Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/591

German Literature.—I. From Oldest Pre-Christian Period to 800 a.d.—There are no written monuments before the eighth century. The earliest written record in any Germanic language, the Gothic translation of the Bible by Bishop Ulfilas, in the fourth century, does not belong to German literature. It is known from Tacitus that the ancient Germans had an unwritten poetry, which among them supplied the place of history. It consisted of hymns in honour of gods, or songs commemorative of the deeds of heroes. Such hymns were sung in chorus on solemn occasions, and were accompanied by dancing; their verse form was alliteration. There were also songs, not choric, but sung by minstrels before kings or nobles, songs of praise, besides charms and riddles. During the great period of the migrations poetic activity received a fresh impulse. New heroes, like Attila (Etzel), Theodoric (Dietrich), and Ermanric (Ermanrich), came upon the scene; their exploits were confused by tradition with those of older heroes, like Siegfried. Mythic and historic elements were strangely mingled, and so arose the great saga cycles, which later on formed the basis of the national epics. Of all these the Nibelungen saga became the most famous, and spread to all Germanic tribes. Here the most primitive legend of

Otfried’s “Evangelienbuch”
Section of a page, IX-Century MS., Court Library, Vienna

Siegfried’s death was combined with the historical destruction of the Burgundians by the Huns in 435, and affords a typical instance of saga-formation.

Of all this pagan poetry hardly anything has survived. The collection that Charlemagne caused to be made of the old heroic lays has perished. All that is known are the "Merseburger Zaubersprüche," two songs of enchantment preserved in a manuscript of the tenth century, and the famous "Hildebrandslied," an epic fragment narrating an episode of the Dietrich saga, the tragic combat between father and son. It was written down after 800 by two monks of Fulda, on the covers of a theological manuscript. The evidence afforded by these fragments, as well as such literature as the "Beowulf" and the "Edda," seems to indicate that the oldest German poetry was of considerable extent and of no mean order of merit.

II. The Old High German Period (c. 800-1050). Christianity and its Influence.—Between the years 500 and 700 occurred the High German soundshifting, which divided the dialects of the South, High German, from those of the North, Low German. The history of German literature is henceforth mainly concerned with High German monuments. In fact, until the close of the Middle Ages Southern Germany occupies the leading place in literary production.

The Goths, the first Germanic tribe to be converted, embraced Christianity in the form of Arianism. But they soon gave way to the Franks, who became the dominant people, and the conversion of their king, Clovis, to Christianity, in 496, was of decisive importance. The conversion of Germany, vigorously carried on since the eighth century by Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries, notably by St. Boniface (d. 755), was completed when Charlemagne (d. 814) forced the heathen Saxons to submit to his rule and to be baptized, and united all the German tribes under his sway. Under him and his successors Christianity was firmly established. The clergy became the representatives of learning; the newly established monasteries and their schools, above all those of Fulda and St. Gall, were the centres of culture. The language of the Church was Latin, but preaching and instruction had to be carried on in the vernacular. The prose literature that arose to serve this purpose is only of linguistic interest. The poetry that developed during this period was wholly Christian in character. Examples are the "Wessobrunner Gebet" and the "Muspilli," the latter an alliterative poem on the destruction of the world; both date from the ninth century. The Church, naturally, opposed the old heathen songs and strove to supplant them by Christian poems. Thus arose the Old Saxon epic, the "Heliand," which was composed between 822 and 840 by an unknown poet, at the suggestion of King Louis the Pious. It is written in Low German and is the last great poem in alliterative verse. The story of the Redeemer is here told from a thoroughly German point of view, Christ being conceived as a mild but powerful chief, and His disciples as vassals or thanes. The same subject is treated in the "Evangelienbuch" of Otfried, a monk of Weissenburg, the first German poet known by name. It was completed about 868 and dedicated to Louis the German. While not possessing the literary merit of the "Heliand," it is of the greatest importance because it definitely introduces into German poetry the principle of rhyme, already familiar from the Latin church hymns. Rhyme was also used by the unknown author of the "Ludwigslied" to celebrate the victory of Louis III over the Northmen at Saucourt (881). This is the only song of the period not purely religious in character, though its author was probably a cleric.

During the ninth and tenth centuries German poetry fell into neglect; at the courts of the Saxon (919-1024) and Franconian emperors (1024-1125) and in the monasteries the Latin language was almost exclusively cultivated, and thus a body of Latin poetry arose, of which the tenth-century "Waltharius" (Waltharilied) of Ekkehard, a monk of St. Gall (d. 973), the "Ruodlieb" (1030), and the "Ecbasis Captivi" (c. 940) are the most noteworthy examples. The "Waltharilied" relates an old Burgundian saga and is thoroughly German in spirit, while the "Ecbasis" is the oldest medieval beast epic that we possess. The Latin dramas of the nun Roswitha (Hrotsvitha) hardly belong to German literature.

The great master of German prose in this period was