DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3825#0104
. 96 GERMANY.
was distinguished by discretion and politic precau-
tion, more especially in preventing those from joining
it who could not provide themselves with the means
of subsistence, and in securing the respect and confi-
dence of the people through whose territories he di-
rected his march. If his sudden death in 1190 had
not cut short his progress, the exertions of so able
and experienced a general would most probably have
been attended with highly successful results.
The rising spirit of German literature found in this
great man, as in all the succeeding members of his
family, a zealous patron : and in his reign the band
of Minnesingers commences with Henry of Veldig,
who is generally supposed to be the earliest in point
of date of those names of note which have been
handed down to us*. Frederic had led an active
* Yet it is singular that even Henry of Veldig is found
lamenting over the degeneracy of his age from the good old
rules of " rechten minne."
Do man der rehten minne pflag
Da pflag man ouch der ehren;
Nu mag man naht und tag
Die bosen sitte leren :
Swer dis nu siht, und jens do sach,
O we ! was der nu clagen mag
Tugende wend sich nu verkcren !
Bodmeii's Collection I. 19.
" When true love was professed, then also was honour culti-
vated ; now by night and by day evil manners are learnt.__Alas !
how may he who witnesses the present and witnessed the past,
lament the decay of virtue! "
was distinguished by discretion and politic precau-
tion, more especially in preventing those from joining
it who could not provide themselves with the means
of subsistence, and in securing the respect and confi-
dence of the people through whose territories he di-
rected his march. If his sudden death in 1190 had
not cut short his progress, the exertions of so able
and experienced a general would most probably have
been attended with highly successful results.
The rising spirit of German literature found in this
great man, as in all the succeeding members of his
family, a zealous patron : and in his reign the band
of Minnesingers commences with Henry of Veldig,
who is generally supposed to be the earliest in point
of date of those names of note which have been
handed down to us*. Frederic had led an active
* Yet it is singular that even Henry of Veldig is found
lamenting over the degeneracy of his age from the good old
rules of " rechten minne."
Do man der rehten minne pflag
Da pflag man ouch der ehren;
Nu mag man naht und tag
Die bosen sitte leren :
Swer dis nu siht, und jens do sach,
O we ! was der nu clagen mag
Tugende wend sich nu verkcren !
Bodmeii's Collection I. 19.
" When true love was professed, then also was honour culti-
vated ; now by night and by day evil manners are learnt.__Alas !
how may he who witnesses the present and witnessed the past,
lament the decay of virtue! "