der Hrabanus Maurus, the pupil of Alcuin, became the seminary of a truly
national clergy. Here it was that Otfried, the author of the rhymed
"Gospel-book" was brought up. In the mean time, the heterogeneous elements
of the Carlovingian Empire broke asunder. Germany, by losing its French
and Italian provinces, became Germany once more. Ludwig the German was
King of Germany, Hrabanus Maurus Archbishop of Mayence; and the spirit of
Charlemagne, Alcuin, and Eginhard was revived at Aachen, Fulda, and many
other places, such as St. Gall, Weissenburg, and Corvey, where schools
were founded on the model of that of Tours. The translation of the
"Harmony of the Gospels," gives us a specimen of the quiet studies of
those monasteries, whereas the lay on the victory of Louis III. over the
Normans, in 881, reminds us of the dangers that threatened Germany from
the West at the same time that the Hungarians began their inroads from the
East. The Saxon Emperors had hard battles to fight against these invaders,
and there were few places in Germany where the peaceful pursuits of the
monasteries and schools could be carried on without interruption. St. Gall
is the one bright star in the approaching gloom of the next centuries. Not
only was the Bible read, and translated, and commented upon in German at
St. Gall, as formerly at Fulda, but Greek and Roman classics were copied
and studied for educational purposes. Notker Teutonicus is the great
representative of that school, which continued to maintain its reputation
for theological and classical learning, and for a careful cultivation of
the national language, nearly to the close of the eleventh century. At the
court of the Saxon Emperors, though their policy was thoroughly German,
there was little taste for German poetry. The Queen of Otto I. was a
Lombard, the Queen of Otto II. a Greek lady; and their influence was not
favorable to the rude poetry of national bards. If some traces of their
work have been preserved to us, we owe it again to the more national taste
of the monks of St. Gall and Passau. They translate some of the German
epics into Latin verse, such as the poem of the "Nibelunge," of "Walther
of Aquitain," and of "Ruodlieb." The first is lost; but the other two have
been preserved and published.(3) The stories of the Fox and the Bear, and
the other animals,--a branch of poetry so peculiar to Germany, and epic
rather than didactic in its origin,--attracted the attention of the monks