r spiritualizes the ideas regarding the devil--Activity of
the devil in the new Church--Compacts with the devil after Luther's
time--Favourable position of the possessed--The money devil at
Frankfort--Satan exorcised from one possessed--Witches--Dreadful
persecutions--Gloomy state of men's minds at the end of the sixteenth
century

DEDICATION.

To my dear Friend Solomon Hertzel.

Without your knowledge I dedicate this work to you, who have taken so
kind an interest in it, whose excellent library has so often helped
when other sources failed, and where, as industrious collectors, we
have examined so many old flying sheets and manuscripts.

To you also these records of the olden times, in which the private life
and feelings of the writers are portrayed, are especially valuable, for
by them a clear light is thrown on events in our political history
which till now have been only occasionally noticed, and we may discover
from them how the German people have felt, suffered, and lived.

If these records of individuals can be judiciously arranged according
to periods and their position in life, it appears to me that an
instructive insight may be obtained into the gradual development of the
mind of the German people.

I have endeavoured to carry this out from the middle ages to the
beginning of the present era.

What I have added of my own is simple explanation: I have avoided
saying anything where it could be given in the original; only where the
old records fail to give a complete picture have I supplied the
deficiency.

As there are very few who can read the language of the fifteenth, or
even the seventeenth, century with ease, I have thought it necessary to
translate the records into modern German, but at the same time to
preserve something of the old style.

Accept kindly then, my friend, what of right belongs to you, for your
flag waves on every vessel that I launch; and I trust that the freight
that I have this time prepared, may meet with your hearty approbation.

GUSTAV FREYTAG.

_Siebleben, 8th October_, 1859.

INTRODUCTION.

In vain does the German seek for "the good old times." If even the
pious zealot who condemns Hegel and Humboldt as the greatest of
Atheists, or the conservative proprietor who is struggling for the
privileges of his order, were to be thrown back into one of the la