end, and the countless unspeakable
vices mentioned by Bishop Gregory of Tours demonstrate sufficiently the
terrible corruption of which even the best races are capable, when
released from all the bonds of legal restraint in the time of peace, and
when torn, root and branch, from a healthy native soil.

Even more characteristic is perhaps the poetic literature of the time,
in which the unnatural vices are transformed and reflected as lofty
virtues. What is the historian of culture to say when the contemporary
presbyter and bishop, the pious poet, Venantius Fortunatus, glorifies
and elevates both Brunehild and Fredegond as mirrors of virtue and
grace? The latter, the slave girl who attained the crown through murder
and prostitution, is to him the queen "who adorns the realm by her
virtues. Wise in council, skilful, provident, useful to the Court;
powerful of mind, magnanimous, excelling in all merits." Brunehild, on
the other hand, "The ethereal Brunehild, shining more brilliantly than
the stars, surpasses the light of the gems by the light of her
countenance of milk and blood. The lilies mixed with roses cannot
compare with her. She is a sapphire, a white diamond, a crystal, an
emerald, a iaspis, nay, more, for all must yield the palm to her; Spain
[referring to the Visigoths having occupied southern France and northern
Spain] has produced a new jewel."

CHAPTER III

THE YEARS OF THE WANDERINGS, AS REFLECTED IN THE FIRST PERIOD OF BLOOM
OF GERMAN LITERATURE (1100-1300)

The literary remnants of the pre-Carlovingian era are too scanty to
permit us to form from them a perfect picture of Teutonic woman during
the centuries of migrations. We are, however, able fairly to reconstruct
the record by the aid of the rich treasures transmitted to us from a
period five or six centuries later, a time epochal in the stormy youth
of the German peoples. Though the original songs were partly destroyed
through the antagonism of the Church and her efforts to root out the
pagan memories and traditions, and, though these causes, to a large
extent, made futile the strenuous efforts of Charlemagne to collect and
preserve the ancient lays and sagas, the people continued to be
influenced by their memories. The spirit of the "_Legend from Ancient
Times_," of which Heine writes in his beautiful poem, _Lorelei_, never
died out in the soul of the race. The spirit of expansion, of
enlargement of horizon, fostered by the crusades and by t