nt to record that this kind of chivalry and love service
found no welcome among the North Germans or Scandinavians. In their
poetry that is left to us we find none of the degenerated, effeminate
sensuality of the Romance and South German courtoisie. True German
character does not permit the profound feelings of real affection to
pass into publicity. Love is purer and more genuine; women stand on no
imaginary, fantastic pinnacle, but are, on that account, really freer
and nobler. The higher that women are raised to the domain of unreality
and unnaturalness, the lower is generally their moral standard. This
explains the fact that among civilized nations morality is always
highest in the middle classes of society. Among the poorest and
lowliest, alas! the demon of physical hunger, the moloch of distress,
when there is frequently nothing for sale but womanly honor, militate
against innate virtue.

A beautiful example of woman's gratitude toward a singer of her virtues
must here be recorded. When Heinrich von Meissen, called Frauenlob
(Women's Praise) from his glorification of the fair sex, died, A. D.
1317, at Mainz, he was magnificently entombed in the hallway of the
Cathedral. The ladies of Mainz carried the bier of the deceased
minnesinger with loud lamentations and mourning to his grave, and poured
upon it such an abundance of wine that it flowed through the entire
expanse of the church. Heinrich had indeed well deserved the women's
special affection, as he had glorified the Holy Virgin, and given new
place in the language to the ancient term Frau (the joygiver), that had
been supplanted by Weib. The fame of Frauenlob has been perpetuated by
German womanhood; in 1842 a monument, by Schwanthaler, was erected in
his honor by the ladies of the city, in the cloisters of the Cathedral,
where he is buried. The grave itself is still marked by a copy, made in
1783, of the original tombstone.

A few words about the education of a woman of noble birth may not be
amiss. The difficult arts of writing and reading were more generally
acquired by noble ladies than by their knights. While the great Wolfram
von Eschenbach, though possessing all the social culture of his time,
could not read, and Ulrich von Lichtenstein had to keep an epistle of
his lady unread for ten days, as his secretary was absent, ladies
generally studied those branches which appear to us now quite
rudimentary. Heinrich von Veldeke, we learn, lent the manuscript o