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nf Jlnrt^a Ctbrartpfi RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION SOURCES AND STUDIES Edited tinder the auspices of the DEPAKTMENT OF HISTOEY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY General Editor Austin P. Evans, Ph.D. Professor of History Associate Editors Frederick Barry, Ph.D. John Dickinson, Ph.D. Associate Professor of the History of Professor of Cottstitutionat Law, Unu Science versity of Pennsylvania Advisory Board Franklin H. Giddings, LL.D. Dana Carleton Munro, L.H.D. and Dodge Professor Medieval History, Professor Emeritus _ of Sociology of the History of Civilisation in Residence Princeton University Carlton J. H. Hayes, Litt.D. David Muzzey, Ph.D. Professor of History Professor of History F. J. Foakes Jackson, D.D. James T. Shotwell, LL.D. Charles A. Briggs Graduate Professor Professor of History; Director of the Di- of Christian Institutions in Union Theo- vision of Economics and History, Carnegie logical Seminary Endowment for International Peace A. V. Williams Jackson, LL.D. Lynn Thorndike, Ph.D. Professor of Indo-Iranian Languages Professor of History Charles Knapp, Litt.D. William L. Westermann, Ph.D. Professor of Greek and Latin Professor of Ancient History Howard Lee McBain, LL.D. Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, LL.D. Ruggles Professor of Constitutional Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy Law and Dean of the Graduate Facul- ties Volume XIII PEASANT LIFE IN OLD GERMAN EPICS From •Drutschc Utcraturcicschichic," hy Alfred Birsr, by prrmlsxioii of C. //. Brch'schc Verhuisbucliliandhinij. Hartmann von Aue From a miniature of the VVeirigartner Liecierhaiidschrift. PEASANT LIFE IN OLD GERMAN EPICS MEIER HELMBRECHT AND DER ARME HEINRICH TRANSLATED FROM THE MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY BY CLAIR HAYDEN BELL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GERMAN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA NEW YORK COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 19 3 I :B4 33p Copyright 1931 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Published October, 1931 Printed in the United States of America The Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, Iowa PREFACE Medieval writings which depict the life of humble folk are rare. The two thirteenth-century poems which are offered here in translation afford a glimpse of some of the more inti- mate aspects of life during that period. The one follows the career of a peasant boy who would play the knight; the other, employing the age-old theme of vicarious sacrifice, paints a picture, somewhat idealized, of the relations existing between a noble landowner and his dependent peasantry. Although Der arme Heinrich was written earlier by some half century than Meier Helmbrecht, the latter poem is given first place in the following pages. This is not only because of its greater dramatic interest, but because it is, far more than Der arme Heinrich^ a narrative of medieval German peasant life, and is thus more particularly the poem which justifies our title. It is, furthermore, of much greater value in its descrip- tion of social conditions and in its cultural content in general. The translations are based upon the texts as published in Panzer's fourth edition of Meier Helmhrecht and Gierach's edition of Der arme Heinrich. A long line of great poets and prose writers — Cowper, Ruskin, Newman, Wilhelm von Hum- boldt, Goethe — tell us that translation from one language to another, and particularly of verse, with full fidelity to both form and content, is impossible; that shipwreck must inevitably be suffered either on Scylla or in Charybdis. Both of these epics were written in the rhymed couplets that prevailed at the time, WMth four stresses to the line — a form which impresses us today as trying and monotonous; our ear is accustomed to an entirely different and freer flow of verse. We value these epics today for their content rather than for their formal beauty. And so I have made it my first endeavor to render faithfully the con- tent of the poems. I may add, however, that I have sought to ^^-u^^t%J^ ^/^ 1 make a line for line rendering, with a verse-numbering identical with that of the German editions, a fact which enables easy reference to the originals. I shall be content if the translations, with all their limitations, prove to be of service to readers interested in this field, to whom the medieval language of the originals would constitute too great a deterrent. The explanatory notes and the bibliography are placed at the end, where they will not annoy those who are not inter- ested in them. The bibliography lists only the essential works under "General Literature"; otherwise it aims to be complete. It has seemed worth while to include such a bibliography here, since only fragmentary ones are available elsewhere. The arrangement under the various subdivisions of the bibliography is chronological, making it possible to observe the growth of interest in these works and to follow the critical discussion of them. Obligation to the commentaries of European editors is acknowledged, and gratitude to friends who have offered sug- gestions. These translations, which were begun only as a pas- time, would doubtless still be lying abandoned in a desk drawer but for the interest and counsel of Professors Austin P. Evans and Dana C. Munro. The former, who is the general editor of the series in which this volume appears, has afforded me guid- ance and constructive suggestion at every turn. More help than one may expect to receive even from the most generous colleague was given me, too, by my friend. Professor S. Gris- wold Morley, particularly with the translation of Meier Helmhrecht. To these good friends I express my cordial thanks. C. H. B. University of California June, 193 CONTENTS Introduction .... ILLUSTRATIONS Hartmann von Aue ..... Frontispiece Map OF THE Helmbrecht Region . 12 A Twelfth-Century "Farmer's Almanac" . 32 Neidhart von Reuenthal and His Peasants . 42 The Peasant 66 The Knight ....... 130 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Two epic poems possessing unique value and interest stand out in the field of medieval German literature: Hartmann von Aue's Der arme Heinrich and Wernher der Gartenaere's Meier Helmbrecht. Although different in spirit and in sub- stance, both treat of peasant life; both are rooted in German soil. They are the first unified, national stories, German in theme and in setting, developed in German literature. Meier Helmbrecht is the greatest didactic satire produced in medieval Germany.^ Unless we except Der arme Heinrich, which preceded it by some half-century, it is the first and only medieval German poem built on a consistent psychological basis, with the interest centered in character development rather than the march of events. The author consciously sets a psychological problem and solves it with astonishing directness and logical consistency. The Germanic scholar Franz Pfeiffer writes: "The German middle ages possess no second poem which might be placed at the side of this fresh, vigorous and gripping portrayal of folk life. How entirely different our literature would appear, what accomplishments its history would have to record, if this illustrious precedent . had awakened imitation !"^ The other epic writers of the time sought their material in a remote, idealized past. Their aim was to entertain by the presentation of a series of motley adventures, strung together loosely on the thread of the narrative, shallow and conventional, bizarre and fantastic, borrowed for the most part from foreign sources, and bearing little imprint of national characteristics. The author of Meier Helmbrecht — 1 A discussion of the author is found below, p. 13. 2 Pfeiffer, "Forschung und Kritik," Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-his- torischen CAasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, XLI (1863), 288-312. the realist of the thirteenth century — set about, on the other hand, to relate something which he had seen "with his own eyes." Dipping into the fullness of life about him, he portrays the life and customs of his times In a poem which surpasses all others in medieval German literature in its value to the student of Germanic culture. He holds up a mirror where chi- valry may behold its decay; the peasants, a grim warning against disloyalty to their class. The splendor of knighthood had begun to pale early In the thirteenth century. More and more during the crusades and the wars in Italy men in the lower strata of knighthood rose into prominence, men of coarser strength and hardihood. Possessing no land, they found life carefree in time of war; in peace they had often to support themselves by plundering. An armed and mounted class, accustomed to war service, con- scious of Its power and difficult to hold In check, was a blessing only so long as Its forces were directed toward some great and definite goal, such as the crusades and foreign wars had pro- vided. The decline of the central power, the lack of foreign interests, the sinking of the ideals of knighthood, made this class an open menace to the safety of their own country. Within the empire the feuds, which even Kaiser Friedrlch had not been able to subdue, gained the upper hand under his suc- cessors. The knight became a brigand, a brawling disturber of the peace, who stormed from one feud to another. Material want contributed greatly to the sinking of the noblest of the higher classes. Their affluence inevitably declined, because court life and the tournament consumed large sums. Economic superiority passed rapidly into the hands of the ascendant citizenry. From the middle of the thirteenth century the mis- use of armed force became more and more prevalent; the tournaments, too, as Relnmar von Zweter remarks, became more rinderlich than ritterlichp^ia.ny an impoverished knight sought to Improve his economic lot by taking a wife from the rich peasant class, for the sake of her money and landT^*1VIany a rich townsman and well-to-do peasant sought to win the title of knighthood; often money and land were sacrificed to this end^)(Men of the lower classes placed honor and life at stake for the mere privilege of a place in the following of some robber knight who had built himself an impregnable nest on top of a hill or crag and scourged the surrounding country with his plundering sallies.

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