Popular history of Germany

Preface

'nr^HERE is here an endeavor to sketch the main outlines of the history of the German Empire, though the number of states- each with a separate history, makes it difficult to trace the line clearly. The names are, for the most part, given in their German form, rather than by their English equivalents.

Chapter. 1. — The Ancient Germans . 2.— Valhall

3. — The Germans and Romans. 4. — The Nibelonig Heroes 5.— The Franks. 496— 7G5 . 6.— Karl the Great. 768—814

7.— Lndwig I., the Pious. 814—840 Loth air I. 840 — 855.

L lid wig II. 855 — 875 .

Karl li., the Bald. 875—876 Karloman. 876—880 Karl III., the Thick. 880—887 Ai-nulf. 887—899 Ludwig IV., the Child. 899—612

8.— Konrad I. 912—917 Heiurich I. 917—936 Otto I., the Great. 936—973

9.^-The Saxon Emperors —

Otto II., the Red. 973—983 Otto III., the Wonder. 983-1000 St. Heinrich II. 1000—1024 .

\rL

Contents.

10. — The Franconian Line —

Konrad II., the Salic. 1024—1039 Heinrich III. 1039—1054 Heinrich lY. 1054—1106 Heinrich Y. 1106—1114

12.— Friedrich I. , Barbarossa. 1157—1178

13. — Friedrich I., Barbarossa (continued).

Heinrich YI. 1189—1197

14,

15, 16, 17

18, 19,

22. 23.

.—Friedrich U. 1218

. — Friedrich II. (continued). 1250

Albrecht. 1298

, — Gnnther.

Karl lY.

1347- 1347-

-1347 ■1378

—Albrecht II. 1438—1440 Friedrich III. 1440—1482

—Friedrich IH. 1482—1493 —Maximilian. 1493—1519 —Charles Y. 1519—1529 —Charles Y. 1530—1535 —Charles Y. 1535 —Ferdinand I. 1556—1564 — Maximilian II. 1564 — Eudolf II. 1576—1612 —Matthias. 1612—1619 - The Revolt in Bohemia — Ferdinand II. 1619—1621

1174—1189

Contents,

35.— Gustaf Adolf and Wallensteiu Ferdinand II. 1621— 1G34

36.— Ferdinand II. 10:34-1637 Ferdinand III. lGo7

37. — The Siege of Vienna — Leopold I. 1657— 1GS7

38. — War of tlie Succession — •Leopold L 1635—1705

47. — French Conquests —

1 349

443 456 462

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Pagj*.

Ancient German Village - - - - - Ic

Sacrifice to Woden - - - _ . 17 Volkyria ---_._ 2?

The Elves 27

The Velleda warning Drusus - - - - 3)

Germanicus burying the Slain - . _ 3J1

Brunhild's Flight - - - . - . 49

Battle of Tours • - - - . - - 53

St. Boniface felling the Oak - - - - 57

Karl the Great and Witikind - - _ _ 61

Karl the Great entering St. Peter's - - - 65

Karl the Great in his School - - - - 67

Haroun al Raschid's Gifts - . . _ 71 Ludwig the Pious ------ 74

Odo appealing to Karl the Fat - - - 81

The Last Tribute of the Magyars - - - - 85

Adelheid Hiding in the Corn - - - - 90

Otto's Flight - - . . _ - 95

Opening the Tomb of Karl the Great - - 99 St. Henry -.----. 102

Heinrich IV. carried off - - - - 109

Penance of Heinrich IV. . . . . 113

Lothar II. leading the Pope's Horse - - 119

The Women of Weiusberg - - _ . 123

Friedrich I. refuses the Milanese Submission - 129

Faithfulness of Sieveneichen - - . - 133

X. List of Illustkations.

PACK.

Friedrich L, kneeling to Heinrich the Lion - 137

The Diet at Mainz - - - - - 143

Richard the Lion Heart and Heinrich YI. - - 147

Heinrich VL ---.__ 150

Murder of Philip - _ _ _ _ 155

Otto lY. finds his Bride dead - - - _ 159

Friedrich H. putting on the Crown of Jerusalera - 167

Friedrich II. receiving Isabel of England - - 175

Execution of Conradin and Friedrich - - 159

German Castle ---___ 193

Medieval Costume - - _ _ _ 2IO

Heinrich YII. - - - - . _ 213

^dolf 215

Arnold von Winkelried - . - _ 227

Huss at Constance - . . . _ 235

Albrecht II. - - _ _ _ _ 244

Maximilian and Albert Durer - - .. _ 255

Maximilian -___!_ 26I

Luther and his Thesis - . - - „ 265

Luther at Wartburg --_ = =. 275

Charles Y. and Fugger - - . „ 285 Flight of Charles Y. - - =293

Charles Y. in the Cloister, St. Just - - , 297

Ferdinand I. - - - . . 3qjL

Maximilian II. - - = = _ _ ^01

Eudolf and Tycho Brahe - =. - „ 315

Friedrich Y. - - - - . ^ 327

List of Illusteations.

PAGE.

Ferdinand II. _ _ - .

Wildenstein Castle _ . - -

Gustaf Adolf ... -

Death of Walleustein ....

Bernhard of Saxe Weimar

Peace of Westphalia . - . .

Leopold I. - . - . .

Friedrich I. King of Prussia (Coronation)

Marlborough and Eugene

Joseph I. - - - - -

Karl YL

Maria Theresa - - - -

KarlYIL

The Queen of Poland

Friedrich the Great and Zeithen

Maria Theresa and Kaunitz

Joseph 11. holding tlie Plough

Leopold II. ....

Napoleon and Franz II. ...

Queen Louise pleading with Napoleon

Metternich and Napoleon

The Allies entering Paris

Wilhehn I.

YOJJm FOLKS' HISTOET OF GERMANY

CHAPTER L

THE ANCIENT GERMANS.

^ I ^HE history of the German Empire rightly -*- begins with Karl the Great, but to understand it properly it will be better to go further back, when the Romans were beginning to know sometliing about the wild tribes who lived to the north of Italy, and to the coast of the Gaulish or Keltic lands.

Almost all the nations in Europe seem to have come out of the north-west of Asia, one tribe after another, the fiercest driving the others farther and farther to the westward before them. Tribes of Kelts or Gauls had come first, but, though they were brave and fierce, they were not so sturdy as the great people that came after them, and were thus driven up into the lands bordering on the Atlantic Ocean; while the tribes that came behind

*

them spread all over that middle part of Europe which lies between the Alps and the Baltic sea. These tribes all called themselves Deutsche which meant the people ; indeed, most of them do so still, though we English only call those Dutch who live in Holland. Sometimes they were called Ger, War, or Spear-men, just as the Romans were called Quirites; and this name, Spear-men or Germans, has come to be the usual name that is given to them together, instead of Deutsch as they call themselves, and from which the fine word Teutonic has been formed.

The country was full of marshes and forests, with ranges of hills in which large rivers rose and straggled, widening down to their swampy mouths. Bears and wolves, elks and buffaloes, ran wild, and were hunted by the men of the German tribes. These men lived in villages of rude huts, surrounded by lands to which all had a right in common, and where they grew their corn and fed their cattle. Their wives were much more respected than those of other nations ; they were usually strong, brave women, able to advise their husbands and to aid them in the fight ; and the authority of fathers and mothers over their families was great. The men were either freemen or nobles, and they had slaves, generally prisoners or the people of conquered

The Ancient Crermans, countries. The villages were formed into what were called hundreds, over which, at a meeting of the freemen from all of them, a chief was elected from among the nobles ; and many of the tribes had kings, who always belonged to one family, descended, it was thought, from their great god Woden.

ANCIENT GERMAN VILLAGE.

The German tribes all believed in the great god Woden, his brother Frey, and his son Thor, who reigned in a gorgeous palace, and with their children were called the Asa gods. Woden was all-wise, and two ravens whispered in his ear all that passed on

16 Young Folks' History of German'^',

ttie earth. The sun and moon were his e jes. The moon is so dull because he gave the sight of that eye for one draught of the well of wisdom at the foot of the great ash tree of life. He was a fearful god, who had stone altars on desolate heaths, where sacrifices of men and women were offered to him, and the foui'th day of the week was sacred to him.

Frey was gentler, and friendship, faith, and freedom were all sacred to him. There is a little confusion as to whether Friday is called after him or Frigga, Odin's wife, to whom all fair things belonged, and who had priestesses among the German maidens. Thor, or, as some tribes called liim, Thunder, was the bravest and most awful of the gods, and was armed with a hammer called Miolner, or the Miller or Crusher. Thunder was thought to be caused by his swinging it through the air, and the mark in honor of him was |^, meant to be a likeness of his hammer. It was signed over boys when they were washed with water immediately after they were born ; and in some tribes they were laid in their father's shields, and had their first food from the point of his sword.

These three were always the most honored of the Asa gods, though some tribes preferred one and

The Ancient Germans. 19

some the other ; but Woden was always held to be the great father of all, and there were almost as many stories about the Asir as there were about the Greek gods, though we cannot be sure that all were known to all the tribes, and they were brought to their chief fulness in the branch of the race that dwelt in the far North, and who became Cln?istians much later. Some beliefs, however, all had in common, and we may understand hints about the old faith of the other tribes by the more complete northern stories.

There was a great notion of battle going through everything. The Asa gods were summer gods, and their enemies Avere the forces of cold and darkness, the giants who lived in Jotenheim, the land of giants. All that was good was mixed up with light and summer in the old Deutsch notions ; all that was bad with darkness and cold. Baldur, the son of Woden, was beautiful, good, and glorious ; but Loki, the chief enemy, longed to kill him. His mother, Frigga, went round and made every creature and plant swear never to hurt Baldur, but she missed one plant, the mistletoe. So when all liia brothers were amusing themselves by throwing things at Baldur, knowing they could not hurt hun, Loki slyly put in the hand of his blind brother

Hodur a branch of mistletoe which struck him dead. But Frigga so wept and prayed that it was decreed that Baldur might live again provided everything would weep for him; and everything accordingly did weep, except one old hag who sat under a tree, and would shed no tears for Baldur, so he might not live, only he was given back to his mother for half the year, and then faded and vanished again for the other half. But Loki had his punishment, for he was chained under a crag with a serpent for ever dropping venom on his brow, though his wife was always catching it in a bowl, and it could onl}^ fall on him when she was gone to empty the bowl at the stream.

It is plain that Baldur meant the leaves and trees of summer, and that the weeping of evsr3*tliing was the melting of the ice ; but there was mixed into the notion something much higher and greater respecting the struggle between good and evil.

Chapter II. Valhall

THE haU of Woden was caUed Valhall, * and thither were thought to go the souls of the brave. There were beHeved to be maidens called Valkyr, or the choosers of the slain — Hilda, Guda, Truda, Mista, and others — who floated on swan's wings over the camps of armies before a battle and chose out who should be killed. Nor was such a death accounted a disaster, for to die bravely was the only way to the Hall of Woden, where the valiant enjo3^ed, on the other side of the rainbow bridge, the delights they cared for most in Life — hunting the boar all day, and feasting on liim all night ; drinking mead from the skulls of their conquered enemies. Shooting stars were held to be the track of weapons carried to supply the fresh

* Vol meant a brave death in battle. 21 coiners into Yalhall. Only b}^ dying gallantly could entrance be won there ; and men would do anything rather than not die thus, rush on swords, leap from crags, drown themselves, and the like, for they believed that all who did not gain an entrance to the Hall of the Slain became the prisoners of Loki's pale daughter Hel, and had to live on in her cold, gloomy, sunless lands, sharing her bondage.

For once Loki and his children, and the other evil beings of the mist land, had made a fierce attack on Woden, and had all been beaten and bound. Fenris, the son of Loki, was a terrible wolf, who was made prisoner and was to be bound by a chain ; but he would only stand still on condition that Tyr or Tiw, the son of Woden, should put his right hand into his mouth in token of good faith. The moment that Fenris found that he was chained, he closed his jaws and bit off the hand of Tiw, whose image therefore only had one hand, and who is the god after whom Tuesday is named.

Yalhall was not, however, to last for ever. There was to come a terrible time called the Twilight of the Gods, when Loki and Fenris would burst their chains and attack the Asa gods ; Woden would be slain by Fenris ; Thor would perish in the flood of

ValhalL 25

poison cast forth by the terrible serpent Midgard ; and there would be a great outburst of fire, wliich would burn up Valhall and all within, as well as the powers of evil. Only two of the gods, Viduiand Wali, were to survive, and these would make again a new heaven and earth, in which the spirits of gods and men would lead a new and more glorious life.

How much of all this grew up later and was caught from Christianity we cannot tell ; but there is reason to think that much of it was believed, and that heartily, making the German nations brave and true, and helping them to despise death. There were temples to the gods, where the three figures of Woden, Frey, and Thor were always together in rude carving, and sometimes with rough jewels for eyes. Woden also had sacred oaks, and the great stone altars on heaths, raised probably by an earlier race, were sacred to him. Sometimes human sacrifices were offered there, but more often sacred horses, for horses were the most sacred of their animals: they were kept in honor of the gods, auguries were drawn from their neighings, and at the great yearly feasts they were offered in sacrifice, and their flesh was eaten.

There were gods of the waters, Niord, and Egir, who raised the great wave as the tide comes in at the mouth of rivers ; and his cruel daughter Rana, who went about in a sea chariot causing shipwrecks. Witches called upon her when they wanted to raise storms and drown their enemies at sea.

One old German story held that Tiw * was the father of Man, and that man's three sons were Ing, Isk, and Er, the fathers of the chief Deutsch tribes. Isk (or Ash) was the father of the Franks and Allemans ; Ing, of the Swedes, Angles, and Saxons ; aixd Er, or Erman, of a tribe called by the Romans Herminiones. This same Er or Erman had a temple called Eresburg, with a marble pillar on which stood an armed warrior holding in one hand a banner bearing a rose, in the other a pair of scales; his ijrest was a cock ; he had a bear on his breast, and on his shield was a lion in a field of flowers. A college of priests lived around ; and before the army went out to battle, they galloped round and round the figure in full armor, brandishing their spears and praying for victory ; and on their return they offered up in sacrifice, sometimes their prisoners, sometimes cowards who had fled from the foe.

The image was called Irmansul — sul meaning a pillar ; and two pillars or posts were the great token * Tlie same word as the Greek Zeus and Latiu Deus.

Valhall.

of home and settlement to the German nations. They were planted at the gate of theu^ villages and towns, where one was called the Ermansaul, the other the Rolandsaul. And when a family were abont to change their home, they nprooted the two wooden pillars of their own house and took them away. If they went by sea, they threw their pillars

THE ELVES.

overboard, and tixed themselves wherever these posts were cast up.

Dutch fancy filled the woods, liills, and streams with spirits. There were 'P'lves tliroughout the woods and plains, shadowy creatures who spoi-tecj in the night and watched over human beings for good or harm. The Bergmen dwelt in the hills, keeping guard over the metals and jewels hidden there, and forging wonderful swords that always struck home, and were somethnes given to lucky mortals, though they generally served for the fights in Yalhall; and the waters had Necks and other spuits dangerous to those who loitered by the water-side. A great many of our best old fairy tales were part of the ancient German mythology, and have come down to our own times as stories told by parents to their children.

There were German women who acted as priestesses to Frigga, or Hertha, the Earth, as she Avas often called. She had a great temple in Rugen, an isle in the Baltic ; her image was brought out thence at certain times, in a chariot di^awn by white heifers, to bless the people and be washed in the Baltic waters. Orion's belt was called her distaff, and the gossamer marked her path over the fields when she brought summer with her.

When one of the northern tribes was going to start to the south to find new homes, their wives prayed to Frigga to give them good speed. She bade them stand forth the next morning in the rising

Valhalh 29

sun with their long hair let down over their chins. "Who are these long beards?" asked Woden. " Thou hast given them a name, so thou must give them the victory," said Frigga ; and henceforth the tribes were called Longbeards, or Lombards.

Before a battle, the matrons used to cast lots to guess how the fortunes of the day would go, doing below what the Valkyr did above. Sometimes a more than commonly wise woman would arise among them, and she was called the Wa]a, or Velleda, and looked up to and obeyed by all.

Chapter III. The Germans And Romans

TUST as it was with the Britons and GaulSc ^ the first we know of the Germans was when tlie Romans began to fight witli them. When Juhus Csesar was in Gaul, tliere was a great chief among the tribe called Schwaben — Suevi, as the Romans made it — called Ehrfurst,* or, as in Latin, Ariovistus, who had been invited into Gaul to settle the quarrels of two tribes of Gauls in the north. This he did by conquering them both ; but they then begged help from Caesar, and Ehrfurst was beaten by the Romans and driven back. Csesar then crossed the Rhine by a bridge of boats and ravaged the country, staying there for eighteen days. He was so struck with the bravery of the

* Honor prince.

THE VELLEDA WARNING DRUSUS.

32 Youn^ Folks' History of G-ermany,

Germans that he persuaded their young men to serve in his legions, where they were very useful ; but they also learned to fight in the Roman fashion.

Germany was let alone till the time of the Emperor Augustus, when his step-son Drusus tried to make it a province of Rome, and built fifty fortresses along the Rhine, besides cutting a canal between that river and the Yssel, and sailing along the coasts of the North sea. He three times entered Germany, and in the year B.C. 9, after beating the Marchmen, was just going to cross tne Elbe, when one of the Yelledas, a woman of great stature, gtood before the army and said, " Thou greed}^ robber! whither wouldst thou go? The end of thy misdeeds and of thy life is at hand." The Romans turned back dismayed ; and thirty days later Drusus was killed by a fall from his horse.

Drusus' brother Tiberius went on with the attempt, and gained some land, while other tribes were allies of Rome, and all seemed likely to be conquered, when Quinctilius Varus, a Roman who came out to take the command, began to deal so rudely and harshly with the Germans that a young chief named Herman, of Arminius, was roused. He had secret meetings at night in the woods with other chiefs, and they swore to be faithful to one

The Germans and Romans. 35

another in the name of their gods. When all was ?eady, information was given to Yarns that a tribe in the north had revolted. He wonld not listen to Siegert or Segestes, the honest German who advised him to be cantions and to keep Herman as a hostage, and set out with three legions to put it down ; but his German guides led him into the thickest of the great Teutoberg forest, and the further they went the worse this grew. Trunks of trees blocked up the road, darts were hurled from behind trees, and when at last an open space was gained after three days' struggling through the wood, a huge host of foes was dra^vn up there, and in the dreadful fight that followed almost every Roman was cut off, and Varus tln-ew himself on liia own sword.

Herman married the daughter of Siegert, and was chief on the Hartz mountains, aided by his uncle Ingomar ; but after five years, A.D. 14, the Emperor Tiberius sent the son of Drusus — who waa called already, from liis father's successes, Germanicus — against liim. Some of the Germans, \iewing Siegert as a friend of Rome, beset his village, and were going to burn it, when Germanicus came in time to disperse them and save Siegert. Thusnelda, the wife of Herman, was with her father, and was sent off as a prisoner to Eome with her baby ; while Germanicus marched into the Teutoberg wood, found the bones of the army of Varus, and burnt them on a funeral pile, making a speech calling on his men to avenge their death. But Herman's horsemen fell on him and defeated him, and if the Germans had not been so eager to plunder they would have made a great many prisoners. They drove the Romans back across the Rhine, and the next year were ready for them, and had a tre- Inendous battle on the banks of the Weser. In this the Romans prevailed, and Herman himself was badly wounded, and was only saved by the fleetness of his horse. However, he was not daunted, and still kept in the woods and harassed the Romans, once forcing them to take refuge in their ships.

Tiberius grew jealous of the love the army bore to Germanicus, and sent for him to return to Rome. Herman thus had saved his country, but he had come to expect more power than his chiefs thought his due, and he was slain by his own kinsmen, A.D. 19, when only thirty-seven years old. His wife and child had been shown in Germanicus' triumph, and he never seems to have seen them again. It was during this war that the great Roman historian

The Germans and Romans, 37

Tacitus came to learn the habits and manners of the Germans, and was so struck with their simple truth and bravery that he wrote an account of them, which seems meant as an example for the fallen and corrupt Romans of his time.

There were no more attempts to conquer Germany after this ; but the Germans, in the year 69, helped in the rising of a Gaulish chief named Civilis against the Romans, and a Velleda who lived in a lonely tower in the forests near the Lippe encouraged liim. He prevailed for a time, but then fell.

The Germans remained terrible to the Romans for many years, and there were fights all along the Ime of the empire, which their tribes often broke through; but nothing very remarkable happened till the sixth century, when there was a movement and change of place among theni. This seems to have been caused by the Huns, a savage tribe of the great Slavonic or Tartar stock of nations, who came from the East, and drove the Deutsch nation, brave as they were, before them for a time.

Then it was that the Goths came over the Danube, and, dividing into the Eastern and Western Goths, sacked Rome, conquered the province of Africa, and founded two kingdoms in Spain and in

Northern Italy. Their great king Theuderick, who reigned at Verona, was called by the Germans Dietrich of Berne, and is greatly praised and honored in their old songs.

Then Vandals followed the Goths, and took Africa from them ; and the Lombards, or Longbeards, after the death of Thenderick, took the lands in Northern Italy wliich had been held by the Goths, founded a kingdom, and called it Lombardy. The Burgundians (or Burg Castle men) gained the south-east part of Gaul all round the banks of the Rhone, and founded a kingdom there ; and the Sachsen (ssex or axe men) settled themselves on the banks of the Elbe, whence went out bands of men who conquered the south of Britain. The Franks (free men) were, in the meantime, coming over the Rhine, and first plundering the north of Gaul, then settling there. All the western half of the, Roman Empire was overspread by these Deutsch nations from the shores of the Baltic to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Carpathian Mountains; and instead of being conquered by the Romans, the Deutsch nations had conquered them.

It is chiefly with the Franks, Sachsen, Schwaben,

The Germans and Romans, and Germans that this liistory is concerned; but before going any further, there is a great mythological story to be told, which all believed in as truth.

Chapter IV. The Nibelonig Heroes

I ^HERE are two versions of this strange

-■- ancient storj^ — a northern one made in

heathen times, a German one in Christian days.

According to this one, the three gods, Woden,

Loki, and Hamer, came down to a river in Nibel-

heim — the land of mist — to fish; and Loki killed

an otter and skinned it. Now this otter was really

a dwarf named Ottur, whose home was on the river

bank, with liis father and brothers, Fafner and

Reginn, and who used to take the form of the

beast when he wanted to catch fish. When his

brothers saw what had befallen him, they demanded

that Loki should, as the price of his blood, fill the

otter's skin with gold ; and tliis Loki did, but when

he gave it, he laid it under a curse, that it should

do no good to its owner.

The curse soon began to be fulfilled, for Fafner

The Nihelonig Heroes, 41

killed his father to gain the treasure, and then turned himself into a serpent to keep watch over it, and prevent Reginn from getting it. But Reginn had a pupil who was so strong that he used to catch wild lions and hang them by the tail over the wall of his castle. The northern people called him Sigurd, but the Germans call him Siegfried,* and say that his father was the king of the Netherlands, and that he was a hero in the train of Dietrich of Berne. Reginn persuaded Siegfried to attack the di-agon Fafner and kill him, after which he bade the champion bathe in the blood and eat the heart. The bath made his skin so hard that nothing could hurt him, except in one spot between his shoulders, where a leaf had stuck as it was blown down from the trees \ and the heart made him able to understand the voices of the birds. From their song Siegfried found out that Reginn meant to slay him, and he therefore killed Reginn and himself took the treasure, in which he found a tarn cap, which made him invisible when he put it on. Serpents were called worms in old Deutsch, and the Germans said that their city of Wurms was the place where Siegfried killed the dragon. They called him Siegfried the Horny.

♦ Conquering Peace.

Now there was a lady of matchless strength Tiamed Brunhild;* but she had offended Woden, Who touched her with his sleep-thorn, so that she fell into a charmed sleep, surrounded with a hedge ■of flame. Siegfried heard of her, broke through the circle of fire, and woke the lady, winning her heart and love ; but he had then to leave her in her castle after three days and go back to the common world, carrying her ring and girdle with him. But by a magic drink, as one story says, he was thrown into a sleep in which he lost all remembrance of Brunhild.