ding part in the Crusades, who fought with the Emperors
against the Pope, or with the Pope against the Emperors, who lived in
magnificent castles like that of the Wartburg, and founded cathedrals like
that of Cologne (1248), we must read the poetry which they admired, which
they composed or patronized. The subjects of their Romances cannot gain
our sympathy. They are artificial, unreal, with little of humanity, and
still less of nationality in them. But the mind of a poet like Wolfram von
Eschenbach rises above all these difficulties. He has thoughts of his own,
truly human, deeply religious, and thoroughly national; and there are
expressions and comparisons in his poetry which had never been used
before. His style, however, is lengthy, his descriptions tiresome, and his
characters somewhat vague and unearthly. As critics, we should have to
bestow on Wolfram von Eschenbach, on Gottfried von Strassburg, even on
Hartman von Aue and Walther von der Vogelweide, as much of blame as of
praise. But as historians, we cannot value them too highly. If we measure
them with the poets that preceded and those that followed them, they tower
above all like giants. From the deep marks which they left behind, we
discover that they were men of creative genius, men who had looked at life
with their own eyes, and were able to express what they had seen and
thought and felt in a language which fascinated their contemporaries, and
which even now holds its charm over all who can bring themselves to study
their works in the same spirit in which they read the tragedies of
AEschylus, or the "Divina Commedia" of Dante.

But the heyday of German chivalry and chivalrous poetry was of short
duration. Toward the end of the thirteenth century we begin to feel that
the age is no longer aspiring, and hoping, and growing. The world assumes
a different aspect. Its youth and vigor seem spent; and the children of a
new generation begin to be wiser and sadder than their fathers. The
Crusades languish. Their object, like the object of many a youthful hope,
has proved unattainable. The Knights no longer take the Cross "because God
wills it;" but because the Pope commands a Crusade, bargains for
subsidies, and the Emperor cannot decline his commands. Walther von der
Vogelweide already is most bitter in his attacks on Rome. Walther was the
friend of Frederick II. (1215-50), an Emperor who reminds us, in several
respects, of his namesake of Prussia. He was a soverei