ins, were symbolized by the poetic picture of Lady World,
which was even plastically represented on the Cathedral portals at Worms
and Basle.

As here the typical knight is turned from the joys and aspirations of
the world, thus the women of that brilliant period were drawn from their
delight in earthly life and love; Christ was shown to them as the
bridegroom of their souls; ideal joys of the world beyond were depicted
to them in attractive colors. Numberless German hymns are devoted to
Mary, but so little was it possible to get away from the realism of the
love of the time that the sublime glow of holy fire makes room for the
almost frivolous ardor of the time of chivalry. The Holy Virgin becomes
more and more an earthly queen, whose court is provided with all the
luxuries of the time. Religious sentimentality changes into passion. The
piety of the noble ladies by no means deprives the minstrel knights of
their due, or, as Scherer ingeniously says, "the result of the hundred
years' struggle of the clergy against the world ends in the triumph of
the latter." But not entirely so, for again and again there stirs in the
German conscience the eternally spiritual element.

The Church placed in the field new troops, who did their work with
victorious energy. Orders of beggar monks arose, and the Popes soon
realized what a valuable instrument they were. The Dominicans and
Franciscans had begun to settle in Germany. As preachers and confessors,
they strove for dominance over souls. They inveighed passionately
against the courtly life. Sinful was the tournament, sinful the luxuries
of the table and courtly dress and fashions, sinful the dance and the
minne, the worldly song and the service to women out of wedlock. Their
influence upon women became very marked; many ladies began to turn from
the world, sat like nuns, hid their bosoms and faces, and wore
scapulars. "Instead of going with us to dance, you stand day and night
in church," is a knightly complaint.

Not only piety and mysticism, but scholarship, which also was in
conflict with chivalry, destroyed the minnesong. The great Italian
Dominican, Thomas Aquinas, furnished to German mystics a considerable
part of their philosophy. The essence of mysticism, poetically
conceived, is the conviction that the soul is a bride of Christ. Mystic
theology described the passionate emotions of the soul, in her ascent
to, and union with her heavenly bridegroom. Eckard, Tauler, and Suso