Note 467 — Chapter IX · CHRISTENDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Gervinus, Gesch. der deutschen Dichtung, 5te Ausg. i, 489–99. Even in the period before the Minnesingers the clerical poetry had its anti-clerical side. Id. p. 194. Towards the end of the 12th century Nigellus Wireker satirized the monks in his Brunellus, seu speculum stultorum. Menzel, Gesch. der Deutschen, Cap. 252. See Menzel’s note, before cited, for a remarkable outbreak of anti-clerical if not anti-Christian satire, in the form of sculpture in an ancient carving in the Strasburg Cathedral. ↑