in the poem, is respected and maintained. The ideal of womanhood is noble throughout: an old king thus bids farewell to his daughter on setting forth to be married: You shall so wear your crown that I and your mother may never hear that any one hates you. Rich as you are, it would mar your fame to give any occasion for blame."[1]
A mediaeval epic may tell of the fortunes of several generations, and the Kudrun devotes a number of books to the heroine's ancestors, making a half-savage narrative, in which one feels a conflict between ancient barbarities and a newer and more courtly order. When the venturesome wooing and wedded fortune of Kudrun's mother have been told, the poem turns to its chief heroine, who grows to stately maidenhood, and becomes betrothed to a young king, Herwig. A rejected wooer, the "Norman" Prince Hartmuth, by a sudden descent upon the land in the absence of its defenders, carries off Kudrun and her women by force of arms, and the king, her father, is killed in an abortive attempt to recapture her. In Hartmuth's castle by the sea Kudrun spends bitter years waiting for deliverance. His sister, Ortrun, is kind to her, but his mother, Gerlint, treats her shamefully. The maiden is steadfast. Between her and Hartmuth stands a double barrier: his father had killed hers; she was betrothed to Herwig. Hartmuth repels his wicked mother's advice to force her to his will. In his absence on a foray Gerlint compels Kudrun to do unfitting tasks. Hartmuth, returning, asks her: "Kudrun, fair lady, how has it been with you while I and my knights were away?"
"Here I have been forced to serve, to your sin and my
- ↑ Kudrun, viii. 558. Whatever may have been the facts of German life in the Middle Ages, the literature shows respect for marriage and woman's virtue. This remark applies not only to those works of the Middle High German tongue which are occupied with themes of Teutonic origin, but also to those Wolfram's Parzival, for example—whose foreign themes do not force the poet to magnify adulterous love. When, however, that is the theme of the story, the German writer, as in Gottfried's Tristan, does not fail to do it justice. Willmans, in his Leben und Dichtung Walthers von der Vogelweide (Bonn, 1882), note 1a on page 328, cites a number of passages from Middle High German works on the serious regard for marriage held by the Germans. Even the German minnesingers sometimes felt the contradiction between the broken marriage vow and the ennobling nature of chivalric love. See Willmans, ibid. p. 162 and note 7.
