BY THE GERMANS OP THE MIDDLE AGES. 35 



unfortunately only few in number, which are deserving of 

 honourable mention/' 



" If it be asked whether contact with Southern Italy, and, 

 by means of the crusades, with Asia Minor, Syria, and 

 Palestine, did not enrich poetic art in Germany with new 

 imagery drawn from the aspect of nature in more sunny 

 climes, the question must, on the whole, be answered in the 

 negative. We do not find that acquaintance with the East 

 changed the direction of the minstrel poetry of the period : 

 the crusaders had little familiar communication with the 

 Saracens, and there was much of repulsion even between the 

 warriors of different nations associated for a common cause. 

 Eriedrich von Hausen, who perished in Barbarossa's army, 

 was one of the earliest German lyrical poets. His songs 

 often relate to the crusades, but only to express religious 

 feelings, or the pains of absence from a beloved object. 

 Neither he nor any of the writers who had taken part in the ex- 

 peditions to Palestine, as Reinmar the Elder, Rubin, Neidbart, 

 and Ulrich of Lichtenstein, ever take occasion to speak of the 

 courA>y in which they were sojourning. Reinmar came to 

 Syria as a pilgrim, it would appear, in the train of Duke 

 Leopold VI. of Austria : he complains that the thoughts of 

 home leave him no peace, and draw him away from God. 

 The date-tree is occasionally mentioned, in speaking of the 

 palms which pious pilgrims should bear on their shoulders. 

 Neither do I remember any indication of the loveliness of 

 Italian nature having stimulated the imagination of those 

 minstrels who crossed the Alps. Walther von der Vogel- 

 weide, though he had wandered hi, had in Italy seen only 

 the Po; but Ereidank ( 55 ) was in Rome, and he merely 



