THE SPIRIT OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 277 



peculiarly the age of church -building, 1 of religious 

 sculpture, painting, and engraving, and of the fully 

 developed passion-plays. If we turn to the inner 

 spiritual side of religion it was an age of great ver- 

 nacular preachers and of delicate spiritual teachers. To 

 say it was the century of Thomas von Kempen conveys 

 a great deal more than is at first apparent. The deep 

 pietism of the author of the Imitatio Christi is not indi- 

 vidual ; it is characteristic of most of the devotional 

 literature of his period. The Seelenwurzgartlein, the 

 Himmelstrasse, the Hertzmaner, and the Guldin 

 Spigel des Sunders, are only types of a widespread 

 and deep religious pietism, which appealed in the 

 vulgar tongue directly to the heart, and erected no 

 ecclesiastical barrier between the soul and its God. 2 

 Symbolism in ritual and in religious art, the grotesque 

 in passion - play and engraving, by no means denote 

 that the more spiritual side of religion was dead in 

 the fifteenth century. If we wish to understand the 

 mediaeval spirit, and the Eeformation as well, we must 

 continually bear this in mind. An appreciation of the 

 passion - plays will help us immensely in this very 

 respect. In them we do not see the folk looking to 

 the priest for its religion ; the words and incidents 

 of the Bible are brought home to the folk, while it 



1 For a list, by no means complete, see J. Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen 

 Volkes, Bd. i. p. 142. 



2 See Vincenz Hasak, Der cJiristliche Glaube des deutschen Volkes beim Schlusse 

 des Mittelalters, 1868, and the appendices to Geffcken, Der Bildercatechismus des 

 fiinfzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1855. Much useful insight into the religious life of 

 the period may be obtained from Geiler von Kaisersberg's sermons (an abridged 

 edition has recently been published by P. de Lorenzi) and the confessional books, 

 e.g. Mlinzenberger, Das Frankfurter und Magdeburger Beichtbuchlein, Mainz, 1881. 

 For cloister sermons, see Jostes' edition of Johann Veghe's sermons, etc. etc. 



