tria in 1127, and who was the first
woman known to us who in poetic German language worked out Biblical and
evangelical stories. The naive tone of her poetry is exemplified in her
description of the scene where the enemies of Christ lead the adulteress
to Him. Before retiring from the wicked world she had been married, and
had had two sons who seem to have been theologians. They furnished her
with material for three spiritual poems in which she described, with the
inartistic hand of a plain woman, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost as
they are communicated to man and create his virtues; further, she deals
with the Antichrist and the Last Judgment.

We must not leave the Prankish-Salian dynasty without mentioning briefly
a few superior royal women. Konrad II. found in his consort, Gisela, a
beneficent helpmate and also a coadjutor in the affairs of state. To
Konrad attaches the particularly characteristic and touching story of
the _Women of Weinsberg_, which has again and again been made the
subject of poems exalting the virtues of the faith and love of German
womanhood. When the emperor besieged the city of Weinsberg in Suabia he
met with such a stout resistance that he swore in his wrath to slay all
those who were able to carry arms. At last when hunger forced surrender,
the women appeared in Konrad's camp pleading for mercy, but the emperor
permitted them only to take as much of their precious possessions from
the doomed city as they could carry on their backs. And behold! next
morning when the gates opened, every woman tottered along under the
burden of her husband on her shoulders. Konrad's magnates maintained
that this was not the meaning of the grace offered to the women, but the
emperor, touched by so much loyalty and love, exclaimed: "An Imperial
word shall not be distorted by interpretation. The pledge as understood
by the Women of Weinsberg shall hold good!"

Konrad and Gisela's great son, Henry III. (1039-1056), who was strong
enough to bend and break the power of the Papacy during his brief reign,
married Agnes, a princess with a manly soul. She would have saved her
minor son, Henry IV. (1056-1106), perhaps the most unfortunate prince
who ever wore the thorny crown of the empire, if the perfidious, selfish
magnates of the empire had not snatched him by force too early from her
motherly and royal care. With the loss of his mother Henry lost the
direction and control and he seldom regained it during his long an