A History of Germany in the Middle Ages E-Book

Ernest F. Henderson

• Herausgeber: Talon Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

"The fortunes and misfortunes of a Charlemagne and Henry IV., of a Barbarossa, a Henry VI. and an Emperor Frederick II... The rise and fall of the mediæval German Empire is in itself a subject boundlessly interesting, boundlessly important. ...See how Europe has come to be what it is, and how near it came to being something quite different! If Italy had remained under the sway of Germany, if Frederick Barbarossa or his successors had done away with the papal power, as they often seemed about to do, would the fate of England and France have been the same?"Ernest F. Henderson 

Leseprobe

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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COPYRIGHT

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION.

A WORD CONCERNING THE MORE IMPORTANT AUTHORITIES CONSULTED FOR THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THIS BOOK

A HISTORY OF GERMANYIN THE MIDDLE AGES

1 - GERMANS AND ROMANS.

2 - THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.

3 - THE FRANKISH KINGDOM.

4 - THE CAROLINGIAN KINGS.

5 - CHARLES THE GREAT AS EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS.

6 - THE REIGN OF LOUIS THE PIOUS.

7 - THE LATER CAROLINGIANS.

8 - THE SAXON KINGS.

9 - OTTO THE GREAT AS EMPEROR OF THE ROMANS.

10 - OTTO II. AND OTTO III.

11 - HENRY II. AND CONRAD II.

12 - HENRY III. AND THE EARLY REIGN OF HENRY IV.

13 - HENRY IV. AND GREGORY VII.

14 - CONTINUATION OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY

15 - THE RISE OF THE HOHENSTAUFENS.

16 - FREDERICK I. (BARBAROSSA)

17 - FREDERICK I. AND THE PAPACY.

18 - END OF THE REIGN OF FREDERICK I.

19 - HENRY VI. AND RICHARD OF ENGLAND.

20 - HENRY VI. AND THE WORLD-MONARCHY

21 - PHILIP OF SUABIA AND OTTO IV.

22 - OTTO IV. AND FREDERICK II.

23 - FREDERICK II.’S CRUSADE

24 - RENEWED STRUGGLE BETWEEN FREDERICK II. AND GREGORY IX.

25 - FREDERICK II. AND INNOCENT IV.

26 - THE LAST OF THE HOHENSTAUFENS AND THE INTERREGNUM

27 - INTERNAL CHANGES AND DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES.

28 - THE LITERATURE OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN TIMES.

FOOTNOTES

Ernest F. Henderson

A HISTORY OF GERMANYIN THE MIDDLE AGES

Copyright © Ernest F. Henderson

A History of Germany in the Middle Ages

(1894)

Arcadia Press 2017

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PREFACE

IT may seem strange that one whose aim and desire is to be considered an American writer, should first launch his adventurous craft on the tide of English popular favour, rather than entrust it to the currents, likely to be more favourable or less dangerous, of his own native depths. This has come about in great part by accident. I happened to be on this side of the ocean when this volume reached its completion, circumstances prevented my return to America, and yet I was eager without delay to try my experiment on the public.

For it is an experiment. Apart from the question as to whether or not I am capable of putting life and spirit into the vast body of facts and events that concern the past of so enormous a political creation as Germany, I have been assured from competent side that there is not sufficient interest in the subject to warrant a work like the present.

My belief is, that if there is not, there ought to be. Not to speak of the breathlessly exciting incidents of the German Reformation, nor of the proud emancipation of the grand modern empire from the trammels of disunity and disorganization, there is that in the fortunes and misfortunes of a Charlemagne and Henry IV., of a Barbarossa, a Henry VI. and an Emperor Frederick II., which should stir the heart of any observer, no matter what his nationality. The rise and fall of the mediaeval German Empire is in itself a subject boundlessly interesting, boundlessly important. Open your eyes, oh ye students of men and of institutions, and see how Europe has come to be what it is, and how near it came to being something quite different! If Italy had remained under the sway of Germany, if Frederick Barbarossa or his successors had done away with the papal power, as they often seemed about to do, would the fate of England and France have been the same?

And yet what do the ordinary English or American readers know of the mediaeval German Empire, or, to give it the full title it enjoyed when in its prime, of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation? And how should they know anything about it, considering how scanty and how insignificant is the literature on the subject! Bryce’s essay is almost the only very recent book to which one can point, and this is, as it was meant to be, the merest fleeting sketch. What does it tell us of the daily movements and occupations of the mediaeval emperors, of the condition of things in their lands, of their legislative measures, or of their wars?

I think I am right in saying that there is no narrative history of Germany — apart from a few translations of antiquated German works, and a few compendiums which certain ladies and gentlemen have compiled in their leisure hours — in the English language. In this regard England has been treated better by German scholars. Lappenberg and Pauli’s history of England is written with all the care and devotion that native historians could have shown.

The present work is the result of much labour, and of years of enforced exile from home. May all these pains not have been in vain; may the book not fall dead as soon as it is born, but rather may it live and play its part in the world vigorously. May it make its friends, and, if need be, its enemies, be hated deeply and loved warmly.

E. F. H.

London, April 5th, 1894.

INTRODUCTION.

SINCE the comparatively recent time when, by the efforts of Wolf, Niebuhr, and Ranke, historical investigation was raised to the rank of a science, the whole of the German history has been re-written. New sources of information have been opened up, old problems in many cases solved. More than fifty thousand historical essays and other works, relating to Germany, have been reviewed by the “Jahresbericht der Geschichtswissenschaft” in the thirteen years alone between 1878 and 1890.

Not in one, but in many ways has history writing been revolutionized in our own day. In the first place, the immense importance of text-criticism has been recognized; no scholar now edits a chronicle or document of the past without distinguishing carefully between the original, or at least the oldest obtainable, manuscript and the horde of later copies with all of their accumulated errors. The study of paleography has enabled men to determine at least in what century a given text was written, and many a document or chronicle long considered very ancient has been found to be by a comparatively modern hand, and vice versa.

By comparing the changes, too, and the omissions of words and clauses in a number of different manuscripts of a given work, the prototype or original manuscript from which all the others were taken can often be discovered.

What this method signifies for the truth and accuracy of a historical text may be made clear from the case of Einhard’s life of Charlemagne, written shortly after the death of the great hero. Of this valuable writing there are eighty manuscripts extant, of which all but a very few are worthless copies made, in the course of centuries, not from the original, but one from the other. The later scribes and copyists, too, were men far less capable of performing such a task than are many schoolboys of to-day.

It is only modern scholars who have been able to establish the relationships of these Einhard texts to each other, and to sift the later ones of their accumulated errors and interpolations. And the case just mentioned is but one among hundreds.

It must be remembered in this connection that, in the Middle Ages, as parchment grew scarcer, or at least more expensive with time, it became the custom to contract almost every word of more than one syllable; and that the next copyist often had to use his imagination as to the real word that was intended. Many of the manuscripts of the thirteenth century seem a mere mass of signs and tokens of abbreviation. How often, too, not to speak of interpolations wittingly and wantonly made for a given purpose, have marginal remarks of a reader or commentator been attributed by a later scribe to the original author, and placidly incorporated in the new copy!

Altogether the study of paleography and of original historical sources gives one an amazing insight into the peculiarities, the follies, and the weaknesses of our forefathers. The abbot of a monastery interpolates or otherwise falsifies a charter of privileges to gain or preserve this or that right, or to raise the value of these or those relics. A chronicler does not hesitate to put down fictitious details which may add to the glory of the ancestors of a family which gives him its patronage. More than half the charters attributed to Merovingian times have been proved to be fraudulent in either one way or another.

Follow the stream back to its source, reconstruct your edifice from the very foundation, find out the original authority for every assertion; such are the watchwords of the modern school of historians. How many extravagant and yet long-credited assertions concerning Charlemagne have been traced back to the gossipy and far from veracious monk of St. Gall, who wrote more for the amusement than for the edification of Charles the Bald! And Heinrich von Sybel, now the Nestor of German historians, has shown that the chronicle on which most of the modern accounts of the first crusade have been based was never intended even by its original author to be taken seriously.

It is for mediaeval times especially that most astonishing difficulties have had to be met and overcome by the modern investigator. For this the peculiarities of the old chroniclers are mostly responsible.

There was a formalism, for instance, that seemed to belong to good tone among writers of a given period. We find one author, Lambert of Hersfeld, who seems to have a regular formula for conspiracies. They all come about in the same way, and the details are repeated in almost the same words. It is most usual, too, and the blame for it attaches to Livy, who set the example for Latin writers, for chroniclers to put set speeches in the mouths of those with whom they are dealing — speeches which they never by any chance could possibly have uttered. Others will relate interviews — it is Lambert again who sins in this way — as though they themselves had been actually present, when we know for certain that the two persons concerned were absolutely alone and would never have been likely to repeat even the general tenor, let alone the actual words, of what had passed between them.

It was the custom all through the Middle Ages for one writer to tacitly embody whole passages, whole pages, and even whole chronicles, of another in his own work. There was, probably, no intent to deceive, the object was to secure a good work, and to continue it if possible, for one’s own cloister library.

The historian of to-day has to distinguish what is borrowed from what is original, and, in the great modern collections of mediaeval sources, the “Monumenta” of Germany, or the “Rolls Series” of England, the borrowed, so far as it can be ascertained, will be found to be printed in smaller type.

But it often seems impossible to tell who was the original author, and where he lived, who copied from whom, and whether both, perhaps, did not borrow from a third.

It is exactly in this matter of analyzing chronicles, and tracing the different parts back to their origins, that German scholars have performed their greatest services to the studious world. Every clue is followed, every similarity of style investigated; passages are often fathered without the shadow of a doubt on this or that older writer.

Perhaps the most striking case of all is that of the Altaich Annals, edited by the late Wilhelm von Giesebrecht. A number of different chroniclers of the tenth century, who could not have known the writings of each other, showed a remarkable similarity in their description of certain events. Giesebrecht came to the conclusion that they must all have borrowed from one and the same source; and, excerpting and comparing all that the different writers had in common, he edited and published the lost prototype. It is an actual fact that the original chronicle, the “Annales Altahenses,” was later discovered, and that Giesebrecht’s conjectural readings were found, as far as they went, to be almost absolutely correct.

Nor are text-criticism and the reconstruction of lost chronicles by any means the only branches in which modern scholarship has improved the writing of history. Not only the works of dead and gone chroniclers have been tested and searched, but their lives and opinions as well. It is safe to say that no considerable writer of the Middle Ages is without his careful biographer in the present century.

Germany especially possesses a well-disciplined standing army of investigators, recruited yearly from her great universities, and ready at a given signal to begin the fight in any quarter where obscurity or error is found to lurk.

The deeper one goes, the more one finds how important it is to know the character and tendency of a given chronicler — especially of one who is our sole authority for this or that assertion. Was he well-informed? Did he move personally in the circles where the events that he describes were taking place, or does he write by hearsay of things that happened in some distant part of the land?

How much more weighty is a word of blame from one who can be proved to be well-disposed on the whole towards the personage of whom he writes; how worthless, often, the verdict of a political opponent! Especially in the mediaeval chronicles the number of accusations is legion that can be proved to be utterly groundless.

Our forefathers of a thousand years ago were, if possible, even more partisan in their judgments than we are to-day. They were more under the ban of fixed and formal ideas; their minds were more closely sealed against anything new or unexpected. Everything was churchly, there was no such thing as a public opinion. The prince who plundered or oppressed the monastery in which a given monk was writing — and there are centuries during which no one but monks did write — or who may only have insisted too sternly on his own just rights, goes down in the pages of history as the antichrist in person, however beneficial to the land as a whole his reign may have been. And vice versa. The Frankish king, Clovis, wholesale fratricide, and breaker of every kind of sacred oath and treaty, marches forth in the pages of the pious Gregory of Tours as a God-sent champion to fight the just fight of Trinitarianism against the Arian heresy.

The historian’s task would be lighter, indeed, if all chroniclers were as honest and as transparent as Luitprand of Cremona, a tenth century bishop. In his case it is comparatively easy to tell what to believe and what to attribute to wounded feelings. Luitprand informs us at the very beginning that he is going to punish the King and Queen of Northern Italy for wrongs inflicted on himself. With this end in view he calls his chronicle of the times the Antapodosis, or “Book of Retribution.”

Apart from the characters and the prejudices of ancient writers there are certain peculiarities, the discovery of which vastly alters the trust and confidence that we are justified in placing in them. It has always been known, for example, that mediaeval historians have borrowed much of their phraseology from the ancient classics: Ovid and Virgil, Livy and Sallust are the forcing-houses whence all the fairest flowers of mediaeval rhetoric have been culled.

It is only within the last ten or fifteen years that this propensity has been systematically investigated. How far has the truth suffered by being crushed into this classic garb — that is the question that is now everywhere being asked and answered. Einhard’s characterizations of Charles the Great are taken in great part direct from Suetonius; Ragewin, the historian of Frederick Barbarossa, describes the siege of Milan in the very words in which Josephus tells of the conquest of Jerusalem, yet applies those words with singular skill and aptitude. There is a detailed description, for instance, of an octagonal tower which we find from independent sources to tally exactly with the true state of affairs.

A famous example is Lambert of Hersfeld’s vivid description of the hardships which the Emperor Henry IV. endured while crossing the Alps in winter to humble himself before Gregory VII. at Canossa. What a picture we are given of the king sliding down the icy slopes on ox-hides, of his in intense sufferings from cold and hunger! yet the account is taken bodily from Livy, the name of Hannibal being altered to that of Henry.

One may say — Lambert undoubtedly did say to himself — that the fatigues and dangers of a winter journey over the Alps are much. the same in all ages. The poet Angilbert, whose verses deal with many of the events of Charlemagne’s time, was not so consistent in his description of Aix-la-Chapelle. He borrows Virgil’s account of Carthage and, forgetting that Aix lies inland, boasts of her splendid harbour!

This analyzing of the language and peculiarities of style of mediaeval authors, taken in connection with other criterions, has led, often, to the discovery that writings were spurious. There are expressions in the forged Isidorian decretals — that gigantic swindle on which the popes, from Nicholas I. down, based many of their most exalted claims — that were copied from works which appeared three centuries after the dates claimed for some of the several documents.

It is in great part through methods here touched upon that the famous Florentine chronicle of Malaspini has been proved to be a forgery, compiled at a time much later than its professed date for the purpose of glorifying the ancestors of a certain family.

It is this same criticism and comparison of original historical sources that has led to the discarding of many a pleasant anecdote, many a stirring incident that had long been believed.

Take the old German tradition of the faithful wives of Weinsberg. You will find it told in many history books how King Conrad III., in 1140, besieged this town and finally took it; how he declared the men guilty of death but allowed the women to depart with all that they could carry on their shoulders. Of course they carried their husbands: — a beautiful legend, which, by the way, is claimed by nearly thirty different towns as an episode of their own past history. But unfortunately the originator of the story has been traced, and has been found to have had the anecdote “on the brain” as it were. He repeats almost the same tale in connection with the siege of Crema in 1160, on which occasion it is well known that such wifely devotion was quite unnecessary, the whole garrison being allowed, as it was, to withdraw in peace.

And William Tell, in spite of Schiller and the chapel on the Lake of Lucerne, has had to step down from his high pedestal as liberator of Switzerland. One may well believe that Swiss patriots have searched the archives, and eagerly sought some proof of the existence of their hero. But in vain. No Hapsburg can he found to have interfered at this period in Uri, no bailiff Gessler appears in any local register, and no historian of the time, local or foreign, mentioned the occurrence.

One hundred and fifty years had passed before a chronicler came upon the idea of embellishing his work with this romantic story which he stated to have taken place in the fourteenth century. Nor was there anything new in the episode that he chose. It bears certainly more than a chance resemblance to an incident related by Saxo Grammaticus, a writer of the twelfth century. Saxo tells us of a certain Toko who lived in the tenth century at the court of Harold Blotan, a Danish king.

The king commands Toko to shoot an apple from his son’s head. Toko prepares to obey but lays down beside him two extra arrows. The king asks him why he does this. “If the first fails I shall take vengeance on you with the other two,” was the answer. The arrow did not miss, but later the king’s tyranny became unbearable, and Toko, concealed in a bush, shot him as he passed by.

It must not be supposed that the modern historical method is purely destructive in its tendencies. On the contrary, never before has there been such a search as in our own generation for every available piece of historical evidence from a peculiarly shaped furrow in the ground to a series of ambassador’s reports on the complete correspondence of popes and emperors. Never before have there been given to the world such marvellous books of reference, such labour-saving aids to those who are engaged in the work of research.

A digest has been made, for instance, of the subject-matter of forty thousand papal writings and decrees drawn up before the year 1300. In the case of each single document one is told in what printed collection, or in what archive of manuscripts, the original may be found.

The same work is in progress, and has been for twenty years, for the correspondence of all the early German emperors, and a number of large and carefully-edited volumes have already appeared. The whole is so arranged that one can cast the eye through the summaries of a thousand or so of letters during the course of a single day’s work, and find which of them require more special investigation. The examples of such comprehensive works that save one years of labour might be multiplied to almost any extent. One enterprising writer, Gams, has published a large volume containing the names of all the Roman Catholic bishops that ever lived in any part of the world, together with references to such books as will in each case give further information. A Frenchman, Chevalier, has printed a dictionary of all the names of note in the Middle Ages, in this case, too, with full lists of the works treating of each given personage.

Wattenbach, a noted professor in Berlin, has written a critical account of each and all of the historical sources in the Middle Ages relating to Germany. Here one can find at a glance the relative scope and value of a given chronicle, and also the latest and best editions.

A great mark of progress in the present century, and a further proof of the constructive tendency of the work of modern historians, is the systematic employment of charters, deeds, and legal documents as historical sources.

Every gift, every privilege granted in earlier times, almost every transaction of any kind was duly certified by a deed signed and sealed in the presence of witnesses. Probably a hundred thousand such pieces of parchment have come down to us from the Middle Ages alone. The single monastery of St. Gall, to-day, possesses in its archives about seven hundred and fifty originals of the eighth and ninth centuries.

It is only the last two generations of scholars that have known how to make extensive and proper use of these rich sources of information, and to control by means of them the assertions of the chroniclers.

Such documents often furnish us with new and important facts. The whole history of the feudal system — indeed the whole of the constitutional history of Germany — would be a hopeless riddle did we not have the charters granted by lords to their vassals, by kings to their cities and nobles. By a comparison of the dates and localities of royal charters we can often follow the progress of a potentate from one end of his domains to the other. The mediaeval German king has no fixed abode: he is always on the march. To-day he confers a privilege on this or that town, to-morrow invests a bishop or noble with a fief of the realm, and the next day hurries to a given monastery to confirm to it the jurisdiction over the thieves and robbers in the vicinity.

What were the conditions of land-holding, what the commercial relations between one district and another; what contingents did that man, or that institution, or corporate body send to the army; what taxes could a territorial lord impose; who were the bondsmen, who the half-free, and who the free: to all such questions, and to infinitely more, charters, if rightly interrogated, will give a full and satisfactory answer.

Enough has been said to give a faint insight into the methods and labours of modern German historians. It will not surprise the reader to find that in constructing this history the author has made it his aim to choose his authorities, other things being equal, among the most recent writers on a given period or subject.

A WORD CONCERNING THE MORE IMPORTANT AUTHORITIES CONSULTED FOR THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THIS BOOK

FOR the sake of those who wish a complete bibliography of German history it may be as well to mention the work of Dahlmann (continued by Waitz),1 the yearly report of historical science,2 and the weekly catalogue of Hinrich.3

The first of these books gives a list of some three thousand works on German history arranged according to periods. All the more important writings that appeared before 1883 are here to be found.

The “Jahresbericht” is a grand co-operative work in which scholars all over the world take part, and which attempts to review systematically each year all the writings which deal with historical subjects.

By the aid of Hinrich’s catalogue one can follow the new books as they appear. All those on history are in a section by themselves.

The great historical reviews of Sybel4 and Quidde5 give exhaustive accounts of the more important works that have been published.

The work in two staunch, closely-printed volumes which goes under the name of “Bruno Gebhardt’s6 Handbook of German History” is, in reality, one composed by twelve different well-known historians, each of whom writes on the special period for which he is considered an authority. A feature of the book is the rich literary references. The work has been of great use to the writer of the present history. It is safe to say that never have so many well- authenticated facts concerning the history of any land been contracted into so small a compass.

On the other hand the book is more than dull for the ordinary reader. A book of which three volumes have already appeared, and which in a way marks an era in history writing is Lamprecht’s.7 It is altogether the work of a great historian, and the political history is made to recede behind a detailed account of social, agrarian, literary, and artistic developments. The narrative is brought as yet down to the year 1300.

Somewhat similar to Lamprecht, and indeed the work which seems to have given the latter his inspiration, is Nitzsch’s8 “German History,” which extends from the earliest times to the Reformation period. It is an extremely suggestive book, but one which suffers under the peculiar circumstances attending its origin. Nitzsch died before it was put into proper form, and one of his pupils compiled it from the great scholar’s notes and lectures.

Schroder’s9 “Constitutional History,” without possessing the originality of the works of Waitz10 and Brunner,11 is the best general handbook for the subject. It is clear and systematic, and embraces the latest results of historical investigation. The last part, concerning the history of modern times, is treated in too short a compass, the author having been unwilling to extend his book beyond the limit of one volume.

Scherer’s12 “History of German Literature” is a delightfully-written book, by a great scholar and a great master of his subject. It extends from the earliest times to the end of the time of Goethe. Scherer brings the history of the literature into connection with the general history and culture of the time.

Ranke’s13 “History of the World,” which extends only to the eleventh century, is particularly important for the masterly grouping of facts and the bringing of them into their proper connection. It presupposes in the reader a considerable amount of previous knowledge of the subject.

Kaufmann’s14 book extends to the end of the reign of Charles the Great. Kaufmann was known for many excellent monographs on special subjects concerning the ancient German tribes, and at last embodied the results of his investigations in the form of a narrative history. His work is excellent, almost exhaustive. Hoyns’s15 book covers about the same period as Kaufmann, extending, however, to 911. It is a clear, readable, and reliable account, without, indeed, being of great independent value.

In Muhlbacher’s16 “History of the Carolingians” we have a truly important work. Every scrap of contemporary evidence is made use of by one who has known better than any living man where to find it. Muhlbacher has for years been engaged in making a, digest of letters and other public acts of the Carolingians for Bohmer’s regesta imperii.

Giesebrecht’s17 history, which was intended to extend to 1250, and which fills five large volumes without having nearly reached its completion, covers the period from 911 to 1180. It is a favourite habit of lecturers on German history to find flaws in this work; it is nevertheless a work of prime importance, and possesses the further advantage of being written in a pleasant and readable style. It has done more than any other book to rouse a wide interest in the study of mediaeval history, and also to instil thoroughness of methods of investigation. The amount of material that Giesebrecht has worked over for a period covering more than two hundred and fifty years is simply astounding.

Manitius’18 book, covering the period from 911 to 1125, is naturally largely based on Giesebrecht, but the author has been able to make use of later investigations. Manitius is conscientious and reliable, but it must be confessed that the work is heavy, and that the mass of detail prevents one from gaining any clear picture of the time.

For the Hohenstaufen period there lacks as yet any general and comprehensive work up to the requirements of the day. Jastrow, in Berlin, is treating the period for the “Bibliothek deutscher Gesohichte,” and his book is sure to be excellent; but it will probably be two or three years before it is completed.

Raumer’s19 history of the Hohenstaufens made a great stir in its day, but is now completely out of date. De Cherrier’s20 history is still of value, but parts of it are also antiquated. For special reigns there are a number of useful works.

Prutz’s history21 of Frederick Barbarossa is very learned and exhaustive, and Toeche’s Henry VI.22 is the model of what such an investigation should be.

Winkelmann’s works on Philip of Hohenstaufen and Otto IV.,23 and on Frederick II.,24 are immensely learned and exhaustive, but thoroughly to be avoided by the general reader. They also form part of the collection of year books of German history, in which the treatment is chronological.

Schirrmacher’s25 “Frederick II. and the Last Hohenstaufens” is a shorter and a later treatment of the period covered by the author’s more voluminous work on the same subject. It is reliable on the whole.

Zeller’s26 “Frederick II.” is more or less of a compilation, but gives all the main facts of Frederick’s reign correctly, and is altogether an attractive treatment of the subject. It is one of a series of works written on early German history. Zeller is a Frenchman, and has the French grace of style.

Kempf,27 in his history of the Interregnum, has carefully and conscientiously performed a thankless but needful task. The period from 1245 to 1272 is most utterly dreary and uninteresting, and has never before been made the subject of a separate work.

In concluding, the author may be allowed to mention a work of his own,28 which was undertaken as a direct preparation for the present history. It is a collection of original documents translated from the mediaeval Latin, and made accessible to the general reader. The author’s belief is that no one should attempt to write a popular history who is not thoroughly at home in the primal historical sources.

A HISTORY OF GERMANYIN THE MIDDLE AGES

To my Friend and Fellow Student

JOHN OSBORNE SUMNER.