,

Nature adorned with charms, as art never succeeds.

Mix then, O painter, the rose with the white of the lily,

Choose then the fragrant blend to paint fair Bissula's face.'"

(H. S.)

The ancient Teutonic woman is, in general, represented as beautiful in countenance and form. Her rich, reddish-blond, flowing hair became the envy and imitation of the Roman ladies of fashion. Ovid and other poets mention how the Roman ladies tried to change their black hair to German blond. The rutilce comce of Tacitus, became a valued Roman article of trade. In Heinrich von Kleist's drama, Die Hermannschlacht, Thusnelda's revenge upon the Roman general Ventidius hinges upon an intercepted letter of his, containing a lock of her golden hair obtained by ruse, and sent to his Roman princess:

"Varus, O princess, stands with seven legions

Victorious on Cheruscan land:

Cheruscan land, mind well, where those locks do grow,

Shining like gold and soft like Roman silk.

Now mindful of the word spoken in jest by thee,

When last thou saw'st me parting for the war:

I send a lock of hair destined for thee,

When Hermann falls, to clip from his queen's head.

By Styx! the trader by the capitol can't offer it:

It's a love token from the foremost lady of the land:

The Princess of Cheruscia herself." (H. S.)

The blue eyes, described by the Roman witnesses as full of fire and chaste defiance, the white rose cheeks and the strong, well-proportioned form make almost ideal the beauty of the German woman when undefiled by foreign admixture. Emphatically does Tacitus state that the German tribes not taking in foreign blood became a genuine, unmixed nation, similar only to themselves (Germanice populos, nullis aliis aliarum nationum connubiis infectos, propriam et sinceram et tantum sui simikm gentem exstitisse.)

The physical beauty of the ancient German woman was heightened by the fashion of her garments, though Tacitus relates that these were not essentially different from those of man. Despite the assertion of the historian, we do not doubt that a touch of innocent vanity was present: a cloak of skin or fur, held together by a gold buckle, or, in the case of the poor and lowly, by a thorn, constituted the outer garment. This usually covered a linen, purple-edged undergarment, somewhat like the Roman tunic, which, by its cut, left the arms, neck, and the upper breast uncovered. The question of dress is so interesting and so indicative not only of the state of civilization of any people, but also of their moral characteristics and habits, that works like Weiss's Kostumkunde, and Falke's Deutsche Trachten und Modenwelt, with the object lessons of good pictures, shed a flood of light upon the subsequent stages of the evolution of dress. The scanty clothing of the early historical period was chiefly for out-of-door use; it gave way to absolute nakedness at the hearth-fire of home, as well as at the common bathing of the two sexes.

Cæsar's account of the sexual life of the Germans of his time is of great importance to our theme. Says the imperial historian: "It is a matter of the highest praise to the youth of a people whose minds, from early childhood, had been directed to strenuous conditions and warlike efforts, to remain sexually undeveloped as long as possible, since this made the body stately and vigorous, and strengthened the muscles. It was a disgrace for a youth to know a woman before his twentieth year. Nor could such things be kept secret, since both sexes bathed together in the rivers, and had only furs as garments, which left the body, to a large part, naked."

Their garments, as described above, remained, on the whole, unchanged for centuries; even until about the time of the Prankish kings. The upper body was free, though often cloaked, the lower body clothed in trousers, braccce, the genuine manly German garment, and it is thus clothed that we meet their men in the first historic records. In winter a sagum, mantle, was added, according to Tacitus and Pomponius Mela. We have in plastic art only two pictorial reproductions: the so-called Vienna gemma, Augustus's Pannonian triumph, and the Parisian gemma, Germanicus's triumph, to show us objectively the vestments of the ancient Germans.

A word concerning the proper names of ancient Teutonic women may be in order here. Wilhelm Scherer, the eminent historian of German literature, divides them into two distinct groups: those which combine nature and beauty and tell of love, gentle grace, purity, and constancy; and those which apply to battle, arms, victory counselling, inspiring, tending men. Perhaps two different epochs in the spiritual growth of the nation are thus indicated. Most ancient names seem to be: Skonea (schon, beautiful); Berchta (shining); Heidr (heiter, serene); Liba (living); Swinda (swift); compounds like Swanhvit (swanwhite); Adalhert; Brunhild; Kriemhilde (maiden in armor, with helmet).

As we proceed through the centuries with the aid of existing documents, we find again and again that in Germanic women chastity is the fundamental trait, as loyalty and good faith is in man. And this despite the evidences of the violation of the rule which are found in the law that provided that adultery by women should be punished with unmitigated cruelty, and that the punishment according to the ancient Germanic law should be left entirely to the outraged husband. In the presence of her relatives, her hair, the pride of a free woman, is cut; then she is expelled naked from the house and scourged through the village, and sometimes buried to her neck and left to die. There is many a Teutonic Lucretia, though we meet also now and then with some German Judiths. The Langobard king Sighart falls in love with the beautiful wife of Nannigo, one of his men. She rejects his wooing with contempt. The prince, employing the old means of tyrants since King David's time, sends the husband as an ambassador to Africa, and forces the wife to submit to him. Her heart is broken; she lays aside the vestments of a noblewoman, and clothes herself in sackcloth and ashes. When her husband returns, she bids him kill her, since a stranger has stained his and her honor. Though her husband tried to console her, no smile ever sweetened her lips again.

Paulus Diaconus relates, in the Gesta Langobardorum, a trait of touching humility and modesty in a Teutonic woman, Radberg, wife of Duke Bemmo, in the Forum Julii. Conscious of her lack of physical beauty and deeming herself unworthy of her noble husband, she requests him to divorce her for some better wife. But Bemmo esteemed her chastity and loyalty higher than the beauty of others, and led an ideal life with her.

But in spite of many such lovely traits, it cannot be denied that a strong, fierce atmosphere pervades woman's life in Teutonic antiquity. The womanly emotions for good or for evil almost surpass human measure. Tremendous feelings find expression in Titanic passions and actions, or, as Weinhold has it: "No tender tears are shed, but the flood of the eyes rolls, mixed with blood, over the cheeks and garments of ancient Teutonic woman." In a wild woe, Brunhild wrings her hands so that the cups rattle on the wall boards and the fowl start up frightened in the courtyard. The whole house shook to its foundations from her bitter laugh at Siegfried's death, which she had caused. Freya's diadem bursts because of the wrathful motion of her bosom. In the twilight between mythology and history love is as unmeasured as hate in Teutonic women. All the sagas of all the legendary circles (Sagenkreise), the sagas of Brunhild and Kriemhilde, of Hildegund, bride of Walther of Aquitaine, of Gudrun, of Sigrun, Helgi's wife, teach us the nature of the Teutonic woman's love and hate. Only the strength and power of the man awaken love in her bosom. She inclines toward even an unloved man when he proves strong and heroic; and only to the bravest is the Teutonic maiden willing to give her heart and hand. Brunhild stakes her own person as a prize for the bravest hero in the games for warlike honors. When she falls by fraud to the lot of the inferior and weaker man, her nature rebels in a terrific wrath that destroys all, the beloved and the unbeloved, and those connected with both. Pride, too, is the incentive of woman's action, thus spurring man to crime or to noble endeavor, as the case may be.

Harald Schonhaar (Fairhair), of Norway, wooes Gyda, daughter of a petty Norwegian king. But she will not sacrifice her virginity to a man who rules over a small land. Proudly she sneers: "Methinks it strange that none of the princes of Norway strives to conquer the whole land, like Gorm in Denmark, and Erich in Sweden." This arouses Harald the wooer, and he begins that fight for the supremacy over all Norway that wins both lands and Gyda. But a still prouder maiden, Reginhild of Denmark, conquers him, though he has ten wives and twenty concubines. The maiden scornfully rejects his love, claiming that no king in the world is powerful and great enough for her to sacrifice her virginity for the thirtieth part of his love. Thereupon, Harald dismisses his thirty women and takes Reginhild as his sole bride.

The pride of the Teutonic woman extends, however, to an anxious regard also for her husband's honor. The old German romance of Erek and Enite demonstrates that she will rather lose her husband forever than see him disgraced by effeminate idleness.

Even the beasts succumb to the influence of Swanhild, daughter of Gudrun and Sigurd. On a false charge against her womanly honor, she is condemned to be trampled to death by the hoofs of wild horses. "But when she looked up at them, the horses dared not tread upon her, and Bike (Bicce, Sibich), the treacherous counsellor of the king, had a sack drawn over her eyes.... and so she ended her life."

The noblest poetic expression of the wonderful depth of ancient Teutonic love is set forth in the Helgi songs of the Elder Edda, the tragic power of which truly raises them to the standard of the Germanic Song of Songs.

Helgi, a Volsung, at the age of fifteen years, avenges the death of his father, Siegmund, on Hunding and his whole race, whom he exterminates in a fierce battle. As he is about to leave the battlefield, he sees the train of Valkyries riding through the air in their golden armor, rays of light shining from their spears and helmets. Helgi invites them to his triumphal feast in his royal hall. Yet Sigrun, the most beautiful among the Valkyries, exclaims from her lofty white horse:

"'Woe is me! Other cares than feasting oppress my heart.

All-father has betrothed me to an unbeloved man.

Fierce Hodbroddr will carry me off in a few nights, if you,

O hero, shining in the beauty of youth, will not save me and challenge him to mortal combat.'"

With these words she entwines caressingly her white arms around the neck of Helgi, whose heart melts and inclines to her. He challenges the hated rival, and on the morning of the combat he stands against the countless host of Hodbroddr, who is aided by Sigrun's father and brothers, who are resentful of the bold Helgi's suit. The earth trembles and shakes under the onslaught, but Helgi's resistless sword mows down his enemies. Beasts and birds of the field hold a rich repast. When the tumult of the battle subsides, Sigrun rides over the field, and her lamentation for her slain father and brothers is heard amid the exultations of victory. Only one brother, Dag, survives, and he weds her to Helgi. But impelled by the sacred duty of blood revenge, he breaks the peace which he has sworn. Odin himself, wrathful against the Volsung, offers Dag his invincible spear. In the ensuing combat Helgi falls. Before his sister, Helgi's loving wife, the slayer pleads the will of Odin and the Norns, goddesses of immutable fate, and offers rich compensation to her. But Sigrun breaks out in bitter woe, cursing her brother: he shall be a wolf out in the forest, all joy shall be far away from him, no horse shall carry him, the ship which may save him from his enemies shall stand still under him.

The tomb is piled up over Helgi's corpse. When Sigrun's maid goes to the grave, the dead master comes riding along and bids her ask his wife to soothe his wounds. Before he can lay aside his bloody armor, Sigrun embraces him, lamenting how cold are his hands, how wet he is with the dew of the night. Helgi replies: "Thine is the blame; for every tear which thou weepest falls as a cold and piercing drop of blood upon my bosom. But let us be of good cheer and drink the sweet mead, let no one complain of the wound on my breast, since, though dead am I, my wife is with me." Sigrun prepares the couch to sleep on the breast of the beloved dead, as she did when he was still alive. Helgi, touched by so much love, exclaims: "It has happened what no one ever deemed possible: the white daughter of Hagen, the living one, sleeps in the arms of the dead." At the morning dawn, before the cock crows, Helgi is obliged to return to Valhalla, and Sigrun returns to her solitary palace. In the evening she awaits him, but waits in vain, and in her sorrow her heart breaks.

The motive of this legend lives in German literature in varied forms. Burger has reawakened it in Lenore, the greatest German ballad.

But, to conclude the chapter on the Teutonic women of antiquity, it is necessary to return once more to the prose of history, where, for the first time, the women of the Teutons, in their general aspect, enter into the bright light of historical observation, in this instance so much the more valuable, since it is the observation of the enemy. In conformity with our other sources, the Greek-Roman historians, Plutarch, Dion Cassius, and Strabo, have to report regarding Teutonic womanhood only traits of tremendous strength, power, and love of liberty. Savage virtue and heroism are there, but not a single trait of grace and loveliness appears in their accounts. And if there is exaggeration, it simply proves the terror the furor Teutonicus which was inculcated by the Teutons into the hearts of the Romans at their very first encounter. The years B. C. 113-101 witnessed the first Titanic clash and conflict between the Cimbri and the Teutones, mere splinters of the Teutonic race, and the world power of the Roman Republic at the height and zenith of its greatness. For the first time, Teutons thundered at the gates of the Alpine entrance to Rome, and thus began the incessant struggle which continued for nearly six centuries between the two most powerful races in the history of the world, until the Empire finally succumbed.

When one legionary army after another, led by the foremost commanders of Rome, had been destroyed under the onslaught of the two combined tribes, the Cimbri and the Teutones, it was only the military genius of Marius which finally succeeded in stemming the tide of the Teutonic flood, and then only after the tribes had divided their forces and, thus weakened, hurled their naked bodies against the phalanx of the overwhelming Roman army. When the legionaries of Rome pursued the defeated Teutones to their camp, Plutarch relates: "the Teuton women met them with swords and axes, and making a terrible outcry, drove the fugitives as well as the pursuers back, the first as traitors, the others as enemies, and mixing among the warriors, with their bare arms pulling away the shields of the Romans and laying hold on their swords, endured the wounds and slashing of their bodies invincible unto death with undaunted resolution."

An account by Valerius Maximus emphasizes not only the bravery, but also the chastity of the Teuton women. When captured, they requested of the victor Marius to consecrate them to the service of Vesta's sacred virgins, promising to keep themselves as pure and immaculate as the goddess and her servants. Upon the refusal of their request they strangled themselves the following night. Thus ended the battle of Aquas Sextise in B. C. 102, with the annihilation of the Teutones root and branch.

In the subsequent year Marius destroyed the Cimbri also, on the Raudian fields near Vercellas. Among their women were prophetesses, hoary with age, barefooted, clothed in white garments with iron girdles, and fine flaxen cloaks. Thus apparelled they went sword in hand to meet the prisoners of war in camp, whom, after wreathing them, they conducted to a large iron kettle. Then one of them mounted a high step and bending over the kettle, cut the throat of the prisoner who had been lifted over the edge, and prophesied from the blood which streamed into the brass vessel.

During the battle they drummed on hides fastened over the wagons, and made a horrible noise. When the largest and most warlike part of the Cimbri had been annihilated, and the Romans pursued the rest within the wall of the camp, they were astounded by a highly tragic spectacle. The Cimbri women standing in black garments of mourning on the wagons, inflicted death upon the fugitives: one upon her husband, another upon her brother, another again upon her father. But their own children they strangled and hurled under the wheels of the wagons and under the hoofs of the horses. Finally they laid hands upon themselves. One, it is said, was hanging from the top of a wagon with her children, tied with ropes, dangling from her ankles.

The later struggles, too, between the Teuton and the Roman offer many examples of the German woman's absolute contempt of a life which could be preserved only in shame and servitude.

When Drusus battled with the Cherusci, Suevi, and Sigambri, it happened that their women, besieged by the Romans in their wagon fortifications (Wageriburg), instead of surrendering, desperately defended themselves with everything that might serve as a weapon. Finally despairing, they struck their children against the ground and hurled their dead bodies in the face of the enemy. The most perfect model of heroic stoicism in connection with those wars, Princess Thusnelda, whose fate we discussed above, was only the first woman among her equals. Teutonic women in those primitive times invariably followed their husbands to war, carrying food and encouragement to the warriors in battle, counting proudly the wounds of their husbands and sons, and nursing the wounded. Through threats or entreaties they restored many a tottering battle array, inciting the men to heroism.

CHAPTER II

THE YEARS OF THE WANDERINGS

Until the period of the migrations of the Teutons, the precursors of which were the hapless attempts of the Cimbri and the Teutones to invade the Roman Empire, the ancient world, as known to history, was sharply divided into two parts: the Roman world and the world of the Barbarians. The consequences of the invasion and infiltration of the Germanic barbarians into the northern and western provinces of the Roman Empire were the ethnographic combinations from which arose well-nigh all the nations of modern Europe. It is those barbarians who created the mixture of blood, of ideas and ideals, of institutions and customs, from which every State of Europe was born. Their influence for good, as for evil, was lasting and universal.

The combinations of the Teutonic races during the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, until the race movement came to some sort of a standstill under the Carlovingian dynasty, were numberless. When we consider those tribes rushing one upon another, the newcomers ever pressing upon those before them, as waves beating upon a shore, and see the first germs of incipient civilization overwhelmed again and again by swift following surges of barbarity, or even savagery, when we observe newly formed states crushed and swallowed up by opposing states, we have great difficulty in perceiving anything but the play of the blind, brutal forces of nature. The changes are countless, a tremendous revolution endures for centuries, and everything is in a state of flux; and yet, such were the influences evolved from this chaos that there is no modern Caucasian state, however remote, where the Germanic impulses springing from the migration period are not to-day visible.

But, in spite of the existing confusion, there was no epoch of human history when the influence of thought is more plainly manifest than in the time of the Teutonic upheaval that left no stone unturned. There was no German knight who did not endeavor to adopt some shred of the Roman Empire which he helped to tear to pieces.

Christianity, too, which for centuries was but a vague longing in the hearts of most men, began to arise and to assert itself, at first indefinitely, still groping in darkness and strongly intermingled with the ingrained and venerated pagan conceptions, then more and more as a living issue. Christianity so gained in force that at the time of supreme need it saved humanity from sinking back into the degeneracy of the Roman bacchanal. Under the action of Christianity the ephemeral barbarian confederacy crystallizes into a permanent political organization.

At the end of the third century of our era the Teutonic race is already, though indistinctly, consolidated into four large nationalities, or tribe leagues, with two inferior, though independent, branches. Where Tacitus, in the angle between the Rhine and the Main, had seen Sigambri, Bructeri, Chamavi, Tencteri, Chatti, there is now one great, though loose, confederation: the Franks. Between the North Sea, the Rhine, and the Elbe are the Saxons with the Angli in the north, and the Thuringians in the south. In the angle between the Rhine and the Danube, the beehive of all tribes (all man), is the confederation of the Alemanni, mixed with Suevi (Schwaben); behind them, pressing toward and beyond the Rhine, are the Burgundians; and following closely are the Langobards, who appear on the middle Danube. Near the Baltic, which derives its name from the Gothic dynasty of the Balti, we have the Turcilingi, the Rugii, the Sciri, and the Heruli who were tattooed blue. Between the upper Elbe and the Oder Rivers, the Quadi (in Moravia) and Marcomanni (Bohemia) seem to disappear gradually, and are probably merged into the Suevi.

The Gothic or Scandinavian race is agitated by the same movements, disputing with Finnish tribes (related to the Turks and the Hungarians) the Danish and Scandinavian peninsulas and the isles of the Baltic: Gothia, Ostrogothia, Westrogothia, and the Isle of Gothland. At the same time they spread over the plains of eastern Europe. The Visigoths under the dynasty of the Balti and the Ostrogoths under the Amali occupy the steppes of Russia; behind them are the Gepidas. The Jutes (from whom is derived the name of Danish Jutland) and the Vandals, perhaps mixed with the Slavic Wends, occupy the Baltic for two centuries. The race of the Slavs, as yet existing in almost complete historical darkness, is known to Tacitus but dimly by the name of Wends.

When brought in contact with the Romans, the purely Germanic individuality ceases, the tribes become Romanized; their gods change, their habits, their religion: a new world, undreamed in its southern radiance and sunny luxury, opens before their eyes, accustomed to the dreary north; victory itself carries with it corruption. In the third century Rome is no longer feared, in the fourth it is already considered a German prey. The infiltration goes on through the engagement of Teutons for Roman military service. The German soldiers, with their barbarous strength of body, soon reappear as Roman comites, duces, patricti, counts, dukes, patricians, i. e., supreme civil and military officers at the court; they enter also in masses as laborers, servants, fcederati, or auxiliaries. From such or from simple legionaries they rise to be dignitaries of a rank but a shade under imperial, like the Vandals Stilicho and Rufmus, who for a time uphold the existence of the Roman Empire.

It is true, then, that in those centuries of upheaval the Teutons lost many of their racial characteristics, of their stock of primeval sagas, but they also gained immensely from the intellectual, spiritual, and cultural influence of the southern nations that furnished them with a stupendous stock of basic material for their future progress. Christianization and amalgamation instilled into their Teutonic spirit the germs of that Romanticism which we are wont to consider as purely Germanic, while in reality it is an elixir of the Christian-Roman fountain assimilated by the Teutonic soul. The Roman Catholic Church working upon the soul through the senses the only possible way to reach and penetrate the soul of primitive man, who is unfit for abstract thought, created the "divine arts" poetry, music, architecture, in the progressive sequence of the centuries of German history.

In religious symbolism lies the root of Romanticism, the blossom of mediæval life: Romanticism, a Romance word in sound, is German in spirit. Its soul is the romantic ideal of love: woman is its centre. It radiates first from a fervent soul with an ecstatic, passionate devotion to the Christian Allmutter, the mother of God, the Holy Virgin, Saint Mary, who was from the first deeply revered by the Teutons, owing to their inherent veneration for woman. Among the Germans of all times, even the most corrupted and dissolute, this spark of veneration is not entirely extinct. Love is surrounded with a halo in contrast with the severe Oriental treatment of women by the Church Fathers. The harsh words of the Gospels, "Woman, what have I to do with thee!" is transformed into: "Pure woman, and mother mine!"

Thus the picture drawn by the Edda truly called the Norse Bible of the Teutonic race of the doomsday of the world, the Gotterdammerung, is nothing if not a representation of the whirl of the immigration. Yet all that is valuable, culturally speaking, rises like a phoenix from the ashes. As, in the ingenious words of the poet, "Conquered Greece conquered, on her part, the fierce Roman conqueror and carried her (intellectual) arms into Latium," so conquered Rome transformed the fierce Germanic conqueror into a new man. The unity of the Roman Empire had furthered Christianity, and the complete German conquest mightily influenced the entire Germanic race in the direction of Romanization and Christianization, though the latter for long remained crude and was affected by the cult of the gods of Olympus as well as of those of Asenheim and Niflheim, and, even where not so affected, Christianity was divided between Arianism and the Orthodox Romanism. With the political conquest, however, a new order was by no means assured. The Empire was destroyed, it is true, but nothing firm, solid, or steady took its place. The wavering new political aggregates put in its stead were no longer purely Teutonic. They succumbed too easily to the treacherous and manifold, if silent, influences that on every side assailed them. The majority of such political groups, whether in Italy, in Gaul, in Spain, or in North Africa, lost their nationality and even the German language: they became Roman mongrels and some even turned against their old mother, Germania.

Even at home, the Roman Christian foreign culture seemed for a time destined to overwhelm Germanism, but the Alemanni in the south and the Saxons in the north and west proved too strong for denationalization and carried Teutonic principles triumphantly through all the phases of the struggle.

Having thus described the tribal existence of the Teutons in Germania proper, in order to give to our study of the cultural history of German womanhood full point, a word must be said about German colonization abroad.

The Burgundians, after a checkered career of adventurous wanderings from North Germany to the Alpine mountains of Savoy, conquered southeast Gaul in the fifth century. In the southwest, or ancient Aquitaine, the Visigoths settled, and, crossing the Pyrenees, conquered a large part of Spain.

When Odoacer, the German king of the wandering hosts, had dethroned the last shadow Emperor of Rome, Romulus Augustulus an ill-starred, diminutive reminiscence of Rome's glorious inception as kingdom and empire the Heruli were the dominant race. Their rule lasted but thirteen ominous years. The Ostrogoths, under the great Theodoric, Dietrich von Bern, the paramount hero of Germanic saga and song, replaced them and founded a more permanent government. In northern Italy, the Langobards succeeded the Ostrogoths and gradually extended their rule southward, and pressing upon the Italian domain of the Bishops of Rome, who, by this time, had asserted their supremacy and headship of the ruling church of the world, brought about that cataclysm which finally submerged the power of Rome under the flood of the Prankish universal empire. The Salian Franks had, in the fifth century, conquered northern Gaul from the Batavian coast to the Somme River; the Ripuarian Franks formed a state along the Rhine, the Maas, and the Moselle, with Cologne as a capital. Chlodwig, the Salian Frank, one of the most cunning and unscrupulous kings in history, began, in A. D. 480, the unification of the Franks and the adjacent German tribes into one nation. After the subjugation of the Alemanni, the principal role, the hegemony within the Teutonic race, belongs to the Franks. Christianity becomes a political lever by which they extend their sway from north and east and finally create that Carlovingian-Prankish Empire which inaugurated the Middle Ages proper and founded therewith a stable Germanic civilization.

Up to this time, in spite of Christianity, the pagan imprint is still very strong. The Latin titles rex, dux, comes, are applied to the German chiefs, as they were in Italy under Roman rule; sovereignty passed but slowly from the body of the freemen to individual chiefs, a transition finally accomplished by Charlemagne yet the old spirit of German liberty was not rooted out. The ancient Teutonic laws and traditions, though committed to mediæval Latinity, are German in spirit.

The political status remains as of old. There are two great divisions of the people: the free men and the unfree. The former are subdivided into nobles (adalinge or edelinge) and common freemen (Gemeinfreie, liberi); the unfree are either tributary (Horige, liten or lassen, manumitted), or real serfs (Schalke, servi). Exactly the same division holds true for women. The serfs, men and women, are without rights, and are valued as chattels, though manumission or absolute liberation is possible. Bravery in war creates a "nobility of arms" (Waffenadel), based upon the sword; and thus renders this species of nobility accessible to all in the same manner that, among the Carlovingians, "court nobility" (Amtsadel) may be obtained by the ministeriales, or civil servants, as the reward of merit or by the favor of the king. Women serfs, because of beauty or of manifest superiority, often become concubines, mistresses, and even wives of nobles and princes, and sometimes of kings.

Blood relationship, family, and the rulership of the housefather are in this early period the base and centre of social order. So the legal relation between man and woman is command and obedience; protection and responsibility. The wife is subordinate, and has no official voice or vote in the community or the body politic. Woman could not be a witness before a court, and in most states she was excluded from rulership over land and people, though this rule was frequently circumvented, broken, or repealed, for we early meet with women rulers or ruling women, who will be separately treated.

Though the laws in favor of woman's equality with man are still precarious, yet customs and traditions, as well as the ancient and innate veneration of German men for women, frame regulations for their strong protection. It is well known that every crime, including murder, but excluding high treason or assassination of the military chief, is atoned for by the payment to the family of the insulted, injured, or murdered person of an expiatory sum of money (Suhngeld or Wergeld) or cattle, according to the valuation by the ancient Teutonic law. This law, among most of the tribes, attributed higher value to woman, because she is defenceless, than to man. The wergeld, according to Alemannic and Bavarian law, is double for a woman, and, according to Saxon law, the double wergeld applies while a woman is able to bear children. The Prankish law prescribes in ordinary cases a treble wergeld, namely, six hundred solidi (shillings) or cows (which are equal in value); and in the case of a pregnant woman the expiatory sum is seven hundred solidi. Johannes Scherr informs us how the Salian law determines accurately the fines for misdemeanors against womanly modesty. It says that a man who immodestly strokes the hand of a woman shall be fined fifteen shillings, and if her upper arm is stroked, thirty-five shillings, while if her bosom be touched he must pay forty-five shillings or cows. Many centuries later, in the highly polished, super-refined period of the Love Song (Minnesang), the wergeld, for an offence against a woman, on the contrary, sank to one-half of that inflicted for an act against a man, and this in spite of the increasing love service to women (Fraitendiensf), which, however, was degenerating to sensualism.

A TEUTONIC ALLIANCE
After the painting by Ferdinand Leeke

Women serfs, because of beauty or of manifest superiority, often became.... even wives of great leaders.

A Teutonic marriage was concluded when the bridal couch was entered and "one cover touched both."

Not until the fourteenth century did the legality of marriage become dependent upon the conscent of the Church; on the morning after the marriage, the wife received the bridal gifts from her husband; henceforth she enjoyed all the marital rights, but remained subordinate to her husband, who could chastise her of even sell her into slavery.

In the early times the housefather has the guardianship, mundium (from Old High German munt, hand), over his wife, daughters, sisters, and also the duty of protecting them. The father has the right to sell his sons during their minority and his daughters until their marriage, and this barbarous action is common. At the death of the father, the guardianship passes to the next male relative, (the sword relative, Schwertmagen, as opposed to the spindle relative, Spillmageri). In case of legal marriage, guardianship passes to the husband.

The law of inheritance is greatly in favor of sons, and daughters are frequently entirely excluded from participation in the heritage, or their share is reduced to one-half or one-third of the son's inheritance. This is, however, only in the case of real estate (Odal) probably because it needs the sword of the male protector, for the remaining or movable property is equally divided.

The conception of caste privileges, social birthright (Ebenburtigkeif), is very strongly developed, inasmuch as women lose caste by marriage with inferiors and give up every claim to the inheritance of their blood relations (Sippe); and the caste degradation results at one period in the exclusion from the inheritance of a free father of the children of an unfree woman.

It is but natural that, in the loosening of all the bonds of social order, during the wanderings, the ancient Tacitean purity and monogamy was, to a large extent, lost. Among the high classes, concubinage was the rule, since the lord had absolute power over the unfree maidens, and war and conquest have it in their nature to blot out all natural rights. We meet concubines, called Fritten or Kebse, everywhere in the lives of the great kings and chiefs. The Merovingian Franks are especially famous, or rather infamous, for their sexual sins. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious held concubines. The Church, especially at the synod of Mayence, A.D. 851, began to thunder against licentiousness, but in vain. Nor did the monasteries always remain pure from the taint. Winfrid, or Bonifatius, the apostle of the Germans par excellence, complains of the Prankish diacons (deacons) who kept four or more concubines. Frequently, however, the Church submitted, on political grounds, to a recognition of two or more lawful wives taken by one man. But the sense of dignity and self-respect on the part of the women themselves, as we have seen in the case of Harald Fairhair, finally forced monogamy upon the full blooded, semi-barbarous Teutonic warriors, as the leading principle of a lawful marriage.

Teutonic marriage is concluded when the bridal couch is entered and "one cover touched both" (eine Decke das Paar besetting). To the very end of the Middle Ages the Church function is quite an indifferent matter, though as early as the Carlovingian time the Church prescribed a "confession of marriage in the Church" and "a priestly blessing." In the Nibelungenlied, Siegfried and Kriemhilde, Gunther and Brunhild, marry without mention of a priest, yet on the morning of the bridal night the two couples go to the cathedral where a mass is sung. This latter statement is due to the attempt of the mediæval Christian poet to color, from numberless constituent parts of varied antiquity, the ancient Germanic heroic saga, originating in paganism, to the advantage of the newer religion. The Nibelungenlied arose about the beginning of the thirteenth century, and, with all its grandeur and splendor, is "like unto an ancient grove of the Teutonic gods forced below the roof of a Christian cathedral." The shining Valkyrie-patterned Brunhild, so magnificent in the pagan naturalness of her divinity and her surroundings, appears in the Lied as a gloomy, hermaphroditic being between two different and irreconcilable worlds. She is unfit for the Christian frame and setting that have been given her. Thus it is with Kriemhilde, with Siegfried, with Hagen. Their virtues and qualities and passions are not yet fully infused with the light which emanates from the Crucifixion.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the legality of marriage first becomes dependent upon the consent of the Church. On the morning after the bridal night the wife, whose hair is now put up, no more allowed to wave freely as that of a virgin, receives the morning gift from her husband. She henceforth enjoys all the marital rights, but remains subordinate to the husband. He is the administrator of her fortune and has, ipso facto, its usufruct. But at his death one-half or one-third of the property acquired during his married life belongs to the wife according to the law of the Saxon and Ripuarian Franks. Chastisement of the wife still belongs to the husband; he might even inflict death or slavery for adultery. Divorce is possible if the wife is barren or the husband impotent.

Most interesting, historically speaking, is the circle of women surrounding Theodoric the Great, for the sagas have associated with him all the powerful women of the legendary history of the German tribes. He may be truly called the political forerunner of the Habsburg dynasty of the Middle Ages in the policy of strengthening dynasties by marrying royal women to powerful kings. Such marriages enhanced the strength and extent of Ostrogothic rule and cemented alliances with the other Teutonic tribes. Following, consciously or unconsciously, the rule of Theodoric, the Habsburgers, during the Middle Ages, built up by their judicious political marriages their tremendous dynastic power (Hausmacht), which finally became superior to that of the Holy Roman Empire itself.

These marriages gave rise to the proverb: Let others wage wars; thou, happy Austria, get married, for what realms the God of War gives to others are given to thee by the sweet Goddess of Love (Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube; nam quce Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus). Theodoric married his sister, Amalfreda, to the Vandal king Thrasimund; his daughter Theodicusa to Alaric; his daughter Ostrogotha to the Burgundian prince Sigismund; his niece Amalberga to the Thuringian king Hermanfrid. Political marriages, then, are as old as German history.

Amalasuntha, one of the daughters of Theodoric, shines preeminently in history as the worthy daughter of the greatest German king of the creative epoch. Her contemporaries, the authors Cassiodorus and Procopius, praise her as an ingenuous, high-minded, lofty woman, an excellent ruler, and a noble protector of arts and sciences. Early widowed through the death of Eutharich, also a scion of the race of the Amali, she becomes, upon the demise of her great father, regent and guardian of her minor son, Athalarich. Reared in Græco-Roman culture, Amalasuntha inclined in her life and thoughts toward the Roman element in the state, and was to a certain extent estranged from the semi-barbarous Ostrogoths, who unwillingly submitted to her guardianship over her son, their king, and even more unwillingly to her rule over themselves. Though her rule was mild and wise, yet the discontent of the national party increased. Bitter reproaches were heaped upon the head of the noble queen for keeping young Athalarich removed from the company of the youth of Gothic race, for surrounding him with aged men, "though the mildest and wisest of their people," and for sending him to a Latin school of rhetoricians. For this was the training of a Roman emperor, not of a Gothic king, and their ancestors had taught them to despise such education. The queen was forced to yield to the popular demand, and the consequences of her surrender justified her fears. In the company of young Gothic nobles, Athalarich soon learned all the evil which the young barbarians had drawn from the Roman mire. His new friends had almost roused the youth to open rebellion against the "woman's rule," when, fortunately, he succumbed to the unaccustomed life to which his delicate constitution was not equal. By his opportune death, history is spared the record of the horrible tragedy of matricide which, in all probability, would have been enacted by the misguided prince a tragedy occurring frequently in the history of the Merovingian dynasty.

Amalasuntha's fate is full of tragic pathos. A great ruler and an extraordinary woman, she had indeed the qualities to become the benefactress of her nation, had not the epoch of unrest and agitation, the unsteadiness and the irreconcilable conflict between an overripe Roman civilization and Germanic barbarism, made her a victim of untoward circumstances.

In order to strengthen her tottering throne, she elevated to the position of her husband and king the last prince of the race of the Amali, the unworthy Theodat, a man of whom Procopius says that "the principle of never tolerating a neighbor beside himself had raised him to power and riches." Immediately upon his ascending the throne, he openly sided with the so-called nationalist party against Amalasuntha, and murdered the last friends and partisans of the hapless queen. In her despair she appealed to the eastern Roman, or Byzantine, emperor, Justinian, and implored him for protection and hospitable reception. But she did not escape to Constantinople. Theodat seized her and sent her as a prisoner to a fortress on a small island in the Bolsen lake. Shortly after the arrival of the Byzantine ambassador, who brought her a courteous invitation to the court of Constantinople, she disappeared in a mysterious way, whether by Theodat's orders or through the intrigues of the Byzantine is not known; but the king hated her; and the ambassador, according to Procopius's narrative in his Historia arcana, had been bribed by Empress Theodora, the infamous wife of Justinian, to prevent by any means the appearance at the corrupt Byzantine court of the highly cultured, royal Gothic lady.

The history of the Langobards, a Germanic race which plays a great role in the Migration period in shaping the fate of Italy, and, by driving the Popes into the arms of the Franks, in elevating that race and the Carlovingian dynasty, furnishes us a kaleidoscopic sequence of royal women, who exhibit all the vices and passions, crimes and virtues.

Paul Warnefried, a Langobard noble, calling himself, in his clerical capacity, as an author, Paulus Diaconus, is, through his historical work, De Gestis Langobardorum, the principal source of our knowledge concerning his great but barbarous race.

For the first time in the history of the Langobards we meet with a wicked woman in the person of the murderess Rumetruda, daughter of the seventh Langobard king, Tato, who, through her lust of blood, precipitated her people into a terrible war with the Heruli.

Looking from the window of her palace she perceived one day a Herulian embassy, which, under the guidance of the brother of the king, had just concluded an alliance with the Langobards, and was now returning to its own country. The demoniacal woman sent to the prince of the Heruli a cordial invitation to a cup of wine. No hospitable feelings, however, had induced Rumetruda to send the invitation, but curiosity and scorn at the somewhat abnormal, heavy-set shape of the foreign prince. Soon she began to mock and ridicule him concerning his stature and finally enraged him to such a degree that he also began to upbraid her with insulting words. Revenge arose in the soul of the cruel woman, and, having conciliated him politely and forced him back upon his seat, she proceeded to the execution of her murderous plan. Behind the seat of her royal guest there was a large window covered with costly curtains, behind these she placed a number of Langobard warriors, bidding them hurl their spears against the curtain. Pierced by several lances, the prince of the Heruli sank to the ground; the flagitious woman had satisfied her revenge at the expense of the peace and the alliance between the Langobards and the Heruli. A terrible war was kindled by this violation of the sanctity of ambassadorial rights.

The savagery of these times of bloodshed in the constant wars, when every race had to be "hammer or anvil," appears in the stirring history of the death of King Alboin, the Langobard. The latter had, with the aid of the Avars, defeated the old enemies of his tribe, the Gepidae, and with his own hand slain their king, Kunimund. According to a barbarous custom of his time, he had a drinking cup fashioned from the skull of the slain enemy. Rosamunde, the beautiful daughter of the unfortunate king, Alboin took for his wife, his former consort, the Prankish Clodsunda, having just died. Sometime after these events, it happened that Alboin at a great feast held at Verona, was seized by the desire of drinking wine from the skull of his dead enemy. Flushed with wine, and careless of the feelings of his wife, he bade her, following his example, drink from the ghastly cup. Rage and desire for revenge filled Rosamunde's heart, but of necessity she obeyed the cruel order, though at the same moment she resolved upon a terrible retribution for the horrible deed. Through her personal charms she won Helmichis, the royal shield bearer, and while Alboin lay sleeping upon his couch after a heavy repast, he was pierced by the murderer's sword. To make sure of his death, Rosamunde had fastened Alboin's weapon to the bedpost so that he might the more safely be delivered into the hands of her lover. Helmichis's hope to succeed to Alboin's throne was vain. He was compelled to flee with Rosamunde to the eastern Roman prefect, Longinus, at Ravenna. Tired of her now useless tool, Helmichis, the treacherous woman was easily persuaded by Longinus to do away with the murderer and to marry the prefect. She offered to Helmichis, who was arising from his bath, a cup of poisoned wine. While drinking it, either the taste of the wine or a triumphant glance in the eye of his mistress suggested his fate, and, sword in hand, he forced Rosamunde to drink the rest of the poison and thus to die with him.

Turning from this ghastly tragedy, we may read the first story of romanticism. This is the tale of the love and marriage of fair-locked Authari, a successor of Alboin in the kingship of the Langobards, to Theodelinda, daughter of Garibald the Bavarian duke. A brilliant embassy, headed by King Authari himself, who was incognito, arrived at the Bavarian court to sue for the hand of the beautiful princess. At a solemn festival, King Authari besought that Theodelinda herself should give him a draught of wine. The lady gratified his desire, and Authari, charmed by so much loveliness, caressingly stroked the hand of his future bride; she, blushing at his boldness, modestly cast down her eyes. Later on, she complained to her nurse of the boldness, but the wise old woman consolingly assured her: "No simple Langobard nobleman would have dared the deed; this man can be no other but the king himself and your bridegroom." Having obtained the consent of the duke and the princess, the Langobard embassy, accompanied by a host of Bavarian nobles, joyfully rode homeward. Arrived at the frontier, Authari, his heart swelling with love, raised himself aloft in his saddle and hurled his battle-ax with a powerful arm deep into a tree, exclaiming: "This is the throw of Authari, the Langobard." Unfortunately, the romance ended shortly after the marriage. Authari died one year later, as the rumor goes, by poison. Theodelinda became a passionate missionary of Christianity among the German tribes; and it is a general fact that royal women, as we shall see later in the case of the Christianization of the Franks, were the most ardent propagators of the faith. Christianity appealed especially to women because of its spirit of humility, of charity, and of submission to a higher will. The Church showed due gratitude by canonizing many noble and deeply pious women of the time. After the death of Authari, Theodelinda, seeing that the reins of rulership were too heavy for her, looked for the worthiest of the Langobard princes, to whom she might offer her hand and heart. Agilulf, the brave Duke of Turin, was her choice. A prophetess had, on the day of Theodelinda's marriage with Authari, prophesied to Agilulf that he would become the consort of the Bavarian princess. Theodelinda now summoned him and offered a cup of welcome, which the duke accepted with a grateful kiss on her hand. Blushingly she withdrew her hand, with the words: "he should not kiss her hand who was permitted to kiss her lips and cheeks." The overjoyed vassal, who had always suppressed his love for his queen, saw his most secret desire fulfilled, and lovingly embraced her. And the queen never had to regret her choice.

In strange contrast to the attractive and poetic queen Theodelinda stands the detestable Romilda, wife of Duke Gisulf of the Forum Julium. At the time of the invasions of the savage Avars, she was compelled, with her husband and her children, to take refuge in the fortress of the Forum Julium. One day she noticed, from the height of the wall, the handsome form of the young Avar prince Cacon, and the undutiful woman was seized with a violent passion for the fair barbarian. Secretly she sent him a message that she would open the fortress for him, if he vowed to take her for his wife after the conquest. The Avar consented; and having become master of the important stronghold, he married Romilda. But after the bridal night, to shame and disgrace her, he turned her over to twelve Avar warriors; and when they had wrought their will upon her, he caused her to be impaled on a pole in the open field, exclaiming: "This is the husband thou art worthy to have!" Paulus Diaconus, while condemning Romilda, praises the exemplary conduct of her two chaste daughters, Appa and Gaila, who, to protect their virtue, placed pieces of putrid meat between their breasts. This heroic measure drove the assailants back, but unjustly secured to the entire Langobard nation the reputation of a bad odor. Pope Hadrian evidently credited the slander, for, when he seeks the aid of Charlemagne against Desiderius, he writes of the "perjurious and stinking nation of the Langobards." But our two chaste virgins escaped and were richly rewarded for their virtue, as one was married to the Alemannian duke and the other, to the Bavarian.

We find a curious lack of foresight related of another Langobard queen, Hermilinda, wife of Cunipert. The queen once surprised Theodata, a wondrously beautiful Roman slave, of patrician family, in the bath. Her form was exquisite, her golden hair flowed down to her very feet, and the queen could not help praising her charms to the king. The consequence was that in due course of time Theodata gave constant pleasure to Cunipert, and Hermilinda became an inmate of a fine monastery named after her, where she died in the odor of sanctity.

The migration of the Teutonic peoples had been in great measure spontaneous, it is true, but the impetus of the avalanche had undoubtedly been tremendously increased by the irruption of a mysterious nomad people, the Huns, who broke forth from the steppes of middle Asia like a hurricane, hurled the Alans to the ground, overpowered the Ostrogoths, pushed the Visigoths over the Danube into the eastern Roman Empire, and, occupying the Roman province of Pannonia (Hungary), made it the centre of an empire which, though loosely connected, extended, more or less, over the length and breadth of Europe. About the middle of the fifth century the Huns arose anew from their Pannonian seat, and again threw Europe in a turmoil. The moving spirit of that commotion of savagery and barbarity which seemed to shake the three continents known to antiquity was Attila, called Etzel in the German lays and sagas, the "scourge of God" (Godegisel). His hordes were estimated at more than half a million warriors. His death was an event of immense political significance, and appears in the German saga in many romantic forms. The historian Jordanes relates, after Priscus, that Attila died suddenly of violence during his bridal night, while lying intoxicated beside his young wife Ildico (HildikS). In the morning his servants found him in his blood, but without wounds, beside him was the young wife with downcast eyes, weeping under her veil. The circumstances of his death were such as to throw suspicion upon the young woman. Ammianus Marcellinus reported as a fact that "Attila came to his death at night by the hands of a woman." But the legendists have tried to establish motives for the deed of violence, and nothing was more natural than the story that Ildico committed the deed out of revenge for Attila's murder of her relatives. According to the poet Saxo and the Quedlinburg Chronicle she avenged the murder of her father.

The famous Nibelungenlied, however, in its fundamental Norse form shapes the story as follows: Attila, the Terror of Europe, is the consort of the Burgundian princess Hild. He conquers and treacherously kills her brothers, the Burgundian kings Gundaheri, Godomar, and Gislahari, sons of Gibica, and afterward meets his death by the hand of their sister, his wife.

Felix Dahn has immortalized Ildico by his genius, and made her the most ideal, heroic woman of the Migration period. Reared in the palace of her father, King Visigast, in the land of the Rugii, she gives her tender love to Daghar, the son of Dagomuth, King of the Sciri; but a dark cloud hovers over her young life. Attila has heard of her incomparable beauty, and is still further aroused by the descriptions of her charms given by Ellak, his son by a Gothic princess. The Hun resolves upon the possession of Ildico.

Accompanied by her father and her betrothed, Ildico appears, by order of Attila, at the Hunnish court in Pannonia, where she is received with barbarous splendor and conducted into the reception hall. Here she sees the terrible Hun for the first time, but she was not frightened by the hideousness of the man; proudly erect she looked in his face firmly, defiantly, menacingly. He recognized in this glance such a cold, fathomless hate that he involuntarily closed his eyes before her: a slight shiver of a mysterious fear moved his frame; he dared not meet again her eye which pierced him, but he drank her overwhelming charms with the unbridled passion of the barbarian. Then the feast began, accompanied by the wild, discordant song of a Hunnish bard, in which he hurled scorn against the Germans. The bitter stanzas aroused Daghar to warlike poesy, which nearly cost his life at the hands of the wrathful Hunnish princes. Attila personally interfered so that hospitality should not be violated even toward hated Germans. But only for a moment is the protection extended, for by accident Attila obtained information of a mighty conspiracy of Visigast, Daghar, and Ardarich, king of the Gepidae, and then the full cup of his wrath is poured over the German princes, whom he reproaches with perjury and murderous intentions against himself. Foaming, he announces their punishment. The old king shall be put on the cross, the youth shall be impaled "behind my sleeping hall! Thou shalt hear his screams of agony, fair bride, while thou becomest mine."

The night arrives; the king of the Huns orders the sleeping hall to be prepared. For the first time in forty-six years he has the high pitcher of gold filled with unmixed Gazzatine wine and placed in his bridal chamber. He desires to gain courage to face the glances of the beautiful, but terrible bride. She is locked in the bridal chamber; no weapon, no means of escape can be found by her despairing search. To her enters the "scourge of God." He tries to win her by the promise that her son to be born shall become the lord over the world, the successor of Attila. She rejects the very thought of becoming the mother of a son whose father should be Attila, she would rather crush the head of the monster at birth. To give himself courage for the struggle with the proud, chaste German princess, the king drinks the heavy wine in eager draughts, and, unaccustomed to the potion, sinks into a heavy sleep. Ildico strangles him with her own golden hair, as he lies in drunken stupor.

When on the next day, after the long bridal night, the vassals of Attila break the heavy oaken entrance, they find their master dead on the floor, in a pool of blood. A loud, boisterous, barbaric mourning and lamentation arises in the Hunnish camp over the death of the greatest hero and ruler of their race. The fate of Ildico and her relatives seems sealed. But at the most critical moment help appears in the person of Ardarich, King of the Gepidae, and his retinue, who at the last moment save the Germans from the revenge of the exasperated Huns. The German tribes rise in masses and, after a few months, the liberation from the Hunnish yoke is accomplished.

The fame and glory of fair Ildico as the liberator of her people from the yoke of Attila rings from tribe to tribe in epic sagas and lyric lays. The song of Daghar, her bridegroom, in honor of the heroine, immortalizes her thus:

"Hail to you, heroes in golden hair,

Good Goths, Gepidae, sprightly with spears;

Greetings to you, glorious Germans!

Exult rejoicing to sounding harps:

He failed and fell, terror of holiness,

Scourge of God, Etzel the Evil!

Sword struck him not, nor shaft of the spear.

No: in darkness of night, vicious viper

Had crushed its hideous head.

Woman of woe, Ildico, the mighty maid,

Avenged with awe the races of men

And holy honor with heroic deed.

Sing to the harp the wailing song,

Raise it rousing to Daghar's bride,

The shimmering, shining savior,

Guarding German men prison-bound:

Ildico, idol of fame,

Hail to thee, lofty one, hail!" (H. S.)

The extensive Hunnish circle of lays throws light on the life and love of German womanhood during the centuries of wanderings; and so powerful is the influence and impression made by the Asiatic onslaught, that there is hardly a German saga of any importance that does not stand in some kind of relation to the Hunnish conquerors. To "sing and say" was an ancient talent of the Teutonic race, whose warlike life, with its bravery and heroism, inspired mightily to music and song. But the migrations, with their powerful changes, the contact with formerly unknown peoples, altered considerably the trend of the ancient traditions and the sagas of a world which they had abandoned. Indeed, many of the ancient racial sagas vanished from the memory of the Germanic tribes. Christianization and Romanization instilled into the souls of the race the germs of romanticism which rapidly overspread the old Germanic paganism with a luxuriant growth of new ideas founded on new ideals, and, great as that poetry is, it shows everywhere a contrast and a conflict between two different states of existence.

The Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, in its original Teutonic tongue, introduces us to the primeval life of Germanic heroism and warlike turmoil at the dawn of a still mystic past. The oldest High German lay, of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, telling of a superhuman duel between father and son, reveals to us the Titanic fierceness of the era of wanderings. We discover, however, in the third great poetic remnant, the Saga of Walthari of Aquitaine, not only the same descriptions of tremendous conflicts, of perfidy and greed, of joy over blood and wounds, but also the new elements of love and the loveliness and delicacy of the relations between the hero and his bride. The ancient legend, however, is transmitted to us only in the Latin garment in which Ekkehard, the monk of Saint Galle, clothed it in the tenth century, when the German language was at its lowest ebb and ecclesiastical Latin covered everything. But though the garment be Latin, the spirit of the saga is thoroughly German.

Walthari of Aquitaine, though composed in the tenth century, is a monument of love, and tells us graphically of the position of woman, at least in the upper stratum of ancient society, at the time of its composition. Attila, King of the Huns, who appears here in a very different light from that which throws such ghastly rays upon him in Felix Dahn's novel, Ildico, is represented in the epic of Walthari as almost a Germanic hero; and his career is pictured as a glorious conquest, in which he crushes all resistance. Like a torrent in flood, his hosts roll over the land of the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Aquitanians. Resistance is out of the question; hostages are demanded and given to guarantee faithfulness and peace. Hagen, Hildegund, "the pearl of Burgundy," and Walthari are taken to King Etzel's court. Here the romance begins. Hildegund, through the grace of her manners, her beauty, and her skill as a housekeeper, endears herself to Queen Ospirin, Attila's wife, who makes her treasurer and stewardess of her household. Hagen and Walthari become the heroes and heads of the Hunnish army. Hagen, however, seizes the first opportunity for flight on the news of King Gibich's death reaching him, believing himself thereby freed from all obligation toward Attila. Walthari, who has become better beloved by the Hunnish king than were his own sons, also meditates escape, a great longing for fatherland, parents, and friends having seized him. In the hope of escape, he declines marriage with the noble Hunnish maiden offered him by the king, under the pretext that love would interfere with his duties as a warrior and leader; for he who has once tasted the delights of love is weakened and unfit for deeds of valor. At this time a distant subject tribe revolts. Walthari is placed at the head of the army sent to crush the revolution, accomplishes acts of great heroism, and returns victorious. A triumphal feast is celebrated, and while the king and his retainers are overcome by wine and sleep Walthari prepares for escape.

Long before, however, he had won the consent of the maiden to whom he had once been betrothed as a child, and whom he secretly loves, to follow him in his flight. Weary and thirsty, he met Hildegund and asked for a drink. He tenderly kissed her hand and, while drinking, held and pressed it lovingly. He reminded her how they were betrothed as children. Hildegund, however, with maidenly modesty, mistook his advances for scorn. Said she: "Why dost thou let thy tongue speak whereof thy heart knows naught? Thou dost not desire a maiden like myself." But he convinces her, and in humble confidence Hildegund declares she will follow whither her beloved one will lead.

Now the occasion offers itself during the feast of victory. Well armed, and with horses laden with treasures, the lovers flee from the Hunnish court. During the day they hide in thickets; at night they ride over wild, almost impassable paths. Not once does an unchaste desire enter the heart of the hero, though he is brimming over with life and love. Thus they reach the Rhine, cross it near Worms, and seek a safe refuge in the Vosges Forest (Wasgenwald), to take the first rest since the night of their flight. Hildegund sings her hero to sleep; Walthari, his head in her lap, intrusts himself to the watchfulness of his love. But Gunther, King of the Franks, has heard of the treasures which Walthari carries; and despite the resistance of Hagen, who is pained by the necessity of fighting against his former brother in arms, he attacks the fleeing hero with twelve of his best warriors, including Hagen himself. Hildegund takes the approaching warriors for Huns, awakens Walthari, 'and entreats him to kill her, that she may not fall into the hands of the enemy. No one shall ever touch her body, as she is not to be his. It is not our task here to describe the ghastliness of the wounds inflicted, and Walthari's victory at the cost of the loss of a leg. Hildegund, in true old German fashion, again appears as an angel of mercy: she tends the wounds of the warriors and mixes their wine, as merry jests and friendly speeches cement the reconciliation. Walthari and Hildegund travel on to Aquitaine, where they are received with joy, and celebrate their marriage. Thus, we are able to gather from the Walthari Saga the traits of womanly modesty, humility, faithfulness. The woman's watch over the sleeping hero is especially touching. Her purity makes her ask for death when she sees the end of her hero and her own shame. Chaste and undefiled, she enters the realm of her future husband.

Most important among all the tribes of the German nation, and of most abiding value and influence for the future not only of Germany, but of Europe, were the Franks.

The early history of that great and important people, or rather bundle of tribes, is wholly legendary. Their legends describe certain characteristics of weakness and vice of the men of that Merovingian dynasty which again furnishes us rich material for the study of royal womanhood, which, with few exceptions, was of the most depraved character. Our principal contemporary source is a History of the Franks by Gregory, Bishop of Tours (A. D. 538-593). Though called the "Father of French History," we must confess that his honesty is equalled only by his credulity. The history of the Merovingian women belongs locally to France, but racially to Germany; it would, therefore, be impossible to leave it unnoticed in this volume.

One of the earliest kings of the Merovingian dynasty was Childeric, who, owing to his luxury and vices, was driven out by the Franks. He retired in exile to Bisinus, King of the Thuringians, where he seduced Basina the wife of the hospitable king. Childeric had left behind in Frankland a loyal friend with whom he had divided a gold piece, the friend promising when times were auspicious to send his half as a signal for Childeric's return. Eight years passed. The gold token reached the wandering king and he was restored to his realm. Basina soon afterward joined him at his court. She followed him, she said, because he was the bravest man she knew, but she warned him that she would desert him if she could find a better and mightier man than he was. This woman bore Clovis, a son who was worthy of his mother. In 493, Clovis took for his wife a Christian woman, Clotilde, the pious and beautiful daughter of Chilperic of Burgundy. The importance of this marriage of Clotilde to the pagan Clovis is self-evident, and it may have been suggested by the famous bishop, Saint Remigius. Clotilde at once began earnest efforts to convert her royal husband, but at first without avail. Everything tends to prove that Clovis was exceedingly tolerant, or perhaps rather indifferent, toward the Christian religion. His resistance was entirely passive, and without prejudice. Clovis's sister, Lantechilde, was an Arian, so was Autofleda, Theodoric's wife; but Albofleda, another sister of Clovis, remained a pagan. Clovis allowed the Christian baptism of his first son, who died in infancy. He reproached his wife, because he in a measure ascribed the infant's death to the influence of baptism, yet he consented to the baptism of the second son, Chlodomir, who fell ill, but survived. There was no spirit of propaganda in the naturalistic religion of the pagan king; he gave his wife a free scope, but refused to adopt the doctrine she advocated. In the fifteenth year of his reign, Clovis was at war with the powerful Alemanni. During the battle of Tolbiacum (Zulpich) he sees with apprehension the ranks of the Franks giving way before the rage of their opponents, and vows to adopt the religion of Christ, if He grants him victory. "O Christ," he exclaims, according to Gregorius of Tours, "I invoke devoutly thine glorious help. If thou accord me victory over these enemies, I shall believe in thee and shall be baptized in thine name. I have invoked my gods, but they are not ready to aid me." After the victory, he loyally executed the promise he had made to the God of Clotilde, the queen perhaps taking good care that the vow should be fulfilled. Bishop Remigius, with that prudence and political wisdom which always guided the princes of the Church, proceeded very slowly in the matter until he was assured that the consent of the Franks had been obtained. Three thousand of them allowed themselves to be baptized with their king, an event of the greatest importance in the world's history, for thereby the advance of Arianism was checked and heathenism was cast down. Clotilde, a woman and a queen, thus inaugurates the Christianization of the Germans, for Clovis thus becomes a "new Constantine" and the precursor of Charlemagne, the unifier of the Germans, the founder of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The words of Bishop Remigius are fulfilled: "Bend thine head, proud Sigambrian: adore what thou hast burned heretofore; burn what thou hast adored heretofore." From this time on Clovis's life is but a chain of successes. It is true that all those successes of the most Christian king (rex christianissimus), a title bestowed upon him and his successors, were attained by atrocity and perfidy surpassed only in the later history of his own dynasty, and then by the female members of the royal line. The central point of his policy was the murder of the smaller Prankish kings so that he might be the sole chief of the entire people. He caused Sigebert of Cologne to be slain by his own son, whom he then assassinated, thereby securing for himself the kingship over the Ripuarian Franks. He dispossessed Chararic and his son and, later, killed both for the sake of greater security. He slew Racagnar, King of Cambrai, and the latter's brother, Richard, with his own hand, and, later on, murdered their brother, Rigomer; so that the tale of deaths is a long one. The manner in which the Christian religion aided Clovis in the execution of his ambitious plans, shows with terrible truth how deeply in the sixth century the ideal of Christianity had sunk from its lofty height. No one of his contemporaries ever reproached Clovis for his crimes; the Franks sang them in lays; and the pious Bishop Gregory of Tours having related the murder of Sigebert, adds naïvely: "Every day God thus felled his enemies to the ground and increased his kingdom because he walked with a pure heart before the Lord and did what was agreeable in his sight."

His four sons, when among them was divided the Prankish realm, soon found a pretext to wage a religious war against the Arian Burgundians. Their king, Sigismund, after the death of his first wife, Ostrogotha, a daughter of the great Theodoric, took a second wife who, like a real stepmother, ill-treated the young son of the king. When the youth once bitterly reproached his stepmother for wearing the garments and jewels of his mother, the wicked woman persuaded the king that his son aspired to his throne. She attained her purpose: the youth was murdered. But Nemesis soon overtook the murderer of his son: he lost his throne and his life in battle against the Franks.

Besides Clotilde, the pious wife of Clovis, we meet, among the many women of terrible moral depravity, with another saintly woman in the Prankish dynasty. Chlotar, the youngest of Clevis's four sons, after having conquered the Thuringians, though he had numberless wives and concubines, took Radegundis, the daughter of the defeated Hermanfrid, for a wife. But the saintly woman shrank from the touch of the immoral king, and threw herself on the icy stone pavement, unmindful of the pain it gave her body, for her soul was filled with the agitation of ardent religious passion, and spent her time in prayer and devotion. When she returned to the bridal chamber, neither the heat of the fire, nor the impure royal bed could restore the natural heat of her body; and the king declared that he possessed rather a nun than a wife. Radegundis succeeded in obtaining a divorce from Chlotar and retired to a cloister, where she obtained the dignity of a deaconess, an honor which canonical regulations reserved only to virgins. In the cloister founded by her in the neighborhood of Poitiers, Radegundis introduced a very strict discipline, she enriched the house with precious relics, and passed the rest of her life in pious devotions and expiations for the sins of Chlotar, who was sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of moral corruption.

A story is told by Gregory of Tours concerning Ingundis, one of the concubines of Chlotar, the pious bishop calls her uxor (wife), however, which is worth repeating. Ingundis, in the full possession of the love of Chlotar, begged of him to secure a worthy husband for her sister Aregundia, and expatiated on the physical qualities and moral virtues of her sister. Chlotar betook himself to her country residence, and as she pleased him well he married her. Then he returned to Ingundis and informed her that he had given her sister the best man he could find in the realm of the Franks, namely, himself. With bitter disappointment in her heart, she, according to the statement of the chronicler, meekly submitted, saying: "What may seem good in the eyes of my lord, he may do; only may thy maid live in the grace of the king."

The fratricidal and internecine wars of Clovis's four sons were yet surpassed during the next generation by crimes and atrocities which overstepped all the limits and bounds of nature. Of Chlotar's four sons, only Sigebert's character is praiseworthy. Gregory relates that Sigebert was greatly ashamed of the disgraceful alliances of his brothers, who married daughters of the people of the lowest strata of society and changed them as lust and caprice prompted. Sigebert, however, married the daughter of Athanagild, King of the Visigoths. Her name was Brunehild (Brunehaut), a woman of great beauty and excessive vices and passions, whose name is linked in history with those of the greatest female criminals of royal blood.

Chilperic, Sigebert's degenerate brother, jealous of the latter's alliance, asked in marriage Galswintha, Brunehild's sister, but he soon sacrificed her to the ambition of Fredegond, one of his concubines, who had the queen strangled and then occupied her place. This blond-haired woman of low birth, with most alluring charms and versed in all the arts to arouse passion, soon reduced her royal paramour to such subjection that he had her crowned with great pomp in his capital of Soissons. Beginning with this marriage, atrocities do not cease until the entire family becomes extinct. But to this very day to quote the words of a French poet "The fair, the blonde, the terrible Fredegond is unforgotten and sung in lurid songs from Austrasia to Perigord."

Brunehild undertook to avenge her sister; the terrible struggle began between the Prankish slave girl and the daughter of the King of the Visigoths, a dramatic strife which has left an enduring memory in the annals of the history of crime. A son of Chilperic joins his father's enemy, and, with his aid, Sigebert is victorious everywhere; but when, in his city of Vitry, he is on the point of being raised upon the shield as king over the land of his brother, Sigebert is assassinated by two emissaries of Fredegond, who thus once more saves her husband by crime. The widowed Brunehild was at the time in Paris with her five-year-old son Childebert, and, as it seemed, at the mercy of Chilperic. But upon the news of Sigebert's death, Gundovald, an Austrasian chief, brought Childebert from Paris and had him proclaimed king. Brunehild was exiled to the basilica of Saint Martin's Cathedral, at Rouen. The oath of Fredegond upon sacred relics that she will not harm the fugitives is violated at once. She murders two sons of Chilperic, also Bishop Tractesetatus, who had solemnized the marriage. Brunehild saved herself by flight, and an even more sanguinary civil war ensues, in the course of which Chilperic too is murdered. At last the flagitious murderess Fredegond, at the age of sixty, equally dreaded and abhorred by friend and foe, dies strange to say by a natural death.

FREDEGOND WATCHING THE MARRIAGE OF CHILPERIC AND GALSWINTHA
After the painting by L. Alma-Tadema

Chilperic had taken a most unwilling bride, Galswintha, daughter of a king of the Visigoths and younger sister of Brunehild, notwithstanding the fierce jealousy of one of his concubines, Fredegond, who soon had the new queen strangled and then occupied her place. This blond-haired woman of low birth, with most alluring charms and versed in all the arts to arouse passion, soon reduced her royal paramour to such subjection that he had her crowned with great pomp in his capital of Soissons. Beginning with this marriage, atrocities did not cease until the entire family became extinct. But to this very day to quote the words of a French poet "The fair, the blonde, the terrible Fredegond is unforgotten and sung in lurid songs from Austrasia to Périgord".

Her rival and lifelong enemy Brunehild, who had vied with her in crimes and vices, met with a far more terrible end. After many years of further struggle she fell into the hands of Chlotar II., a son of Fredegond, who inflicted upon her a terrible punishment. Having charged her with the murder of at least ten Merovingian princes, he caused her, though a matron of seventy, to be frightfully tortured for several days; then she was placed on a camel and led for shame through the camp. Finally, she was tied to the tail of a wild horse and dragged to death: the hoofs of the horse crushed the limbs of the sinful queen into a shapeless mass. I know of no poem in the whole range of German literature which gives a more ghastly picture of that realistic scene of atrocity than one in which Ferdinand Freiligrath relates:

"How once in the fields of the river Marne near Chalons

Chlotar, the son of Chilperic, had the sinful Brunehild

Tied by her silver hair to a wild stallion;

To drag her galloping through the Prankish camp.

The neighing stallion started, and the hind hoofs struck

The aged form, breaking and wrenching limb from limb.

Dishevelled flew her whitened hair about her bloody brow.

The pointed pebbles drank her royal blood; and shuddering

Beheld the blood-accustomed Franks the horror of the judgment

Of their wrathful king Chlotar.

The glow of the red fires burning before every tent

Fell ghastly on the pain-distorted countenance.

With icy shower now the Marne washed from it the dust

The camel which had borne her through the ranks was spattered with her blood...."(H. S.)

We gladly leave the chapter of the Prankish nation under the Merovingians, for it is stained with the uninterrupted tragedy of brutal superstition, lust, perjury, treason, incest, murder of the closest blood relatives, malice, and cruelty. Such scenes as the Langobard Alboin's deeds and death, Brunehild's end, and the countless unspeakable vices mentioned by Bishop Gregory of Tours demonstrate sufficiently the terrible corruption of which even the best races are capable, when released from all the bonds of legal restraint in the time of peace, and when torn, root and branch, from a healthy native soil.

Even more characteristic is perhaps the poetic literature of the time, in which the unnatural vices are transformed and reflected as lofty virtues. What is the historian of culture to say when the contemporary presbyter and bishop, the pious poet, Venantius Fortunatus, glorifies and elevates both Brunehild and Fredegond as mirrors of virtue and grace? The latter, the slave girl who attained the crown through murder and prostitution, is to him the queen "who adorns the realm by her virtues. Wise in council, skilful, provident, useful to the Court; powerful of mind, magnanimous, excelling in all merits." Brunehild, on the other hand, "The ethereal Brunehild, shining more brilliantly than the stars, surpasses the light of the gems by the light of her countenance of milk and blood. The lilies mixed with roses cannot compare with her. She is a sapphire, a white diamond, a crystal, an emerald, a iaspis, nay, more, for all must yield the palm to her; Spain [referring to the Visigoths having occupied southern France and northern Spain] has produced a new jewel."

CHAPTER III

THE YEARS OF THE WANDERINGS, AS REFLECTED IN THE FIRST PERIOD OF BLOOM OF GERMAN LITERATURE (1100-1300)

The literary remnants of the pre-Carlovingian era are too scanty to permit us to form from them a perfect picture of Teutonic woman during the centuries of migrations. We are, however, able fairly to reconstruct the record by the aid of the rich treasures transmitted to us from a period five or six centuries later, a time epochal in the stormy youth of the German peoples. Though the original songs were partly destroyed through the antagonism of the Church and her efforts to root out the pagan memories and traditions, and, though these causes, to a large extent, made futile the strenuous efforts of Charlemagne to collect and preserve the ancient lays and sagas, the people continued to be influenced by their memories. The spirit of the "Legend from Ancient Times," of which Heine writes in his beautiful poem, Lorelei, never died out in the soul of the race. The spirit of expansion, of enlargement of horizon, fostered by the crusades and by the broad policy of the great Hohenstaufen dynasty brought about an extensive knowledge of the poetic, romantic, and historic materials and forms among the older French and Italian literatures. The old heroes of the German legend and history awakened from the long slumber of vague recollection and lived again in their influence upon the ideals of the people. The origin of the German heroic epic is thus closely connected with the most decisive period of the political birth of the nation. The heroic epic in its entirety, therefore, flows from, and is reflected in, the great revolution of power and in the changes of habitation which, for the first time, awakened the historical self-consciousness of the German war nobility and made possible a new development in the national literature. The hour of birth of the German heroic epic is the Migration period. In the heroic epic the story is clothed in a romantic garment. The epic poets, looking backward from their own stirring times as far as the formation period, symbolize the progress of history in the time when it may be said that ancient Europe was broken to pieces, and the Germans in a new formation and in a new soil came uninjured and even strengthened from the general devastation.

The type of heroes and heroines formed in the fifth and sixth centuries, and the heroes grown and developed from those ancient, yet largely mythological ideas and ideals were adapted to the new type of chivalrous manhood of the eleventh and twelfth centuries by the poets and singers of the circles of the princes and nobles whose high culture promoted the first classical period of bloom. The heroic saga is then the crystallization of the treasure of traditions formed in the heroic period of the race.

The saga material is divisible into the group or tribal cycles, and every cycle revolves around a galaxy of great, good, heroic, or evil women. This saga literature, in fact, furnishes us with a perfect portrait gallery of the German women of the two most important and formative periods of their race. We have mentioned in the previous chapter a few of the Hunnish cycle around Attila (Etzel). Of these Ildico and Hildegund are preeminent. We have alluded to the historical women of the Ostrogoth cycle those associated with the great Theodoric or, as called in the saga, Dietrich von Bern (Verona). Other cycles there are: the Norse, embracing Beowulf, King of the Jutes, and the Scandinavian heroes Wittich and Wieland, belongs to our theme but incidentally; the Langobard cycle, singing the Langobard heroes King Rother, Ortnit, Hugdietrich, and Wolfdietrich, and their adventures on the Mediterranean Sea and in a legendary Byzantine Empire, with a type of Oriental-Greek or Byzantine women, lies a little aside from our present consideration of German women. We can well confine ourselves to the Nibelungen Saga and Gudrun, the German Iliad and Odyssey, for these two heroic sagas of the German nation are the true exponents of all the characteristics of German women and men. The heroic epic in its germ is historical, but its growth freed it from its fetters of fact and decked it with ornaments from the domain of imagination. Historical and mythical elements are, then, strangely blended in these sagas. They develop exotically, scarce one that does not grow outside its original sphere, assimilate foreign unhistorical matter, blur all chronology, and anachronistically poetize the dim recollections of a historical but long-forgotten underground. The resultant of the convolutions and accretions is a complex epic cycle of sagas originating at different times, but always deeply rooted in the Migration period, wherein lay all the origins of Germanic historical existence.

The Nibelungenlied is the crystallization of the Burgundian Low Rhenish Hunnish cycle of Sagas. No more complete psychological record in poetic form of all the emotions, love and hate, vice and virtue, vanity and modesty, chastity and passion, piety and wickedness, womanly gentleness and virulence, is imaginable. All the phases of human existence are put before us in the lives of the Burgundian royal brothers Gunther, Gernot, Giselher; their mother Ute; and their sister Kriemhilde, whose character, as outlined, is the grandest and the most complex woman's character in the literature of the world. Kriemhilde, as the wife of the Low Rhenish hero Siegfried, and Brunhild, in the Norse version of the Saga, a former Valkyrie, humanized only to make it possible for her to be the wife of Gunther and to bear a deep love for Siegfried, are the opposite poles of womanhood.

It is, however, very difficult to obtain through the epics a correct estimate of the status of woman at a definite period. This difficulty is due not only to the poetic and fictitious characterization of the womanly types, but especially to the constant blending of ancient Germanic elements and twelfth century chivalry, knighthood, and romantic love (Minne), from which results an almost inextricable web of mythical and historical and purely romantic threads.

Siegfried wins Kriemhilde by a long wooing in the truly romantic fashion of the period of Minne song, but later inflicts upon her, in the truly old Germanic fashion, a severe physical chastisement for her quarrelsome temper. We find in the story traces of the primeval Germanic beliefs of the power of divination and prophecy. Kriemhilde has a momentous dream; she sees a beautiful falcon that she had reared with care seized and overpowered by two eagles. Her mother, Ute, interprets the dream correctly as foreshadowing the fate of her future husband:

"The falcon, whom thou cherished, he was a noble man,

May God in safety keep him, for no one other can."

In the morning before the final catastrophe overtook Siegfried, Kriemhilde related to him with a sorrowful heart another dream:

"I dreamed last night of trouble, and how that two wild boar

Chased you thro' the thicket, then were the flowers red.

That I must weep so sorely, in sooth! I have full need."

The magic arts and the cutting of runes by women are no longer mentioned in the greatest epic of the Middle High German period, while they are yet in full sway in the Norse version of Sigurd and Brunhild, or, as she is there called, Sigrdrifa. The gift of healing, however, is attributed to women in both versions.

As we have seen in ancient Germanic law, woman is under the guardianship, or Mundium (hand), of her nearest male relatives. So she is at the period of the Nibelungenlied. Of Kriemhilde it is said:

"Her guardians were three kings, rich and of noble race...

The maiden was their sister; the princes had her in ward."

Noble women resided usually in the inner secluded rooms, called hemenate. Siegfried did not see Kriemhilde at the Burgundian court for a whole year. Her favorite occupation in her seclusion was to embroider gold and jewels on silk, fashioning splendid garments for the bridal expeditions and courtly travels of the heroes. Rarely, and only on festal occasions, women appeared to receive distinguished guests. Then they are surrounded by their attendant warriors, who as a symbol of ready protection carry swords in their hands. Any offence to a noblewoman is taken up by her entire following and is expiated in bloody fashion. Marriage by capture no longer occurs, yet traces of it can be found everywhere in the later bridal expeditions of Gunther and the Hegelings. On the battlefield, Siegfried pays no gold for his bride, it is true, but he has to earn her in a hard struggle against the enemies of her three brothers.

The lot of woman is suffering and sorrow and care, as evidenced from such verses as:

"Whatever sufferings fall to the lot of the men,

All those are wept over by the women."

This is the tenor of all the epic songs. The Nibelungenlied has devoted an epilogue, The Lamentation, to the expression of those sentiments. There are constant allusions to woman's woes: here, the death of a hero is "lamented by many a woman;" there, "heavy heartache harasses the women;" "all the worthy women weep over him."

We may, after this brief introduction, consider the great characters of the lay. A peculiar position in the Germanic heroic epic is occupied by Helche, King Attila's first consort. Although a pagan, the conception left to us of the wife of the dread Hunnish king is of a woman who has become almost entirely Germanized. Because of her traits of mildness, kindness, and purity, she appears as the ideal of a true German queen, just as Attila himself, with his Germanized name (attila, little father, from Gothic atta, father), appears in many lays as a good, liberal, kind-hearted king. Helche is especially motherly toward the numerous noblewomen who stay at the Hunnish court as hostages; she is a friend of the conquered and the helper of the miserable and the exiled. Dietrich von Bern, in his exile from home and throne, is under her protection. She obtained for him from Etzel money and men for the reconquest of Bern; and when the enterprise failed, she intervened for him with the irate Hunnish king, and even gave him her sister's daughter in marriage. When the king complained of the obnoxious foreign fugitives, she convinced him that the reception of a hero like Dietrich could only be of advantage to his realm and an honor to himself. At the death of Helche there is universal mourning throughout the land; for, says the chronicler, a true mother of the innocent virgins and of the entire people has departed.

In the foreground of all the epics of the German cycles stand the two greatest characters of ancient womanhood, Kriemhilde and Brunhild.

At Worms on the Rhine in the land of the Burgundians, the three royal brothers Gunther, Gernot, and Giselher guard a glorious treasure, Princess Kriemhilde. Many kings and heroes try to win her hand, but she is indifferent to the love of men. The most glorious hero of the age, Siegfried, hears the fame of Kriemhilde's beauty and proceeds with a numerous and splendid retinue from his royal father's castle at Xanten up the Rhine to Worms to win Kriemhilde. After a six days' sail, Siegfried and his escort reach their destination, and without disclosing their identity they ride to court. Only Hagen of Tronje is able to give information to the Burgundians regarding the strange heroes. He relates how Siegfried, in spite of his youth, has already accomplished great exploits, how he slew the dragon and became invulnerable by bathing in the blood of the monster, how he defeated the Nibelungs and seized their immense treasure. Hagen exhorts Gunther to receive the youthful hero with kindness and honor in order that he may not "earn the hatred of the bold prince."

Hagen's advice is followed and Siegfried is received by the Burgundians with great honor. But before he is permitted even to look upon the beautiful Kriemhilde, he is invited to aid the Burgundians in reducing to subjection the rebellious kings Ludeger of Saxony and Ludegast of Denmark. Upon his triumphal return from the war his eyes are gladdened by the sight of the royal maid at the festive celebration of the victory. The princess attended by a hundred sword-bearing chamberlains and a hundred richly adorned gentlewomen, steps forth from her hemenate, or as says the lay:

"Then came the lovely one, as does the rosy morn

Through sombre clouds advancing...

As the bright Queen of heaven steps forth before each star

Above the clouds high soaring, in shine so pure and clear,

So shone the beauteous maiden o'er other ladies nigh."

The very first glance exchanged between the princess and the prince betrays their mutual love. Siegfried is more than ever resolved to win the beauteous maiden for his wife.

But the time of trial is not yet over for him. King Gunther has set his heart upon the war maid Brunhild, Queen of the Isenstein, and he is determined to win her as his wife. Siegfried's presence seems to offer a favorable opportunity to press his suit; he therefore agrees that if the hero from the Netherlands will help him to obtain the hand of Brunhild, he may marry Kriemhilde. With a heavy heart for well he knows Brunhild Siegfried consents. Accompanied by but a few warriors, Gunther and Siegfried sail down the Rhine, and after a twelve days' journey they land on Isenstein. In sight of the royal castle, surmounted by eighty-six towers rising in gloomy magnificence, Siegfried, in order to pass for a vassal, holds the stirrup of Gunther. Brunhild receives the dragon slayer, whose fame and glory are well known to her, with the words:

"'Welcome you are, Sir Siegfried, here to this my land.

What means your journey hither, now let me understand?'

Quoth Siegfried: 'Lady Brunhild, great thanks to you I owe,

That you, most gentle princess, should deign to greet me so

Before this noble hero who stands beside me here;

For he is my master...

He is by name Gunther, a mighty King and dread;

If he your love can conquer, his fondest wish is sped.'"