III. YE SCHYPPE OF FOOLES.9

III. YE SCHYPPE OF FOOLES.9

The critical periods in the history of the world are best studied in the lives of a few representative men. The history of the German Reformation assumes a living, intelligible, and human character in the biographies of the Reformers; and no historian would imagine that he understood the secret springs of that mighty revolution in Germany without having read the works of Hutten, the table-talk of Luther, the letters of Melancthon, and the sermons of Zwingle. But although it is easy to single out representative men in the great decisive struggles of history, they are more difficult to find during the preparatory periods. The years from 1450 to 1500 are as important as the years from 1500 to 1550,—nay, to the thoughtful historian, that silent period of incubation is perhaps of deeper interest than the violent outburst of the sixteenth century. But where, during those years, are the men of sufficient eminence to represent the age in which they lived? It was an age of transition and preparation, of dissatisfaction and hesitation. Like the whole of the fifteenth century, “It was rich in scholars, copious in [pg 063] pedants, but poor in genius, and barren of strong thinkers.” We must not look for heroes in so unheroic an age, but be satisfied with men if they be but a head taller than their contemporaries.

One of the most interesting men in whose life and writings the history of the preliminary age of the German Reformation may be studied, is Sebastian Brant, the famous author of the famous “Ship of Fools.” He was born in the year 1457. The Council of Basle had failed to fulfill the hopes of the German laity as to a reformatio ecclesiæ in capite et membris. In the very year of Brant's birth, Martin Meyer, the Chancellor of Mayence, had addressed his letter to his former friend, Æneas Sylvius,—a national manifesto, in boldness and vigor only surpassed by the powerful pamphlet of Luther, “To the Nobility of the German Nation.” Germany seemed to awaken at last to her position, and to see the dangers that threatened her political and religious freedom. The new movement which had taken place in Italy in classical learning, supported chiefly by Greek refugees, began to extend its quickening influence beyond the Alps. Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., 1458, writes in one of his letters, that poets were held in no estimation in Germany, though he admits that their poetry is less to be blamed for this than their patrons, the princes, who care far more for any trifles than for poetry. The Germans, he says, do not care for science nor for a knowledge of classical literature, and they have hardly heard the name of Cicero or any other orator. In the eyes of the Italians, the Germans were barbarians; and when Constantine Lascaris saw the first specimen of printing, he was told by the Italian priests that this invention had lately been made apud barbaros in urbe [pg 064] Germaniæ. They were dangerous neighbors—these barbarians, who could make such discoveries as the art of printing; and Brant lived to see the time when Joh. Cæsarius was able to write to a friend of his: “At this moment, Germany, if she does not surpass Italy, at least need not, and will not, yield to her, not so much on account of her empire, as for her wonderful fecundity in learned men, and the almost incredible growth of learning.”

This period of slow but steady progress, from the invention of printing to the Council of Worms, is bridged over by the life of Sebastian Brant, who lived from 1457 to 1521. Brant was very early the friend of Peter Schott, and through him had been brought in contact with a circle of learned men, who were busily engaged in founding one of the first schools of classical learning at Schlettstadt. Men like Jac. Wimpheling, Joh. Torrentinus, Florentius Hundius, and Johannes Hugo, belonged to that society. Brant afterwards went to Basle to study law. Basle was then a young university. It had only been founded in 1459, but it was already a successful rival of Heidelberg. The struggle between the Realists and Nominalists was then raging all over Europe, and it divided the University of Basle into two parties, each of them trying to gain influence and adherents among the young students. It has been usual to look upon the Realists as the Conservative, and upon the Nominalists as the Liberal party of the fifteenth century. But although at times this was the case, philosophical opinions, on which the differences between these two parties were founded, were not of sufficient strength to determine for any length of time the political and religious bias of either school. The Realists were chiefly supported [pg 065] by the Dominicans, the Nominalists by the Franciscans; and there is always a more gentle expression beaming in the eyes of the followers of the seraphic Doctor, particularly if contrasted with the stern frown of the Dominican. Ockam himself was a Franciscan, and those who thought with him were called doctores renovatores and sophistæ. Suddenly, however, the tables were turned. At Oxford, the Realists, in following out their principles in a more independent spirit, had arrived at results dangerous to the peace of the Church. As philosophers, they began to carry out the doctrines of Plato in good earnest; as reformers, they looked wistfully to the early centuries of the Christian Church. The same liberal and independent spirit reached from Oxford to Prague, and the expulsion of the German nation from that university may be traced to the same movement. The Realists were at that time no longer in the good odor of orthodoxy; and, at the Council of Constanz, the Nominalists, such as Joh. Gerson and Petrus de Alliaco, gained triumphs which seemed for a time to make them the arbiters of public opinion in Germany, and to give them the means of securing the Church against the attacks of Huss on one side, and against the more dangerous encroachments of the Pope and the monks on the other. This triumph, however, was of short duration. All the rights which the Germans seemed to have conquered at the Councils of Constanz and Basle were sacrificed by their own Emperor. No one dared to say again what Gregory von Heimburg had said to the Italian clergy,—“Quid fines alienos invaditis? quid falcem vestram in messem alienam extenditis?” Under Æneas Sylvius, the power of the Pope in Germany was as absolute as ever. The Nominalist party lost all [pg 066] the ground which it had gained before. It was looked upon with suspicion by Pope and Emperor. It was banished from courts and universities, and the disciples of the Realistic school began a complete crusade against the followers of Ockam.

Johannes Heynlin a Lapide, a former head of a house in Paris, migrated to Basle, in order to lend his influence and authority to the Realist party in that rising university. Trithemius says of him: “Hic doctrinam eorum Parisiensium qui reales appellantur primus ad Basiliensium universitatem transtulit, ibidemque plantavit, roboravit et auxit.” This Johannes Heynlin a Lapide, however, though a violent champion of the then victorious Realist party, was by no means a man without liberal sentiments. On many points the Realists were more tolerant, or at least more enlightened, than the Nominalists. They counted among themselves better scholars than the adherents of Ockam. They were the first and foremost to point out the uselessness of the dry scholastic system of teaching grammar and logic, and nothing else. And though they cherished their own ideas as to the supreme authority of the Pope, the divine right of the Emperor, or the immaculate conception of the Virgin (a dogma denied by the Dominicans, and defended by the Franciscans), they were always ready to point out abuses and to suggest reforms. The age in which they lived was not an age of decisive thought or decisive action. There was a want of character in individuals as well as in parties; and the points in which they differed were of small importance, though they masked differences of greater weight. At Basle, the men who were gathered round Johannes a Lapide were what we should call Liberal Conservatives, and it is among [pg 067] them that we find Sebastian Brant. Basle could then boast of some of the most eminent men of the time. Besides Agricola, and Wimpheling, and Geiler von Kaisersberg, and Trithemius, Reuchlin was there for a time, and Wessel, and the Greek Kontablacos. Sebastian Brant, though on friendly terms with most of these men, was their junior; and, among his contemporaries, a new generation grew up, more independent and more free-spoken than their masters, though as yet very far from any revolutionary views in matters of Church or State. Feuds broke out very soon between the old and the young schools. Locher, the friend of Brant,—the poet who had turned his “Ship of Fools” into Latin verse,—published a poem, in which he attacked rather petulantly the scholastic philosophy and theology. Wimpheling, at the request of Geiler of Kaisersberg, had to punish him for this audacity, and he did it in a pamphlet full of the most vulgar abuse. Reuchlin also had given offense, and was attacked and persecuted; but his party retaliated by the “Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.” Thus the Conservative, or Realistic party became divided; and when, at the beginning of a new century and a new era in the history of the world, Luther raised his voice in defense of national and religious freedom, he was joined not only by the more advanced descendants of the Nominalistic school, but by all the vigor, the talent, and the intellect of the old Conservatives.

Brant himself, though he lived at Strassburg up to 1521, did not join the standard of the Reformation. He had learned to grumble, to find fault, to abuse, and to condemn; but his time was gone when the moment for action arrived. And yet he helped toward the [pg 068] success of the Reformation in Germany. He had been one of the first, after the discovery of printing, to use the German language for political purposes. His fly-sheets, his illustrated editions, had given useful hints how to address the large masses of the people. If he looked upon the world, as it then was, as a ship of fools, and represented every weakness, vice, and wickedness under the milder color of foolery, the people who read his poems singled out some of his fools, and called them knaves. The great work of Sebastian Brant was his “Narrenschiff.” It was first published in 1497, at Basle, and the first edition, though on account of its wood-cuts it could not have been a very cheap book, was sold off at once. Edition after edition followed, and translations were published in Latin, in Low-German, in Dutch, in French, and English. Sermons were preached on the “Narrenschiff;” Trithemius calls it Divina Satira, Locher compares Brant with Dante, Hutten calls him the new lawgiver of German poetry. The “Narrenschiff” is a work which we may still read with pleasure, though it is difficult to account for its immense success at the time of its publication. Some historians ascribe it to the wood-cuts. They are certainly very clever, and there is reason to suppose that most of them were, if not actually drawn, at least suggested by Brant himself. Yet even a Turner has failed to render mediocre poetry popular by his illustrations, and there is nothing to show that the caricatures of Brant were preferred to his satires. Now his satires, it is true, are not very powerful, nor pungent, nor original. But his style is free and easy. Brant is not a ponderous poet. He writes in short chapters, and mixes his fools in such a manner that we always meet [pg 069] with a variety of new faces. It is true that all this would hardly be sufficient to secure a decided success for a work like his at the present day. But then we must remember the time in which he wrote. What had the poor people of Germany to read toward the end of the fifteenth century? Printing had been invented, and books were published and sold with great rapidity. People were not only fond, but proud, of reading books. Reading was fashionable, and the first fool who enters Brant's ship is the man who buys books. But what were the books that were offered for sale? We find among the early prints of the fifteenth century religious, theological, and classical works in great abundance, and we know that the respectable and wealthy burghers of Augsburg and Strassburg were proud to fill their shelves with these portly volumes. But then German aldermen had wives, and daughters, and sons, and what were they to read during the long winter evenings? The poetry of the thirteenth century was no longer intelligible, and the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had produced very little that would be to the taste of young ladies and gentlemen. The poetry of the “Meistersänger” was not very exhilarating. The romances of “The Book of Heroes” had lost all their native charms under the rough treatment they had experienced at the hand of their latest editor, Casper von der Roen. The so-called “Misteries” (not mysteries) might be very well as Christmas pantomimes once a year, but they could not be read for their own sake, like the dramatic literature of later times. The light literature of the day consisted entirely in novels; and in spite of their miserable character, their popularity was immense. Besides the [pg 070] “Gesta Romanorum,” which were turned into German verse and prose, we meet with French novels, such as “Lother and Maler,” translated by a Countess of Nassau in 1437, and printed in 1514; “Pontus and Sidonia,” translated from the French by Eleanor of Scotland, the wife of Sigismund of Austria, published 1498; “Melusina,” equally from the French, published 1477. The old epic poems of “Tristan,” and “Lancelot,” and “Wigalois,” were too long and tedious. People did not care any longer for the deep thoughts of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the beautiful poetry of Gottfried von Strassburg. They wanted only the plot, the story, the dry bones; and these were dished up in the prose novels of the fifteenth century, and afterwards collected in the so-called “Book of Love.” There was room, therefore, at that time for a work like the “Ship of Fools.” It was the first printed book that treated of contemporaneous events and living persons, instead of old German battles and French knights. People are always fond of reading the history of their own times. If the good qualities of their age are brought out, they think of themselves or their friends; if the dark features of their contemporaries are exhibited, they think of their neighbors and enemies. Now, the “Ship of Fools” is just such a satire which ordinary people would read, and read with pleasure. They might feel a slight twinge now and then, but they would put down the book at the end, and thank God that they were not like other men. There is a chapter on Misers,—and who would not gladly give a penny to a beggar? There is a chapter on Gluttony,—and who was ever more than a little exhilarated after dinner? There is a chapter on Church-goers,—and who ever went to [pg 071] church for respectability's sake, or to show off a gaudy dress, or a fine dog, or a new hawk? There is a chapter on Dancing,—and who ever danced except for the sake of exercise? There is a chapter on Adultery,—and who ever did more than flirt with his neighbor's wife? We sometimes wish that Brant's satire had been a little more searching, and that, instead of his many allusions to classical fools (for his book is full of scholarship), he had given us a little more of the chronique scandaleuse of his own time. But he was too good a man to do this, and his contemporaries no doubt were grateful to him for his forbearance.

Brant's poem is not easy to read. Though he was a contemporary of Luther, his language differs much more from modern German than Luther's translation of the Bible. His “Ship of Fools” wanted a commentary, and this want has been supplied by one of the most learned and industrious scholars of Germany, Professor Zarncke, in his lately published edition of the “Narrenschiff.” This must have been a work of many years of hard labor. Nothing that is worth knowing about Brant and his works has been omitted, and we hardly know of any commentary on Aristophanes or Juvenal in which every difficulty is so honestly met as in Professor Zarncke's notes on the German satirist. The editor is a most minute and painstaking critic. He tries to reëstablish the correct reading of every word, and he enters upon his work with as much zeal as if the world could not be saved till every tittle of Brant's poem had been restored. He is, however, not only a critic, but a sensible and honest man. He knows what is worth knowing and what is not, and he does not allow himself to be carried [pg 072] away by a desire to display his own superior acquirements,—a weakness which makes so many of his colleagues forgetful of the real ends of knowledge, and the real duties of the scholar and the historian.

We have to say a few words on the English translation of Brant's “Ship of Fools.” It was not made from the original, but from Locher's Latin translation. It reproduces the matter, but not the manner of the original satire. Some portions are added by the translator, Alexander Barclay, and in some parts his translation is an improvement on the original. It was printed in 1508, published 1509, and went through several editions.

The following may serve as a specimen of Barclay's translation, and of his original contributions to Brant's “Navis Stultifera:”—

“Here beginneth the ‘Ship of Fooles,’ and first of unprofitable books:—

“I am the first foole of all the whole navie,

To keep the Pompe, the Helme, and eke the Sayle:

For this is my minde, this one pleasure have I,

Of bookes to have great plentie and apparayle.

I take no wisdome by them, not yet avayle,

Nor them perceave not, and then I them despise:

Thus am I a foole, and all that sue that guise.

“That in this Ship the chiefe place I governe,

By this wide Sea with fooles wandring,

The cause is plaine and easy to discerne,

Still am I busy, bookes assembling,

For to have plentie it is a pleasant thing

In my conceyt, and to have them ay in hande:

But what they meane do I not understande.

“But yet I have them in great reverence

And honoure, saving them from filth and ordure,

By often brusshing and much diligence,

Full goodly bounde in pleasant coverture,

Of Damas, Sattin, or els of Velvet pure:

I keepe them sure, fearing least they should be lost,

For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast.

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“But if it fortune that any learned men

Within my house fall to disputation,

I drawe the curtaynes to shewe my bokes then,

That they of my cunning should make probation:

I kepe not to fall in alterication,

And while they comment, my bookes I turne and winde,

For all is in them, and nothing in my minde.”

In the fourth chapter, “Of newe fassions and disguised garmentes,” there is at the end what is called “The Lenvoy of Alexander Barclay,” and in it an allusion to Henry VIII.:—

“But ye proude galants that thus your selfe disguise,

Be ye ashamed, beholde unto your prince:

Consider his sadness, his honestie devise,

His clothing expresseth his inwarde prudence,

Ye see no example of such inconvenience

In his highness, but godly wit and gravitie,

Ensue him, and sorrowe for your enormitie.”

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