As we have already said (p. 233), the women of Germany throughout the Middle Ages were a very sedate class, without sufficient strength of character or sufficient self-consciousness to make their influence felt externally. Their life was monotonous and narrow. In the castles dul ness reigned supreme, interrupted for the men by the excitement of the chase and feuds, for the women only by occasional visits. In the cities the struggles between the various classes concerned only the men, while in the huts of the peasantry misery weighed so heavily upon both hus band and wife that even the consolation of bearing it together offered little relief. The poetry of the period is contradicted by further con siderations, not less weighty, which prove that this question of the rela tion of the sexes was often treated, when brought face to face with prac tical life, in a fashion quite characteristic of the ancient Teutons. For example, up to the time when they became Protestants the Frieslanders energetically resisted the papal law of celibacy and refused to tolerate unmarried priests.
At the same time, the phase which the romantic period of knight errantry assumed on German soil deserves attention. Plate 44 (fig. 1) contains an illustration belonging to this epoch of German history. It represents a knight who is about to depart on his travels receiving his helmet from his lady. It is copied from the so-called illancssian Coder, in a collection of love-songs which was made at Strassburg, but is now in Paris.
Italian Social Life —In Italy the condition of society was somewhat different, for in spite of all political storms the influence of antiquity upon it had never died out. Moreover, the growth of the Roman hier archy secured to that land dominion over the whole world for almost another thousand years, made it the centre of intellectual movements, and by the wealth which flowed from all parts of the West gave it the means to gratify the demands of its increasing culture. Consequently, in point of social culture, and especially of artistic development, Italy was a century in advance of the countries north of the Alps, and, so far as was allowed by the slight international intercourse of the Middle Ages, was their model, as France has been in later times.
Figure 2 represents a scene from Italian social life taken from a wall painting by Orcagna. A number of ladies and gentlemen are seated on a grassy bank, enjoying themselves with music and conversation. Two of the gentlemen carry falcons in their hands, for falcons were a frequent accom paniment of outdoor amusements, as was the case also in other countries. We find in pictures these birds even on the hands of ladies. One of the ladies is fondling a lap-dog, a form of amusement so much in vogue that these little pets are sometimes found immortalized on the tombstones of their mistresses. A second lady is playing on a cithern-like instrument, which at a later period gave place to the lute or mandolin, as shown in Figure 5 44).
We cannot attempt to give a complete picture of the brilliant life developed under the action of three distinct influences—that of the papal hierarchy, realizing in the fulness of its power the gigantic conceptions of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. ; that of the various Italian princes, turbulent in their external relations, but seeking in their courts to foster a refinement of manners and a cultured intercourse; and that of the civic republics, sturdily maintaining their own independence, and thus repre senting the conservative principle. But many a brilliant ray from the South had already penetrated the North under the Hohenstaufens, and had helped to widen the horizon, to warm the sentiment, and to ennoble the impulses of the nation. Though from a merely political standpoint the German expeditions to Rome may perhaps be justly criticised,' vet from the standpoint of civilization they were of the greatest importance, and no potent voice was raised against them in the ages in which they took place. The Germans imbibed therefrom the very substance of intel lectual life, the appreciation of existence which their deep longings and wide powers of comprehension had sought in vain in the dull monotony of their own home.
That the German character would lose any of its distinctive traits by contact with foreign countries was a danger which existed as little then as later when it came under French influence. On the contrary, the talent for embodying their conceptions in beautiful forms, which has always been a characteristic of the Southern nations, would have been a precious gain for the Germans if they had been able to appropriate it. But the pre dominance of feeling in the German nature, so essential for the attain ment of that universality of intellectual perceptions which is its pecu liar distinction, demanded as its first condition an enlargement of the field of vision and of aspirations in order to gain validity and complete development.
No/rammer/an Italy was to Germany, that the Moor ish kingdoms were to France and to the Christian parts of Spain. The religious enthusiasm of the Moors led to higher conceptions of life, and bloomed forth in such a diffusion of material prosperity over the Penin sula as it had not before enjoyed and has never since experienced. Their glowing Oriental imagination enkindled the world of sentiment, and, to some extent, of thought, which, while it rapidly became exhausted by its own fire and glow, yet continued to cast long-enduring reflections over the neighboring Christian states. There, in truth, originated that knighthood of romance which, extending, to the Northern countries, became the starting-point of a higher culture that gradually permeated all classes of society. The impulses which led to the institution of chivalry were indeed due to external causes, but its real significance, which far exceeded the reach of Mohammedan culture, was derived from the character of the nations among whom it gained a foothold.