German Culture Past and Present

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
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CULTURE PAST AND PRESENT ***

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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-MEDIÆVAL 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 mediæval 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
mediæval 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