_maritagium_) had to be paid for this consent, and
that the body of the unfortunate peasant girl belonged to her oppressor,
at least for the first night (_jus primce noctis_). The existence of
this infamous right has been contested by German historians, but as
proofs Scherr adduces two authentic documents of the years 1538 and
1543. All these facts are sufficient proof that the above literary
remnants do not greatly exaggerate the moral and intellectual condition
of that class, which is the basic element of every civilization.

We now proceed with more satisfaction to an estimate of the bourgeoisie.
They became more and more cultured, and took upon themselves the task of
raising the standards of education and morality, of upholding the sacred
flame of German spiritual and intellectual life. They began to spin
again the thread of poetry that had broken in the brutalized hands of a
degraded nobility. This thread was now the "_Mastersong_." Mastersong,
though of a prosaic, mechanical style, was nevertheless an ennobling,
purifying element of culture in the frivolous and impure life of late
mediaeval German cities. Mastersong formed the bridge between the world
of everyday realism and the world of ideals. Mastersong alone prevented
an entire break of the continuity of German civilization between the two
great periods of bloom, the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries. As
the bourgeoisie acquired a social position and a personal worth of their
own, as the German peasantry, in the extreme North at the mouth of the
Elbe between marshes and sea, the Ditmarschen and Stedingers, and again
in the South between the Alpine passes, the Swiss, heroically defended
their manhood and liberties, there began among those lowly born, but
high-minded, vigorous, and comparatively pure classes an intellectual
and a moral life of a higher order. The folk song of love, of warlike
honor, of victory over the brutal squirearchy, of invigorating
patriotism, of a national union embracing all classes, begins to ring
through the German "poetic forest," as Uhland calls it. The loving maid
speaks of the falcen, and means the lover; the rose garden signifies
love's favor; flowers are maidens, like the rose on the heath that is
plucked by the boy in spite of its thorns; the forget-me-not designates
modesty, humility, chastity. There are little love songs describing the
sorrow of parting, the joy of the dance, the dream of love under the
tree from which a