German Culture Past and Present

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Culture Past and Present, by Ernest Belfort Bax

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Title: German Culture Past and Present
Author: Ernest Belfort Bax
Release Date: January 27, 2007 [EBook #20461]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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GERMAN CULTURE PAST AND PRESENT

BY ERNEST BELFORT BAX
AUTHOR OF "JEAN PAUL MARAT," "THE RELIGION OF SOCIALISM," "THE ETHICS OF SOCIALISM," "THE ROOTS OF REALITY," ETC., ETC.

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.

First published in 1915 [All rights reserved]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTORY:--SITUATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 7
I. THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT 65
II. POPULAR LITERATURE OF THE TIME 85
III. THE FOLKLORE OF REFORMATION GERMANY 99
IV. THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN TOWN 114
V. COUNTRY AND TOWN AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 122
VI. THE REVOLT OF THE KNIGHTHOOD 154
VII. GENERAL SIGNS OF RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL REVOLT 174
VIII. THE GREAT RISING OF THE PEASANTS AND THE ANABAPTIST MOVEMENT 183
IX. POST-MEDI?VAL GERMANY 229
X. MODERN GERMAN CULTURE 263

PREFACE
The following pages aim at giving a general view of the social and intellectual life of Germany from the end of the medi?val period to modern times. In the earlier portion of the book, the first half of the sixteenth century in Germany is dealt with at much greater length and in greater detail than the later period, a sketch of which forms the subject of the last two chapters. The reason for this is to be found in the fact that while the roots of the later German character and culture are to be sought for in the life of this period, it is comparatively little known to the average educated English reader. In the early fifteenth century, during the Reformation era, German life and culture in its widest sense began to consolidate themselves, and at the same time to take on an originality which differentiated them from the general life and culture of Western Europe as it was during the Middle Ages.
To those who would fully appreciate the later developments, therefore, it is essential thoroughly to understand the details of the social and intellectual history of the time in question. For the later period there are many more works of a generally popular character available for the student and general reader. The chief aim of the sketch given in Chapters IX and X is to bring into sharp relief those events which, in the Author's view, represent more or less crucial stages in the development of modern Germany.
For the earlier portion of the present volume an older work of the Author's, now out of print, entitled German Society at the Close of the Middle Ages, has been largely drawn upon. Reference, as will be seen, has also been made in the course of the present work to two other writings from the same pen which are still to be had for those desirous of fuller information on their respective subjects, viz. The Peasants' War and The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists (Messrs. George Allen & Unwin).

German Culture Past and Present
INTRODUCTORY
The close of the fifteenth century had left the whole structure of medi?val Europe to all appearance intact. Statesmen and writers like Philip de Commines had apparently as little suspicion that the state of things they saw around them, in which they had grown up and of which they were representatives, was ever destined to pass away, as others in their turn have since had. Society was organized on the feudal hierarchy of status. In the first place, a noble class, spiritual and temporal, was opposed to a peasantry either wholly servile or but nominally free. In addition to this opposition of noble and peasant there was that of the township, which, in its corporate capacity, stood in the relation of lord to the surrounding peasantry.
The township in Germany was of two kinds--first of all, there was the township that was "free of the Empire," that is, that held nominally from the Emperor himself (Reichstadt), and secondly, there was the township that was under the domination of an intermediate lord. The economic basis of the whole was still land; the status of