The Mon mente. translation into Rhine-Frankish of the tract De fide catholica contra Judæos by Isidorus. The same translation is also to be found in part in another codex, the Monser Fragmente, soseer Frag called from the monastery of Monsee in Upper Austria, where the copy was made. Besides the tract by Isidorus, the Monsee codex contains a fragment of the Gospel of St Matthew, a sermon, De vocatione gentium, on the text that God may be prayed to in all languages, and the seventy-sixth Sermon of St Augustine, all in the same Rhine-Frankish dialect.1 These translations, although they date from the earliest years of Charles the Great's reign, are the best specimens of Old High German prose from the Carlovingian period. To find a writer worthy of being placed beside the translator of the Monsee Fragments—it is difficult to believe that there was more than one hand engaged in the work—we have to turn to the St Gall monk Notker, more than two hundred years later. In this group of scholastic literature may also be included several interlinear versions of Latin works, such as the twenty-six Murbacher Hymnen, a Tegernsee Carmen ad Deum, and fragments of various Psalms. The Benedictine Rule (Benediktinerregel) was also glossed at St Gall between 800 and 804.2 The Wessobrunner Gebet, ca. 780. Having once admitted the vernacular into its liturgy, the Church began to interest itself in popular verse. Latin ecclesiastical poetry was gradually degenerating into a mere jingle of words, and it was only a question of time for a poetry in German to take its place. The earliest example of an interest in such poetry on the part of the clergy is the Wessobrunner Gebet from a MS. which formerly belonged to the monastery of Wessobrunn in Bavaria. On the last two pages of this MS., which contains a strange medley of monastic lore in Latin, are to be found under the heading De poeta some twenty-one lines of German. The fragment begins with the following nine lines of alliterative verse: 1G. A. Hench, The Monsee Fragments, Strassburg, 1890; also by the same editor, Der althochdeutsche Isidor (Quellen und Forschungen, 72), Strassburg, 1893. Cp. P. Piper, .c., 93 ff. 2 Cp. P. Piper, .c., 105 ff., and Nachträge (D.N.L., 162 [1898]), 22 ff. Here the verses break off abruptly, and are followed by the fragment of a prayer in prose. There is not, as was formerly believed, anything pre-Christian in the ideas expressed in these lines; their theme is obviously the beginning of the first chapter of Genesis, with possibly a reminiscence of the second verse of the ninetieth Psalm. But they retain something of the epic grandeur and reverential awe of the early Germanic imagination: the heathen spirit is there, although disguised in the garb of the new faith. The dialect of the poem is Bavarian, but such forms as dat and gafregin point to a Saxon original. This original was probably written from memory by a Bavarian monk. The MS. dates from the end of the eighth century, but the original may have been considerably older. Winileod. From a poetic beginning like the Wessobrunn Prayer to verses on secular themes was only a step. As early as 789 a capitular was issued forbidding nuns "to write or send winileodos," and with these winileodos may possibly be identified The the beginnings of German love poetry: in any case, the winileod was a secular popular song as opposed to the religious poetry of the Church. With the exception, however, of a half Latin fragment of the eleventh century 2 and the so-called Liebesgruss in the Latin epic Ruodlieb, no lyrics have been preserved from the Old High German period. Although insisting upon the strictest discipline within the monasteries, Charles the Great was not intolerant of the secular element in the germinating literature of his reign. Indeed, so far from showing intolerance, he was fully aware that the preservation of his own memory lay in the hands of the popular singers: he accordingly commanded that the 1 "Das erfuhr ich unter (den) Menschen (als der) Wunder grösstes, dass (die) Erde nicht war noch (der) Überhimmel, noch Baum noch Berg [nicht] war, nicht... kein . noch (die) Sonne schien, noch (der) Mond leuchtete, noch die herrliche See. Als da nichts war (von) Enden noch Wenden (i.e., Grenzen), [und] da war der eine allmächtige Gott, (der) Männer mildester und da waren auch mit ihm manche gute Geister. Und Gott heilig. The text is that of W. Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, 4th ed., Halle, 1897. Cp. Müllenhoff and Scherer, l.c., 1, 1 f.; P. Piper, l.c., 139 ff. 2 The so-called Kleriker und Nonne. Cp. R. Koegel, .c., 1. 2, 136 ff. songs of the people should be collected and preserved.1 This collection is lost, but a fragment of an alliterative The Hilde." Heldenlied," preserved in a copy made by two monks brandslied, of the monastery of Fulda about 800, affords an idea of the kind of poetry which Charles's collection would have This is the Hildebrandslied, the lay of Hilde ca. 800. contained. brand and Hadubrand.2 "Ik gihôrta" (so begins the poem) "dat seggen, dat sih urhêttun ænon muotin, untar heriun tuêm." The old Hildebrand and the youthful Hadubrand stand opposed to each other in the course of battle. The old man asks his opponent his father's name. "My father," replies Hadubrand, was Hildebrand, my name is Hadubrand." A faithful vassal of Theodorich, Hildebrand had fled with him from the wrath of Odoaker and found refuge with the Huns. The old warrior is now on his way back to the home where he had left wife and child thirty years before. He doubts no longer that it is his own son who stands before him, and joyfully offers him the arm-rings which he has received as gifts from the great Attila. But Hadubrand, with the impetuosity of youth, only sees in the old man's story an excuse to avoid a conflict: The conflict between father and son is unavoidable : "Welaga nû, waltant got" (cries Hildebrand), "wewurt skihit. 1 Einhard, Vita Caroli Magni (ed. P. Jaffé, Berlin, 1876), cap. 29. 2 Müllenhoff and Scherer, 7.c., 1, 2 ff.; P. Piper, .c., 142 ff. The dialectic peculiarities of the text are explained on the assumption that the original was Low German and written from memory by a High German; the Fulda monks (East Frankish dialect) then copied this High German version. The fragment consists of sixty-eight lines. The fight begins, but the MS. breaks off and leaves us in ignorance as to how it ends. There is, however, little doubt that the close was tragic; the youthful warrior falls by his father's hand, like Sohrab by Rustem's in the similar Persian saga. Like the Scandinavian Edda and the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, the Hildebrandslied is composed in alliterative verse. Alliterative In this, the oldest metrical system of Germanic poetry, the line verse. is divided rhythmically into two halves. These two half-lines are connected by alliteration,—that is to say, the syllables upon which most stress is laid in reading or singing the lines begin with the same letter or sound. Each line has usually three such alliterating syllables, two in the first half and one in the second, but there may be only two. All initial vowels alliterate indifferently with one another, and consonantal combinations such as se, sp, and st, are regarded as single sounds. The Hildebrandslied is an example of the rough, uncouth ballad out of which the German national epic was, at a much, later date, to be constructed. There is no Homeric breadth here, there are no literary graces; in place of them we find a directness of speech, a fierce dramatic intensity and a grim irony, which are to be sought for in vain in less primitive literature. But the Hildebrandslied stands alone; the fragmentary Anglo-Saxon Waldere, which is evidently a translation of an Old High German lay, is the only other evidence we possess of a national epic in the Carlovingian age. 1 "Ich hörte das sagen, dass sich (als) Kämpfer allein begegneten Hildebrand und Hadubrand zwischen Heeren zwei" (11. 1-3). "Hadubrand sprach, Hildebrands Sohn: Mit Gere soll man Gabe empfangen, Spitze wider Spitze. Du bist [dir], alter Hunne, unmässig schlau. Lockst mich mit deinen Worten, willst mich mit deinem Speere werfen, bist so (ein) alt gewordener Mann, so du ewigen Betrug (im Schilde) führtest. Das sagten mir Seeleute, die westwärts über das Meer (die Wendelsee) kamen, dass ihn der Kampf hinraffte: tot ist Hildebrand, Heribrands Sohn" (ll. 36-44). "Wolan nun, waltender Gott, Wehgeschick geschicht. Ich wallte (der) Sommer und Winter (ie., der Halbjahre) sechzig ausser Landes, wo man mich immer auslas in (das) Volk (der) Krieger, ohne dass man mir bei irgend einer Burg den Tod [nicht] gab: nun soll mich (mein) liebes Kind (mit dem) Schwerte hauen, (mich) niederstrecken mit seiner Streitaxt, oder ich ihm zum Tode werden " (II. 49-54). B 18 Ludwig the Pious, 814-840. CHAPTER III. CHARLES THE GREAT'S SUCCESSORS. BIBLICAL POETRY. It was hardly to be expected that Charles the Great should have had a successor of such character and intellectual breadth as himself. At his death in 814, the responsibilities of the empire fell upon the shoulders of his son, Ludwig the Pious. Earnest and clear-headed as Ludwig was, he had but little of his father's kingly genius; he was essentially a man of peace and a Churchman. The strong religious bent of his mind was not, however, detrimental to the best interests of literature. He may have subordinated the intellectual life of his time to the Church, in a manner which his father would not have countenanced, but in the ninth century, it must be remembered, there was still no hope of a literature outside the Church. An important event of Ludwig's reign was the rise of the monasteries, among which that of Fulda soon took up a leading position. Fulda became the Tours of the North, and the greatest men of the age flocked to it, to sit at the feet of Alcuin's most distinguished scholar, Rabanus Maurus. The ideas of education which Rabanus Maurus put into practice were broad and liberal; he was faithful to the best traditions of the reign of Charles the Great, and, himself a poet, he showed no clerical contempt for the language of the people. To his direct instigation is probably to be traced an East-Frankish translation, made at Fulda, of the Evangeliengelienhar harmonie of Tatian, or rather, of a Latin Gospel Harmony compiled according to the Diatessaron of Tatian.1 This translation, which dates from the fourth decade of the ninth cen The Evan monie of Tatian, ca. 835. 1 Ed. E. Sievers, 2nd ed., Paderborn, 1892. Cp. P. Piper in D. N.L., 1, 120 |