made before he fought.* These are all of the indomitable kind, and well charged with threats of unlimited slaughter.

The custom survived all the social and religious changes of Europe. But the wild war-phrases which the Germans shouted for mutual encouragement, and to derive, like the Highlanders, an omen from the magnitude of the sound, became hymns they were sung in unison, with the ordinary monkish modulations of the time. The most famous of these was written by Notker, a Benedictine of St. Gall, about the year 900. It was translated by Luther in 1524, and an English translation from Luther's German can be found in the "Lyra Germanica," p. 237.

William's minstrel, Taillefer, sang a song before the Battle of Hastings: but the Normans loved the purely martial strain, and this was a ballad of French composition, perhaps a fragment of the older "Roland's Song." The "Roman de Rou," composed by Master Wace, or Gasse, a native of Jersey and Canon of Bayeux, who died in 1184, is very minute in its description of the Battle of Val des Dunes, near Caen, fought by Henry of France and William the Bastard against Guy, a Norman noble in the Burgundian interest. The year of the battle was 1047.

There is a Latin narrative of the Battle of Hastings, in eight hundred and thirty-five hexameters and pentameters. This was composed by Wido, or Guido, Bishop of Amiens, who died in 1075.

The German knights on their way to Jerusalem sang a holy psalm, beginning, "Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of the earth." This was discovered not long ago in Westphalia; a translation of it, with the music, can be found in Mr. Richard Willis's collection of hymns.

One would expect to gather fragments of war-poetry from the early times of the Hungarians, who held the outpost of Europe against the Turks, and were also sometimes in arms against the imperial policy of Germany. But De Gerando informs us that they set both victories and *Laing's Sea-Kings of Norway, Vol. II. p. 312; Vol. III. p. 90.

defeats to music. The "Rákótzi" is a national air which bears the name of an illustrious prince who was overcome by Leopold. "It is remarkable that in Hungary great thoughts and deep popular feelings were expressed and consecrated, not by poetry, but by national airs. The armed Diets which were held upon the plain of Rákos were the symbol of ancient liberty to the popular apprehension; there is the Air of Rákos,' also the Air of Mohács,' which recalls the fall of the old monarchy, and the Air of Zrinyi,' which preserves the recollection of the heroic defence of Szigeth."* These airs are not written; the first comer extemporized their inartificial strains, which the feeling of the moment seized upon and transmitted by tradition. Among the Servians, on the contrary, the heroic ballad is full of fire and meaning, but the music amounts to nothing.

The first important production of the warlike kind, after Germany began to struggle with its medieval restrictions, was composed after the Battle of Sempach, where Arnold Struthahn of Winkelried opened a passage for the Swiss peasants through the ranks of Austrian spears. It is written in the Middle-HighGerman, by Halbsuter, a native of Lucerne, who was in the fight. Here are specimens of it. There is a paraphrase by Sir Walter Scott, but it is done at the expense of the metre and naïve character of the original.

In the thousand and three hundred and six and eightieth year

Did God in special manner His favor make appear:

Hei! the Federates, I say,

They got this special grace upon St. Cyril's

day.

That was July 9, 1386. The Swiss had been exasperated by the establishment of new tolls by the nobility, who were upheld in it by the Duke of Austria. The Federates (Confederates can never again be used in connection with a just fight) began to attack the castles which shel

A. De Gerando, La Transylvanie et ses Habitants, Tom. II. p. 265, et seq.

tered the oppressive baronial power. The castle behind the little town of Willisow is stormed and burned. Thereupon the nobles swear to put these Swiss free peasants down and get them a master. The poet tells all this, and proceeds to describe their excesses and pride. Then,—

Ye Lowland lords are drawing hither to the Oberland,

To what an entertainment ye do not understand:

Hei! 't were better for shrift to call,

For in the mountain-fields mischances may befall.

To which the nobles are imagined to reply,

"Indeed! where sits the priest, then, to grant

this needful gift?"

In the Schweitz he is all ready, - he'll give you hearty shrift:

Hei! he will give it to you sheer,

This blessing will he give it with sharp halberds and such gear.

The Duke's people are mowing in the fields near Sempach. A knight insolently demands lunch for them from the Sempachers; a burgher threatens to break his head and lunch them in a heavy fashion, for the Federates are gathering, and will undoubtedly make him spill his porridge. A cautious old knight, named Von Hasenburg, rides out to reconnoitre, and he sees enough to warn the Duke that it is the most serious business in which he ever engaged.

Then spake a lord of Ochsenstein, "O Hasenburg, hare-heart!"

Him answereth Von Hasenburg, "Thy words bring me a smart:

Hei! I say to you faithfully,

Which of us is the coward this very day you 'll see."

So the old knight, not relishing being punned upon for his counsel, dismounts. All the knights, anticipating an easy victory, dismount, and send their horses to the rear, in the care of varlets who subsequently saved themselves by riding them off. The solid ranks are formed bristling with spears. There is a pause as the two parties survey each other. The nobles pass the word along that it looks like a paltry business:

"Ah, dear Christ of Heaven, by Thy bitter death we plead,

Help bring to us poor sinners in this our strait and need;

Hei! and stand by us in the field,

And have our land and people beneath Thy ward and shield."

Herewith did he an armful of spears nimbly take;

His life had an end, for his friends a lane did make:

Hei! he had a lion's mood,

So manly, stoutly dying for the Four Cantons' good.

And so it was the breaking of the nobles' front began

With hewing and with sticking,-it was God's holy plan:

Hei! if this He had not done,

It would have cost the Federates many an honest one.

The poem proceeds now with chaffing and slaughtering the broken enemy, enjoining them to run home to their fine ladies with little credit or comfort, and shouting after them an inventory of the armor and banners which they leave behind.*

Veit Weber, a Swiss of Freiburg, also wrote war-verses, but they are pitched on a lower key. He fought against Charles the Bold, and described the Battle of Murten, (Morat,) June 22, 1476. His facetiousness is of the grimmest kind. He exults without poetry. Two or three verses will be quite sufficient to designate his style and temper. Of the moment when the Burgundian line breaks, and the rout commences, he says, —

One hither fled, another there,
With good intent to disappear,

Some hid them in the bushes:

It is proper to state that an attack has lately been made in Germany upon the authenticity of the story of Winkelried, on the ground that it is mentioned in no contemporaneous document or chronicle which has yet come to light, and that a poem in fifteen verses composed before this of Halbsuter's does not mention it. Also it is shown that Halbsuter incorporated the previous poem into his own. It is furthermore denied that Halbsuter was a citizen of Lucerne. In short, there was no Winkelried! Perhaps we can afford to "rehabilitate" villains of every description, but need therefore the heroic be reduced to déshabille? That we cannot so well afford. We can give up William Tell's apple as easily as we can the one in Genesis, but Winkelried's "sheaf of Austrian spears" is an essential argument against original sin, being an altogether original act of virtue.

He will not vouch for the number of the killed, but gives it on hearsay as twenty-six thousand drowned and slain; but he regrets that their flight was so precipitate as to prevent him from recording a more refreshing total. He is specially merry over the wealth and luxurious habits of Charles, alludes to his vaporbaths, etc.:

His game of chess was to his cost,
Of pawns has he a many lost,

And twice his guard is broken;
His castles help him not a mite,
And see how lonesome stands his knight!
Checkmate 's against him spoken.

The wars of the rich cities with the princes and bishops stimulated a great many poenis that are full of the traits of burgher-life. Seventeen princes declared war against Nuremberg, and seventytwo cities made a league with her. The Swiss sent a contingent of eight hundred

men.

This war raged with great fierceness, and with almost uninterrupted success for the knights, till the final battle which took place near Pillerent, in 1456. A Nuremberg painter, Hans Rosenplüt, celebrated this in verses like Veit Weber's, with equal vigor, but downright prosaic street-touches. Another poem describes the rout of the Archbishop of Cologne, who attempted to get possession of the city, in 1444. All these Low-German poems are full of popular scorn and satire they do not hate the nobles so much as laugh at them, and their discom* Once, the year before, at Granson.

fitures in the field are the occasion of elaborate ridicule.

The Lanzknechts were foot-soldiers recruited from the roughs of Germany, and derived their name from the long lance which they carried; but they were also armed subsequently with the arquebuse. They were first organized into bodies of regular troops by George Frundsberg of Mindelheim, a famous German captain, whose castle was about twenty miles southwest of Augsburg. It was afterwards the centre of a little principality which Joseph I. created for the Duke of Marlborough, † as a present for the victory of Hochstädt (Blenheim). Frundsberg was a man of talent and character, one of the best soldiers of Charles V. He saved the Imperial cause in the campaign of 1522 against the French and Swiss. At Bicocco he beat the famous Swiss infantry under Arnold of Winkelried, a descendant, doubtless, of one of the children whom Arnold Struthahn left to the care of his comrades. At Pavia a decisive charge of his turned the day against Francis I. And on the march to Rome, his unexpected death so inflamed the Lanzknechts that the meditated retreat of Bourbon became impossible, and the city was taken by assault. His favorite mottoes were, Kriegsrath mit der That, "Plan and Action," and Viel Feinde, viel Ehre, "The more foes, the greater honor." He was the only man who could influence the mercenary lancers, who were as terrible in peace as in war.

The Lanzknecht's lance was eighteen feet long he wore a helmet and breastplate, and was taught to form suddenly and to preserve an impenetrable square. Before him all light and heavy cavalry went down, and that great arm of modern war did not recover from its disgrace and neglect till the time of Frederic. But his character was very indifferent: he

It is sometimes spelled landsknecht, as if it meant country-fellows, or recruits,-men raised at large. But that was a popular misapprehension of the word, because some of them were Suabian bumpkins.

The French soldier-song about Marlborough is known to every one.

went foraging when there was no campaign, and in time of peace prepared for war by systematic billeting and plundering. It was a matter of economy to get up a war in order to provide employment for the Lanzknecht.

Hans Sachs wrote a very amusing piece in 1558, entitled, "The Devil won't let Landsknechts come to Hell." Lucifer, being in council one evening, speaks of the Lanzknecht as a new kind of man; he describes his refreshing traits of originality, and expresses a desire to have one. It is agreed that Beelzebub shall repair as a crimp to a tavern, and lie in wait for this new game. The agent gets behind a stove, which in Germany would shield from observation even Milton's Satan, and listens while the Lanzknechts drink. They begin to tell stories which make his hair stand on end, but they also God-bless each other so often, at sneezing and hiccupping, that he cannot get a chance at them. One of them, who had stolen a cock and hung it behind the stove, asks the landlord to go and fetch the poor devil. Beelzebub, soundly frightened, beats a hasty retreat, expressing his wonder that the Lanzknecht should know he was there. He apologizes to Lucifer for being unable to enrich his cabinet, and assures him that it would be impossible to live with them; the devils would be eaten out of house and home, and their bishopric taken from them. Lucifer concludes on the whole that it is discreet to limit himself to monks, nuns, lawyers, and the ordinary sinner. The songs of the Lanzknecht are cheerful, and make little of the chances of the fight. Fasting and feasting are both welcome; he is as gay as a Zouave.* To be maimed is a slight matter: if he loses an

Who besings himself thus, in a song from the Solferino campaign:

"Quand l' zouzou, coiffé de son fez,
A par hasard queuqu' goutt' sous l' nez,
L' tremblement s' met dans la cambuse;
Mais s'il faut se flanquer des coups,
Il sait rendre atouts pour atouts,
Et gare dessous,

C'est l' zouzou qui s'amuse!
Des coups, des coups, des coups,
C'est l' zouzou qui s'amuse."

Drom, Drari, Drom,

arm, he bilks the Swiss of a glove; if his leg goes, he can creep, or a wooden leg

will serve his

purpose:

It harms me not a mite,

A wooden stump will make all right;
And when it is no longer good,
Some spital knave shall get the wood.

But if a ball my bosom strikes,

On some wide field I lie,
They'll take me off upon their pikes, -
A grave is always nigh;
Pumerlein Pum, - the drums shall say
Better than any priest,-Good day!

There is a very characteristic piece, without date or name of the writer, but which, to judge from the German, was written after the time of Luther. Nothing could better express the feeling of a people who have been saved by martial and religious enthusiasm, and brought through all the perils of history. It is the production of some Meistersinger, who introduced it into a History of Henry the Fowler, (fought the Huns, 919935,) that was written by him in the form of a comedy, and divided into acts. He brings in a minstrel who sings the song before battle. The last verse, with adapted metre and music, is now a soldier's song.

Many a righteous cause on earth

To many a battle growing,

Of music God has thought them worth,
A gift of His bestowing.

It came through Jubal into life;
For Lamech's son inventing

The double sounds of drum and fife,

They both became consenting.

For music good

Wakes manly mood,

Intrepid goes

Against our foes,

Calls stoutly," On!

Fall on fall on!

Clear field and street

Of hostile feet,

Shoot, thrust them through, and cleave, Not one against you leave!"

Elias prophecy would make

In thirsty Israel's passion: "To me a minstrel bring," he spake,

"Who plays in David's fashion." Soon came on him Jehovah's hand, In words of help undoubted, — Great waters flowed the rainless land, The foe was also routed.

Through all resistance breaking,
Can prove himself 'gainst heroes good,
On foes a vengeance taking.

Drums, when we droop;
Stand fast, my troop!
Let dart and sabre
The air belabor;
Give them no heed,
But be agreed

That flight's a breach of honor:
Of that be hearty scorner.

Although a part, as haps alway,

Will faintly take to fleeing, A lion's heart have I to-day

For Kaiser Henry's seeing. The wheat springs forth, the chaff's behind; * Strike harder, then, and braver;

This was first said by Rudolph of Erlach at the Battle of Laupen, in 1339, fought between citizens of Berne and the neighboring lords. The great array of the nobles caused the rear ranks of the Bernese to shrink. "Good!" cried Erlach, "the chaff is separated from the wheat! Cowards will not share the victory of the brave." — Zschokke's History of Switzerland, p. 48, Shaw's translation.