436 



GERMANY. (LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.) 



some very old pictures. In Suabia, the monastery 

 of Hirschau was early celebrated for its treasures of 

 art. Many monasteries and churches contained manu- 

 scripts with excellent miniatures. In Augsburg, 

 Culm, Nordlingen, there were skilful artists at a very 

 early period. From the time of Charlemagne, many 

 branches of art were practised in the cities on the 

 Upper Rhine. Mentz, Treves, and particularly 

 Cologne, were the most distinguished seats of Ger- 

 man art at that time. The period from 1 153 to 1330 

 was not less decisive for German art tlian for Ger- 

 man poetry and language. The eldest German 

 school of painters, which far surpassed the later 

 school of Nuremberg in purity of style, depth of ex- 

 pression, and quiet loveliness, flourished at Cologne, 

 in this period. Their pictures are generally on wood, 

 which was first covered with a layer of chalk, and 

 then with linen, upon which were laid another ground 

 of chalk and bole, and, lastly, a gold ground. They 

 preserve their colours with a remarkable freshness. 

 The most celebrated of these works is the altar-piece 

 in the cathedral of Cologne, which some ascribed to 

 William of Cologne, others to Peter Calf. The col- 

 lections of Wallraf, Boisseree (q. v.), and Bettendorf 

 contain the finest specimens of this period. In Frank- 

 fort, the painters on glass were distinguished. The 

 most poetical of the old German masters, Hemme- 

 link, whose works are full of boldness and fire, lived 

 in this period. The builder of the Wartburg, count 

 Louis II., was a patron of the arts in Hesse and 

 Thuringia. The old church of St Elizabeth, at Mar- 

 burg, contains many early monuments. Henry I. 

 protected the arts in Saxony. There were distin- 

 guished artists in the abbeys of Corvey, Minden, 

 Hildesheim, and Osnabruck, in Lower Saxony and 

 Westphalia. The number of the monuments of art, 

 from this early time, is incredible. They are found 

 everywhere in Germany, not only in altar-pieces in 

 the churches and monasteries, but also in elegantly 

 ornamented manuscripts, in chasubles embroidered 

 by the nuns, in needle-work and altar-cloths. The 

 emperor, Charles IV., invited many skilful painters to 

 Bohemia, where, as early as 1348, a corporation of 

 painters was formed. In 1450, a distinguished school 

 of painters began to flourish in Breslau, still earlier 

 than that of Nuremberg. Werner of Tegernsee was 

 distinguished for his excellent glass paintings. In 

 the fifteenth century, Gleissmyller, Maier, Machsel- 

 kircher, Futerer, and Zawnhack, were celebrated 

 Bavarian painters ; in Nuremberg, Hans Traut, Kul- 

 enbach, Hans Bauerlein, and Michael Wohlgemuth, 

 the latter, the teacher of Albert Durer, were emi- 

 nent. A second period of German art begins with 

 Albert Durer (q. v.), who was esteemed by Raphael 

 (from 1471 1528). After having studied in the 

 school of Wohlgemuth, he travelled through Ger- 

 many, the Netherlands, and Italy. Martin Schon 

 may be called the German Perugino; his works 

 bear a great resemblance to those of that master. 

 The paintings of Luke Cranach (born 1470, died 1553) 

 have acquired a particular interest from containing 

 the portraits of the most distinguished persons of his 

 time. The Holbein family produced many skilful 

 painters ; the most distinguished was Hans Holbein 

 (born 1495, died 1554). Most of the principal paint- 

 ers of the German school, in the sixteenth century, 

 were at the same time engravers. Their ideas were 

 truly poetical, but sometimes too allegorical. The 

 execution is finished, but they are deficient in beauty 

 of forms and correctness of outline. Their glowing 

 colouring, the expressive attitudes of the figures, the 

 piety which breathes from their countenances, and, 

 particularly, the spirit of their landscapes and back 

 grounds, must strike every eye. In the seventeenth 

 and in the first half of the eighteenth century, art in 



Germany was in a low state. The Geraian school 

 hardly survived Albert Durer and Holbein. The 

 difficult and artificial only was admired ; nature and 

 spirit gave way to laboured ornament. The causes 

 of this decline were the reformation and the thirty 

 years' war. A melancholy period of imitation fol- 

 lowed, in which the taste of Louis XIV. and the ex- 

 aggerated modern Italian school was the standard. 

 Although Mengs cannot be considered as a restorer 

 of art, at least for Germany, as his plastic princi- 

 ple was entirely opposed to the spirit of painting in 

 general, and, in particular, to the German school, yet 

 he improved the taste of his time by his severe manner. 

 German Law (jus Germanicum) is at present little 

 more than a name. It signifies merely the civil law 

 in Germany, so for as it is not derived from the 

 ancient Roman, or from the canonical law, or from 

 the laws of particular countries. From the fifth to 

 the ninth century, the laws in the countries held by 

 Germans, were in part articles agreed upon be- 

 tween the conquerors and the former inhabitants of 

 the Roman provinces, living under Roman laws ; in 

 part, a compromise between the old pagan customs 

 and license, and the Christian notions of religion and 

 law; and, in part, compacts between the princes and 

 their military followers, or the community. Such 

 were the laws of the Visigoths, drawn up by king 

 Eurichus, 466 484; of the Salian Francs, towards the 

 end of the fifth century; of the Burgundians ; of the 

 Ripuarian Francs ; of the Bavarians, and Alemanni; 

 of the Frisians ; Saxons ; of the Angles from the 

 time of Charlemagne ; of the Lombards (634 724); 

 of the Anglo-Saxons till the Norman conquest. 

 From the tenth century, the feudal tenure was 

 almost the only mode of holding landed property, 

 and the foundation of public law ; but the feudal 

 regulations were so far from constituting a complete 

 and regular system of law, that the Roman Jaw, 

 which was taught in the universities of Lombardy, 

 attracted scholars from all places, and influenced all 

 the legal constitutions. The laws of the native 

 tribes began to be collected systematically after the 

 example had been given by the Sachsen spiegel 

 (1215 and 1235), and many cities had their own codes 

 of written or customary laws. The authority of the 

 Roman law continually increased, and influenced 

 public affairs. The native laws, however, continued 

 in the courts, and retained, though greatly diversi- 

 fied, many principles in common. From the fifteenth 

 century, the provincial legislation became more and 

 more fixed. Almost every county received its Lan- 

 desordnung, that is, a particular system of laws. 

 The institution of the imperial chamber, in 1495, was 

 followed by the Landesprocessordnungen, the crimi- 

 nal code of the emperor Charles V., and by criminal 

 laws of separate states. G eorge Beyer first delivered 

 lectures on the German municipal law, at Witten- 

 berg, in 1707. Of modern writers, Mittermaier's 

 Grundsatze des Deutsches Privatrechts (Heidelberg, 

 1823, 2d edition, 1826) deserves mention. 



Contents of the article Germany. 



Pg 



Geography and Statistics, ..... 411 



Commerce, ...... 416 



German Empire, . . . . . .416 



Germanic Confederation, .... 417 



History of Germany, . . . . .419 



Girmany from 1806 to 1815, .... 424 



German Language, ...... 4'->t> 



German Literature and Science, . . 426 



Modern Literature from the reformation to our 

 own times, ..... 437 



German Prose, ..... 430 



German Poetry, . ... .431 



German Criticism, . . . 434 



German Philosophy, . . . . .13. 



German School of Art, . ... 134 



German School of Painting ..... 4&b 



German Law, . . . . . 436 



