ists and weapons, but also the
strokes of their tongues. The long-haired and curly peasant offers the
goblet to the _Junker_, and snatches it back as he attempts to grasp
it, places it then according to court custom before drinking, on his
head, and dances through the room, then the knight rejoices if the
goblet falls from the lout's head and is spilt over him; but the knight
has no scruple in making use of contemptuous oaths, when the indignant
village youths call him to account for having shown too much attention
to their wives and sweethearts.

Such is the aspect of village life given us in the songs of Neidhart
von Reuenthal, the most witty and humorous songster of the thirteenth
century. All his poetry dwells on the joys and sufferings of the
peasantry, and the greater part of his life was spent amongst them. He
has the complete self-dependence of a refined and cultivated man, but
in spite of that, he had not always the advantage over the country
people. A peasant youth, Engelhard, occasioned him the greatest sorrow
of his life. It appears that he had made his love Friderun, a peasant
girl, unfaithful to him; the thorn remained in the heart of the knight
as long as he lived; but afterwards, also, in his courtship of the
village maidens, the nobleman had much to fear from the wooing of the
young peasants, and was frequently tormented by bitter jealousy.

This connection of the knight, Neidhart, and the peasantry was no
exception in the beginning of the thirteenth century; for though in the
period that immediately followed, the pride of the nobles, with respect
to the citizen and peasant, quickly hardened into an exclusive class
feeling, yet in 1300, when knightly dignity was in great request, and
pride in noble quarterings had risen high, at least in Swabia, Bavaria,
and Upper Austria, still the knight married the daughter of the rich
peasant, and gave him his daughter in marriage; and the rich peasant's
son became vassal and knight, with one knightly shield.[6] Even in the
sixteenth century this state of things continued in some provinces--for
example, in the Isle of Ruegen. After the Reformation also, the wealthy
peasants put themselves on an equality with the nobles. They lived, as
a nobleman of that time relates, arrogantly and contentiously, and
these lamentable marriages were not unfrequent.

Some score of years after Neidhart, in the same districts of Germany,
the idealism of knighthood, its courtly manners