Rudolf I of Germany

“ Rudolf was as conspicuously a weaker sovereign than Philip III. of France, as the Franconian Emperor Henry III. had been stronger than the Capetian Philip I. In every other state of Europe the tendency of events had been to centralize the administration and increase the power of the monarch, even in England not to diminish it: in Germany alone had political union become weaker, and the independence of the princes more confirmed." J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 13. See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1250-1520. GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308. The first Hapsburg kings of the Romans, Rodolph and Albert. ”

“ Rudolf had by no means abandoned that championship of the towns for which he had been so distinguished before his election to the Imperial throne; and of all the enemies of the town life of Germany the prince-bishops were looked upon as the most determined and dangerous. Rudolf had therefore to choose between adherence to his old policy and the favour of his archiepiscopal supporters. With a courage which was doubtless united to far-sighted wisdom, he boldly defended the municipal rights of Köln against the encroachments of its Archbishop. ”

“ With Frederick's death the mediæval empire may be said to have come to an end. It is true that after a period of "fist law," as the Germans call it, a new king, Rudolf of Hapsburg, was elected in Germany in 1273. The German kings continued to call themselves emperors. Few of them, however, took the trouble to go to Rome to be crowned by the pope. No serious effort was ever made to reconquer the Italian territory for which Otto the Great, Frederick Barbarossa, and his son and grandson had made such serious sacrifices. Germany was hopelessly divided and its king was no real king. ”

“ Darwin's theory on the Origin of Species has been accepted in Germany more widely, with more absolute faith, and with more vehement enthusiasm, than in the country of its birth. In Germany, more conspicuously than elsewhere, it has itself become the subject of developments as strange and as aberrant as any which it assumes in the history of Organic Life. The most extravagant conclusions have been drawn from it—invading every branch of human thought, in Science, in Philosophy, and in Religion. ”

“ In the said year 1291, King Rudolf of Germany died, but he never attained to the honours of the Empire, because he was always intent upon increasing his state and lordship in Germany, leaving the Purg. vi. 103-105. enterprises of Italy that he might increase land and possessions for his sons; who, by his energy and valour, from a small count rose to be Emperor, and gained for himself the duchy of Austria, and a great part of the duchy of Suabia. ”

“ Have not all the principal revivals of religion, of morality, of education, been simplifications?
These movements show life in a particular form; something emerges in it which, unconcerned with the weal and the woe of man, follows its own course and makes absolute demands; and, more than anything else, disturbs and destroys his calmness and complacency. How heavily Germany has had to pay for the movement of the Reformation by being thrown back politically, nationally, and economically! ”

“ Conrad, coming of age, ruled wisely, and for more than half a century (937-993) , Burgundy flourished. His beautiful sister Adelheid was first Queen of Italy, but after Lothair's untimely death, became Empress of Germany, Otho I. wishing to unite Italy with his own empire, making her his wife.
The reign of Rudolf III. (993-1032) was greatly harmful to the country, which was fast declining in prestige and prosperity. Better fitted for the cloister than for the throne, he lavished his wealth and estates on the clergy, with the view of enlisting their help against the encroaching feudal vassals. ”

“ Upon the death of Otto a partition of the inheritance took place. This partition became to the family an hereditary evil, a fatal source of quarrel and of secret or open enmity. ... In [the] dark and dreadful period of interregnum [see GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272] , when all men waited for the final dissolution of the empire, nothing appears concerning the Wittelsbach family. ... Finally in 1273 Rudolf, the first of the Hapsburgs, ascended the long-unoccupied throne. ... He won over the Bavarian princes by bestowing his daughters upon them in marriage. ”

“ An Imperial authority like that of Otto the Great or Barbarossa had not been restored; yet Rudolf's death left the Empire in a more orderly condition, and the many small rulers were more willing to continue the forms of Government. But the Archbishop Gerard of Mayence, who had bargained secretly with Count Adolf of Nassau, easily persuaded the Electors that it was impolitic to preserve the power in one family, and he thus secured their votes for Adolf, who was crowned shortly afterwards. ”

“ He is attracted particularly by “the grandeur and sublimity of thought, the spark of genius, the power of expression, the boldness of metaphor, the sudden transitions, the irresistible and unexpected touches of pathos and tenderness, and the similarity in similes and phrasing.” In these notices we encounter several remarks that are characteristic of the Ossian craze in Germany. In the first place, doubts as to the authenticity are not to be entertained. ”

“ Since Talvj’s days the Celtic scholars of Germany have sought to make good the errors into which their predecessors of the previous century had fallen, and to them we owe much of the light that has been shed upon the long–mooted question in comparatively recent years. At the present day Ossian is read but little in Germany, and where he is known attention has generally been called to him by Goethe’s famous [75] translation of “The Songs of Selma.” He still attracts the average reader if read in snatches, but few will be found who can derive pleasure from the reading of his entire works. ”

“ But Konrad II. was favored by fortune. The Polish king died, and the power which he had built up—for his kingdom, like that of the Goths, reached from the Baltic to the Danube, from the Elbe to Central Russia—was again shattered by the quarrels of his sons. In Burgundy, Duke Rudolf was without heirs, and finally found himself compelled to recognize the German sovereign as his successor. With Canute, who was then king of Denmark and England, Konrad II. made a treaty of peace and friendship, restoring Schleswig to the Danish crown, and re-adopting the river Eider as the boundary. ”

“ Nevertheless, he could not overcome the fascination which the Hohenstaufen name still exercised over the people. The idea of Barbarossa's return had already taken root among them, and more than one impostor, who claimed to be the dead Emperor, found enough of followers to disturb Rudolf's reign. ”

“ If the poems of Ossian were genuine—and it took a very long time to convince the Germans of the fact that they were not—here they had certainly to deal with a poet who was a genius born not made—an undeniable original. Dr. Blair had in his “Critical Dissertation” undertaken to make a comparison of the characteristics of the work of Ossian and Homer, and nowhere did his conclusion fall upon more willing ears than in Germany. ”

“ The subject of Ossian’s influence upon Klopstock, were it to receive exhaustive treatment, would greatly exceed the space we can allot to it in a general discussion of the effect that Ossian produced in Germany, and we shall therefore confine ourselves here largely to generalities and attempt only a broad sketch of Klopstock’s attitude toward the Gaelic bard. ”

“ This prose, however, was to be a poetic prose, poetic and at the same time natural; for prose was regarded as the most natural expression of the soul. Surely the sensation that Ossian made in Germany would not have been so prodigious had his poems appeared in meter. An indignant protest arose on all sides when Denis introduced an innovation by publishing a translation in hexameters. [70] [21] Had the poems of Ossian appeared originally in the measures of the so–called Gaelic originals, they might have found readier acceptance with scholars, but scarcely with the reading public. ”

“ A glance at the bibliography will show the importance of Ossian in the literary history of Germany. There was scarcely a writer of note who did not at some time or other fall under the spell. First came Klopstock, who, regarding Ossian as a German, found the songs of the bard a fit vehicle for the transmission of his patriotic ideas. Gerstenberg wrote a long drama in the Ossianic vein. Denis translated the poems of the bard and imitated him zealously. Kretschmann and many so–called ‘bards’ of smaller caliber fell into line. ”

“ He saw something in Ossian that he seized upon even more eagerly—too eagerly, in fact—namely, he regarded Ossian as a German. By this time Klopstock’s activity in the patriotic field had begun; religion no longer engrossed his entire attention. Barring Frederick the Great, there were no glorious figures upon the political stage, and Frederick’s fondness for the literature of France was not calculated to attract Klopstock, who hated the rationalistic poetry of the French. Nor was the empire of the 18th century a political organism to inspire the poet to patriotic effusions. ”

“ He collected an army of 20,000 men, and made known that he would depose the emperor from the government of his hereditary domains. Rudolf's Jesuitical flatterers had named him the 'Bohemian Solomon.' He now, in terror, without drawing sword, ceded Hungary and Austria to Matthias, and gave him also the government of Moravia. Matthias guaranteed religious liberty to the Austrians. Rudolf did the same to the Bohemians and Silesians by the 'Letters of Majesty.' Rudolf, to escape deposition by Matthias, abdicated the throne of Bohemia. ”

“ Just as Klopstock had sacrificed the lyre for the telyn, so his followers. The harp of the bards replaced the Zionitic harp. The poet, or rather bard, [117] was no longer crowned with the laurel–wreath but with the leaf of the oak. To–day we smile at these vagaries, but these men were very earnest in their play. Kretschmann, and not Klopstock, is responsible for most of the nonsense. The most pleasing phase of the movement is its patriotic character, and we must give the bards credit for the earnestness with which they strove to inculcate a feeling for national unity. ”

“ We still meet with an occasional translation and imitation, to be sure, but they are of little weight when compared with the hold the Ossianic craze once had on the German people. Ossian came generally to have more interest for the philologist than for the man of letters. More than one critic no longer concealed his doubts of the authenticity, until finally Mrs. Robinson’s (Talvj’s) work upon the non–genuineness of the poems was published (1840) , which treatise marks the turning–point in German Ossian criticism. ”

“ He had always been a rock of offence to the Catholic party. ... But Rudolf [son of Maximilian II.] , when he became emperor [1576] , surrounded by secret Jesuits who had been his teachers and advisers, became the humblest slave of the order and let it do what it would. Rudolf had been sent by his father for the interests of his own house to the Spanish court; a terrible punishment now followed this self-seeking. Rudolf confirmed liberty of conscience only to the nobles, not to the citizens or peasants. ”

“ Rudolph was born in 1218, and died at Germersheim, Germany, in 1291. He succeeded his father in Hapsburg and Alsace in 1239, and in 1273 was elected German King (Rudolph I) , with the substance, though not the title, of the imperial dignity of the Holy Roman Empire.
It is said that the electors desired an emperor, but not the exercise of imperial power, and that in Rudolph they saw a candidate of comparative lowliness, from whom their authority stood in little jeopardy. At the age of fifty-five the new sovereign assumed his throne in the face of difficulty and danger. ”

“ King Rudolf was a man who lay late in the morning; and he was not well pleased to be roused when the clock had but just struck four. Yet he sat up in his bed readily enough, for he imagined that the embassy from the Grand Duke of Mittenheim must be nearer than he had thought, and, sooner than fail in any courtesy towards the prince whose alliance he ardently desired, he was ready to submit to much inconvenience. ”

“ He loved Hungary as much as Hungary loved him. Had he lived there would be no straining at the bit now; we should be content to wait. Had he lived, there would be in Europe to-day no uneasy anticipation of our poor old King’s death. And not only could Rudolf make himself beloved by everybody, but there have been few better brains born to thrones—or in spheres where brains are more abundant. He would have sown his wild oats, poor chap!—and have made a great ruler. Then our guest would have had a rival worthy of his mettle. ”

“ Brought up in Spain, and believed to be a strict Catholic in convictions, shy and repellent in manner, he seemed exactly the man to revive the reactionary policy of his grandfather. But in Rudolf, as in the majority of men, temperament and taste had a greater influence over his actions than either religious or political convictions. The same feelings which made him so repellent in general intercourse, led him also to shrink from the burdens of public life; and his fondness for art and science led him in the earlier part of his reign to leave politics to men of more active character. ”