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Otho I. (936-9173), who carried the boundaries of the empire beyond the Elbe and Saale, and who, by his acquisition of Lombardy, laid the foundation of the relations which existed for many ages between the rulers of Germany and the Italian nation. Otho's coronation-festival was eventful, as it formed the precedent for the exercise of those offices which, till the dissolution of the empire, were regarded as connected with the dignity of the secular electors, for on that occasion, while the emperor dined with his three spiritual electors, he was waited upon by the secular princes-the Elector of Bavaria (afterwards Saxony) serving as grandmarshal; of Swabia (afterwards Bohemia), as grand-cupbearer; and of Lorraine (afterwards Brandenburg), as arch-chamberlain.

for the misfortunes which it entailed on the empire. The interval between the death of Frederick Barbarossa (1190) and the accession of Rudolf I. (1273), the first of the Hapsburg line, which, through a female branch, still reigns in Austria, was one of constant struggle, internal dissension, and foreign wars. Individually, the princes of the Hohenstauffen dynasty were popular monarchs, their many noble and chivalrous qualities having endeared them to the people, while one of the race, Frederick II. (1212—1250), was, after Charlemagne, perhaps the most remarkable sovereign of the middle ages; but their ambitious designs on Italy, and their constant but futile attempts to destroy the papal power, were a source of misery to Germany, and with Frederick II. ended the glory of the empire, till it was partially revived by the Austrian House of Hapsburg. His son, Conrad IV. (1250-1254), after a brief and troubled reign, was succeeded by various princes, who, in turn, or in some cases contemporaneously, bore the imperial title without exer cising its legitimate functions or authority. This season of anarchy was terminated at the accession of Rudolf I. (1273-1291), who, by the destruction of the strongholds of the nobles, and the stringent enforcement of the laws, restored order. His chief efforts were, however, directed to the aggrandisement of his Austrian possessions, which embraced Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Tyrol.

Charles

Otho II. (973-983), Otho III. (983-1002), and Henry II. (1002-1024), belonged to the House of Saxony, which was, succeeded by that of Franconia, in the person of Conrad II. (1024-1039), an able ruler, who added Burgundy to the empire. His son and successor, Henry III. (1039-1056), extended German supremacy over Hungary, part of which he conquered and annexed to Lower Austria, while he repressed the insolence and despotism of the temporal and spiritual princes of Germany, and gained the respect of his contemporaries by his zeal for justice and his valour in the field. The minority of his son and successor, Henry IV. (1056-1106), enabled the nobles to recover much of their former power, and to apply a check to the further consoli- For the next 200 years, the history of the German dation of the imperial authority, which had been con- empire presents very few features of interest, and siderably extended under the two preceding reigns. may be briefly passed over. Adolf of Nassau, Henry's constant quarrels with the astute Gregory who was elected to succeed Rudolf, was compelled VII. entangled him in difficulties and mortifications in 1298 to yield the crown to the son of the latter, which only ended with his life, and which plunged Albrecht I. (1298-1308), whose reign is chiefly Germany into anarchy and disorder, and entailed memorable as the period in which three Swiss canupon the empire destructive wars which convulsed tons, Unterwalden, Schwytz, and Uri, established the whole of continental Europe for more than two their independence. After the murder of Albrecht, centuries. With his son and successor, Henry V. the throne was occupied in rapid succession by (1106-1125), the male line of the Franconian Henry VII. (1308-1313), who added Bohemia to dynasty became extinct; and after the crown had the empire; and conjointly by Frederick of Austria been worn (1125-1138) by Lothaire of Saxony, who and Ludwig of Bavaria (1313—1349). made a bold attempt to recover some of the pre- IV. (1349-1378) of Luxembourg was the successrogatives of which at his election the empire had ful candidate among many rivals, and although he been deprived through papal intrigues, the choice of attended specially to the interests of his hereditary the electors, after a season of dissension and intrigue, possessions of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and fell upon Conrad III., Duke of Franconia, the first Lusatia, he did not entirely neglect those of the of the Hohenstauffen dynasty (1138-1152). His empire, for which he provided by a written comreign, in which the civil wars of the Guelphs and pact, known as the Golden Bull, which regulated Ghibellines began, was distracted by the dissensions the rights, privileges, and duties of the electors, the of the great feudatories of the empire, while the mode of the election and coronation of the emperors, strength of Germany was wasted in the disastrous the coinage, customs, and commercial treaties of the Crusades, in which Conrad took an active part. On empire, and the rights and obligations of the free his death, the electoral college for the first time met cities. His son, Wenceslaus (1378—1400), who was at Frankfurt, which retained the honour of being finally deposed, brought the royal authority into the place at which the sovereign was elected and contempt, from which it was scarcely redeemed crowned till the dissolution of the empire in by Ruprecht of the Palatinate (1400-1410). The the 19th century. Frederick I. (1152-1190), sur- nominal reign of Sigismund (1410-1437), the named Barbarossa, Duke of Swabia, was, at the brother of Wenceslaus, would demand no notice recommendation of his uncle Conrad, chosen as his were it not for his connection with the Councils of successor, and the splendour of his reign fully Constance and Basel, at the former of which Huss warranted the selection. By the force of his was condemned, and which was followed by the character, Frederick acquired an influence over the disastrous Hussite wars. The readiness with which diets which had not been possessed by any of his Sigismund lent himself to the interests of Henry V. immediate predecessors, and during his reign many of England, and of all other princes who ministered important changes were effected in the mutual to his love of personal display, brought discredit relations of the great duchies and counties of on the imperial dignity, while his dishonourable Germany, while we now for the first time hear of desertion of Huss will ever attach ignominy to his the hereditary right possessed by certain princes to name. Albrecht II. of Austria (1438-1440), after a exercise the privilege of election. Unfortunately for brief reign of two years, in which he gave evidence Germany, this great monarch suffered the interests of great capacity for governing, was succeeded by of his Italian dominions to draw him away from his cousin, Frederick III. (1440——1493), an accom those of his own country, whilst his participa-plished but avaricious and indolent prince, whose tion in the Crusades, in which both he and the chief object seemed to be the aggrandisevent of flower of his chivalry perished, was only memorable the House of Austria, with which the title of

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emperor had now become permanently connected Years' War, begun under Rudolf's brother and (see AUSTRIA), while he neglected the interests successor Matthias (1612-1619); continued under of Germany collectively, and suffered the infidels Ferdinand II. (1619-1637), an able, but cruel and to make unchecked advances upon its territory. bigoted man; and ended under Ferdinand III. Maximilian I. (1493-1519), the son and successor (1637-1657), by the treaty of Westphalia, in 1648. of Frederick, resembled him in few respects, for he The effect of the Thirty Years' War was to depowas active, ambitious, and scheming, but deficient pulate the rural districts of Germany, destroy its in steadiness of purpose. His marriage with Mary, commerce, burden the people with taxes, cripple the the rich heiress of her father, Charles the Bold already debilitated power of the emperors, and cut of Burgundy, involved him in the general politics up the empire into a multitude of petty states, of Europe, while his opposition to the reformed the rulers of which exercised almost absolute faith preached by Luther exasperated the reli- power within their own territories. Leopold I. gious differences which disturbed the close of his (1658-1705), a haughty, pedantic man, did not reign. Maximilian had, however, the merit of avail himself of the opportunities afforded by introducing many improvements in regard to the peace for restoring order to the state, but suffered internal organisation of the state, by enforcing himself to be drawn into the coalition against the better administration of the law, establishing France, whilst his hereditary states were overrun a police and an organised army, and introducing by the Turks. Although success often attended a postal system. With him originated, moreover, his arms, peace brought him no signal advantages. the special courts of jurisdiction known as the The reigns of Joseph I. (1705-1711) and Charles VI. 'Imperial Chamber' and the Aulic Council;' (1711-1740), with whom expired the male line and in his reign, the empire was divided into ten of the Hapsburg dynasty, were signalised by the circles, each under its hereditary president and its great victories won by the imperialist general, Prince hereditary prince-convoker. Maximilian lived to Eugene, in conjunction with Marlborough, over the see the beginning of the Reformation, and the success French; but they brought no solid advantage to that attended Luther's preaching; but the firm the empire. The disturbed condition of Spain and establishment in Germany of the reformed faith, Saxony opened new channels for the interference and the religious dissensions by which its success of Germany, which was further distracted, after was attended, belong principally to the reign of his the death of Charles, by the dissensions occasioned grandson, Charles I., king of Spain, the son of the by the contested succession of his daughter, MariaArchduke Philip and of Joanna, the heiress of Spain, Theresa, and, through her, of her husband, Francis I. who succeeded to the empire under the title of of Lorraine (1745-1765), after their rival, the Charles V. (1519-1556). The management of his Bavarian Elector, Charles VII., had, through the vast possessions in Spain, Italy, and the Nether- intervention of Prussian aid, been elected in 1742 to lands, and the wars with France, in which he was the imperial throne, which, however, he was obliged so long implicated, diverted him from his German to cede, after a brief occupation of three years. territories, which he committed to the care of his Constant disturbances, intensified during the Seven brother Ferdinand. The princes of Germany were Years' War, when Frederick the Great of Prussia thus left to settle their religious differences among maintained his character of a skilful general at the themselves, and to quell, unaided by the head of the expense of the Austrians, made the reign of these state, the formidable insurrection of the peasants sovereigns one of trouble and disaster. Joseph II., (1525), which threatened to undermine the very their son (1765-1790), during the lifetime of foundations of society. This rising of the lower Maria-Theresa, who retained her authority over orders was due to the preaching of the fanatic all the Austrian states, enjoyed little beyond the Münzer, and other leaders of the sect of Anabaptists, title of emperor, to which he had succeeded on his which had arisen from a perverted interpretation of father's death. But when he ultimately acquired some of the tenets advanced by Luther. Charles's his mother's vast patrimony, he at once entered determined opposition to the reformers rendered all upon a course of reforms, which were, however, settlement of these religious differences impractic- premature, and unsuited to the cases to which they able; and although, by the aid of his ally, Maurice of were applied; whilst his attempts to re-establish Saxony, he broke the confederation of the Protestant the supremacy of the imperial power in the south princes, known as the Union of Smalkald, he was of Germany were frustrated by Prussian influence. forced by his former ally to make concessions to the Leopold II., after a short reign of two years, was Lutherans, of which he disapproved; and in his succeeded in 1792 by his son, Francis II., who, after disgust at the complicated relations in which he a series of defeats by the armies of the French was placed to both parties, he abdicated in favour republic, and the adhesion, in 1805, of many of the of his brother Ferdinand (1556-1564), who put an German princes to the alliance of France, which end to much of the religious dissension that had led to the subsequent formation of the Rhenish hitherto distracted the empire, by granting entire Confederation under the protectorate of Napoleon, toleration to the Protestants. Although Ferdinand resigned the German crown, and assumed the title was, personally, mild and pacific, his reign was of Emperor of Austria. From this period till the troubled by domestic and foreign aggressions-the Congress of Vienna of 1814-1815, Germany was different sects disturbing the peace of the empire almost entirely at the mercy of Napoleon, who at home, while the French and the Turks assailed deposed the established sovereigns, and dismemit from abroad. During the next fifty years, the bered their states in favour of his favourites empire was a prey to internal disquiet. Maximilian II. and dependants, while he crippled the trade of (1564-1576) was indeed a wise and just prince, but the country, and exhausted its resources by the the little he was able to effect in reconciling the extortion of subsidies or contributions. As a adherents of the different churches, and in raising reconstruction of the old empire was no longer the character of the imperial rule, was fatally possible, those states which still maintained their counteracted by the bigotry and vacillation of his sovereignty combined, in 1815, to form a German son and successor, Rudolf II. (1576–1612), in whose Confederation. Of the 300 states into which the reign Germany was torn by the dissensions of the empire had once been divided, there now remained opposite religious factions, while each in turn called only 40, a number which has since been reduced in the aid of foreigners to contribute towards the to 35 by the extinction of several petty dynasuniversal anarchy which culminated in the Thirty ties. The diet was now reorganised, and appointed

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to hold its meetings at Frankfurt-on-the-Maine, decisive attempt to secure the supreme political after having been formally recognised by all leadership in Germany. A strong anti-Napoleonic the allied states as the legislative and executive feeling has existed since the first outbreak of organ of the Confederation; but it failed to satisfy difficulties between France and Austria; and it the expectations of the nation, and soon became may be stated generally, that the discussions and a mere political tool in the hands of the princes, apprehensions to which this sentiment have given who simply made its decrees subservient to their rise, together with the consideration of the Slesvigown efforts for the suppression of every progres- Holstein difficulties, have constituted the principal sive movement. The French revolution of 1830 questions under discussion in the federal parliament reacted sufficiently on some few of the German during the sessions of 1859, 1860, and 1861. See states to compel their rulers to grant written Schmidt, Histoire des Allemands; Eginhardus, Vita constitutions to their subjects; but the effect was Caroli Magni; Scriptores Rerum German. apud transient; and it was not till 1848 that the German Menkenium; Mannert, Gesch. d. Teutschen; Sisnation gave expression, by open insurrectionary mondi, Histoire des Français, 1819; Europe during movements, to the discontent and the sense of the Middle Ages, in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclop., and oppression which had long possessed the minds of Hist. of the Italian Republics; Putter, History of the people. The princes endeavoured, by hasty the German Constitution; Raumer, Hist. of the concessions, to arrest the progress of republican Hohenstauffen; Coxe, House of Austria; Pfeffel, principles, and, fully recognising the inefficiency of Abrégé Chronologique; Harte, Gustavus Adolphus; the diet, they gave their sanction to the convo- Schiller's Thirty Years' War; Beausobre, Hist. cation, by a provisional self-constituted assembly, of de la Réform.; Mosheim's Hist. of Lutheran and a national congress of representatives of the people. Reformed Churches; Robertson's Charles V.; EichArchduke John of Austria was elected Vicar of the horn's Deutsch. Staats-Rechtsgesch.; Carlyle, Hist. newly organised national government; but he soon of Fred. II., &c. disappointed the hopes of the assembly by his evident attempts to frustrate all energetic action on the side of the parliament, while the speedy success of the anti-republican party in Austria and Prussia damped the hopes of the progressionists. The refusal of the king of Prussia to accept the imperial crown which the parliament offered him, was followed by the election of a provisional regency of the empire; but as nearly half the members had declined taking part in these proceedings, or in a previous measure, by which Austria had been excluded, by a single vote, from the German Confederation, the assembly soon lapsed into a state of anarchy and impotence, which terminated in its dissolution. The sanguinary manner in which insurrectionary movements had, in the meanwhile, been suppressed by Prussian troops both in Prussia and Saxony, put an effectual end to republican demonstrations; and in 1850, Austria and Prussia, after exhibiting mutual jealousy and ill-will, which more than once seemed likely to end in war, combined to restore the diet, whose first acts were the intervention in Slesvig-Holstein in favour of Denmark, and the abolition of the free constitutions of several of the lesser states. Since that period, the diet has been the arena on which Austria and Prussia have striven to secure the supremacy and championship of Germany, and every measure of public interest has been made subservient to the views of one or other of these rival powers. These states did, however, conclude a treaty of alliance in 1854, guaranteeing to each other the mutual defence of their possessions against all enemies— a compact in which the diet soon joined. In 1858, a currency convention was concluded between all the states of the German Confederation, which had previously entered into similar alliances for the adjustment of international postal and commercial relations; and in the same year the diet adopted a resolution by which the Danish government was called upon to submit to the legislative assemblies a new project for the political organisation of the duchies of Holstein, Lauenburg, and Slesvig. In 1859, after many stormy discussions, the assembly passed a resolution to mobilise the whole federal army, and to appoint the Prussian Prince Regent commander-in-chief, subject to the control of the diet, or virtually of Austria, with which rests the casting-vote in the federal assembly. This appointment did not satisfy the ambitious views of Prussia, which has, however, abstained, during the last year or two, from making any very

German Language and Literature. The nume rous dialects which were spoken by the different confederacies and tribes of ancient Germany were all derivatives from one branch of the Aryan or IndoGermanic family of languages, which separated from the parent stock at a very early period, although subsequently to the separation of the Celtic. We can_trace the co-existence of the two branches of Teutonic speech known as Low-German and High-German as far back as the 7th c., but there is no evidence to shew that they existed as com mon uniform languages, from which their variously modified dialects were respectively derived. Accord ing to the eminent philologist Max Müller, there never was one common Teutonic language which diverged into two streams; while the utmost we can venture to assert in regard to the various High and Low German dialects is, that they respectively passed at different times through the same stages of grammatical development. The High-German branch-which was spoken in the dialects of Swabia, Bavaria, and Austria, and parts of Franconia and Saxony-has been the literary language of Germany since the days of Charlemagne. It may be classified under three periods-the Old High-German, dating from the 7th c., and extending to the period of the Crusades, or the 12th c.; the Middle High-German, beginning in the 12th c., and continuing till the Reformation; and the New High-German, dating from Luther's time to our own days. The LowGerman, which in Germany itself has been little used in literature, comprehends many dialects, as the Frisian (q. v.), the Flemish, Dutch, Platt-Deutsch, &c. The oldest literary monument of Low-German belongs to the 9th c., and is a Christian epic known as The Heliand (the Healer or Saviour); and although there are traces of popular Low-German literature up to the 17th c., the translation of the Bible into High-German by Luther decided the fate of Low-German. In addition to the various dialects which are commonly included under the heads of High and Low German, an important evidence of the cultivation of a form of German differing equally from the High and Low groups has been preserved to us. This important linguistic monument is a fragment of a Gothic translation of the Bible, which was made in the 4th c. by Bishop Ulfilas, and used by all the Gothic tribes when they advanced inte Italy and Spain. The Gothic language died out in the 9th c.; and after the extinction of the power the Goths, the translation of Ulfilas was forgotten and lost sight of till the accidental discovery, in the

of

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16th c., of a MS. preserved in the abbey of Werden, and containing fragments of this important work. This MS. is a copy made in the 5th c. of Ulfilas's translation, and fragmentary as it is, it affords evidence of the high degree of development to which this dialect had been carried, and exhibits a form of speech which belongs to neither the High nor Low German group, but very possibly may have been merely one among numerous other allied forms of Teutonic speech which have perished.

in theological writings for and against the tottering power of the Romish Church. The writings of Luther, his translation of the Bible, and the works of Ulrich von Hutten, Zuinglius, and of many of the other reformers, were, however, the most important events in the history of German literature from the close of the 15th to the middle of the 16th c.; and it must be remembered that Luther addressed himself to the minds of his countrymen not merely through his polemical The diffusion of Christianity among the Germanic writings, but also by those noble hymns, which, tribes had the effect both of suppressing the use since his day, have constituted one of the greatest of the Runic characters that had been common literary treasures of the kind. Some of the best to them, and of changing the character of their of these Kirch-lieder, or church songs, were composed literature, for instead of the heroic songs and by Luther himself; while next to him those of 'beast-epics' of a sanguinary paganism (Thier-epos), Speratus, Decius, Nicolai, and Herberger, have perscriptural paraphrases, legends, and hymns were haps found most favour both among Germans and now selected; while the ancient form of alliteration foreigners. These fervent effusions of the devout by degrees gave place to the rhythmical arrange- and eloquent reformers were followed by a period ment of the Latin versification common in the of literary degeneration and stagnation, which is in early periods of the middle ages. Latin, moreover, a great measure to be ascribed to the demoralising became the language of the court, the church, and effects of the Thirty Years' War, when Germany the law under the Saxon emperors, while German was a prey to all the evils inseparable from civil was left entirely to the people, until the new war fostered by foreign interference. The indirect ideas, which were diffused both in regard to litera- result of this period of anarchy was to quench the ture and language during the Crusades under the national spirit, and vitiate the popular taste; for rule of the accomplished emperors of the Hohen- while the petty courts aped the habits, language, stauffen line, had the effect of reviving the use and and literature of Versailles, the lower orders forgot cultivation of the vernacular dialects, among which their own literature, with its rich treasures of legends, the Swabian, as the language of the court, soon tales, and ballads, and acquired a taste for the acquired a marked preponderance over the others. coarse camp-songs imported by foreign mercenaries, In that age of chivalry and romance, the art of and the immoral romances borrowed from impure song was cherished by princes and nobles, many of French and Italian sources. German poetry in the whom belonged to the order of the Minnesänger (or 17th c. was framed after the model of the later Singers of Love), and composed in the Swabian or classics, and their modern imitators. The study of High-German dialect of the imperial court. The the genuine national literature was neglected, and subjects chiefly selected during the 13th and 14th although a host of learned societies were formed, centuries, both by courtly and popular singers, were whose professed object was to purify and elevate based on the legendary lore of Charlemagne and his the public taste, the results were lamentably paladins, and King Arthur and his knights, and of unsatisfactory; and it was not till J. C. Gottsched the Sangrael; and it is to this period that we must (1700-1766) succeeded in his Critical Art of Poetry refer the Nibelungen Lied and Gudrun, which rank in drawing attention to the turgid pedantry and as the greatest treasures of German national litera- artificial stiffness of the classicist school, that a ture. Among the most successful poets and minne- better taste was awakened. His own pretentious singers belonging to the Swabian period, we may bigotry gave origin, however, to a counter-party, specially indicate Heinrich von Veldeke, Hartmann from which emanated, at a somewhat later period, von der Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther the German æsthetic school, under the guidance of von der Vogelweide, Neidhart of Bavaria, Heinrich | A. Baumgarten and G. Meier. von Ofterdingen, &c. The taste for the Thier-epos received a new impetus among the people in the middle of the 12th c. by the re-translation, from the Walloon into German, of the ancient poem of Reinhard Fuchs, which, according to the distinguished philologist Jakob Grimm, originated with the Frankish tribes, who carried it with them when they crossed the Rhine and founded an empire in Gaul, and from whom it was diffused among the neighbouring tribes of Northern France and Flanders.

A favourable reac

met

tion now took place, and with the names of Klopstock, Lessing, and Wieland began the brilliant epoch of modern German literature. Their influence was alike great and varied; for while Klopstock's poem of the Messiah, and his odes, in which he had taken Milton as his model, re-echoed the tender piety of the old reformers, and were so thoroughly German in their spirit, that they at once with an enthusiastic response in the hearts of the people, Lessing's tragedy of Minna v. Barnhelm, and his drama of Nathan der Weise, may be said to The period which succeeded the decline of chivalry have created anew the dramatic art in Germany. was marked by a thorough neglect, among the Wieland, on the other hand, who was the complete higher classes, of national literature, which thus fell antithesis of Klopstock, although, like his two great into the hands of the people, to the thorough contemporaries, he was the founder of a new style, disorganisation of all principles of grammar. To and gave a graceful flexibility to German diction, this age belongs, however, the great mass of the which it had never before been made to assume, Volkslieder, or national ballads, in which Germany had imparted to his numerous tales and romances is specially rich; the fables and satires of Brand an undisguised sensuous materialism, which, like and of Sachs, and the romances of the satirist his style, had been borrowed from the French philoJohann Fischart. The mysteries and passion-plays, sophers of his day, and thus introduced into the which were at their height in the 15th c., and language and literature of Germany the germs of still linger in the village of Oberammergau, in many defects, as well as graces, to which they had Upper Bavaria, may be said to have given origin | hitherto remained strangers. The influence exerted to the German drama, which numbered among on German literature by these three writers, who its earliest cultivators, Sachs, Rebhuhn, and Ayrer. may be regarded as its regenerators, was soon The close of the 15th c. was prolific in rhyming appreciable in every branch of knowledge; and aistorical chronicles, in satires on the clergy, and among the galaxy of great names which have

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