with the
impetuosity of Franks and Goths, but with the polished reserve of a
Godefroy of Bouillon and the chivalrous bearing of a Frederick Barbarossa.
The German Emperors and nobles opened their courts to receive their guests
with brilliant hospitality. Their festivals, the splendor and beauty of
their tournaments, attracted crowds from great distances, and foremost
among them poets and singers. It was at such festivals as Heinrich von
Veldecke describes at Mayence, in 1184, under Frederick I., that French
and German poetry were brought face to face. It was here that high-born
German poets learnt from French poets the subjects of their own romantic
compositions. German ladies became the patrons of German poets; and the
etiquette of French chivalry was imitated at the castles of German
knights. Poets made bold for the first time to express their own feelings,
their joys and sufferings, and epic poetry had to share its honors with
lyric songs. Not only France and Germany, but England and Northern Italy
were drawn into this gay society. Henry II. married Eleanor of Poitou, and
her grace and beauty found eloquent admirers in the army of the Crusaders.
Their daughter Mathilde was married to Henry the Lion, of Saxony, and one
of the Provencal poets has celebrated her loveliness. Frenchmen became the
tutors of the sons of the German nobility. French manners, dresses,
dishes, and dances were the fashion everywhere. The poetry which
flourished at the castles was soon adopted by the lower ranks. Travelling
poets and jesters are frequently mentioned, and the poems of the
"Nibelunge" and "Gudrun," such as we now possess them, were composed at
that time by poets who took their subjects, their best thoughts and
expressions, from the people, but imitated the language, the metre, and
the manners of the court poets. The most famous courts to which the German
poets resorted, and where they were entertained with generous hospitality,
were the court of Leopold, Duke of Austria (1198-1230), and of his son
Frederick II.; of Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia, who resided at the
Wartburg, near Eisenach (1190-1215); of Berthold, Duke of Zaehringen
(1186-1218); and of the Swabian Emperors in general. At the present day,
when not only the language, but even the thoughts of these poets have
become to most of us unintelligible and strange, we cannot claim for their
poetry more than an historical interest. But if we wish to know the men
who took a lea