ad
wes Sper ere Serer

POET ps ne ae

ay aera iS

3 ir

MN

4O ALISHSAINN

Digitized by the Internet Archive
In 2007 with funding from
Microsoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/chancesofdeathot02pearuoft

THE CHANCES OF DEATH

7

AND

OTHER STUDIES IN EVOLUTION

BY
KARL PEARSON, M.A., F.RS.

PROFESSOR OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON,
AND FORMERLY FELLOW OF KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II 59 Py G A
: E
g/ / £5

‘

EDWARD ARNOLD
JBublisher to the India Office

LONDON NEW YORK
37 BEDFORD STREET 70 FIFTH AVENUE
1897

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II

9. WoMAN AS WitcH—EvIDENCES OF MOTHER-RIGHT IN THE
CustoMs OF MEDI@VAL WITCHCRAFT

10. ASHTEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

11. KinpRED Grovup-MARRIAGE— |
Part 1I—Mother-Age Civilisation ;
» 1L—General Words for Sex and Kinship
», iIi1—Special Words. for Sex and Relationship

12. THE GERMAN Passton-PLay: A StuDy IN THE EVOLUTION OF
WESTERN CHRISTIANITY— .
1. Introductory
The Unity of the Passion- Play
The Spirit of the Passion-Play
The Growth of the Passion-Play
The Stage and its Accessories
Characterisation in the Passion-Play .
. The Performers in the great Folk Passion-Plays
The Contents of a Sixteenth-Century Passion-Play

OD ID OH PR gw Bo

‘Summary and Conclusion

AprpENDIX I. The Mailehn and Kiltgang ;
fe II. English Sixteenth-Century Church-Plays
se III. On the Sex-significance of ‘ Tilth’
oy IV. On Gericht and Genossenschaft

InpEx I. Words and Roots cited in Essay XI. and aaa
L, IIL, and IV. ,

» II. Names and Subjects, Volumes I. ae JI.

PAGE

112
191

246
256
269
279
315
334
364
370
397

407
413
424
426

433
447

ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME II

PAGE
Gops oF THE Mippite Aczs. Stephan Lochner’s ‘ Doomsday’ Frontispiece
P yi wspr

PREPARATION FOR WITCHES’ SABBATH. Hans Baldung Grien to face 30

WITCH WITH SPINDLE, Distarr, AND Goat. Albrecht Diirer . ke
HEAVEN AS A GALLERY. Master E. 8. ; ; to face 316
Fiat Passton-PLay STAGE FROM DONAUESCHINGEN , = ee ZO

MEDIZVAL CONCEPTION OF JEWISH Brutatity. Albrecht Diirer 347

Tuer VirGIN Mary as Locan MotHer-Goppess. Ostendorfer . 353
THe MaGpaLEen rN GAupi0. Lukas van Leyden . to face 362
Note

I have to heartily thank Mr. Robert J. Parker for the fourth and
eighth illustrations in this volume, and Miss Alice Lee for the prepara-
tion of Index II.

IX
WOMAN AS WITCH’

EVIDENCES OF MOTHER-RIGHT IN THE CUSTOMS OF MEDIZVAL
WITCHCRAFT

Quid non miraculo est, cwm primum in notitiam venit —PLINY.

WHEN we seek to investigate the origins of such familiar
institutions as ownership and matrimony, we rapidly dis-
cover that written history is itself the product of a stage
of human development long posterior to that of the
origins we are curious about. ‘To speak paradoxically,
history begins long before history. Vague and often
very unreliable traces of it—traditional history—are to
be found in the sagas and hero-songs of bards and
scalds. But bards and scalds are themselves an out-
come of the heroic age—an age of warlike organisation
and of petty chieftains, if not of kings; an age, indeed,
when ownership and marriage have already a long his-
tory, and are of that patriarchal type which the Bible,
if not Maurer or Maine, has made familiar to all of us.
This heroic age is, however, a thing but of yesterday—

1 A lecture given in 1891 at the Somerville Club, but not hitherto published.
The lecture is here printed substantially as it was delivered, and accordingly no
references are given to the very numerous sources whence information has been
drawn.

VOL. II B

2 WOMAN AS WITCH

a civilisation in which man, unhandicapped by child-
bearing, is the lord of creation, and woman occupies,
socially and tribally, a secondary position. Behind this
heroic age, long anterior to the beginnings of traditional
history, looms from the dimmest past another and
wholly different type of civilisation—a type which
appears in most respects to have owed its institutions
and its victories over nature to the genius of woman
rather than to that of man. It is a type, accordingly, in
which the influence of woman is far more prominent
than it was in the patriarchal age. ‘This period of
civilisation has been termed the matriarchate, but to
avoid the dogma that it was necessarily and universally
a period of woman’s rule, I prefer to term it the mother-
age, and refer to its customs of ownership and family as
Mother-Right. :

So long as our only history was the history of
chronicles and monuments, themselves products of a
late stage of human growth, traces of the mother-age
must remain few and far between; such even as crossed
the path of the historian were either misinterpreted or
attributed to the vagaries of individual tribes or groups.
But now, in our own time, when history is becoming
scientific, when, to again speak paradoxically, there is
such a thing as pre/ustoric history,—to-day, when we
study history comparatively, and see in it a growth of
folk-customs and social institutions stretching far back
before written language and written laws,—to-day we
begin to appreciate better these traces of the mother-
age. We put together the fossils provided by pre-
historic history, what philology, folklore, and archeology

WOMAN AS WITCH 3

have to tell us of a civilisation in which the woman was
all-prominent, and the comparison of this fossil civilisa-
tion with the habits of semi-civilised races still scattered
about the world enables us to draw up the general
scheme of a society which preceded the patriarchal, and
from which the patriarchate itself sprung. The key-
note to this older civilisation was the development of
woman's inventive faculty under the stress of child-
bearing and child-rearing disabilities. The mother-age
—in diverse forms, it is true,—has been a stage of social
erowth for probably all branches of the human race.
The broad outlines of it seem to me to be now firmly
established, if the details must obviously, owing to
difference of climate, period of development, and other
circumstances, be diverse in character, and if the more
minute features, owing to the obscurity and failure of
the record, must often be matter of hypothesis and
subject for dispute.

The mother-age, with its mother-right customs, was
a civilisation, as I have indicated, largely built up by
woman’s activity, and developed by her skill; it was an
age within the small social unit of which there was
more community of interest, far more fellowship in
labour and partnership in property and sex, than we
find in the larger social unit of to-day. Tor this reason
both socialists and workers for the emancipation of
women are apt at the present time to look back to this
early stage of civilisation as to a golden age, and to paint
in its details in colours which render them untrue to fact,
and destroy any suggestiveness they might otherwise have
for the future growth of our own society. The mother-

4 WOMAN AS WITCH

age was frequently cruel in its rites and licentious in its
customs, and these charges are still true if we judge it
not by the standards of to-day, but by that of the patyri-
archate which succeeded it. It was a less efficient and
a less stable social system than the latter, or it would
not have perished in the struggle with it. I for one
rejoice that it perished, as I rejoice that the patriarchal
system perished, or that the individualism of to-day is
perishing. One and all have been fruitful as successive
stages of growth, yet they can never recur, and only
the fanatic or visionary could wish that they should
recur, for each is narrow and insufficient from the stand-
point of a later stage. Yet imsight into what has been
is of special value to us to-day; it shows us that
morality and social institutions are peculiar to each age
and to each civilisation ; it shows us that growth, if never
very rapid, is ever continuous. It teaches us that those
who prate of absolute good and bad, and of an unchanging
moral code, may help to police an existing society, but
that they cannot reform it. To successfully initiate
reform needs the historical spirit—the conception that
social institutions, however time-honoured and sacred,
have but relative value, and are ever adjusting them-
selves, as well as freely adjustable, to the needs of
social growth. But it is not only a true estimate of the
plastic character of customs and social systems which

1 If the reader will put aside for a time the classical and biblical impres-
sions of childhood, and recognise in Romans and Jews two early races who came
victorious out of the struggle for existence because they were patriarchal varia-
tions amid a widespread mother-right civilisation, he will find immense pleasure
in reinterpreting the legends of early Roman history with its struggles of patri-
cians and plebeians, as well as in fully grasping for the first time the exact
historical bearing of the Jewish backslidings, which led to the worship of the
golden calf and the adoration of the woman in scarlet.

WOMAN AS WITCH :

may be formed from a study of prehistoric civilisation.
Our age, which is working for scarcely yet formulated
changes in the ownership of property and in the status
of woman, must gain special insight from the study of a
period, however far back in a semi-barbaric past, how-
ever incapable of future repetition, which yet to a great
extent realised, albeit on a narrow stage, what many to-
day would without qualification term socialism and the
emancipation of women. To have said so much is to
have amply justified a study of the mother-age.

In a brief and necessarily insufficient paper, such as
the present must be, several courses were open to me.
In the first place, | might have given you in outline a
sketch of what I conceive the old mother-age to have
been like, and perhaps pointed out the general stages of
its development, for it embraces not a single but many
phases of civilisation. Had I done so, however, I should
have been asking you to take a very great deal on faith ;
I should have been appealing for that faith to your
emotional side as women, to your partisan spirit, or to
your belief that I should not speak without having my
evidence pigeon-holed somewhere. Now, such an appeal
to faith is contrary to my whole theory of the manner
in which knowledge ought to be gained and opinion
formed. ‘The only true road to knowledge and the re-
sulting conviction lies through doubt and scepticism,
and any general sketch I might have given could at best
only legitimately serve to stimulate doubt, and to incite
others to undertake for themselves the collection and
interpretation of facts. The second course open to
me would have been to overwhelm you with the most

6 WOMAN AS WITCH

telling facts in favour of my theory, z.e. that most of the
work of early civilisation was due to women. To have
done this, however, would not only have been to deprive
some of you of the pleasure of discovering these facts for
yourselves ; it would have failed also to indicate how
much of interest can be extracted from a more detailed
investigation of a comparatively narrow field—a field
which we can all enter without either unlocking or
jumping over the five-barred gate of philology. I pur-
pose therefore to lay before you to-night no general
sketch, no mass of evidence, but simply to discuss a few
of the phases of medieval witchcraft which seem to me
fossils of the old mother-age. I shall have done more
than I can reasonably hope for if I shall sueceed in con-
vincing you that witchcraft was not a mere fantastic
and brutal imagination of a superstitious age, that its
beliefs and practices were more or less perverted rites
and customs of a prehistoric civilisation, and that the
confessions wrung from poor old women in the torture
chambers of the Middle Ages have a real scientific value
for the historian of a much earlier social life. I hold
that the folk-habits and family customs of the mother-
age remained as obscure traditions in the women of the
folk ; that they were surrendered, in what at first sight
seems perfectly futile suffering, to form an apparently
worthless record of human stupidity and religious
cruelty. Yet from another standpoint this record, and
therefore the suffering, will not have been without avail,
if they can provide any facts which may assist us in
understanding the growth of human societies, and which
may at the same time help us to estimate more justly

WOMAN AS WITCH 7

the real contributions of woman to early civilisation.
As we have seen, nothing is more helpful to us in
endeavouring to measure the social forces at work to-
day than a true conception of the plastic character of
social institutions when we examine their growth during
long periods. That the status of woman varies with
both time and place is an invaluable concept at the
present juncture, and the woman of to-day will owe a
debt of gratitude to the medizval witch if it can be
shown that the record of her suffering furnishes facts
which go a long way to demonstrate that primitive
woman had a status widely divergent from that of
woman in the present or in the patriarchal age.

In order to group my facts, I am going to briefly
sketch a form of social life which you will kindly look
upon as merely hypothetical. If in our inquiries as to
witchcraft we find customs which appear meaningless
except as fossils of such a state of society, then I think,
while still looking upon it as hypothetical, we may
venture to consider its further investigation a reason-
able task. finally, if those of you who pursue the
matter for yourselves, should find exactly similar fossils
in early language, in the folklore of birth and marriage,
in primitive law, in hero-legend and saga, and in the
customs of still extant barbarous peoples, — fossils
which no other hypothesis unites into a living whole
—then, I think, the hypothetical mother-age will
become for some of you what it is for me, an historical
fact.

Let us try to conceive a group of individuals in
which inheritance is through the mother, where the

8 WOMAN AS WITCH

husband and father in the earliest stages are probably
not individualised, and where even, in the later stages, ©
they have no position whatever as husband or father in
the wife’s or child’s group; where the relationship of
father and child conveys no inheritance from the one to
the other, and is associated with no rights. The closest
male relations of the woman are her son and her brother,
and she is the conduit by which property passes to and
from them. ‘The child’s position and its group-rights
are entirely determined by its mother, and the maternal
uncle is the natural male friend and protector of the
child. Such a law of inheritance may be briefly sum-
marised as mother-right. It would clearly give a
prominent position to the woman in the group. She
would be at least the nominal head of the family, the
bearer of its traditions, its knowledge, and its religion.
Hence we should expect to find that the deities of a
mother-right group were female, and that the primitive
goddesses were accompanied not by husband but by child
or brother. The husband and father being insignificant
or entirely absent, there would thus easily arise myths
of virgin and child, brother and sister deities. The
goddess of the group would naturally be served by
a priestess rather than by a priest. The woman as
depositary of family custom and tribal lore, the wise-
woman, the sibyl, the witch, would hand down to her
daughters the knowledge of the religious observances,
of the power of herbs, the mother-lore in the mother
tongue, possibly also in some form of symbol or rune
such as a priestly caste love to enshroud their mysteries
in. The symbols of these goddesses would be the

WOMAN AS WITCH 9

symbols of woman’s work and woman’s civilisation, the
distaff, the pitchfork, and the broom, not the spear, the
axe, and the hammer. Since agriculture in its elements
is essentially due to women, hunting and the chase
characteristic of men, the emblems of early agriculture
would also be closely associated with the primitive
goddess. The smaller domestic animals, the goat, the
boar, the goose, and the cock and hen, would be con-
nected with her worship. The earth, as a symbol of
fertility, would be brought into close relationship with
the mother deity. She would be a goddess of agri-
culture and of child-birth, of reproductivity in the soil,
of fecundity in animals, and of fertility in man. Her
shrine would be the hearth and fire round which the
Women spin and weave and cook, or it might be the
clearing in the forest, the fructifying stream or well,
the hilltop, where originally there was the palisaded
dwelling of a group, and where cultivation first ap-
peared. The group in such a dwelling would have a
common life, common work, and common meals. In
particular, the group gatherings would become high
festivals, at those lunar and solar changes which mark
the seasons and periods of agricultural fruitfulness and
animal fertility. Such gatherings, held on the hill-
tops, or by ancient trees or springs, would be marked
by the performance of religious rites, by the common
meal, the choral dance, and in many cases by the ribald
song, and by the gross licentiousness which charac-
terises the worship of a goddess of fertility. In all
these features we should expect to find the women
taking an equal, if not a leading part, responsible alike

ip oe WOMAN AS WITCH

for the communism of the kin-group, and for the license
and cruelty of its religious rites.

Looking at such a hypothetical phase of civilisation
as I have sketched above, where, if it had once existed,
should we expect to still find fossils of it? Clearly
in the primitive words for relationship and sex, in
the folklore of early agriculture; in the folklore of
distaff, of pitchfork, and of broom; in the myths of
primitive female deities; in the customs of the medi-
eval spinning-room; in peasant customs at marriage
and birth; in folk-festivals on high holidays, especially
spring and harvest feasts, with their faint reflexes in
children’s games; in peasant dances and songs; in
early religious ceremonies, whether adopted by primi-
tive Christianity, or driven by it into dark corners as
witchcraft ; in the sagas of primitive and titanic women,
already in the heroic age fossils of an earlier period—such,
for instance, as the stories of Clytemnestra and Medea,
of Brunhilda and Gudrun. If there be any truth in
our hypothesis, not only will fossils be found in these
various places, but these fossils themselves will be
strangely linked together, and by piecing and compar-
ing them it will be possible to reconstruct a whole.
We should expect to find related, if not identical,
customs in the spinning-room of the Middle Ages and
in peasant marriage ceremonies; in the observances of
witchcraft, and in the veneration of local saints in;
May Day celebrations, and in the licentious worship of
Walpurg on the Brocken. .

In order to find examples of these linked fossils
let us, in the first place, go back to some primitive

WOMAN AS WITCH II

phases of Germanic witchcraft, and mark in what
manner it comes into contact with early Germanic
Christianity.

We have, in the first place, to note how essentially
the ideas of witchcraft and of witches are associated with
women; and then to observe that the further we go
back into the days of early Christianity and_pre-
Christianity, the less is the stigma which attaches to
the witch. It must be remembered that it was only
at the commencement of the fourteenth century that
witchcraft was finally associated with heresy, and that
these two imputations rolled into one became either
a powerful instrument of oppression wielded by an all-
powerful Church, or a deadly but often double-edged
weapon of revenge in the hands of private individuals.
Occasionally, indeed, they served the purpose of a cold-
blooded political expediency. The name witch itself
signifies the woman who knows, the wiseacre, and de-
notes rather a good than a bad attribute. Indeed, we
find the witches themselves termed bonae dominae, the
“good dames,” and their gatherings the ludum bonae
socretatis, ‘‘ the sport of the good company.” Even till
quite late times we hear of white and black witches—
that is, those who work good and bad magic. ‘‘ Wise
men and wise women,” writes Cotta, “reputed a kind
of good and honest harmles witches or wizards, who by
good words, by hallowed herbes, and salves, and other
superstitious ceremonies, promise to allay and calme
divels, practises of other witches, and the forces of many
diseases.” The “white” or “blessing witch” revealed
mischiefs and removed evils from the bodies of men and

I2 WOMAN AS WITCH

animals. The witch who, according to the Augsburg
tradition, threw off her clothes, mounted a black horse
and drove the Huns from before the town, or the witch
of Beutelsbach, who led out a bull crowned with flowers
in solemn procession to be buried alive, and so cured
the cattle plague, must have possessed this friendly
character. In such traditions the witch resumes her
old position as the wise woman, the medicine woman,
the leader of the people, the priestess accompanying the
victim to the altar. Such a white witch or folk-leader
was Joan of Arc. In her trial for sorcery we read that
in the neighbourhood of Domfrein was an ancient oak
dedicated to a fay—ain other words, the sacrificial oak
of an old mother-goddess—and by this oak a spring—
the goddess’s spring, which recurs so often in May Day
ceremonies. At this oak by night the witches and evil
spirits used to congregate, especially on Thursdays, and
dance and sing round it, crowning the oak and spring
with garlands of flowers and herbs. According to the
extant accounts of the trial, Joan admitted that she
knew of this oak and of the ceremonies attached to it.
Looking back now, we are not inclined to doubt this ;
we see in the oak and well only the sacred spot of
an old mother-goddess, and in the ceremonies that went
on just the fossils of an old worship—such as may still
be found in hundreds of German villages— preserved as
peasant customs. The point to be noted is that these
customs are precisely those which are attributed to
the midnight witch-gatherings. Witch-gatherings and
peasant ceremonies are relics of ancient, social, and re-
ligious rites which were not only considered at one time

WOMAN AS WITCH 13

good, but the performance of which it would have been
impious to neglect.

We have accordingly to look upon the witch as
essentially the degraded form of the old priestess,
cunning in the knowledge of herbs and medicine, jealous
of the rights of the goddess she serves, and preserving
in spells and incantations such wisdom as early civilisa-
tion possessed. She is the lineal descendant of the
Vola or Sibyl who, in the Edda, is seated in the midst
of the assembly of gods, and from whom Woden himself
must inquire his fate. She is also the lineal descendant
of the priestesses who, Strabo tells us, stood before the
Cimbrian army and read auguries in the blood of their
human sacrifices. The witch, like the priestess, is
reputed to have power over the weather, nor is the
reason far to seek. If we admit, as we must do, that
women were the earliest agriculturists, then we under-
stand how they must have observed the course of the
seasons and the signs of the weather. Their weather-lore
was like that of the peasant, who will often startle the
town-bred stranger by a promise on the most glorious
of mornings of bad weather towards night. The old
Chaldean astronomers obtained the reputation of magi-
cians, because they had learnt by experience the nine-
teen years’ cycle of moon and sun, and could predict
eclipses. Plutarch tells us that Aganike, daughter of
Hegetor of Thessaly, befooled the Thessalonian maidens
by using her knowledge of coming eclipses “to draw
the moon out of the sky.” A weather-wisdom, a power
of foreseeing coming changes, is what we have to attri-
bute to the old priestesses and woman-agriculturists.

14 WOMAN AS WITCH

It was a knowledge which appeared to the folk as
magic, and its fossils are to be found in the power
attributed to latter-day witches of producing thunder
and hail at will. Learned in medicine, cunning in
weather, leader of the folk in sacrifice, such appear to
be the characteristics of the old priestess as fossilised in
the attributes of the medizval witch. Let us pursue
these ideas further into the ceremonies and symbols of
early witchcraft. |

The equivalent for witch in modern German is
Hexe, but in the oldest forms it appears as hagazusa,
hagetisse (Swiss hagsch, and our English hag). The
hagetisse can, 1 think, mean nothing else than the
woman of the Hag, Hagen, or Gehag—that is, the fenced
or staked enclosure. This might mean, and likely
enough in later times was used for the grove or sacred
Hon of the goddess, but in early times it far more
probably referred to the fenced dwelling of a clan or
group.! This fenced dwelling as home of the group was
the seat of its deity, and the transition from the tribal
mother to priestess, from fenced dwelling to sacred
enclosure, is natural and direct. But the origin of
witch in the woman of the Gehag is of considerable
interest, for it suggests a male correlative in the
Hagestalt, the Stalt, or male servant, fighter, domestic
of the Gehag. The Hagestalt is the man who has not
his own household, the member of the Gehag group.
In the Rheinpfalz it means to-day the man without
children, whether he be married or not. Later on it
came to be used for the wifeless man, and ultimately in

1 See Essay XI. for a further discussion of the whole subject of the Hag.

WOMAN AS WITCH 15

Modern German Hagestolz is used for the confirmed old
bachelor.1_ Why should the man of the old Gehag have
handed down his name to the confirmed bachelor of
to-day? The gradual changes in the significance of the
word are easy to suggest, if we remember that in the
mother-age descent was reckoned through the woman,
the man was childless, or rather only related in a vague
manner either to his sister's children or to all the
children of the group. To the men of the patriarchal
civilisation the Gehag man was not only childless but
wifeless; the old group-marriage was for them no
marriage at all, and the Hagestolz became the con-
firmed bachelor.

If we halt here for a minute, we see that the German
name for witch is carrying us into a new phase of early
civilisation, which we shall also find fossilised in witch-
craft. Namely, to a group of men and women living
in a palisaded dwelling, with a form of marriage totally
different from what we call marriage to-day. It was a
form of marriage which was a needful step in the
growth of civilisation, and therefore moral in its day.
But there is little wonder that the early Christian
missionaries looked upon it as complete license; that
the hag or woodwoman, with her strange magical
powers over weather and cattle and young children,
with her mysterious ceremonies at ancient trees, springs,
and on hilltops; that the common meals, night dances,
weird and occasionally horrible sacrifices to strange
goddesses, that the group rites of marriage and views

1 From the present standpoint it is noteworthy that in many parts of
Germany the old local laws gave the property of the Hagestolz on his death,
whether he made a will or not, or left blood relatives or not, to the state.

16 WOMAN AS WITCH

on relationship, were all unholy, licentious, and diaboli-
cal in the extreme. What the missionary could he
repressed, the more as his church grew in strength ;
what he could not repress he adopted or simply left
unregarded. Allemania was Christianised by the indi-
vidual missionary, and the mother - goddesses became
local saints of the Catholic Church. Saxony was
Christianised by the edge of the sword, and scarcely
a single Saxon goddess has crept into the Roman
calendar. What the missionary tried to repress became
medizval witchcraft; what he judiciously disregarded
survives to this day in peasant weddings and in the
folk-festivals at the great changes of season. The
licentiousness of witchcraft is not then a merely re-
pulsive feature of medizeval superstition; it is to be
looked upon as a fossil and degraded form of marriage
characteristic of a totally different phase of civilisation
from our own or from the patriarchal. It marks very
clearly the good and bad features of the old mother-
age.

Let me try and carry you back for a moment to
those days when early Christianity met the fragments
of the old civilisation, already decaying. When women
dancing at night round the sacred trees and wells, torch
or candle in hand, when the common meal, the sacrifice,
the choral song, had not been stamped as witchcraft,
but were characteristic of the great religious /étes of the
old worship and the matrimonial rites of the group.
The missionary built his church near the old sacred
spots, the priestesses of yore—the witches of the coming
ages—did not cease their rites on that account. Choruses

a

/

WOMAN AS WITCH 17

of maidens singing the winileod or choral love - song,
and accompanied by groups of men, invaded the churches
and prepared their common meals inside. A statute of
St. Boniface, dated 803, forbids choruses of laymen and
maidens to sing and feast in the churches. So early as
600 St. Eligius forbids, on the festival of St. John (Mid-
summer Day), dancing and capering, and carols and
diabolical songs. While even in the ninth century
Benedictus Levita must order that, “when the populace
come to church, it shall only do there what belongs to
the service of God. In very truth, these dances and
capers, these disgraceful and lewd songs, must not be
performed either in the churchyards or the houses of
God, nor in any other place, because they remain from
the custom of the heathens.” Here in contact with early
Christianity we have clearly the chief features of the

)

primitive worship, or of later witchcraft with its
prominent place for the priestesses or witches. The
old faith has not yet been broken down, and its rites
have not yet disappeared into the byways of peasant
marriages, folk-festivals, and witchcraft. Shall we take
one more glance at those maidens with their wenileod
or love-songs, their torchlight dances, and common
meal? Here is a fossil of three or four hundred years
later date, which I found, to my great delight, in an
old Friesian law-book. After the bridal feast—the relic
of the old common group meal—the bride is to be
brought to the bridegroom’s house at night in the
following manner :—

That this free Friesian woman shall come into the
house of the free Friesian man with sound of horns, with

VOL. 11 C

18 WOMAN AS WITCH

a company of neighbours, with burning brands and
winnasonge.

Iam quite sure if St. Boniface had met by night such
a procession he would have ascribed it to the old pagan
worship, while to Alfons deSpina, or a medizeval inquisitor,
it would have been an undoubted witch-gathering.

But let us follow the remnants of these old gather-
ings round the Christian churches a little further, just
to convince ourselves that witchcraft and its observ-
ances have their origin in old religious rites belonging
to a totally different civilisation to our own. I select
only one or two examples of these fossils.

In Darmstadt near Hallerstadt the people were in the
habit of dancing round the church during the sermon,
till, according to tradition, they wore out the deep
ditch which surrounds the church.

In Scotland, before the Reformation, we hear of ball |
being played in church. ‘A ball being brought in,
the Dean began a chant suited to Easter Day, and then
taking the ball in his left hand commenced a dance to
the tune, others of the priests dancing round hand in
hand. At intervals the ball was tossed by the Dean to
each of the choristers, the organ playing music appro-
priate to their various antics, until it was time to give
over and retire to take refreshment.” This ball-play,’
with dancing and song followed by refreshment, is
singularly characteristic of the old heathen rites—the
bride-ball and songs of the German maidens at Easter.
Not only were public games at ball played at Easter
and Whitsuntide, but ball-money was forced from wed-

1 Compare the Magdalen in gaudio in Essay XII.

WOMAN AS WITCH 19

ding parties at the church doors, so that the game is
peculiarly associated with high festivals and marriage
feasts. We may note, too, the decoration of the
churches in Hesse on May Day, and the solemn pro-
cession with the Maypole round the church. Remark-
able in the same respect is the “ playing of the stag,”
to which reference occurs in a number of penitential
books and homilies. Men on New Year’s Day clothed
themselves in the skin of a stag, with its horns upon
their heads, and were accompanied by other men
dressed 1n woman's clothing. In this costume, with
licentious songs and drinking, they proceeded to the
doors of the churches, where they danced and sung
with extraordinary antics. Tacitus, in his Germama,
tells us of a priest clothed as a woman, and when men
first usurped the office of priestess, there is little doubt
that they clothed as women. Hence the men dressed as
women who occur in so many Twelfth Day, May Day,
and Midsummer Day celebrations, are, I think, fossils of
the old priestesses, often occurring with fossils of the old
sacrificial animal. ‘The “playing of the stag” at the
church doors seems to me, therefore, another relic of
the old religious rites accompanied by choral dance and
licentious song.

Closely allied to these heathen ceremonies outside
the Christian churches is the German peasant Airch-
weth or Kirmes, a festival supposed to be held in
memory of the dedication of a church. But the whole
festival is heathen in character. The KAzmes often
lasts or lasted three to four days. Its chief feature was
the dancing under the linden tree, or round a special

20 WOMAN AS WITCH

pole or tree put up for the purpose. There was pro-
longed feasting with a special Kirmes soup, Kurmes goose,
and flat cakes; there was drinking of a beer especially
brewed doubly strong for the occasion. While Kirmes-
freier and Kirmesliebe denote a lover and love which
last only three days. Noteworthy is the custom in the
Saxon Obererzgebirge of solemnly slaughtering a swine
at Kirmes. In the same district musicians, accom-
panied by a man in gay woman’s clothing, called the
Kirmesweib, go about collecting food for a common.
feast. In Bavaria, as in Saxony, the main features of
Kirmes are the same, only perhaps the ceremonies
approach still more closely those of May Day. There
is dancing round the linden tree or a pole, the choice
of two maidens as queens of the /féte, the wreaths of
- flowers, the burial of a sacrifice, in some cases the
mock burial of a human being, and the free feast to
which all are expected to freely give, and of which all
may freely partake. Before leaving the subject of
Kirmes, it should be noted that a swine or sow as
emblem of fertility is frequently offered to the goddess
of fertility. As examples may be cited the boar’s head of
Freya, the goddess of love, and the sow sacrificed to
Ceres, representing the productivity of the earth.

One word more before we leave the subject of the
relation of the old religious rites to the churches. In
the Dunninger Kapelle in Rottweil, and in various other
chapels of the same district, offerings are made of
brooms, with in some cases the special hope of curing
boils. This offering of the broom is noteworthy, as we
shall see that it is especially the symbol of the female

WOMAN AS WITCH 21

deities associated with witchcraft. We must turn now
to the bearing of all these instances on witchcraft.
What I think they have clearly brought out is the fact
that the characteristic features of witch-gatherings, the
common feast, the choral dance, the sacrifice under the
sacred tree, the presiding spirit of woman, are all features
of the old heathenism, as marked by cases in which that
heathenism has not been repressed, but associated itself
with Christian buildings or Christian ceremonies.
Before we note the relation of the Walpurgisnacht
orgies to May Day celebrations, it may be well to meet
two objections which may be rising in the minds of
some of my hearers. How, they may be questioning,
can the choral dances of flower-decked maidens in
honour of some mother-goddess be associated with the
revels of hags and hideous old witches centring round
the devil? How, they may further question, can the
nightmare fantasies of the Middle Ages have any relation
to facts having a real historical basis like the old heathen
customs? [| will reply to the second of these questions
first, by showing that the midnight gatherings were real
even in the sixteenth century and not fantasy at all;
that they insensibly shaded off into the ordinary folk-
assemblies such as those on the eve of May Day. Then
I will endeavour to prove that the witches were in
early times rather young and beautiful than old and
haggard ; and lastly, that the witch ceremonials appear
to have centred round a female deity, who may have
been accompanied in some cases by her son, and that
it was due to the influence of Christian demonology that
this goddess was first converted into the devil’s grand-

22 WOMAN AS WITCH

mother or mother, and ultimately the chief functions of
the witch’s sabbath devolved upon her son, taken to be
the devil himself.

Perhaps some of the Swabian witch-trials provide us
with the most valuable evidence in this matter. In
Giinzburg the witches meet on the Héwberg, the Bres-
gau witches on the Kandel, a mountain in the Black
Forest, and in particular at a stone called the Kandel-
stein, probably a trace of an old altar. Here their most
skilful piper was the bailiff of Niederwinden. In the
Nagolder Waldle the witches danced on a meadow,
while in Oberstdorf they meet at the chapel of the
fourteen Nothelfer, saints who assist women in child-
birth. This chapel was called the witch’s chapel, and
evidently had been placed upon the site of an altar to
an old mother-goddess. All these points are brought
out in the protocols of actual witch-trials. But the
Rottenburger witch-trials (1600) give us still further
details. We learn from Anna Mauczin that the witch-
gatherings were called fHochzeiten, and treated as a type
of marriage feast; we learn from Anna Kegreifen the
names of the actual people (including the priest’s ser-
vant) who came to the dances; we find on the one
hand disappointed or deserted wives and foolish village
maidens, on the other village loafers and students from
Tubingen, who joined in the midnight dances, and the
feasting and drinking beneath the Nunenbaum, or by
the well at the upper gate of Rottenburg. The trials
bring out clearly enough who came to these witches’
sabbaths ; how the usual piper was a well-known shep-
herd, buton some occasions one was brought specially from

WOMAN AS WITCH 23

Tiibimgen. Here I will cite a few questions from a con-
fession. The supposed witch was asked if she had been
at a witch-dance, and replied, “‘ Yes, for she was there
initiated as a witch.” Who had taken her to it? “The
old shepherd’s wife had fetched her, and they had gone
with a broom.” Did she mean that they had flown
through the air on a broom? ‘Certainly not; they
had walked to Etterle, and then placed themselves across
the broom, and so come on to the dancing green.” So
they had not gone through the air? ‘Certainly not;
that required an ointment, which ought only to be
very rarely used.” Who were on the dancing green ?
“Witches and their sweetheart-devils” (Buhlteufeln).
Had she a sweetheart-devil? ‘“ Yes! the Sniveller.” Did
she not fear this devil? “No, he was only a sweetheart-
devil.” Was there a difference between a sweetheart-
devil and other devils? ‘‘ Why, of course! The sweet-
heart-devil was no real devil, only a witch’s sweetheart
like the ‘ Sniveller,’ who was old Zimmerpeterle’s son.”
Here we have a most remarkable confession, show-
ing that the witch-gatherings were real meetings, that
the women took with them the symbol of the old hearth
or home goddess, the broom (or in some cases the fire-
fork, Keuergabel), that the devils were real men of the
neighbourhood. Further, that the broom was ridden like
a hobby-horse on to the dancing green. This riding of
broom or the pitchfork, or even the goat, should be
taken in conjunction with the riding of the hobby-
horse* or wooden goat round the village by the young

1 This occurs in many places. Note particularly Grossgottern, in Thiiringen,
where, at Whitsuntide in the forties of this century, men dressed as women

24 ‘WOMAN AS WITCH

men at peasant festivals in parts of Germany. Both
seem closely connected with the worship of a female
deity, whose symbols are those of the hearth and primi-
tive agriculture. When we remember that the great
witch dances to which students, and even doctors, of
Tubingen used to go out were especially held on the eve
of the first of May, how suggestive is the statement that
“‘people of quality in the old days used to go from
London to dance in the villages of Essex on May Day!”

The close connection between Walpurgisnacht, the
eve of the first of May, and May Day itself must ever be
kept in view. On the latter day we have the May
queen and her maidens decorating the tree or well of
the mother-goddess; on the former night we have a
distorted image of the May-Day ceremonies, truer in
some respects, all the same, to the old mother-age civil-
isation. Links between the two will be found in sagas
which make the witches beautiful maidens with flowing
robes, dancing and feasting to the most entrancing
music. Such sagas are not uncommon, particularly in
Westphalia. But perhaps a closer link may be found in
the custom of choosing maidens on Walpurgisnacht as
sweethearts for the year. This occurs in the Lahn
district, and is termed the Mailehn, or May-fee. The
youths march out on this night with cracking of whips and
with song. Then one of their number stands upon a hillock
or stone, and calls out the names of maid and youth
pair by pair, adding: “In this year to wed.” Each pair
must then keep together at all the dances of the year ;

went about on hobby-horses collecting food for a common meal, and were termed
Huren. Inthe evening there was a great drinking bout, feasting and dancing,
In Beverley Minster on one of the misericords is depicted a man on a hobby-horse.

WOMAN AS WITCH 25

the maiden places a wreath round the hat of her sweet-
heart, and the evening ends in feasting and drinking.
In other parts of Hesse the fee-calling takes place at
Kirmes, and the couple only dance together for the
Kirmes. Both periods remind us, however, of the
Kirmes lover, or “ three-day sweetheart” ; we are clearly
dealing with a fossil of the old temporary sex-relation-
ship. In Oberndorf, in Swabia, a like ceremony occurs
at Midsummer Day, another great heathen and witch
festival. This ceremony is called the Wezberdingete,
or wife-hire, and consists in each man taking his wife
to the village inn. The wife asks: ‘“ Will you hire
your old wife again for another year?” The husband
answers: “Yes, I'll try it again with my old wife.”
Feasting, singing, and drinking go on till midnight,
and the wife, it should be noted, pays the score.

A similar institution was the Handfasting in Esk-
dalemuir at the annual fair, where the unmarried of
both sexes selected partners for the space of one year.
If they were satisfied with the marriage, they continued
again after the year, but if not they separated. This
old Scottish custom seems to have combined the May-
fee and the wife-hire. All are most noteworthy, as
indicating that the licentious extravagances of the
witch -gatherings point back to a form of marriage
totally different from that of the patriarchal system,
and peculiar to an age when the status of woman in
both social and religious matters was far freer than it
could be after the advent of Christianity and the
martial organisation which accompanied the age of
the folk-wanderings.

26 WOMAN AS WITCH

If, then, I have indicated that we must look upon
the witch-gatherings as fossils of high festivals for
dancing, feasting, and the choice of sweethearts by the
younger folk, I have still to show that the devil as
master of the ceremonies is a late importation. I can
do this best by citing to you the legend of the Bensberg
in the Herkenrath district. Here there is a spot in the
forest termed the weichen Hahn, which appears to be
a corruption of the wichen Hain, or sacred grove. At
this place, according to tradition, there are great witch-
gatherings on May night and Midsummer night. Over
these gatherings the devil and his grandmother preside.
Three lads who once went as unobserved spectators
were, according to the legend, astonished by the num-
ber of witches present, and by a grandeur of which they
had never dreamt. Upon a resplendent throne, the
jewels of which lighted up the wood, sat the she-devil
in youthful beauty, at her feet sat her grandson, the
devil himself, and in a large half-ring round stood the
witches, who kept flying in. Then the witches began
a rhythmic movement with song and resonant music,
ever bending towards the throne. The devil’s grand-
mother consecrated them with water from a golden
vessel, using instead of the usual water-sprinkler a
bunch of green ears of corn, which she carried in her
right hand; in her left hand she held a beautiful
golden apple. All the witches appeared young’ and
active maidens of astonishing beauty, such as_ the
observers had never before seen, and the music sung
was sweeter than any they had ever heard.

It is true that when the lads’ presence was dis-
1 Compare the young witch in Baldung Grien’s cut, p. 30.

WOMAN AS WITCH 27

covered all things became hideous and horrible, but
the legend retains its significance all the same. The
devil as a minor person seated at the feet of his grand-
mother, who with corn ears and apple is obviously a
goddess of the harvest like Ceres, worshipped by fair
maidens with dance and song. I know no legend more
striking than this in the manner in which it shows the
origin of witch ceremonies in the old worship of a
goddess of fertility by her woman devotees. But this
same superiority of the devil’s mother or grandmother
over the devil is marked whenever we find traditions
about them.’ She cajoles him and wheedles secrets out of
him, and at Soest is said even for a time to have banished
him to the Brocken in the Harzgebirge on account of
his idleness. Not only in Westphalia, but right away
down to the Danube, we find traces of the devil’s
mother as a person of great importance. She builds a
palace on the Danube, she hunts with black dogs in the
night through Swabia, and wherever the devil himself
can achieve nothing there he sends his mother.

The devil’s dam, hunting with black dogs through
the night, directly associates this goddess with a number
of female deities who ride with their dogs and a wild
following through the dark on Twelfth Night, May Day,
Midsummer Eve, or at Yule-tide. Thus in Mecklenburg,
Frau Gode, described as a weather-witch, hunts through
the night, sometimes on a white horse, sometimes on a
sleigh drawn by dogs. She eats human flesh, she brings

the plague, and no spinning must be done on the nights

1 The fact that we hear of the Teufelsstiefbruder but never of his father is.
also not without value as determining the mother-age character of the civilisation,
from which this mother and son dual deity took its origin.

28 WOMAN AS WITCH

when she is abroad. In Thiiringen, Frau Holda or
Holla rides with the wild hunt on Walpurgqisnacht.
She looks after spinning, and punishes in the most
brutal and cruel fashion the idle as well as those who
insult her. She, too, is accompanied by her dogs. In
Hesse, Frau Holle yearly passes over the land, and gives
it fruitfulness. She can be friendly and helpful to her
worshippers. She has her dwelling in a mere or well,
and she makes women who go and bathe therein healthy
and fruitful. Only a century ago songs used to rise to
Frau Holle as the women dressed the flax, and to her
sacred hill peasants and their wives were wont to go at
Whitsuntide with music and dancing. A scarcely less
noteworthy figure is that of Berchta with her plough. She
waters the meadows, and on Twelfth Night she goes her
round to punish idle spinsters, often in the most brutal
manner. In Swabia, on Twelfth Night, a broom is
carried in her procession, or she is represented with a
broom in one hand and fruit in the other. This list of
goddesses might be largely extended did our time per-
mit; but it may serve, as it is, to show that the devil’s
mother is only a degraded form of a goddess of fertility
and domestic activity. She is but one of those god-
desses whose symbols are those of agriculture, the pitch-
fork and the plough, or of domestic usefulness, the
broom and the spindle. She is associated with symbols
of fertility, the ears of corn, fruit, the swine, and the dog.
Her well brings with its water fertility to the land and
fruitfulness to women. Her worship is associated with
cruelties, human sacrifices, which point to an early stage
of civilisation, and with licentiousness scarce paralleled

WOMAN AS WITCH 29

in the worship of any male deity. In her it is the
activities of the woman and not the man which come
into prominence ; the civilising work of woman in the
home and on the fields; she is type of the civilisation
which is peculiarly woman’s work. Replace the devil
at witch-meetings by such a mother-goddess as Holle
or Berchta, or reduce him at least to the menial office of
cook, and there is not a single feature of witchcraft which
is not replete with suggestion for the civilisation of the
mother-age. The broom and the pitchfork no longer
seem anomalies; they are the symbols of the goddess,
and as such are borne by her worshippers. As the blood
of the lamb on the door-post hindered Jehovah from
venting his anger upon his own worshippers, so the broom,
which was actually carried by witches, if placed on the
threshold, signified to the goddess that her worshippers
were within. The symbol of the witch was originally

the sign of the worshipper, the protection against the
: anger of the goddess, or of the priestess, her servant.
How suggestive in this respect becomes all the folklore
of brooms! The solemn night gathering and night
binding of brooms on New Year’s Day; the dance of
men and maids round the fire at Midsummer Eve, the
men carrying burning brooms; the crossed brooms
before the doorways in the Obererzgebirge on Wal-
purgisnacht as a protection against the witches ;* the
besom by the cradle or at the door in Mecklenburg to
protect the new-born child; the cows and the stall pro-
tected. in the same district from witchcraft by an

1 The broom was also an essential feature of a Gretna Green marriage, just as
the Feuergabel or tongs characterise the gipsy wedding,—another link between mar-
riage folklore and the worship of the tribal goddess at the great folk-festivals of sex.

30 WOMAN AS WITCH

inverted broom or the presence of a goat, the favourite
animal of the witch, and therefore presumably of her
mistress, the goddess of fertility; the riding of youth
or maid on.a broomstick to the pig-sty on New Year’s
Eve, when the answer of the swine determines the
nature of the future bride or groom; the burning of
brooms on. Walpurgisnacht in Thiringen to frighten
the witches; the procession to-the well at Sauloau;
which was headed by a man bearing a broom, followed
by one with a fork, and between them a third clothed
in a sheepskin, and carrying a tree with apples and
other eatables (termed the Adam’s tree); the proces-
sion of men wearing women’s clothes, with brooms and
fire-forks, on Fast-Nacht at Erlingen; the brooms which
the witches will not step over in Nassau, or which
protect the cottage doors in the Pfalz against the
entrance of witches; the broom stuck in the dunghill
in Schlesien to protect the homestead, or in the flax
field to increase its fertility, or the brooms burnt on
Midsummer Night with a wild dance, in the same
district ; the besom which, laid on the bed, protects men
against the cobbolds in North Germany, where we find
again the same broomstick ride to the pig-sty, and the
same burning of. brooms at dances in the woods; the
old brooms which frighten away changelings; and the
worn-out brooms which are burnt in the fires on Mid-
summer Eve in the Pfalz. All these evidences of
broom-worship show how universal was the respect for ©
the mother-goddess and her servants the witch-priestesses
throughout the length and breadth of Germany.

Similar folklore as to the distaff, the cooking ladle,

ees

Pee aa

;
A

<

a
y
?

sie

Fig. 1.—PREPARATION FOR WITCHES’ SABBATH. To face p. 30.

Young witch on goat and old witches brewing. Cat, cooking-ladle, fire-forks, and

other symbols of the primitive Mother-Goddess. From a woodcut by Hans
Baldung Grien,

*
=
>

ae

|

ba
\

WOMAN AS WITCH 31

and the pitchfork might be cited, the noteworthy point
being that these symbols occur in identical ways at
witch ceremonies and at peasant weddings—in fact, at
the old and the new marriage rites. At the witches’
feast there is a great kettle, and the devil as cook
dances with the cooking ladle; boys dance with
brooms and cooking ladles on Walpurgisnacht. On
the other hand, there is a special dance of the cook
with a ladle at peasant weddings in Mecklenburg and
in other parts of Germany. In the confession of Geseke
Hagenmeister, a sixteenth-century witch, she described
the cooking at witch-meetings as being exactly like
that at a wedding. Indeed, the correspondences are
most striking and suggestive. It is a charge against
witches that they dance back to back with the devils;
this is precisely the form of peasant wedding dance
illustrated by Albrecht Diirer.t The witches smear their
feet to pass rapidly through the air. The Hochzeits-
bitter, or person who bids to the peasant weddings in
Mecklenburg, asks the guests to smear their boots and
shoes that they may come the quicker. The witches
dance on hilltops; in Uderstiidt, in Thiiringen, on the
second day of the marriage feast, the whole marriage
company were bound by ancient custom to dance on
the top of the Tafelsberg, a neighbouring hill, whither
they proceeded in procession with music. The dancing
round the bride-stake and the distaff at weddings are
strangely akin to the dancing round the Maypole, about
the sacred tree, or with the broom on May Day, Mid-
summer Night, or at witch-gatherings. On Walpurgs-

1 See also a 1600 Siegburger jug in the Berlin Gewerbe Museum.

32 WOMAN AS WITCH

nacht, in Westphalia, the young men go round with
music and song to honour their brides and sweethearts ;
elsewhere they plant May-trees before their sweethearts’
doors; witches and wilde Frauen—that is, the hags or
women of the woods—come in Swabia to weddings and
to births. What is this but a relic of the day when the
priestess of the goddess of fertility came to marriages
and births as of right? In North Germany the witch
has power over the new-born and the new-bought; she
comes to take the tithe for sacrifice to the goddess.
In Swabia, and in the Pfalz;also, the midwife, according
to the legends, is often a witch who baptizes the
children in the devil’s name, or again she lends women
the Drutenstein or trud’s stone to protect their babes
against witches; it is the hag or woman of the woods
who knows and collects the herbs which relieve the
labours of birth. Here we have the priestess of the old
civilisation as medicine woman and midwife relieving
human suffering, putting the symbol of her goddess
on the cradle, but taking her tithe of human life for
sacrifice to the goddess—to whom without question all
children born on Walpurgisnacht belong (Pfalz)—-and
exercising strange and hostile influences over women in
childbed who do not submit to the old religious rites.

The old human sacrifice is a marked feature of the
religion of which witchcraft is the fossil. Witches, we
are told, kill and eat children, especially the unbaptized.
They boil them down, as all early sacrificial feasts
and nearly all savage meals appear to be boilings and
not roastings. Remarkable in this respect is the
offering of wax figures of babies at shrines of the Virgin

WOMAN AS WITCH | 33

Mary as thank-offerings for easy birth. The Virgin
Mary takes the place in innumerable ways of the old
mother-goddess of fertility. But the human sacrifice
to the goddess was not confined to children. In Heil-
bronn we have the common feast, the common dance,
and the burning of a scarecrow or guy as trace of
sacrifice; elsewhere in Swabia a female figure in the
form of a witch is burnt, and her ashes scattered over
the land to increase its fertility; in Spain it is an old
woman with a distaff in her hand, and it seems more
than probable that the priestess herself was occasion-
ally, perhaps as representative of the goddess, sacrificed
by burning on the sacred hill or drowning in the sacred
well. The goddess of fertility is killed in autumn, that
she may arise rejuvenated in spring. This may possibly
_ be the origin of Dido’s self-immolation, and the popular
legend of the sacrifice of the queen-priestess which is
found in so many different localities. That male victims
were also common is proved not only by the direct
evidence of early historians but by many still extant
folk-customs. These instances of witches as fossils of
the priestesses of a goddess of fertility are not con-
tradicted by the hostility which witches exhibit to
marriage, or the fact that marriages on their great
days, such as Twelfth Day and Walpurgis Day, are
considered very unlucky. When we remember that
the marriage of the civilisation, of which witches are
fossils, was a group-marriage and not a monogamic
marriage, we easily grasp why the old priestly caste
would oppose the changes which led to the patriarchal
system and the downfall of the old civilisation. Thus

VOL. I D .

34 WOMAN AS WITCH

it comes about that the bride must propitiate the
goddess or her servant. Newly-married couples in
Esthonia, one of the Russian Baltic provinces, carry an
offering to. the great water-mother in the shape of a
goat; in Bohemia and other parts of Austria the bride
sacrifices a cock; in England the bride had to anoint
the threshold of the door, or smear the door-posts with
swine’s grease to avoid the ‘‘ mischievous fascinations of
witches.” This must be compared with the blood of a
black dog which was smeared on the door-posts to pro-
tect the house from witches, much as the blood of a
lamb was smeared by the Jews at Passover. In Bran-
denburg the bride carries salt and dill to prevent the
witches injuring her. In North Germany salt and. dill
are also used to protect newly-built bridges against
witches. This is the more noteworthy as Tacitus tells
us that the German priestesses prepared salt, and
witches are famed for brewing salt and collecting herbs.
There is no doubt that the salt and the dill were
symbols of a goddess,—types of the discoveries due to
woman’s work in the old mother-age civilisation,—and
as such symbols they consecrated both bridge and bride
to the goddess, and saved them from the anger of her
priestesses, as the blood of the sheep saved from the
anger of Jehovah.

If my general theory be. at all a correct one, we
ought to find in witchcraft fossils of the old law of
inheritance peculiar to the mother-age, and something
akin to this we do find. In the Rheinthal we hear of
uralte Hexensyppe—families where from time imme-
morial witchcraft has been handed down from mother

WOMAN AS WITCH 35

to daughter. Then we have the widely-spread German
proverb: Die Mutter eine Hexe, die Tochter auch ewe
Hexe, or, “The mother a witch, the daughter one too.”
The charms, spells, and potions seem to have been
handed down from mother to daughter in long line,
and were only learnt by men from women as a special
favour. Many are the legends of the witch who takes
her husband or the farm-servant with her to a witch-
gathering; but it is always in a subordinate position,
and the unfortunate man, not knowing the full ritual,
produces a confusion, which ends, as a rule, disastrously
for his skin. Another noteworthy fact is that in many
parts of Germany any heirloom banishes witches or
protects the person who carries it against them. Thus
to stand within an inherited chain, or upon an inherited
harrow, or with an inherited key or sieve, renders
witchcraft powerless. It is difficult to look upon all
these very diverse wnherited things as symbols of the
goddess which mark and protect her servants. I am
inclined to think that they are really typical of the
civilisation which first attained what we should term a
law of inheritance, of a civilisation which was distin-
guished from that of the old mother-age when pro-
perty belonged to the group and passed through the
women, by the custom of property passing from father
to son. Thus the man took as symbol of his new civil-
isation the heirloom, and used it as a sign to protect
himself against the priestesses of the old faith.

That the goddesses served by the witches were essen-
tially goddesses of agriculture is demonstrated by the
various ceremonies with regard to plants and herbs

36 WOMAN AS WITCH

which take place on the great witch-nights. In Esthonia,
where the Virgin Mary has taken the place of an old
goddess of fertility, there is a ceremonial planting of
cabbages by the women on the Feast of her Annuncia-
tion shortly before Midsummer Day. In Brandenburg
there is a ceremonial gathering of herbs on May Day.
Once when [| was ill in the Black Forest I had herb-
tea brought to me by an old peasant woman, the herbs
having been gathered on St. John’s night. In Mecklen-
burg herbs are gathered on Midsummer Night, which.
protect people against witches. In Thiiringen caterpillars
are banished from the cabbage plot by a woman running
naked round the field or garden before sunrise on the
eve of the annual fair. In the Pfalz, flax will not
thrive unless it is sown by the women, and it has to be
done with strange ceremonies, including the scattering
over the field of the ashes of a fire made of wood
consecrated during matins. As high as the maids jump
over the fires on the hilltops on Midsummer Night, so
high will the flax grow; but we find also that as high
as the bride springs from the table on her marriage
night, so high will the flax grow in that year. Green
cabbages gathered at Yule-tide or on Twelfth Night,
and eaten by man and beast, protect them against
witches; in other words, those who eat it, like those
who eat the paschal lamb, are performing a rite which
protects them from the anger of the deity.

Besides this relation to herbs and plants, the
goddess shows her relation to fruitfulness in the
matter of wells, springs, and ponds. At the Sive-
ringer spring, near Vienna, crowds of people come on

WOMAN AS WITCH 37

feast- days, especially on Midsummer Night; many
spend the night in the woods, and if a stone taken
from the Agneswiese be laid in the water of the spring,
and then under the pillow, prophetic dreams follow.
The spring is supposed to be sacred to a fay, Agnes,
who is friendly to mortals. Margretha Beutzins, tried
for witchcraft in the sixteenth century, confessed that
she and other witches fetched water out of a stream,
boiled it with herbs in a large caldron over a fire, and
bathed the devil therein. This bathing ceremony in a
sacred stream at witch-gatherings or on Midsummer
Night appears to be very general. In Thiiringen, near
Tieffurt, is a sacred spring still called Weihbrunnen ;
this well is one of the wells from which children are
brought,—that is, the well of a goddess of fertility—and
there are legends about children being found there, who
afterwards return to dance round the well. On the
Virgin Mary’s birthday—the festival of maids, as it
was still called at the beginning of our century—the
maidens in Thiiringen used to rise before daybreak and
bathe with the water of a sacred spring, which made
them beautiful. In Hesse bathing in Frau Holle’s
pond, or in various sacred wells, makes barren women
fruitful. Here we have the same notion of fertility due
to the sacred water of the goddess; but in later days
she has been replaced by the Virgin Mary. In Halle is
a well termed the Freucklerin well; it is said to be so
called from an old woman, who had a great knowledge of
how to cure diseases, and we evidently have a trace of
an old healing goddess. In Steisslingen, in Swabia, the
wells are decorated on May Day; there is dancing and a

38 WOMAN AS WITCH

feast at night. May-Day baths are frequently mentioned
in the old chronicles, as well as special Midsummer-Day
baths. They seem to have frequently preceded the
dancing round the sacred well. Near Burgeis is the
Zerzerbrunnen, a well of three wild maidens. Alongside
it there used to be an altar to which shepherds and
huntsmen brought their firstlings. The altar is now
replaced by a chapel. Such wells which legend attri-
butes to a well-maiden, or three sisters, or wild maidens,
are very frequent. Often the maidens come out from
the well, and join in the peasant dances of the neigh-
bourhood ; this occurs especially on St. John’s night.
The wilde Frauen thus associated with wells are not
exactly witches, but, like witches, they come to weddings
and births, and are accompanied by dogs. They are the
three sisters to whom so many medizeval charms and in-
cantations are addressed, and to whom men go for counsel
and aid. They are rather the legendary form of an old
triune goddess of fertility than the degenerate form which
her priestess has taken as a witch. They are goddesses
of fertility, but also of disease and death, as well as of
medicine and life. For pest and death are in early times
represented as women, not as men. The healing goddess
is related to the “great virgin” of Esslingen, who, we
are told, outwitted all men, priests and laymen, even the
most famous physicians, with her magic. That these
spring or well goddesses had a side in dark contrast to
their dancing, singing, and healing characteristics is
clearly enough evidenced by the traces we have of human
sacrifices to wells and springs, and of licentious gather-
ings in their neighbourhood. As goddesses they are

WOMAN AS WITCH 39

frequently represented in the legends as spinning; they
come to weddings and spin; they punish idle spinsters,
and their worship is closely connected with the distaff
as symbol. Another phase of their worship is connected
with the village spinning-room and the licentiousness
which then and now surrounds that institution. But to
enter into the folklore and practice of the spinning-room
and its fossils in still more ill-famed resorts might in-
deed throw much light on the mother-age, but it would
lead us too far from our present subject of witchcraft.

I have endeavoured to interpret various obscure
witch-customs as fossils of an ancient woman civilisation,
especially as fossils of its religious worship, reflecting
as all religion the social habits and modes of thought of
the society in which it originated. We shall see these
phases of the old life still further emphasised if we note
a few—a very few—of the ceremonies which occur in
Germany on Walpurgisnacht, May Day or Midsummer
Day—times especially associated with. witches and the
old feminine deities. In the Russian Baltic provinces
we find that there are festivals on the first of May with
torch or candle processions comparable with the witch
gatherings and the Friesian marriage; that a May king
is chosen, who does reverence to the May queen,’ and
that a free feast is given to the women and maidens.
As usual, there is music and dancing in the even-
ing exactly as at witch-dances. In Dantzig there
is dancing on the Fayusberg, possibly the fairy’s
hill. In Denmark we find processions with choral

1 The May-Day ceremonies here closely approach the Mylitta feast at
Babylon ; see Essay XI.

40 WOMAN AS WITCH

dances of maidens, communal feasting and drinking,
while we have still extant songs made by pious folk
to replace the old ribald May-Day songs." In Esthonia,
at midsummer, the maidens go to certain hilltops, and
there, bedecked with flowers, dance and sing round fires.
On Midsummer Night this often degenerated into a
veritable bacchanal; there were dances of nude women
and a licentiousness such as we hear of at the witch-
gatherings. The privilege of a similar license was
claimed by women also at the great festival of spring,
in which respect it may be noted that February in
Mecklenburg is said to be the woman’s month, 2.e. the
month in which women rule. 3

On the Konigstuhl, near Heidelberg, when I was
a student there, the whole town was to be found on
Walpurgisnacht. Groups of maidens and students
went up singing through the woods, there was
dancing at the top, and waiting to see the sun rise.
At Whitsuntide, in the Obererzgebirge, there used
to be dancing outdoors all night. In Mecklenburg, on
Midsummer Night, a great caldron is carried round,
in which eggs, butter, milk, are collected; there
are choral dances, especial antique dances, and a
common meal lasting till late into the night. The
special lighting of the Midsummer fires and the driving
the herds through them to protect them from witch-
craft, the Hahnenschlag,—trace of an old cock-sacrifice,
—all which occur in the same district, are fossils of
old religious rites. Noteworthy and suggestive is the
appearance of the caldron—the witches’ caldron —

1 Even as the same folk have recently replaced the old bridal songs in Iceland !

WOMAN AS WITCH 41

at many folk-festivals. It is closely connected with
the common and free meal of the ancient group. This
common meal occurs in the marriage rites of a later
age; thus in Altenburg, at the time of a wedding, a
waggon is sent round to collect provisions; there is music,
and often dancing, even to the church; and on the
evening of the wedding there is a feast free to all upon
the food collected, a general dancing, and in the old
times there was great licentiousness. In the early days
the food seems to have gone even into the church ; a fossil
of this old custom is still preserved in the wine and cake
handed round in some places at weddings inside the
church. In Mecklenburg at weddings we have dancing
out of the bridal house and down the village, also a pro-
cession of maidens with candles exactly as in the Friesian
wedding. This dancing down the public streets recurs
in many places; for example, in old days the Faddy
dance on May Day in Cornwall in and out of the houses
and down the village. In Rottweil we find dancing
in the public streets and feasting on high festivals,
and even at weddings, accompanied, as usual, by great
license. In Thiiringen on Walpurgisnacht we have
dancing round the linden tree, and on Midsummer Night
a fire festival for maids and men. At Whitsuntide the
men collect food for a common meal, and it is followed
by a dance; in return the maidens fetch the youths to
a dance and give them a meal, paying for the music.
This is termed the feast of the Brunnenfege, and seems
to be a relic of an old well-worship. In Hesse we have a
decoration of the wells on May Day, and choral dances
of the maids on Midsummer Night; in the very same

42 WOMAN AS WITCH

district the witches meet on the former night for
dancing, and there is a common meal under the
Hexenlinde, or witches’ linden tree.

In Heilbronn, on Walpurgisnacht, there is a common
meal and the burning of a scarecrow—relic of an old
human sacrifice. This is said to be done to hinder the
witches, but yet this very night, according to the folk-
lore of the country round, they are most active and
have most power. In North Germany the witches are
said to dance away the snow from the Blocksberg on
Walpurgisnacht; in other words, they are friendly
servants of a goddess of fruitfulness, whose influence
over women agriculturists is well marked in the custom
in Uker- and Mittel-mark of putting a scarecrow called
Walpurg on the land of those maidens who have not
completed their digging of the soil by May Day.
Traces of the sacrifice of cats or horses on Walpurgis-
nacht are very frequent, and a cat or dog is the usual
companion of the primitive goddess or her priestess, the
witch. The Scandinavian goddess Freya is drawn by
cats, the alte Fricke goes with dogs, so does Fri Gode.
The dog, the cat, and the three ears of corn are symbols
of the Virgin Mary, but also of Walpurg, and the
devil’s grandmother as well, clearly indicating how many
of the characteristics, and even the symbols of the
old mother-goddesses, were passed on to the Virgin
in early Christian times.’ Nay, like Holle and Gode
and Berchta, she became a goddess of spinning, which

1 Folk-gatherings remained for many ages linked to the old heathen goddess
festivals and their sacred spots. It is interesting from this standpoint to notice
that the place of gathering for the commons of Norwich was at the chapel of “the
blessed Virgin in the Fields.”

WOMAN AS WITCH 43

was not allowed on her holy days. The picture of
primitive woman taming the cat and the dog, domesti-
cating the smaller animals, including the pig, the goat,
and the goose, is brought clearly out in their becoming
the companions and symbols of the primitive goddess ;
just as the broom, the distaff, and the pitchfork, the ears
of corn, and the apple, show her activity in the direc-
tion of domestic economy and in the earliest forms of
agriculture.

I cannot do better than conclude the witchcraft
evidence of woman's primitive ascendency by referring
to one out of the many local mother-goddesses who
were converted into local saints by early Christianity.
The one which I will consider is Walpurg, from whom
the name of the great witch-gathering Walpurgisnacht
takes its origin. According to the legend, Walpurg
was a female missionary who accompanied St. Boniface
and was canonised as a virgin saint of the Catholic
Church. But let us see the real nature of Walpurg in
folklore and local usage. Many wells or springs are
associated with her name; the waters of these wells
heal diseases. Her bones, or the stone on which they
were formerly exhibited, exuded oil, and this oil was
sold or carried off by pilgrims in little bottles to cure
toothache and relieve the pangs of childbirth. The
exuding began on Walpurgisnacht, on which occasion
her oil was also drunk as old ale. On May Day in
1720 the priests from no less than forty parishes came
to Attigny, one of the shrines of Walpurg, to share in
the distribution of oil. Lutheran women who had
been assisted in childbirth by the oil entered the

44 WOMAN AS WITCH

Catholic Church. Walpurg is represented with an oil
flask in her hand. In Bavaria there is an old chapel
at Kaufering to Walpurg. At this chapel the folk
say health offerings used to be made to idols in the
old days, and in a neighbouring building the old
plague cars were preserved. Walpurg is thus associ-
ated with a being who once protected the people from
disease. The dog is peculiarly sacred to Walpurg, and
she cures the bite of mad dogs. Thus the dog, the token
of fertility, is sacred to her as to Holle and Frick. She
carries three ears of corn in her hand—the symbol of
the goddess of agricultural fertility. On Walpurgistag
there is a procession in the Frankenwald which opens
with the Walber, a man clothed with straw; there is a
dance round the Walber tree—a symbolic driving out of
winter and a heralding of spring. In Lower Austria
the harvest days are especially consecrated to Walpurg.
She then goes through all the fields and gardens with a
spindle blessing them. Like the witches, she brings in
spring, and by dancing makes the fields fertile.

We have already noted that the great common meals
of the Germans, with their accompanying worship of some
goddess of fertility, were not abolished by the intro-
duction of Christianity. In many places they were
converted into a Kirmes or ecclesiastical feast. Such
a common meal used to be held at Monheim in a church
dedicated to Walpurg. Oxen and swine were carried
for this purpose into the church itself. It will be
obvious from the above and from the general character
of the feastings and dancings on Walpurgisnacht that
Walpurg could not have originally represented an

Fic. 2.—WitcH witH SPINDLE, DISTAFF, AND GOAT,
SYMBOLS OF THE PRIMITIVE MOTHER-GODDESS.
After a copper engraving by Albrecht Diirer.

WOMAN AS WITCH 47

ascetic virgin saint. She is the typical goddess of
fruitfulness with a by no means ascetic cult. She is the
' presiding spirit of the old group-gatherings with their
common meal, their clan discussions and elements of
law-making, their agricultural ritual, their general wor-
ship of fruitfulness and fertility, and their blessing
of animals, of corn, and of the hearth and its industries.
But the fruitfulness of animals and land is associated
with the like in mankind, and the bathing in the sacred
spring or the dew are only another side of the worship
which culminated in the license of Walpurgisnacht.
It is in this aspect that the Westphalian Walpurg at
Antwerp appears as a Venus, a goddess of fertility to
whom barren women offer wreaths of flowers. In this
aspect of goddess of love and fertility she reappears near
Eichstadt, while even in the Catholic calendar she has
the patronate of the fruitfulness of the soil.

It will be seen from the above brief account of Wal-
pure that she corresponds exactly to the type of goddess
we should expect to meet with in the ceremonials of
witchcraft and in the revels of Walpurgisnacht. She is
the old type of mother-goddess who, like a good many
of her sisters, has received a slight coat of whitewash
from the early Christians and reappeared as a Catholic
virgin and saint.

Walpurg brings before us clearly all the strong and
weak points of that old-woman civilisation, fossils of which
I have suggested are lurking half hidden in the folklore
of witchcraft. It is a civilisation based rather on the
useful arts of agriculture and domestic economy than of
war and the chase. It is one in which the earliest rudi-

48 WOMAN AS WITCH

ments of medicine, the domestication of the smaller
animals, the cultivation of vegetables, and flax and corn,
the use of the distaff, the spindle, the broom, the fire-
rake, and the pitchfork are in no hesitating language—
if we but know how to read it—claimed as the inven-
tions and discoveries of woman. ‘Those discoveries are
the real basis of our civilisation to-day, and not only the
basis but a good part of the superstructure. Some may
be inclined to smile at the broom, the distaff, and the
pitchfork, and compare them with the printing-press
and the steam-engine, but the smile is the smile of the
ignorant, and the comparison itself idle. For the one
set could never have been without the other. Let us be
quite sure that these origins of civilisation were not the
discoveries of the man, who in his superior might made
the women use them. The primitive savage knows
nothing of agriculture, of spinning, of herbs, and of
springs, but his wife does. It is not he but she who
could have made them symbols of a female deity, and in
the power of a superior knowledge have forced the worship
of that deity upon the whole group or clan. If my
audience ask me why and how it came about, I can only
indicate now my belief that the fertility, resource, and
inventive power of early woman arose from the harder
struggle she had to make for the preservation of her
child and herself in the battle of life. It was the
struggle of tribe against tribe in actual warfare which
quickened the intellect of the man. But that I hold to
be a later struggle ; the first struggle was for food and
for shelter against natural forces, and that was the contest
from which the civilisation of woman arose. It carried

WOMAN AS WITCH 49

mankind a long way—a way the length of which we
are only just beginning to realise. But it could not
carry mankind to that family organisation from which
so much was afterwards to develop. It was based upon
the mother as head of the group, and upon a form of
group-marriage of which it is hard now to judge im-
partially. If one of the worst abuses of the father-age
be really only a degenerate form of the older group-
marriage, and is not the pure outcome of male domina-
tion—if there be a direct line of descent from the old
licentious worship of the mother-goddess to the extra-
vagances of witchcraft, to the spinning-room, and to the
legalised vice of to-day—we have still to remember that
the perpetuation by one civilisation of the weak points
of an earlier one, and this possibly in an exaggerated
form, is no reason for the condemnation of the earlier
stage. The civilisation of woman handed down a mass of
useful custom and knowledge; it was for after genera-
tions to accept that, and eradicate the rest. When I
watch to-day the peasant woman of Southern Germany
or of Norway toiling in the house or field, while the
male looks on, then I do not think the one a down-
trodden slave of the other. She appears to me the
bearer of a civilisation to which he has not yet attained.
She may be a fossil of the mother-age, but he is a fossil
of a still lower stratum—barbarism pure and simple.
When we have once fully recognised the real magnitude
of what women achieved in the difficult task of civilisa-
tion in these olden times, then we shall be the less apt
to think her status unchangeable, to assume that she is
hopelessly handicapped by her function of child-bearing,
VOL. II E

50 WOMAN AS WITCH

and that the hard work of the world must be left to
men. If I wished to give a full picture of what woman
accomplished for the first time in the world, and what
she is in many parts still undertaking, it would be hard
to do so better than by quoting the following words
from the recent report of an American Consul in
Germany :—

American readers will hardly understand how it can be that the
severest part of existence in this whole region falls to the lot of
woman. But such is the fact. She is the servant and the burden-
bearer. . . . The chief pursuits of women in this district (Sonne-
berg) are not of a gentle or refining character. They perform by
far the greater part of all the outdoor manual service. The plant-
ing and the sowing, including the preparation of the soil, therefore,
is done by them. I have seen many a woman in the last few weeks
holding the plough, drawn by a pair of cows, and still more of them
carrying manure into the fields in baskets strapped to their backs.
They also do much of the haying, including the mowing and the
pitching ; likewise the harvesting; after which they thrash much
of the grain with the old-fashioned hand flail. They accompany
the coal carts through the city, and put the coal into the cellars
while the male driver sits upon his seat. They carry on nearly all
the dairy business, and draw the milk into town in a hand-cart, a
woman and a dog usually constituting the team.

Here we have a wonderfully suggestive fossil of
woman in the mother-age—primitive woman, the first
agriculturist, shouldering the pitchfork, the symbol of
her deity, and accompanied by the creature of her
goddess—her friend and helper, the dog.

X

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

Na bin ich erwachet und ist mir unbekant,

Daz mir hie vor was kiindic als min ander hant,
Liut unde lant, da ich von kinde bin erzogen,

Die sint mir fremde worden, reht’ als ez si gelogen ;
Die mine gespilen waren, die sint triige und alt ;

Mich griiezet maneger trage, der mich bekande é wol.
Walther v. d. Vogelweide.

ASHIEPATTLE, the dirty ash-lad, Hans ‘der Dumm-
ling,’ a ‘Schneiderlein,’ or the miller’s boy,’ sets out
into the world to seek his luck. He is courteous and
friendly to an old woman whom he meets in the forest,
and who possesses magical powers. He travels through
many kingdoms, and at last he comes to one where
the king is in difficulties from dragons or giants, or
in domestic trouble owing to his daughter declining
matrimony until a wooer is found who can perform
certain notable feats. Hans, with the aid of the afore-
said old woman, either achieves prodigious victories, or
accomplishes all the tasks proposed to him. He then
demands his bride, and becomes ‘der junge Kénig,’ or
as the tale often winds up:

1 The ugly idler Pervonto of ZZ Pentamerone is the Italian, Askelad the
Norwegian equivalent of the German Dummling and the English Ashiepattle,

52 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

Da ward die Hochzeit gefeiert, und der Dummling erbte das
Reich, und lebte lange Zeit vergniigt mit seiner Gemahlin.

Now in the days of our childhood we read this
theme varied in a hundred different ways, but always
felt it quite natural and fitting that Hans should find
his luck, marry his princess, and become heir to the
kingdom. It did not strike us as peculiar that kings
were as plentiful as blackberries; we should have con-
sidered it quite immoral for the kingdom to have gone
to anybody but the king’s daughter, and, being demo-
crats as all children must be, we thought it most proper
that the princess should only act as a conduit pipe to
convey the kingdom to Hans—the brave, stout, kindly
Hans, the son of the people. The land of Mdrchen had
its own customs, its own laws of descent, its own pro-
fusion of kings; it was quite reasonable that it should
be largely at the mercy of mysterious old women, or
subject to the whims of princesses. It was all intense
reality to us, and such historic facts as the law of
primogeniture, descent in the male line, the court ruled
by soldier and priest, and not by princess and old
woman, had never entered our field of view. Mdrchen-
land was the real land of our childhood, and its customs
and characters—the witch, the king’s daughter, Hans,
and the giant—became impressed upon us as the actuali-
ties—well, if not of life immediately around us, still of
another world only slightly removed in either space or
time.

And what became of Mdrchenland? It faded
away before a world of grammar, history, and geo-
graphy, a hundred times more idle and unreal than

- ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 53

itself. How feeble, how futile it all seemed, when the
needs of another generation brought us back to what had
once been familiar as the other hand; land wherein and
folk amid whom we had been reared in childhood had
become strange, ‘“reht’ als ez si gelogen,” and our old
comrades greeted us but coldly. Yet, as one read on
to little nestling forms keenly intent on their land of
reality, a new sense and a new life came into Mdrchen-
land. It became a reality for the elder, too; its
customs and characters, if distorted and obscured, were
again actualities; they described, with perhaps tedious
reiteration, great features of an early stage of our race’s
civilisation. Mdrchenland told the same tale as word-
lore and folklore; there had been an age when civilisa-
tion was much more the work of women than of men,
and when the social customs as to marriage and pro-
perty were very different from those of to-day. It is
to this aspect of Mdrchenland that I wish to turn in
this essay. I shall be satisfied if it leads any of my
readers to take up their Grimm again with an interest
and delight akin to what I myself feel, and to what we
all felt in those days of long ago, when the ideal was
the real for us, and the real was a trivial and stupid
world with which we had small occasion to fash
ourselves.

Is Mérchenland after all a place in which every-
thing is turned topsy-turvy to the delight of children,
or may not much of children’s pleasure in it arise from
an unconscious sympathy between the child and the
thought and custom of the childhood of civilisation ?
In the life and feeling of the child the mother and the

54 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

woman play the largest part; and so it is in the
religious and social institutions of primitive man. To
the child, singing and dancing are the natural expres-
sions of the emotions ; in him mother-worship, animism,
and food-cult are strongly developed. The animals,
again, are to the child at once beings full of mysterious
power, and yet equals and intimates in a degree never
again approached during life. In all these respects the
true parallels to the child are the men and women of
early civilisation. I have never yet found a healthy
normal child who felt difficulty about the talking of
cats, the provision of hearty meals daintily laid by
goats, or the advice and warning given by birds to
friendly mortals. It takes all these things as seriously
and as unhesitatingly as the Roman took the cackling
of his sacred geese, or primitive man takes the animal
lore and totemism of his tribe. The psychologist, who
will watch the reception of Mérchen by children, will
learn much of the manner in which Mdrchen have been
developed among primitive men; but he will learn
something more: he will grasp how much of the
customs and feelings of Mdrchenland are merely reflexes
of a long past stage of social development—of the child-
hood of human culture. Let us try and interpret some
of the fundamental features of Mdrchenland, so real to
the child, so unreal to his elder.

In the first place, the great bulk of the population
we have to deal with leads a country lifee We may be
taken into a village, but rarely, if ever, into a town.
We have to deal with peasants and with hunters, with
men and women of the fields and of the forests. We

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 55

are introduced to goose-girls, to swineherds, to women
who spend their time amid cows and goats, and men
who chop wood and hunt. If the craftsman comes in,
it is the craftsman of the village community, the black-
smith, the tailor, or the miller. If we go into towns
and palaces, it is the simpleton and country lad who
takes us there; we do not deal with ships and mer-
chandise, but with agricultural produce and the trophies
of the chase. Cathedrals and knights and men in
armour are not of our company. If we want advice or
sympathy we seek it not of priests or lawyers, of bailies
or Amtmdnner; we go to the animals, to a wevse
Frau or a Hexe. With the exception of kings, to be
referred to later, the Schultheiss, or elected head of a
peasant community, is almost the chief authority we
come across. In short, the people who developed the
Teutonic Marchen, as we know it in our Grimm, were
not a town population, but one living by agriculture
and hunting; not a people of the mountains, the
snows, and the lakes, but a people living rather in the
clearings of the forest; a people with a primitive agri-
culture, chiefly conducted by women; a people to
whom the witch and wise woman, rather than the priest
and knight, were the guides and instructors in life.
The Mérchen have been added to, developed, modified ;
all sorts of later elements and personages have been
grafted on to them, but, taken in the bulk, we see quite
clearly that they are not the production of an age
which knew Christianity and chivalry. They might
have been evolved among the Germans whom Tacitus
describes for us, but they could not be the product of

56 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

medieval society with its knight, its monk, and its
burgher. Here were people whose wells and streams,
forests and hilltops, were sacred, not to Christian, but
to very heathen beings, to spinning ladies, to little men,
and magic-working old women. The people, in fact,
who created the Mdrchen are the people who created
the Weisthiimer, the folk of the Hag and the Mahal.

Bearing in mind what other essays have to show
us of the nature of the primitive kin-communities, we
can with a considerable degree of certainty date the
period from which many individual Mdrchen have
sprung. In broad outline there are three chief periods
to be considered :—

(a) An endogamous period, in which relationship
of the womb is the bond between the group, social and
sexual. The continuity of the group is maintained by
the women, and its property may in this sense be
said to pass through them. The kin-group worship a
goddess of fertility, who is served by her priestesses,
the matrons, seeresses, and wise women of the eroup.
A kin-alderman is selected in case of need.

(b) A transition period, in which the kin-alderman,
Zupan or Kuning, has usurped chief power in the
group. The property still passes through the women,
but the king has taken possession of the women.
The sex-custom of the group has become exogamous,
but property does not descend from father to son.
The man marries into the wife’s group, and the way
to obtain a ‘kingdom’ is to kill the king and marry
his queen, or more peacefully to marry his daughter.
‘Kings’ are as plentiful as _ blackberries, because

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS AIS LUCK 57

every kin-alderman or clan-father has developed into
one. Smaakonge are to be found in every valley,
and to cross the belt of forest which separates one
Genossenschaft from a second is to enter a new
kingdom."

The mother-goddess is still of great influence, but
her cult is being undermined; and her priestess, the
Hexe or witch, is coming to possess an ill more fre-
quently than a good name. The power to dispose of
the women, and of the inheritance which goes with
them, is used by the king as a means of obtaining
outside assistance in times of danger. Such internal
troubles are almost invariably used by the Hexen
to further their own ends, or to assist their own
favourites.

(c) A purely patriarchal period, in which descent
through the male line has been finally established. The
mother-goddess has become a mere legendary being
who haunts wells or woods; the Hexen and the old
sex-festivals have obtained a very evil repute. We
have reached a time in which sagas and _hero-stories
replace Mdarchen, and women are of small import in the
management of the commune.

If we wish to ascertain in which of these periods a
Mérchen has arisen, we can apply three tests, one or
other of which will usually suffice :—

(i.) What is the general weight given to the opinion
and advice of women ?

(ii.) Is the Hewxe friendly or hostile to men ?

1 A king will often possess several kingdoms. Thus in Die vier kunstreichen
Briider a king gives away four half-kingdoms, and presumably still retains some
for himself and for his daughter.

58 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

(iii.) Does the kingdom pass to the king’s daughter
ortoason? —

The last test is practically identical with the follow-
ing: Does the hero take his bride home with him, or
go and live in her country or among her kin ?

Many Marchen judged by these tests will be found
to be compound, a later addition or expansion over-
laying a more primitive story; but generally the great .
bulk of Mdrchen will be found to belong to a matri-
archal and not a patriarchal people, to a people rather
in the transition stage (b), than in the stage (c) as de-
scribed above.

A. few statistics may be of interest. Out of 200
Miirchen examined by these tests, 74 could be dis-
tinguished by the third criterion. Of these 6 had a
mixed law of descent. In no less than 48 the king-
dom passed through the daughter, or the husband
went to live with his bride. In 20 only did the king-
dom descend to a prince, or a hero take his bride to his
own home. In one case out of these twenty, the king-
dom went to the youngest son; in four cases the witch
was purely malevolent ; in seven cases references occurred
to church or priest; and in eight cases there were no
further data to guide one as to the period of origin.
We may therefore, I think, conclude that the great
bulk of Mdrchen date from an age in which pro-
perty descended only to relations by the womb. Pleni-
tude of kings and inheritance by daughters are not
signs of the topsy-turvydom of Mdrchenland, but
characteristics of the age from which it dates. Read
between the lines, the stories of Agamemnon and

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 59

Odysseus, Grecian Smaakonge, point markedly to the
end of such an age in another Aryan stock. The wooers
of Clytemnestra or Penelope, if successful, will become
lords and kings in the land; the husband or son has to
maintain his ‘right’ by the sword. The tragedy
springs from the replacement of the old right of the
mother-age by a new right, in which the son shall
claim through his father. The moral of one civilisation,
nay, almost of one generation, is to became the im-
moral of the next, and the old immorality the new
morality ; therein lies the most fruitful source of human
tragedies on both smali and large scale. Hamlet and -
Orestes arose in a transition age, when the custom of
inheritance was changing ; in an age when mother-right
was becoming father-wrong, and a conflict of duties
bred problems for which no established standard pro-
vided a moral solution. In a much less impressive,
if not less suggestive form, the Mdrchen raise the same
problems; and the Hexen, like the Furies, will be nearly
always found fighting the battle of the old civilisation,
acting as champions of mother-right.

In order to illustrate this point, it will not be with-
out service to briefly analyse the series of witches to be
found in one collection of Mdrchen, Grimm’s tales.

If the view I have suggested be correct, we should
expect to find the witch living the life of the old
civilisation, that is, dwelling in some hut in a clearing
in the forest, depending upon her own growth of
vegetables or collection of fruit, surrounded by the
smaller domesticated animals, the goat and the goose ;
meanwhile she will watch the weather, give advice,

60 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

brew poison, befriend and enchant,’ as the case may be,
or as she wishes to favour the old or oppose the new
civilisation. Occasionally, instead of a hut in the forest,
the witch has a well or spring. At first sight, it might
appear as if the witch were thus confused with the
spring goddess herself, but the discovery of more than
one cave-dwelling or habitation down a well in Bavaria’
is not without its weight in reckoning the probability
of actual well-dwelling witches. We may note also Das
blaue LIncht, where the witch hides her treasures in a
subterranean chamber leading off a well. In the very
first tale of our Grimm, the German Froschkénig, the
Scottish Frog-Lover, we find that near the king’s house
is a vast, dense wood, and in the wood an old lime tree,
at the foot of which is a spring or well. The witch
associated with this spot is spoken of as evil, for she
has enchanted a prince or king’s son. Her hostility,
however, to this particular king’s son may possibly be
accounted for by the fact that when he is disenchanted
he carries his bride off to his own kingdom. He is one
of the “modern” young men, with a patriarchal view
of life, removed far indeed from that of the witch-
priestess. Quite in keeping with this witch is the witch
in Rapunzel. Frau Gothel is a great hand at the
cultivation of vegetables, and her neighbour steals, as
folk-custom justified him in doing, corn-salad for his

1 It is conceivable, although of course it cannot be proven, that the primitive
witch-priestesses had learnt the secret of hypnotising those who could be useful
or were hostile to them. Many of the features of enchantment would thus
become intelligible. For example, the evil eye of the witch, or a common method
of overcoming her, namely, to go and do precisely what you need in her presence

but without paying the least regard to her.
* See Panzer, Bayerische Gebrduche, Bd. ii. pp. 277, 302.

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 61

pregnant wife. The enraged witch, who has found him
in the act of stealing, is pacified when she hears the
cause of his theft, but demands the child about to be
born. “ All shall be well with it, and I will tend it as
a mother.” Frau Gothel is not unkind to the child,
until a king’s son with patriarchal principles comes to
steal her. “He took her to his kingdom, and they
lived for long in happiness and contentment.” Again
we see the hostility of the witch associated with the
new form of marriage—the Raubehe. As a contrast to
these two hostile witches, we may note the witch in
Die Ginsehirtin am Brunnen. Here we are certainly
in a matriarchal community, for the kingdom goes to
the king’s daughters; at least to the elder daughters,
for the younger is driven out into the forest for a pre-
sumed want of affection for her father. Here she
becomes goose-girl to a ‘steinaltes Miitterchen,’ who
lives with her herd of geese in a small hut on a forest-
clearing. This old woman spends her time in collecting
grass and wild fruit, and, like the modern Tyrolese
peasant woman, is able to carry a greater burden than
the passing stranger who offers his services. To such a
stranger she may sternly teach a lesson, but she is at
heart friendly to him as well as to the maiden. She is
a typical representative of primitive womanhood, busy
with the spinning-wheel and the besom, and knowing
in forest-lore, and, when occasion requires, enchantment.
She makes her hut into a palace for the princess, and
to that, not to his own home, the hero takes his
bride. Then the tale concludes with the suggestive
words :—

62 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

So viel ist gewiss, dass die Alte keine Hexe war, wie die Leute
glaubten, sondern eine weise Frau, die es gut meinte. Wahrscheinlich
ist sie es auch gewesen, die der Kénigstochter schon bei der Geburt
die Gabe verliehen hat Perlen zu weinen statt der Thranen.

To a later age the notion of the witch as, at bottom,
friendly and wise had become inconceivable.

Other Madrchen illustrating similar points may be
noticed more briefly. In Die zwilf Briider the
kingdom is to go, not to them, but to the thirteenth
child, a daughter;* and we may probably take as
evidence of the declining strength of the old custom,
the desire that these sons should be killed in order that
they may not seize or share the inheritance. Here it is
a friendly old woman who instructs the girl how to save
her brothers from enchantment. The reference to the
biblical Benjamin and the tag in which the girl goes
away to the husband’s house, appear to be later additions ;
the latter being quite out of keeping with the commence-
ment of the story in which the girl is to inherit the
kingdom in preference to her brothers. In Hénsel und
Grethel the witch is evil, and has the cannibal instincts,’
which are not so much a sign of her wickedness as of the
human sacrifices which were certainly associated with
primitive matriarchal societies. In Das Rédthsel the
witch is a poison- brewing hag, hostile to wandering
kings’ sons ; but yet a king’s daughter, and presumably

1 Cf. the Norse De tolv Vildender.

* The age of human sacrifice will never be found very far removed from the
age of cannibalism, for the primitive sacrifice was essentially a feast. There
are traces of cannibalistic tendencies in such tales as Von dem Machandelboom,
Fundevogel, Sneewittchen, etc., besides the usual man-eating propensities of

the giants. Traces of this primitive cannibalistic sacrifice have even remained
in the ceremonial of the most developed religions of highly civilised peoples.

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 63

her kingdom is to be won in good matriarchal style by
a riddle-contest. In all these cases we have the little
forest-clearing and the hut, which is the characteristic
dwelling-place of the witch. In Frau Holle we meet a
well-dwelling old woman, who controls the weather and
represents rather the goddess herself than her servant.
She is associated with loaves and apples, and is friendly
to the good and kindly maiden. She punishes the rude
and unkindly, just as the goddess-witch Frau Trude
punishes disobedient children.

In Die sechs Schwiine' we have the usual type of
witch living in a hut in the forest-clearmg. She is not
exactly hostile to the king’s son, but marries her daughter
to him. This daughter, as we are so often told, had learnt
from her mother the Hexenkiinste. She is opposed by
the ‘wise woman, who assists the step-children. The
story is really from the transition period, for while the
king takes his bride home, we find his mother (as in
many other tales) the real person in authority there.
In Sneewitichen, Der lebste Roland, and Die zwei
Briider the witches are all workers of ill; but in the
first the bridegroom says to the bride, “‘ Komm mit mir
in meines Vaters Schloss” ; in the second Roland cries,
“ Nun will ich zu meinem Vater gehen, und die Hochzeit
bestellen” ; and in the third the hostility of the witch
appears to be especially directed against the hunter. In

1 Die sechs Schwiéine is one of a series of Marchen, like Die zwolf Briider,
Briiderchen und Schwesterchen, Jorinde und Joringel, etc., which points to the
closeness of the feeling between brothers and sisters at the time when these
Méarchen originated. There was a strong kinship spirit, which, like that of the
Norse Gudrun, often obscured the relation of man and wife. Indeed, we occa-

sionally find what are apparently fossils of a kindred group-marriage in the
sister tending the hut of a group of brothers.

64 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

the first two the descent is through the male; in the
third the lucky hunter kills the dragon, marries the king’s
daughter, and becomes ipso facto ‘der junge Konig.’
The opposition of the primitive matriarchal civilisation
(with its elementary agriculture and domestication of
the smaller animals) to a hunting population, generally
with different marriage customs, should be borne in mind,
if the attitude of the witch is to be at all understood.
The hunter pursues Reh, Hirsch or Hirschkuh, probably
animals sacred to some goddess," and, failing to overtake
them, finds himself landed at some witch’s hut in a
forest-clearing. Here the proprietress receives him, as
may be expected, with anything but a friendly greeting.
(Cf. Die Goldkinder and Die zwei Briider.) Of the
witch in Die Rabe, who lives in the orthodox manner, in
a hut in a forest-clearing, it is not easy to determine the
character. She serves at first to test the strength of the
man’s will, but when he at last surmounts all the
difficulties and wins the king’s daughter, it is to her
castle that he comes, and there that the Hochzeit is held.
We have thus the matriarchal law of descent.

In De drei Viigelkens, the old magic-working fisher-
woman; in Dersiisse Bret, the magic-working ‘alte Frau’;
in Der Krautesel, the ‘altes hissliches Miitterchen’ ;
in Kinduglen, Zweriugleen und Drerdéuglein, the ‘weise
Frau,’ who aids Zweiiiuglein; in Die Nixe vm Teach,
the ‘Alte mit weissen Haaren,’ who overcomes the Nixe ;
in Die wahre Braut, the ‘alte Frau,’ who performs
miracles for the little maid ; in Spindel, Weberschiffchen

1 There are a considerable number of local saints—fossils of district-goddesses
—who have the roe or stag as their attribute.

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 65

und Nadel, the ‘ Pathe,’ who provides so handsomely
for her godchild,—are all ‘white’ witches, magic-work-
ing old women, friendly to those who are respectful or
kindly towards them. It will be seen at once from the
cases cited that the ugly, mysterious old woman with
magical powers is not necessarily hostile to mankind.
Much that appears hostile is due either to our not
appreciating the struggle between two civilisations, or
to the real motive, sacrificial or social, of the witch’s
conduct having become obscured in the long course of
tradition through minds charged with alien ideas.

While the witch or priestess of the old civilisation is
generally pictured for ‘us as living alone in a hut within —
a forest-clearing,! we not infrequently find the priestly
united with the queenly office. The queen is a witch’
for example in Sneewittchen and Die sechs Diener; in
many cases the queen’s daughter inherits her mother’s
powers,° and a struggle ensues in magic between the two
(e.g. De beiden Kiinigeskinner, and practically in the
Kvrautesel). Yet in others it is a king’s daughter who,
by aid of her knowledge of magic, defeats the witch who
would prevent Hans from winning her and her kingdom
(e.g. in Der Trommler),* or uses magic for her own ends,
as in Die Gdnsemagd.. We may, | think, conclude that
the primitive notion of witch was not that of an ugly

1 In much the same solitary manner as the medicine-men of the Indians in
Sierra Madre.

2 The Fuegians have a legend that their men once revolted against the
women, because the latter had monopolised tribal authority and the secrets of
witchcraft (Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kumai, p. 105).

* The inheritance of witchcraft by daughter from mother has been referred
to in Essay IX. p. 8. As among the Germans, so among the Celts, magic power
ran in the women of families (see Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 199).

4 Sometimes merely between one woman and another, as in Fundevogel.

VOL. II E

66 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

old woman, a social outcast, who wrought only ill. But
rather the idea was that of a wise woman,—a woman in
not only spiritual but also temporal authority,—hostile
indeed to a civilisation which brought customs of
marriage and descent other than those upon which her
influence and power were based.

After, but only after, the sacerdotal comes s the kingly
element in the Mdrchen, presenting us with another side
of the same old primitive civilisation, with its mother-
right customs. In trying to appreciate the king of the
Mirchen, the reader must put on one side all modern
impressions as to royalty, and return to the early
Teutonic significance of the term. In the side valleys of
Norway the wanderer may yet come across Gaards-
mend, who hold themselves somewhat aloof from their |
fellow-peasants, although to the eye of the observer
their house and barns, their stock of cattle, and cluster of —
dependants are not more extensive than those of their
neighbours. Questioned as to the cause of the indifferent,
or even slightly contemptuous reception the stranger
has met with, the neighbours will tell him with a smile
that his hosts were Smaakonge, or descendants of the
old petty kings of the valley. During a day’s march,
within even the same valley, merely by crossing an
arm or two of the forest, several such Smaakonge might
in olden time have been found, and they approached
very closely to the Marchen conception of a king. Not
aman set in royal dignity far above swineherds and
goose-girls, but one who could associate with them, nay,
who might have risen from their ranks by some valiant
act, which won him a bride and the kingdom. Indeed

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 67

the bride herself will not be above washing clothes or
tending cattle,even if later ages, with other ideas of royal
dignity, have added kingly robes and state chariots.
What Homer has done for the petty kings of Greece,
who in truth had neatherds for friends and the pig-sties
against their front doors, that medizeval tradition has
done for the Smaakonge of the Mdrchen. It has given
to them much of the royal trappings of a far more
developed civilisation, and decked them in the barbaric
splendour of oriental monarchs.’ A kingdom of at most
a few’ square miles, a wife who is not immeasurably
raised above the spinning and cattle-tending occupa-
tions of her handmaidens, these are what Hans sets out
to win.

The medieval peasant in preserving the Mdrchen
for us has not soiled the royal dignity by associating it
with millers’ lads and goose-girls, but, on the contrary,
he has perverted the primitive simplicity of king and
queen by adding to tradition some of his experience of
the glories of Holy Roman emperors, dukes, and princes.
In those tales wherein we find the splendour of the
medizeval courts, we may be fairly certain that the
descent will be patriarchal, and that the bridal couple
will go to church.” But the primitive association of

1 Even in this respect it is well to bear in mind the weight of silver and
silver-gilt ornaments that the wealthy peasants of both sexes of such a district
as, say, the Upper Saetersdal, will still carry on their persons, even into the
harvest-field.

2 Take the tale Der trewe Johannes, with its account of ships and merchan-
dise, of gold and silver and wrought metals, where we find the son inherits from
the father and goes to church with his bride. In the later forms of Aschen-
puttel—to be discussed more at length below—we find much royal grandeur, the
king’s son inherits and the bride goes to his home and to chwrch. In Das
Médchen ohne Hinde, the descent is again patriarchal; the king takes the bride

68 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

the Méarchen king with the Smaakonge is not unnoticed
by tradition itself, for we read in De drei Viigelkens :—

Et is wul dusent un meere Jaare hen, da woren hier in
Lanne luter kleine Kiinige, da hed auck einer up den Keuterberge
wint. ...

Nay, even the thousand and more years since there
were innumerable “little kings ’”’—literally Smaakonge
—living in the land, may not be such a very poor
chronological approximation of the story - teller, if we
bear in mind the variety of estimates which far greater
scientific authorities have formed of the age of the
earth! Admitting for the present that the Mdrchen
kings belong to the type which we find in both primitive
Scandinavian and Greek tradition, let us examine what
material the brothers Grimm have provided for an
appreciation of the mode of life which they led.

In the first place, let us collect evidence of the
association of kings and queens with those following
humble, especially agricultural, pursuits.: For the
moment putting on one side the character of Hans who
marries the king’s daughter, let us consider the type of
bride selected by kings’ sons. In Die drei Spinnerin-
nen the king’s mother chooses a bride for her son, because
she believes her untiring with the spinning-wheel.

Ich hére nichts lieber als spinnen, und bin nicht vergniigter
als wenn die Rader schnurren; gebt mir eure Tochter mit ins

home and angels appear. In Kénig Drosselbart we have a new patch on an old
tale, the marriage is patriarchal and performed by a priest; so in Die sechs
Diener, the prince takes his bride home and they go to church, etc.

1 In Der Vogel Greif we note how valuable these little kings hold sheep,
cows, and goats to be; as among peasants a king’s importance is measured by
his herds.

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 69

Schloss, ich habe Flachs genug, da soll sie spinnen so viel sie Lust
hat. |

Both the queen and the son hold that a poor but
diligent maiden will make the most useful bride. In
Rumpelstilzchen we have a variation of the same theme,
a poor miller’s daughter becoming the king’s bride on
account of her supposed capacity for spinning. In
Spindel, Weberschiffchen und Nadel it is again the
diligent spinning of the maiden which makes her, in the
eyes of the king’s son, at once the poorest and richest.
But it is not only diligent spinsters who find, for
economical reasons, favour in royal eyes, the bridal
selection is frequently made, without any regard to rank
in the modern sense, from all the maidens of the king-
dom. In Dre kluge Bauerntochter, which in itself
portrays the close relations of king and peasants, the
king marries the peasant’s daughter for her wisdom.
In De drei Viigelkens the king and his two chief
counsellors marry, without any reason being considered
apparently needful, three maidens herding their cows
under the Keuterberg. In Die weisse und die schwarze
Braut the king marries a peasant girl, the sister of one
of his servants. In Das Waldhaus the prince’s bride is
the daughter of a woodman. In Die dre: Federn the
king’s sons bring home “ die erste beste Bauernweiber, ’—
and so forth, for the cases can be easily multiplied, and
the brides are drawn from the whole range of women
following simple domestic and agricultural avocations,
which in those days were as important to kings as
to other folk. In the Norse Vesle Aase Gaasepige
there is a king who has so many geese that he

70 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

requires a goose-girl for them. The “ Kongssnnen fra
Engeland” marries this goose-girl. In 770 og Utro we
find the king looking after his Gaard or farm ; he comes
out to shoot the hawk which attacks his poultry, and
he is keenly interested in the produce of his orchard.
In Per og Paal og Esben Askelad, the Kongsgaard
is described just like a farm. The king desires the
removal of a hedge, and offers his daughter and half the
kingdom to any one who will dig him a well with a
supply of water all the year round, for “it is a shame
that all his neighbours have such wells and he has not.”

That kings’ daughters can be won by peasant lads and
the sons of the people is, of course, the chief theme of
the Mdrchen proper, and we may take as the typical
illustration of it the king’s daughter who, in Der
arme Miillerbursch, comes down to the mill to carry
off the miller’s lad as her husband. Indeed, Askelad
marries the king’s daughter quite as frequently as
Aschenputtel the king’s son.t_ Nor must it be thought
that it is matrimony only that brings the low and high
together. Princesses not only undertake menial offices,
but find themselves quite at home in farmstead and
household duties. In Die wahre Braut, as in the Norse
Kari Trestak, the king’s daughter tends the cattle;
in Die Gdnsehirtin am Brunnen and Die Gdnsemagd,
she acts as goose-girl ; in De berden Kiinigeskinner she
seeks employment at the mill, and is at once noticed by

1 Even among the Lapps, the princess is made to choose from the populace.
Thus in The Silkweaver and her Husband we read: ‘‘Once upon a time a poor
lad wooed a princess and the girl wanted to marry him, but the Emperor was
against the match. Nevertheless she took him at last, and they were wed
together.”

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 71

the queen, who walks out that way. In Allerleirauh
the princess seeks service in the kitchen, where she soon
gives evidence of her art in cooking, and, like the rest of
the establishment, is brought into close contact with the
king. The corresponding male picture is to be found in
Die sechs Diener, where the king’s son can transform
himself into a swineherd and knows his work. As
in Der Eisenofen, we find millers’ and swineherds’ .
daughters at hand ready to obey the king’s behests ;
as in Das Hirtenbiiblein, the king is prepared to adopt
shepherd boys; or, as in Die Giinsemagd, he can
‘appoint goose-boys their tasks; or, as in Haaken
Borkenskjaeg (the Norse Konig Bréselbart), he super-
intends the operations of the kitchen; as in De wilde
Mann, king’s daughters are intimate with scullions and
gardeners’ lads, and may be punished for too great
intimacy by being sent to work in the brew-house ;
as in the Norse Askeladden, som fik Prindsessen til at
logste sig, it seems quite natural to find the princess
in the cow-stall. Nay, if further evidence be required
of the simplicity of the life and surroundings of these
primitive kings and queens, we can point to the
manner in which, in Der Konig vom goldenen Berge
and De beiden Kiinigeskinner, the royal women lice
the heads of their consorts ! *

If it be said that these simple and primitive sur-
roundings of royalty are merely additions of the
medizeval peasant to the Mdarchen drawn from his own

1 In the Norse tale Fug Dam the twelve princesses are employed in licing
the heads of the trold, and in Soria Moria Slot the princess lices the head of
her husband, while the closeness of royalty to lice is emphasised also in the
Lapp tale of The King and the Louse.

72 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

surroundings, and not features of the life of kings in a
long past age, it is pertinent to ask why the peasant
introduced so little else of the life of his own day.
Emperors and kings, Mother Church, monks and high
ecclesiastics, knights and lawyers, were all familiar, and
too familiar, to the medizval peasant, and quite as well
calculated to impress his imagination. Yet how slight is
the trace we find of them in genuine Mdrchen!. Why
should the peasant have left out these familiar things
and retained such unfamiliar features of the Mdrchen as
tiny kingdoms, through several of which a day’s journey
would carry one,’ and such a strange law of inheritance’
as that of the matriarchate? There is little solution to
be found for such problems, if we do not grant that the
peasant simplicity of Mdrchen kings is as much an
original characteristic of the civilisation to which they
belong as the matriarchal law of descent itself.

To appreciate better the position of women in these
little kingdoms, let us look a little more closely at some
of the queens and some of the kings’ daughters. We
have already noted the position of influence taken by
the witch, and pointed out how witchcraft is frequently
associated with the women of the royal household, and
its secrets handed down from mother to daughter.’

1 “‘Towards evening he came to another king’s dwelling,” is as frequent in
Scandinavian as German tales. Cf. Rige Per Kraemmer with Das Wasser des
Lebens. Or, ‘‘ When he had gone a good hour he came to a king’s house” ; ef.
Grimsborken. We find precisely the same profusion of kings in the Lapp tales
of The Luck-Bird and The Humane Man and the Angel.

2 It is a general rule that the man, as in De beiden Kiinigeskinner or in
Briiderchen und Schwesterchen, is no adept at magic, he must be aided by the
woman. Only very rarely, as in Fitchers Vogel or Das singende springende
Liweneckerchen, do we find a wizard. The dwarfs are the only males with a
recognised power of working magic.

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 73

We may now notice other features of woman’s power, in
particular with regard to marriage and inheritance.

The influence of the queen-mother over her son is
always great, and often extends to the choice or
displacement of his wife. Thus the queen chooses the
son’s bride in Dre drei Spinnerinnen, De beiden
Kiinigeskinner (‘‘ Unnerdes hadde de Kiiniginne ene
Frugge fur ehren Suhn socht”), and Der Trommler.
This is, indeed, part of the essential primitive primacy
of the queen in the kingdom. In Der Réuber und —
seine Sdhne and Der Konig vom goldenen Berge we
find kingdoms ruled by queens. The latter tale is of
special significance, for the queen does not lose her
kingdom by discarding her husband, but, on the con-
trary, by marrying a second will obviously convey her
kingdom to him.’ In Der arme Miillerbursch, Die
Erbsenprobe, and Die zwilf Jager, we find princesses
apparently seized of their own kingdoms,’ and seeking
husbands for themselves. In Das Méddchen ohne
Hinde and Die sechs Schwine the king lives with
his mother. In Der gute Handel, we see the king’s
daughter sitting by her father in the place of justice ;
in Die weisse Schlange, Das Rdthsel, Der Kongssohn
der sich vor nichts fiirchtet, and Die sechs Diener, it is
the princess herself who sets the task or propounds the
riddle which is to win her and her kingdom. Now all
this freedom and authority on the part of the woman—
nay, the very existence of independent kingdom-con-

1 One is again reminded of Clytemnestra.
2 Note the importance which attaches to the illness of princesses. Such ill-

ness threatened the loss of the heiress apparent, e.g. in Bruder Lustig (twice) and
Der Vogel Greif.

74 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS ATS LUCK

veying queens—was unfamiliar to the medizeval mind.
The primitive Aryans, however, whether Teuton or
Greek, knew of such a system. The winning of the
bride by a task done for her mother, for her father, or for
herself, which is so frequent a feature of the Mdrchen,'
is no idle invention of the medizeval story-teller. It
carries us back to a primitive form of civilisation
common to Aryan, Hebrew, and Zulu. It is impossible.
to read De beiden Ktinigeskinner without being re-
minded of Jacob’s service for Rachel and Leah, and feel
that in the primitive form of the story the king’s son
won not the youngest, but all three daughters. Nor
can we fully appreciate the tasks set by the old queen
and her daughter in Die sechs Diener to would-be
husbands, without comparing it with customs like those
of the Bechuanas, among whom the wooer ploughs so
much ground and brings so many oxen for his mother-
in-law. The Mdarchen, to be understood, must be treated
as a quarry in which are to be found the fossils of an
antique civilisation, or rather of several successive
antique civilisations.

In the Teutonic Mdrchen, however, the period of
mother-right appears to be the stratum richest in fossils.
The king is king, because he is the son of the queen,
because he is the queen’s husband,’ because he marries
her daughter. His power comes to him because he is of,
or belonging to, the queen or Kone.* The princess, as
heiress apparent, is the keynote of the typical Mdrchen.

1 Typical examples in Die drei Sprachen, Dat Erdminneken, and Der Vogel
Greif.

2 The Celtic term ‘‘ wedding the kingdom” is a very apt illustration.
3 See Essay XI. later.

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 75

Take Die zwélf Briider, for example: here if the thir-
teenth child be a daughter, she will take the kingdom, if
a son, the brothers need not go out into the world.’ Or
again, consider Die diet Schlangenblitter. The princess
conveys the kingdom under the, to us, unusual condition
that, if she dies first, her husband shall be buried alive
with her; when she wearies of her husband, she offers
marriage and her father’s crown to the lover who has
assisted her in killing her husband. The position of the
king is precarious; as in Der Kénig vom goldenen
Berge he has not only to win bride and kingdom by
the exercise of his strength, but to maintain them by
his strong arm. Most frequently he has not even any
claim of blood or birth to cast a halo round his person.
In this respect it will not be without interest to notice
the character of the hero in the cases in Grimm’s
collection in which the princess and kingdom are won.
Out of forty such cases we find the hero described
seven times? as the son of poor parents, of a poor man,
or of poor widow, etc., not including the cases in which
three brothers of the lowly hero also obtain princesses
as brides;* in four cases the hero is a tailor,‘ in three
a peasant’s son,’ twice a hunter;° once in each case,
1 This appears to have been also the original theme of the Norse De tolw
Vildender, and of the story of Lycaon, who, notwithstanding that he had many
sons, was succeeded, according to Pausanias, by the offspring of his only daughter
Callisto, a most surprising circumstance to the narrator.
* Die drei Schlangenblitter, Der singende Knochen, Der Teufel mit den dret
goldenen Haaren, Der Gevatter Tod, Der Ranzen, das Hiitlein, und das Hornlein,

Die vier kunstreichen Briider, and Mérchen von einem der auszog das Fiirchten zu
lernen. 3 Die vier kunstreichen Briider.

4 Das tapfere Schneiderlein, Die beiden Wanderer, Vom kiugen Schneiderlein,
and Der gldserne Sarg.

5 Hans mein Igel, Der Vogel Greif, and Der starke Hans.

6 Dat Erdmdnneken and Der gelernte Jéiger.

76 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

broombinder’s son, miller’s lad, gardener’s boy, drummer,
and merchant’s son.' Ascending in the scale, we find
him four times a discharged soldier,’ once a servant in
a king’s household,’ once a count,* once a king, and
nine times a king’s son.° On three occasions he is
more especially described as a Dummling—once when he
is a king’s son,° once as the son of poor parents,’ and
once without further details.* On one occasion only
he is simply a‘man.’° It will thus be seen that only
in about one-fourth of the cases is the king’s daughter
and her kingdom won by a man of royal or aristocratic
blood. We are clearly in a world in which, between
king on the one side and peasant and handicraftsman
on the other, there are none of the intermediate ranks
of medizval life. We miss almost completely the
whole range of feudal nobility, civic authorities, and
town patricians so characteristic of the Middle Ages.
We see king’s sons competing merely as equals with
agriculturalists and simple craftsmen for brides and
kingdoms. The right of the plebeian majority to
compete for princesses is still more marked in the

1 Die zwei Briider, Der arme Miillerbursch, De wilde Mann, Der Trommier,
and Der Kénig vom goldenen Berge, respectively.

2 Sechse kommen durch die ganze Welt, Des Teufels russiger Bruder, Das blaue
Licht, and Die zertanzten Schuhe. It is important to note that the hero of Die
Bienenkénigin, who is the king’s son described as a Dummling in Grimm,
appears in the Hessian version of the tale as a soldier.

3 Die weisse Schlange.

4 Die Giénsehirtin am Brunnen.

> Das Rathsel, Dornréschen, Das Wasser des Lebens, De beiden Kiinigeskinner,
Die Bienenkinigin, Der Kénigssohn der sich vor nichts fiirchtet, Der Kisenofen,
Die sechs Diener and Das Eselein. He is a king in Die zwilf Briider,

6 Die Bienenkinigin.

7 Marchen von einem der awuszog das Fiirchten zu lernen.

8 Die goldene Gans.
9 Die Rabe

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 77

Scandinavian tales, which in many respects have
preserved a more primitive character than the German.
Thus out of nineteen Norwegian tales in which the
king’s daughter and kingdom are won, it only goes
twice to a king’s son,’ but five times to the son of poor
folk,? twice to the son of farmer or peasant,’ once to a
miller’s lad,* and once to a fisher-lad.° On the re-
maining eight occasions it goes to Askelad,’ while on
the ninth occasion on which it goes to Askelad, he is
one of the king’s sons already included in our list.’
‘Ashlad’ is the Norwegian equivalent for Dumm-
ling, the insignificant member of a family, on whom
the drudgery of the household is thrust,* and it is of
significance that kings’ sons can also be Askelad and
Dummling.

If we go still farther north, to Lapland, we find
kings’ sons have entirely disappeared, and the plebeian
character of kings is emphasised by peasant lads, poor
boys, and scurvy-heads winning kings’ daughters,’ and
obtaining royal power.

1 Fugl Dam, and Om Risen, som ikke havde noget Hjerte paa sig.

2 Poor widow’s son in Enkesonnen, Tro og Utro, and Det blaa Baandet ; poor
folk’s son in Lillekort and Herreper.

3 Grimsborken and Jomfruen paa Glasberget.

4 Rige Per Kraemmer. 5 De tre Prindsesser + Hvidtenland.

6 Om Askeladden som stjal Troldets Solvaender, Sengeteppe og Guldharpe,
Spurningen, Soria Moria Slot, De syv Folerne, Det har ingen Nod med den, som
alle Kvindfolk er forlibt i, Askeladden som fik Prindsessen til at logste sig, Per og
Paal og Esben Askelad, and Jomfruen paa Glasberget.

7 Om Risen, som ikke havde noget Hjerte paa sig.

8 Not without a secondary reference to one who sits stirring up the ashes and
gazing into them—a dreamer.

® Compare the Lapp tales, Zhe Silkweaver and her Husband, Alder-tree Boy,
The Three Brothers, The Boy and the Hare, The King and the Louse, ete.
‘« Lousyhead ” of the Lapp tales corresponds to Askeladden in the Norwegian tale

of De syv Folerne, whose head an old woman offers to lice for him when he sets
about winning the princess.

78 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS AIS LUCK

Nor does this general competition for kingdoms, in
which the king’s sons have no claim on their father’s
kingdom, escape the old story-tellers themselves. They
find a reason for it, namely, in the fact that kings’ sons
can themselves go and win princesses and kingdoms.
Thus in the Norse tale De syv Folerne, after Ashlad
has herded the foals, and so redeemed the princes,
and won the princess and half the kingdom, we

. reads

“You have got half the kingdom,” said the king,
‘and the other half you shall have on my death; for
my sons can win land nie kingdoms for themselves, now
they are again princes.”

It will be seen at once that if the king’s dour ties
carried by custom the future kingship, the king had in
the gift of his daughter’s hand a valuable property to
dispose of. By setting a high price upon it, demanding
the fulfilment of some difficult task, he could more or
less recoup himself for the loss of influence which
followed on the appearance of ‘the young king,’ who
not infrequently took half the kingdom. In the tales
which bear the greatest marks of antiquity, it is the
daughter herself who chooses her husband, or sets the
task, or propounds the riddle,—sometimes in concert with
her mother,—but in the later tales we see this power
more and more usurped by the existing king—a first
stage towards a patriarchal ownership of the women
with a view to ownership of the property. Thus the
task-setting by kings, such a curious feature of the fairy
tale, receives its interpretation as a step in the economic
evolution of primitive societies. We need no longer

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 79

look upon it as one of the many weird inventions of
Mirchenland.

It will not be without interest to note the phrase-
ology in which the tales describe the passage of the
kingdom to the successful wooer. Taking the German
first, we find the following accounts given of the transfer
of the kingdom to the hero—the lucky Hans. In Das
Wasser des Lebens the hero gets the lady’s whole
kingdom, and becomes Herr des Kénigreichs at once;
in Der Vogel Greif and Der Gevatter Tod we are
merely told that, as a result of the marriage, Hans
becomes king. In Das blaue LIncht, the soldier at once
seizes the kingdom with his bride; while in Hans mein
Igel, Hans receives the kingdom from the old king. In
three tales, namely, Mdrchen von einem der auszog das
Fiirchten zu lernen, Die dret Schlangenbldtter, and
Die zwei Briider, we notice that, as a result of marrying
the princess, the plebeian husband is now entitled ‘the
young king.’ ‘There are five Mdrchen in which we are
expressly told that the husband of the king’s daughter
got the kingdom or the crown on the old king’s death ;
these are Die weisse Schlange, Die Bienenkinigin, Des
Teufels russiger Bruder, Der gelernte Jager,’ and Die
zertanzten Schuhe. Lastly, in Das tapfere Schneider-
leon we learn that the hero received the king’s
daughter to wife and one-half the kingdom as marriage
portion (Khesteuer); in Die vier kunstreichen Briider
that the king’s daughter and half a kingdom were won ;
and in Das Eselein that the half-kingdom at once, and

1 This Marchen is of particular interest as it seems to mark, even in small
things, the joint ownership of the king and the king’s daughter.

80 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS AIS LUCK

the whole on the old king’s death, passed to the hero.
We thus seem to see stages in the law of inheritance by
matriage, e.g. the receipt of the kingdom at once with
the bride, then the receipt of half the kingdom as
marriage portion, and lastly, the title alone of ‘ young
king’ follows the marriage, and the kingdom passes only
to the young king on the old king’s death. This right
of the husband of the king’s daughter to the kingdom
at once, in the future, or in part at once, is well summed
up in Die goldene Gans, where we are told :—

Da ward die Hochzeit gefeiert, und der Dummling erlte das
Reich.

Sooner or later the bride conveys the kingdom, and
this is the law of inheritance. But the king continues
to hold the kingdom only so long as his wife lives, or if
she be dead, until his daughter, the heiress apparent,
conveys the kingdom or a part of it to the next young -
king.

The law of inheritance which gives one-half the
kingdom as marriage portion to the king’s daughter,
and presumably the other half on the old king’s death,
is practically universal in the Norse tales. Exceptions,
like Herreper, occur, but in such cases we do not hear
of the old king at all, the princess appears to have
complete possession of the kingdom. Thus in the
following thirteen tales: Om <Askeladden som stjal
Troldets Solvaender, Sengeteppe og Guldharpe, Fugl
Dam, Spurningen, Rige Per Kraemmer, Enkessonnen,
Inllekort, De syv Folerne, Grimsborken, Tro og Utro,
Per og Paal og Esben Askelad, Jomfruen paa Glas-
berget, Askeladden som fik Prindsessen til at logste

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 81

sig, and Det har ingen Nod med den, som alle Kvind-
folk er forlebt 2,\—we are distinctly told that the hero
received one-half the kingdom with his bride. Still
farther north in Lapland we find in such tales as Alder-
tree Lad and The Boy and the Hare the same law of
inheritance.

Many things in Mdrchen are, of course, inexplicable
on any rationalistic grounds. Much of the faith in magic
—though not all—is chiefly of value to the folklorist as
enabling him to appreciate the intellectual development
of the minds in which such beliefs were current. But
the social customs illustrated in the Mdrchen have
nothing to do with magic ; they are not the mere topsy-
turvy invention of story-tellers seeking after nonsense,
for had they been they would not have been so self-
consistent, nor spread with such uniformity from Italy
to Lapland. They represent the social customs of the
age in which the Mdrchen took their origin, and in that
age we may safely assert that the law of inheritance
was mother-right,—descent through the woman—and
that the habits of the people were not so far removed
from that primitive type I have dealt with in the essays
on “ Woman as Witch” and ‘“ Group-Marriage.”

The reader may here possibly remark that he has noted
in the Marchen nothing of the sex-festivals or kindred-
marriages discussed in the above papers. The reason for
this is, that few fossil customs which are intelligible to a
later age, and clearly offensive to its moral ideas, will be
preserved by the oral tradition which circulates round

1 In this tale the other half of the kingdom is to follow on the death of the
old king.

VOL. II G

82 ASHIEPATILE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

hearth and home. We have to seek for fossils which
have been preserved by their being superficially unrecog-
nisable; we can find only indirect evidence of what the old
forms of marriage were like. Thus a trace of the oldkindred
group-marriage may, I think, be found in the frequency |
with which in the Mdrchen a group of brothers marries
a group of sisters. Thus in Die Bienenkdmgin three
brothers wander out and marry the three daughters of
a king ;* in Schneeweisschen und Rosenroth two sisters
marry two brothers; and in De berden Kiinigeskinner
we have distinct traces of the hero marrying all three
kine’s daughters. In the more primitive Lapp tales
we hear, as in Zhe Tschuds and Russleleaf, of ‘two
brothers who were married each to his sister”; and, as
in The Giant-bird, of the two lads who had one king’s
daughter between them to wife ; while, as in the German
tales, the marriage of two or three brothers to two or
three sisters is common, ¢.g. The Tschuds in Sundegjeld.
A trace of the old sex-festival may further be found in
the tale of Die zertanzten Schuhe. Here twelve kings’
daughters slip out at night through a mysterious forest
to a wonderful Schloss, and dance with twelve princes,
The old choral character of the marriage feast is
evidenced in Der liebste Roland, where we are told that
it was a custom in the land that all the maidens should
come and sing in honour of the bridal pair. In Das
singende springende Liweneckerchen we hear of the
marriage-lights, and the bridal procession being accom-
panied by many torches. In Der Konig vom goldenen

1 In the Norse Om Risen, som ikke havde noget Hjerte paa sig, no less than
six brothers take as brides six sisters, king’s daughters ; see also Essay XI. below.

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 83

Berg the bridal fiddles and pipes resound; while in
both Der Kénigssohn der sich vor nichts fiirchtet and
Der Trommler we see that the marriage festival was
in the evening or at night. Lastly, the hostility which
the witches offer (as in Jorinde und Joringel) to chaste
maidens is not without its suggestiveness, if the witch
be the degraded form of the old priestess of the goddess
of fertility, and the witches’ Sabbath a relic of the old
sex-festival. Such a goddess of fertility actually crops
up in the appeal of Dat Miken von Brakel for a
husband to St. Anne in the Hinnenborg Chapel. It
will be seen that the marriage of the Mdrchen is more
akin to that of the free Friesian woman, with its choral
song and torches by night, than to the sober ceremony
of the church. Indeed I can only recall seven tales in
which any reference is made to a religious ceremony at
marriage, and the majority of these are late, because
they are marked by a patriarchal law of inheritance.
Thus in Der treue Johannes, Aschenputtel, Kong
Drosselbart, De beiden Kiinigeskinner, and Die sechs
Diener we are dealing with kings or kings’ sons, who
take their brides to church and afterwards to their own
home or kingdom. The wife rides off with her husband,
and it is a Brautlauf of the patriarchal period, not an
ancient matriarchal Heileich with which we are dealing.
The remaining two of the seven tales in which the
church ceremony is referred to are those of Vom klugen
Schneiderlein and of Die wahre Braut, and in these
the husband does go to the wife’s home. The mention
of the church in the first may easily be a later addition,
and the casual reference to the priest in the last line of

84 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

the latter is not a primitive characteristic like the
betrothal-kiss under the linden tree. Indeed, what
business has a priest to be hanging about in the court-
yard of a wonder-castle? He is obviously an incon-
eruity introduced in the course of tradition by a pious
narrator, who thought that the consecration of the
marriage would atone for the very heathen origin of
the creature comforts the pair were about to enjoy.

Yet the reader may object that, out of the five
‘patriarchal’ Mdrchen with church marriages to which
we have referred, one at the least, namely Aschenputtel
or Cinderella, is a typical fairy tale; and that in this
typical tale the prince obviously inherits his father’s
kingdom, takes his bride to church, and afterwards to
his own home. Why, then, is mother-right any more
than father-right to be considered peculiar to the period
when fairy tales took their origin? Why is Cinderella,
with its general currency and many versions, to be put
on one side for Hans seeks his Luck? To answer these
questions, | must remind the reader that my thesis
is not that all, but only that the majority of Mdarchen
take their rise in matriarchal not in patriarchal times ;
and, further, that more than one Mdarchen, which is now
current in a patriarchal form, can be traced back to a
version in which the distinctive features are matriarchal.
This is peculiarly the case with Cinderella.

In order to grasp this we must bear in mind how much
stress ought to be laid on a comparative study of the Mar-
chen of different lands, and how often a difficulty which
arises in the version current in one land or district may be
elucidated by that of another. Thus, take the Teutonic

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 85

giant, for example, he is very strong, he is stupid, he
eats men, and he possesses the curious characteristic,
although a male, of suckling infants." When we go
north into Lapland, and then turn into Russia, we find
the same strong, stupid, man-eating being, but the sex
is now female, and the suckling no longer a matter of
difficulty.” In this case the change is from male to
female, but in the case of Cinderella the change is from
female to male. When we pass from Germany to Nor-
way, Ash-lad replaces Cinder-girl, and the prince who
conducts Cinderella to church, and rides off with her
to his paternal home, is replaced by the princess who
bestows her hand on Askelad, and thus gives him the
right to the kingdom. In other words, Cinderella is
only a late, and we must even say perverted, version of
Hans seeks his Luck. 'The main features are the same
in the two cases, but the sexes of the chief characters
have changed, and with the sex patriarchal custom has
been changed to mother-right.

In the German we have Aschenputtel despised by
her two sisters, and sitting at home among the cinders.

1 In Der junge Riese the giant suckles a man, and in Die Rabe he has to go
home to suckle his child.

2 Compare the stupid man-eating giantess in Alder-tree Lad, the giant-wife
in Family Strong, Ivvar’s mother, etc., with Jaga baba and other Russian giant
heroines. Nor is it only in Lapland and Russia where the sex of the giant is
predominantly female, we find a great number of old Norse words for giantess
with no male equivalents, e.g. gfgr, skessa, grijdr, gifr, etc. These were Titanic
women approaching to deities, and probably related to the tribal - mother,
priestess, and goddess ideas to which we have referred in Essays IX. and XI. It
is noteworthy that giants themselves, gigantes, denote nothing else than “‘ the
produced.” In medieval times they were invariably looked upon as the élicit
produce of mortal women by unknown fathers, e.g. due to eating forbidden
herbs, or to the ‘‘sons of god.” The terms giganta cyn of Beowulf and gigant-
méiieg of Cedmon suggest at once the kin-produce of a tribal-mother from the
old cannibal days of the mother-age.

86 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

In the Norwegian’ we have two elder brothers who
thrust the menial work of the household upon Aske-
lad, and scorn him as well. Inthe German all the
maidens of the kingdom are summoned to a court
ball, in order that the prince may choose a bride.
“You, Cinderella!” say the sisters, ‘“‘ you, covered
with dust and dirt, want to go to the ball, and yet
you have no clothes!” In the Norwegian the king’s
daughter, and, of course, half the kingdom, is set as a
prize for any youth of the kingdom who can achieve a
difficult task. Ashlad’s brothers set out to try their
luck, and Ashlad will go also. ‘You, too!” cry the
brothers, ‘‘ you are fit for nothing better than sitting at
home and poking in the cinders.” As in the case of
Cinderella, Ashlad goes all the same without his brothers
knowing about it. In the German it is the spirit of
Aschenputtel’s mother (as it is Cinderella’s godmother)
that helps her to win the prince, while her sisters are
rejected. In the Northern version it is a legacy of
Askelad’s father, a white witch he meets on the. way,
or the animals to whom he is kind, that help him to
success, while his brothers fail. In the German Aschen-
puttel’s sisters return to find her seated in her rags
among the ashes, and never suspect she has been at the
ball, and this occurs on three occasions. On the last
occasion she loses her shoe, which afterwards serves as
a means of identifying her. In the Norwegian Askelad
hastens back after the contest on each of the three days,
throws off his fine clothes, and is found by his brothers

1 The titles of nine Norwegian tales about Askelad are given in the sixth and
seventh footnotes to p. 77. The first, fifth, seventh, and eighth are of most
interest for our present purpose. :

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 87

sitting among the cinders. They tell him what has
happened, how one finely-dressed youth has on the first
two days nearly, and on the third day completely,
achieved the task set. They never suspect Askelad of
being this youth. ‘I should like to see him, too,” says
Askelad. In the German we have the attempt to find
among the maidens of the kingdom the one whom the
shoe will fit. All are examined, and none can wear
the shoe. Finally, the king’s son is told either by the
sisters or by the father that there is one girl left, a
dirty little miserable Cinderella, but she cannot possibly
be the bride. The king’s son insists upon seeing her,
the shoe fits, and she becomes the royal bride. In the
best Norwegian version (Jomfruen paa Glasberget) the
task set is to ride up the glass-hill—possibly an ice-
field—and receive a golden apple from the princess at
the top. No one but Askelad can ride any way up.
On the first day he rides up one-third of the way, and
the princess rolls a golden apple down to him, which
lodges in his shoe; on the second day no one but
Askelad makes any progress, but he rides two-thirds
of the way up, and a second golden apple is rolled down
to him, and lodges again in his shoe; on the third day
he rides the whole way up, and takes the apple from
the princess’s lap. Then comes the search for the holder
of the golden apples. No one is forthcoming. The king
orders that “‘all who are in the land”? shall come to
the royal residence in order that the apples may be

1 The examination of all the youths or of all the maidens of the ‘king-
dom’ at the king’s dwelling, which occurs in German, Norse, and Lapp tales,
is another good piece of indirect evidence as to the size of these primitive
kingdoms.

88 ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

found. It is in vain. The two last youths to come
are the brothers of Askelad, and the king demands of
them if there are no other youths in the kingdom.
‘Oh yes, we have a brother, but he certainly has not
got the golden apples; he did not leave the cinder heap
on any of the days.”—‘“It is all the same,” said the
king, “if all the others have come up to the castle, he
can come too.” Askelad comes and shows the apples.
He receives the king’s daughter and half the kingdom
as reward. ‘The reference to the lodging of the apples
in Askelad’s shoe seems clearly to point to an earlier
version, in which a search must have been made of all
the shoes of the youths of the kingdom. The corre-
spondence of Askelad with Aschenputtel would then, if
possible, have been still more complete.

In the Lapp version (The Three Brothers) it is
Ruébba, or scurvy-head, who, by fulfilling the last duties
to his father, which his brothers neglect, receives the
wonder-staff, and so is enabled to get fine clothes and
a horse. The tale runs just like the Norse, except that
the contest is now a jumping-match. The princess sits
on a high stage, and the youth who can jump so high
that the princess can press the signet-ring bearing her
name on his forehead shall win her as bride. We have
all the usual incidents of Ruébba sitting at home among
the ashes, and his brothers coming back and recounting
the strange rider’s prowess, Rudbba’s apparent ignorance,
and the king’s inspection of the foreheads of all the
youths in his kingdom to find his daughter’s name. The
king, failing to find it, asks if there be no other lad in
the kingdom, and Rudbba’s brothers reply, ‘‘ Yes, we

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK 89

have a brother at home, but we don’t like to name the
fellow, for he does nothing else but sit in the ashes and
pluck out his scurf; and, besides that, he was not at the
contests.” Ruébba is sent for, and the princess’s name
found impressed on his forehead. He reappears in his
fine clothes, and the bridal feast lasts three full days.

So far it will be seen the Northern version, with its
Ash-lad in place of the Cinder-girl, is exactly parallel to
the German, and is as widely spread. But the reader
may ask: What reason, beyond the assumed older law
of inheritance, beyond the disappearance of the ride to
church with the prince, have we for asserting that Aske-
lad is the original version of Cinderella? Why, after
all, may not the girl have been converted into a boy,
as the story passed northwards? The answer is fairly
conclusive. While, in the nineteenth century, the
Brothers Grimm could find a variety of versions of
the Cinderella tale, yet all the references to this tale
from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Germany
itself point to an Ash-lad and not to a Cinder-girl. Thus
Rollenhagen speaks of the wonderful tale of the “ De-
spised and pious Aschenpdssel, and his proud and
scornful brothers.” More than one medizval preacher
refers to the male Ashiepattle, and even Luther compares
Abel and Cain to Aschenbridel and his proud brother.*
Thus, in Germany itself, the matriarchal form of the
tale is seen to be the older. Nor is this transfer of
sex and detail, so that they fit better with patriarchal
customs, confined only to Cinderella. Allerlevrauh,

1 For further references see Grimm, Kinder- und Haus-Marchen, Bd. iii.
p- 38. Berlin, 1822.

go ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK

another patriarchal Mdrchen, in some respects akin to
Aschenputtel, can also be traced back to versions in
which a king’s son lives as kitchen-lad under the stairs.
Thus not only is Hans seeks his Luck the commonest
type of Mdarchen, but even some of the most striking of
the nursery tales which tell of the winning of princes by
simple maids can be traced back to a matriarchal form.
Cinderella, so far from being an argument against the
theme of ‘this essay, is seen on further investigation to
strongly confirm it. Cinderella is only Hans in disguise,
and the change of sex is merely the fashion in story-
telling following the change in social institutions.

If the views expressed in this essay be correct, then
we need no longer feel the people and land of our child-
hood strange and false. As we read fairy stories to our
children, we may study history ourselves. No longer
oppressed with the unreal and the baroque, we may see
primitive human customs, and the life of primitive man
and woman, cropping out in almost every sentence of
the nursery tale. Written history tells us little of
these things, they must be learnt, so to speak, from the
mouths of babes. But there they are in the Mdrchen
as invaluable fossils for those who will stoop to pick
them up and study them. Back in the far past we can
build up the life of our ancestry—the little kingdoms,
the queen or her daughter as king-maker, the simple life
of the royal household, and the humble candidate for the
kingship, the priestess with her control of the weather,
and her power over youth and maid. In the dimmest
distance we see traces of the earlier kindred group-
marriage, and in the nearer foreground the beginnings

ASHIEPATTLE: OR HANS SEEKS HIS LUCK gI

of that fight with patriarchal institutions which led the
priestess to be branded by the new Christian civilisa-
tion as the evil-working witch of the Middle Ages. All
this and something more may be learnt by the elder,
while little eyes sparkle and little cheeks grow warm
over the success which attends kindly, simple Ashie-
pattle in the search for his luck.

XI

KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE’

Part I

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION

In things of this kind many points must be established before you can
assign the true law of the thing in question, and it must be approached by a
very circuitous road ; wherefore all the more I call for an attentive ear and
mind.—Lucretivs, Bk. vi.

(1) Ly studying the natural history of the lower forms
of life, we are at once impressed by the large part which
the hunt for food on the one hand, and the gratifica-
tion of the sex-instinct on the other, play in animal
existence. The further we go back, also, in the natural
history of man, the more dominant the same activities
become ; in fact, the history of civilisation is largely a
history of the origin and development of new activities
serving to some extent to modify and limit the all-
absorbing character of these primitive pursuits. But to
trace this history of civilisation we require, in the first
place, to have a knowledge of the stages through which
the momentum of man’s more primitive and animal

1 Originally read as a paper in 1885, but now published for the first time.

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 93

instincts have carried him,—we must investigate his
history in the days of his barbarism, when brute-
appetites ruled his unconscious development, and he
established customs and contracted habits still faintly
shadowed in the language, ceremonies, and institutions
of to-day. The control of the primitive appetites of
the individual in the interests of the group, wherever
and however it arose, was the germ of the first stable
society, the genesis of morality. Hence if the soundest
ethical theory makes no attempt to explain what men in
general ought to do or forbear from doing, but describes
how experience in a long course of ages has developed, and
tradition maintained, a code of right and wrong peculiar
to each individual human society, then to clearly under-
stand our moral position to-day we must investigate
its origin in the far past, when the gregarious instinct
moulded the brute appetites of individuals, and the
first social customs and institutions were established.
Fundamental among these primitive social institutions
is the organisation of sex,—and if the morally desirable
be treated, not supernaturally, but sanely, as the socially
desirable, we still see in the genesis of morality some
excuse for that narrow, but sadly prevalent, state of
mind which identifies immorality with anti-social con-
duct in sexual matters. . If the origin of the maternal
instinct can be described without the aid of super-
natural terms, then the history of the appearance and
survival of institutions and customs more and more
fostering the gregarious instinct in man will suffice to
show that naturalism is able to account for the develop-
ment of morality by the extra-group struggle for exist-

94 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

ence. We need not join in that despairing cry of, ‘‘ We
know nothing, let us believe all things.”

The frame of mind summed up in “reason starved,
imagination drunk” is never profitable, least of all in
social difficulties. Therein, as in a dynamical problem,
an accurate knowledge of the initial conditions is
essential to the discovery of a solution. The present
essay attempts to describe some of those initial condi-
tions as they concern the great problem of sex. It
makes no attempt at solution; it solely endeavours to
remove certain misconceptions with regard to the pre-
historic sex-relations among our Teutonic forefathers.
But the reader who grasps that a thousand years is but
a small period in the evolution of man, and yet realises
how diverse were morality and customs in matters of
sex in the period which this essay treats of, will hardly
approach modern social problems with the notion that
there is a rigid and unchangeable code of right and
wrong. He will mark, in the first place, a continuous
flux in all social institutions and moral standards; but,
in the next place, if he be a real historical student,
he will appreciate the slowness of this steady secular
change; he will perceive how almost insensible it is in
the lifetime of individuals, and although he may work
for social reforms, he will refrain from constructing
social Utopias. |

(2) The historian who wishes to reconstruct the
prehistoric social relations of any civilised race has, like
the naturalist, to build up the past from fossils, These
fossils are, in the historian’s case, embedded in language,
in primitive customs, in folklore, in Weisthiimer, in

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 95

peasant festivals, in children’s jingles and dances, and
to a lesser extent in the records of historians of other
and more advanced nations, in primitive law, and in
saint-legends and hero-sagas. Written history—or even
pseudo-history, which for the sociologist is often more
valuable—belongs to a comparatively late period of
development, indeed to a type of tribal organisation
which is characteristic of a patriarchal civilisation.
We are compelled therefore to turn to fossils, if we
wish to reconstruct the social habits of any earlier
period. The difficulty of any such reconstruction does
not, however, lie in the paucity of fossils, but rather
in their superabundance; above all, in the accurate
determination of the particular stratum of social custom
to which individual fossils belong. Personally, I have
been impressed with the mass of material, and with the
labour required to classify it, rather than disheartened
by the faint traces which some writers appear to find
of group-marriage and mother-age customs.’ No legend,
no bit of folklore of India, Greece, Scandinavia, or
Germany which comes to my notice seems without
new meaning when examined from the standpoint of
an early sex-relationship, which is not that usually
assumed for the Aryan peoples. The great struggle for
sex-supremacy,—the contest between patriarchal and
matriarchal folks,—this, one of the chief factors of
human history, receives infinite light from the struggle
of patrician Rome with the Etruscan nations, and indeed
with the whole East, from the survival of an obscure

1 [ hope later to publish essays dealing with the fossil evidence in folklore,
hero-legend, primitive laws, and festivals, etc., the material for which has been
already collected.

96 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

tribe of Hebrews in that same East, and from the ulti-
mate ejection of the more intensely matriarchal Celts
from Eastern and Central Europe by the Teutonic races.
Everywhere we have the survival of a more efficient
civilisation, the triumph of a society in which the male
was supreme, over one largely organised on a female
basis.

We may fully admit the superiority of Roman to
Etruscan, of Hebrew to Philistine civilisation, and yet
decline to draw any argument from it for the subjection
of woman at the present day. To draw such an argu-
ment would be as idle as to deduce the inferiority of
man from the existence of an age in which customs and
civilisation were chiefly the product of female ingenuity.
We may fully admit the dark side of that mother-age,
its human sacrifices, its periodic sexual license, its want
of strong incentives to individual energy; we may
recognise these things, indeed, as the sources of its
collapse before a more active social variation. But, at
the same time, we must fully acknowledge the immense
services which that early civilisation of woman has
rendered to the human race. What those services are
may, I think, be concisely summed up in an analogy,
thrown out as a mere fancy, but which yet may indicate
some unrecognised law of growth.

It is a biological hypothesis, which, however whim-
sical, has yet been fruitful of results, that the prenatal
life of the individual, from the development of the ovum
through all the fetal changes, represents with more or
less exactness in microcosm the development of the
species in macrocosm from some very simple ancestral

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 97

form. The development of the child after birth seems
to me to represent in a similar manner many features of
the growth of primitive man from barbarism to civilisa-
tion. Adopting the analogy, we may say that all that the
child in microcosm learns from its mother, that humanity
in macrocosm gained from the early civilisation of woman,
—from the mother-age. The elements of social conduct
with regard to the family and its group of friends,—
hardly with regard to the state—the round of household
duties and domestic foresight, the beginnings of religious
faith and the elements of human knowledge, above all, in
a still earlier stage the use of language,—these the child
acquires from its mother, and these mankind acquired
largely—I will not say wholly—from a civilisation in
which the female element was predominant. If our
analogy be a true one, and if a mother-age preceding the
father-age be admitted, then we should expect primitive
language, above all the early words of relationship and
sex, to throw much light on woman’s civilisation. The
object of this essay is to follow up this idea within the
range of the Teutonic languages.

The writer is far from unconscious of the hardi-
hood of his enterprise. He is fully aware of the
danger, and the outcry, which ever arises when the un-
licensed poacher raids the preserves of the specialists.
_ He is quite prepared to be told that not only is he a
trespasser, but that he has committed diverse offences
against established laws. Some of these he may be
prepared to admit; the more readily if the professional
philologist will recognise, in turn, the importance of folk-
lore and primitive custom in the interpretation of words ;

VOL. II H

98 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

for the philological is but one strand of the rope which
the anthropologist twists from folklore, mythology, and
hero-legend. If the philologist describes for us from
language a state of society which receives no support
from these other sources of knowledge, then we are,
perhaps, justified in treating the present stage of his
science with less respect than he claims for it. Above
all, the time (1885) is an opportune one for a raid; the
bubble of the primitive Aryan leading a pastoral life in
Asia has burst. We may look to Lithuania, or even to
Scandinavia, with as much justification as to Asia for the
home of the Aryan; and it is hardly possible now to
assert that the existence of a root in Teutonic dialects,
which has no known equivalent in Sanskrit, is certainly
a mark of late origin. It is impossible now to argue
that the fundamental idea attached to such a root must
be of a later growth than a primitive Aryan civilisation
of a patriarchal type.

Let us be quite clear as to the real issue involved, for
it is acrucial one. If the interpretation of the names of
relationship as given by the professional philologists be
correct, then there never was a mother-age; or all its
words of relationship were completely extinguished under
a later patriarchal régime. It is not a question of change
of use, but of the fundamental ideas connected with the
roots of the words used for relationship. The change of
use would be intelligible, every word has a long use-
history. The extinction of every word marking such all-
important relations as those of sex is one that the sane
anthropologist will never admit; and the sole alternative,
if the philologists have really described the civilisation

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 99

of the primitive Aryan, is to give up an epoch of woman’s
predominance.

Now I fancy that the philologists, however much they
may believe their conclusions to flow from the principles
of their science, have really adopted their interpretations
because they fitted in with an erroneous anthropological
conception, widely current when philology was in its in- —
fancy, namely, that human civilisation arose with a fully
developed patriarchal system. ‘This idea, shared by the
Grimms, and not a real science of language, has, I venture
to think, been the keynote to the philologists’ interpreta-
tion of the Aryan words of relationship. They sought
to confirm a social system they had adopted on ex-
traneous grounds, and they evolved a delightful picture
of a primitive Aryan family, coloured by their acquaint-
ance with the Roman patria potestas and with the
Hebrew feeders of flocks. A little further investigation
might have shown them that Hebrew and Roman were
not general types but exceptions amid the populations
which surrounded them.

In fact, philological interpretations appear to me to
neglect a sound anthropological principle, which I will
ask the reader of this essay to bear in mind throughout
the perusal of it, namely : For the primitive human being
the chief motives to action are the desire for food and the
instinct of sex. -Hence the meanings of the early words
for relationship must be sought in the sex-functions of
their bearers—the most primitive of all ideas—and
not in their domestic or tribal occwpations.*

1 It is instructive to note how very large a part of the specific cries of
animals have relation to the same motives.

100 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

(3) I will commence my subject by laying before the
reader what may be termed the usual interpretation of
the chief Aryan words of relationship, such an interpreta-
tion as will be found in the writings of Jakob Grimm,
Max Miller, or more recently and completely in Deecke’s
work, Die deutschen Verwandschaftsnamen. 'To the
latter book I owe much help in the suggestion of Aryan
roots, little or nothing in the matter of interpretation.
My interpretation is principally based on the manner
in which Old Saxon and Old High German words of
relationship and their cognates are glossed in early manu-
scripts. Collections of these glosses have been published
by Graff and Schmeller.

The patriarchate assumes a tribal father or family-
head ruling a group of human beings, who are more or
less completely subjected to his authority. The mission
of woman in such a group is a household one, and the wife
is often scarcely distinguishable from a cluster of maids
and concubines, who assist her in her labours. The
daughters of the household are entirely in the power of
the father, who sells or gives them away at his pleasure.
On the death of the father, either a new tribal father is
chosen, who takes the full authority of the old, and in
many cases his wives (possibly even if he be the son), or
else the group breaks up into new family groups, each
headed by a son, among whom the father’s property is
distributed. The women of the house do not inherit
property, but are property, passing from the hands of
the father into that of brother or husband. With this
rough draft of the patriarchate before us, let us examine
how the words of relationship have been interpreted, con-

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION IOI

fining ourselves to the chief terms, and these principally
in their Teutonic forms.

Mann, man, simply denotes the thinker; Wezb,
wife, the weaver; Braut, bride, is supposed to be con-
nected with a Sanskrit root b‘rud, meaning to veil, and
therefore conveying the same notion of subjection as
Latin nubere. The root hi, as in Hewrath and Hew,
denotes house, and marriage is the foundation of a
new house or home. Vermdhlung marks the formal
ceremony of marriage, so-called from its taking place
before the old folk-assembly or Mahal. Vater, father,
is the ruler, feeder, or protector. Mutter, mother, is the
measuring or managing one, from a root ma, to prepare
or construct. Tochter, daughter, is ultimately deduced
from a root d’ug to milk, and signifies the milker.
Bruder, brother, is the possessor, the protector, namely,
of the Schwester or sister, who, according to Deecke, is
the dependent one, the one who by nature and blood
belongs to the brother. Thus Deecke makes the terms
brother and sister correlatives from the very beginning.
The sister is the ruled one, for whom the brother is the
legal representative and has the Nédichstrecht. One
more example of this method of interpretation, namely
that of Wéttwe, widow. This is derived from the
Sanscrit vid’ava, the woman without a d’ava, which
appears in late Sanscrit for man, and has been connected
with a root meaning sacrifice. Thus the widow is the
woman who has no one to sacrifice for her—to perform
sacrifices for the household being assumed to be the duty
of the husband. We may stop here to remark that the
word widow has cognates in all Aryan tongues, but

102 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

dava, either as a man or a sacrificer, appears in no
recognisable Teutonic form ; while, according to the evi-
dence of Roman historians, not only the seers, but the
-sacrificers among the early Teutons were women.’ It
is clear, I think, that the above interpretations, which
might easily be largely multiplied, have been invented
with the patriarchate in view, and are not solely the
outcome of purely philological investigations.

In addition to the above words I might cite a whole
series like veddjan, wed, a widely-spread root in
Scandinavian dialects, denoting to yoke, or bind, and
so to marry; Khe, a legal or binding contract, and so a
marriage ; kaufen, to buy, ze. to buy a wife, and so to
marry. ‘These and many other such words undoubtedly
do point to a patriarchal régime, but they are of very
late origin, and we can almost mark their first use as
words of sex.

Nothing to my mind is more suggestive of the danger
of specialism in anthropology than such a philological
scheme as may be found in the concluding pages of
Deecke’s book. A complete patriarchal family system
is worked out for the primitive Aryans on the basis of
such interpretation of the terms of relationship as those
I have just indicated. We find an elaborate code of
duties for parents and children, for uncles, aunts, and
brothers-in-law, developed from the supposed roots of
their names. Did space permit me to quote the whole
of it, my readers would, I think, wonder with me how
complex society had grown, and how multifarious

1 It is worth noting that there is much anthropological evidence to show that
most early sacrifices were made by women and not by men.

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 103

the rights and duties of its members had become,
before it occurred to any one to give those members
names.

(4) Let us now turn to the matriarchal system of
primitive life, and, after sketching its broad outlines,
inquire what evidence there is for supposing the words
of relationship and sex to have taken their origin in such
a stage of social growth, rather than in the patriarchal.
It is in a period of kindred group-marriage that I find
myself forced to seek for an explanation of these words.
It must be remembered that what we briefly speak of as
the mother-age covers several successive phases of civilisa-
tion, and of such phases those of group-marriage are
among the earliest. Without dogmatising, I may suggest
tentatively that the lair or den originally provided by the
mother for child-bearing and rearing, developed in comfort
to such an extent that the sons preferred staying by the
mother and taking part in the elementary agriculture of
the women to hunting on their own account. This led
to complete promiscuity, or at least seasonal pairing,
being succeeded by normal conditions, first of brother-
sister and afterwards of kindred group-marriage. Be the
source of these conditions, however, what they may, the
earliest mythologies and folk-customs distinctly point to
the first permanent relations of sex being those between
kindred ; and this view is confirmed also by the Teutonic
words of relationship. The most primitive theogony
is that of Mother Earth and her Son.

The latter is usually depicted as an agriculturist,
and not infrequently as killing or emasculating his
father, who, if he can be identified, is of the wild,

104 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

barbaric, hunting or giant-type.’ Nearly as old is the
mythology which supplements the mother-goddess by a
brother as spouse. Much later than either comes as
deity a patriarchal All-father ruling a kindred group. I
cannot now enter upon the causes which led to the
termination of the brother-sister sexual relation, but
there is considerable evidence to show that there was a
differentiation first of the elder sister, and that the social
prohibition was only gradually extended to the younger.
As the social unit enlarged, we find a group of men,
brothers or cousins in ‘blood, having sexual relations
with a like group of women, who may or may not be
blood relations of the men. This is the system I would
refer to as that of kindred group-marriage. Evidences
of its existence are still to be found in several Australian
races. In these cases the men of one tribe have wives
from the women of a second, or in some cases they are
co-husbands of all the women of a second. Yet although
this group-marriage is exogamous, at certain great tribal
festivals the men and women of the same tribe indulge
promiscuously in what at another period would be pro-
hibited intercourse. This interesting fossil of the tran-
sition of group-marriage from the endogamous to
exogamous type is of special value, for it illustrates a
common feature of kindred group-marriage—the custom
of periodical gatherings which are at the same time sex-
festivals. These meetings for the purpose of reproduction
are singularly characteristic of group-marriage, and would
seem to indicate that in the distant past the sex-instinct

? The fact that the son in both Celtic and Norse mythology is represented as
breaking the ground with a stone hammer or axe is suggestive of the period of
such mother-son theogonies,

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 105

among human beings was either periodic or periodically
exercised. Such festivals would naturally result in a
majority of births occurring at a stated period of the
year, and there is some evidence to corroborate this.’
However this may be, the great sex-festivals of the
stage of civilisation to which I am referring must be
kept carefully in mind. In different parts of Teutonic
Europe these festivals were at different dates, and
probably depended to a great extent on the early or late
arrival of spring; their general features remain, indeed,
markedly alike, whether they take place in April or
June.” |

There is always a common meal, followed by a
sacrifice, occasionally with traces of human victims, to
the goddess of fertility ; then the group transact their
judicial business, if so it may be called—the kin-talk
—whence ultimately arose the principles of the maege-
lagu. Then came dancing, always of a choral nature
and principally the function of the women; finally, the
night falls on a scene of license. The meeting-place
for the festival is either a hilltop, a sacred tree, or

1 It might throw some light indeed on the reason why all the males of the
Irish Ultonian tribe underwent their cowvade at the same time.

2 Such sex-festivals are almost universal. Robertson Smith (Kinship and
Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 294) gives an account of Arabian sex-festivals to a
mother-son deity, with much evidence of polyandrous customs. Schiltberger
in his Reisebuch of 1484 tells us that in ‘‘Chénig Soldan’s” land sexual freedom
was allowed to the women on Friday, which was their feast-day ; and neither
husband nor any one else could hinder them ‘‘ wann es also gewonhaitt ist.” In
the Middle Ages we find many fossils of these sex-feasts in semi-heathen festivals.
Thus it was not till 1524 that Ferdinand abolished the bacchanalian dances of
the women from the public brothels with the Viennese craftsmen round the fires
in the great square on St. John’s Eve. The same schiéne Frauen, always by right
and custom, attended the public dances on great feast-days in many medieval
towns. But to enter into this subject would carry us too far into the folklore
evidences for primitive group-marriage.

106 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

the cleared space by spring or Brunnen. The group
itself occupied a palisaded or fenced dwelling, and
appears to have had considerable social and some
amount of defensive organisation,—probably a leader, in
case of fighting, was chosen by the whole group. From
this leader ultimately arose the father as tribal father
(before the father as family-father), and so the patriarchal
system. Round the fenced dwelling we should find the
common land of the group tilled for its common benefit
and used for the group cattle, and probably a more or
less ample girdle of wood separating one settlement
from a second. Under the patriarchal system the
whole develops into the Mark, which receives a new
significance when its customs are interpreted in the
hight of group-marriage. Hach district had its particular
mother-goddess, who may have been common to several
groups which had branched off from a common parent
eroup. This goddess, whether called Nerthus, Berchta,
Gode, Fri, Hilde, Walpurga, or Verena, was essentially
a goddess of fruition. She is the source of fertility in
land, in animals, and in human beings; she is both a
goddess of agriculture and a goddess of love. She
favours the crops, aids women in childbirth; and yet
her worship is associated with what appeared to a
later age as the wildest forms of license. Furthermore,
the primitive savagery of this early form of human
society is marked by the underlying element of cruelty
to be traced in the nature of Berchta, Gode, or
Hilde. 3

The servants of these goddesses were priestesses, or,
at a later date, men dressed as women; and the traces we

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 107

find of sibyls, prophetesses, and medicine-women in the
primitive groups are of striking interest.1 Among the
early Celts many of the groups seem to have been called
after the goddess as primeval tribal-mother.’ I have
not yet been able to identify any Teutonic tribal name
as derived from a goddess, but certain names appear to
originate in a female name which may possibly be that
of a forgotten goddess.? On the whole, it is surprising
how many Celtic and Teutonic genealogies end in a
female name; and many more will probably be found
to do so, when the pedigrees are studied with this possi-
bility in view. The representative of the tribal-mother,
the female head of the group, was the depositary of
tribal custom and religion; and through her the pro-
perty of the group descended. Without realising this
law of descent, the tragedy of Agamemnon and
Aegisthus, and the fairy tales of Ashiepattle and Hans,
become alike unintelligible. To kill the king and marry
his wife was to win the kingdom ; to marry the king’s
daughter was to obtain the right of succession. The
earliest and most bloody incidents of legend and primi-
tive history turn on the contest between this law of
descent and that of paternal inheritance. The latter
survives in the struggle, but Titanic female figures,
gallantly fighting for the former and sadly misrepre-

1 The Celtic goddess Brigit, referred to in a ninth-century glossary, had all
these attributes—operwm .aique artificiorum initia Rhys cites of her. She
was also tribal-mother of the Brigantes as well. Later her attributes are
transferred to St. Bridget.

2 To trace the tribal origin back to a goddess was a very common Aryan
custom, ¢.g. Venus as Genetrix Aeneadum, tribal-mother of the Romans.

3 I suspect a goddess, Ama-le the ‘‘little mother,” at the bottom of the
Amalungs. Uote was tribal-mother of the Burgundians, and the goddess Bil of
the Billings, etc.

108 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

sented by the bards and chroniclers of patriarchal days,
loom in shadowy greatness out of the pre-history of
every Aryan race.

If we turn to the status of men in the kindred
marriage group, and wish to measure its significance,
we must remember that its evolution is spread over
long centuries; and as we near the transition to the
patriarchal civilisation, the power and influence of men
at first gradually and then rapidly increases. Yet in
the full bloom of the group-marriage period, their influ-
ence on custom and tradition must have been compara-
tively small, even death and disease are represented by
female deities,—the wind, the sea, the earth, and all the
powers of nature’are in the earliest folk-tradition god-
desses. The gods, so far as they had any existence,
appear to have taken the form of temporary human
lovers of the goddesses, the transitory male element need-
ful for fertility, but then destined to disappear. Man,
ever moulding the divine to his own pattern, creates
first the goddess as tribal-mother, later her son as god,
and only as his own institutions develop is the wandering
lover,’ the hero, raised to the position and authority of
All-father. The male element step by step asserts itself.

If the reader object that this scheme of a primitive
mother-age civilisation is far more elaborate than any-
thing the philologists have attempted to spin out of
Aryan roots, the answer must be that it is not drawn

1 The uncertain paternity is not always even ascribed to man, but to beast
or bird. Compare such primeval forms as Gaea and Uranus, Helja goddess of
death (a much older and more widely-spread conception than the Eddie Hel,
daughter of Loki), the Celtic Dén or Dea with her very shadowy hero-husband
Beli,—which strike one at once amid the later elements of the patriarchal
pantheons,

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 109

from such a source. It is reconstructed from the fossils
to be found in folklore, in fairy tales, in hero-legend, in
primitive law, and in other strata of human pre-history ;
and it appears to the writer as the one system which
makes them self-consistent and intelligible. It is a
system which puts a new and thrilling interest into the
stories which delighted our childhood, whether they were
_drawn from Roman history, the Bible, or our beloved
Grimm. The problem is not to deduce the mother-
age from philology, but to decide whether the results
of the latter are really inconsistent with the existence of
such a civilisation as I have briefly sketched. What has
been indicated, however, as the system deducible from
Teutonic fossils receives much confirmation when we
study the fossils of oriental mythology and folk-custom.
In the East the mother-age civilisation developed into
what may be literally termed a matriarchate. There
the elaborate religious sexual feasts far excelled their
fainter Teutonic parallels. And yet we at once recog-
nise precisely the same institutions as we find por-
trayed in Teutonic witch-gatherings, and shadowed in
the peasant customs and festivals of modern Germany ;
the same predominance of the female element, the same
choral dancing, the same human sacrifice, the same
worship of fertility, the same identification of goddess
and priestess, and the same sexual cult.’
As type of such an Eastern cult, we may briefly refer
to the important festival of the Sakiiés, held in Babylon
1 Organised prostitution is frequently described as a result of the subjection
of women, but a study of the folklore of peasant festival and spinning-room,

and some acquaintance with the history of religious prostitution would, I think,
convince the unprejudiced that it is a strange survival of the mother-age.

’

110 * KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

in honour of the great goddess Mylitta—essentially a
mother-goddess of fertility. The festival lasted for five
days from the ninth of July, during which time complete
license ruled among the people. The festival was presided
over by the richly-clad priestess of the goddess, the —
Biblical woman in scarlet, ‘‘ the mistress of witchcrafts,”
who represented the goddess herself. She sat enthroned
on the mound which for the time was the sanctuary
of the deity, with the altar with oil and incense
before her. To her came the hero-lover represented
- by a slave, and made homage and worshipped. From
her he received the symbols of kingly power, and she
raised him to the throne at her side. As her accepted
lover and lord of the sex-revels, he remained for the
five days during which the law of the goddess prevailed.
On the fifth day, the hero-lover is sacrificed on the
pyre. The male element had performed its function,
and, like Heracles, passed away in fire.’

Every stage of this—far less connectedly and less
elaborately, it is true—finds its parallel in Teutonic
witch-gatherings, and down to the derivation of the
kingly power from the woman can be traced in Ger-
manic custom and folklore. Our fossil reconstruction
is not peculiar to one narrow field of civilisation ; the
strongest evidence for it is to be found throughout
oriental myth and tradition. I have spent consider-
able time in describing these phases of mother-age
civilisation, because they will be less familiar than
the patriarchal to many of my readers; and without

1 The whole inner meaning of the festival is well illustrated by Bachofen
in Die Sage von Tanaquil, especially in relation to the mother- pa among the
Eastern nations,

MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION III

acquaintance with the chief features of the mother-age, _
it is impossible to judge the philological evidence in its
favour. Ifthe words of sex and relationship will not
bear a matriarchal interpretation, then the idea of a
- Teutonic mother-age must be for ever abandoned.

Part II

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP

Die Menscheit bezahlt jedes neue Gut mit dem Opfer eines friihern.

I sHALL commence with words marking the simplest
form of sex-relation. The two most widespread con-
ceptions of sex—conceptions which I have found in very
distant and diverse quarters—are associated with two
simple household operations. It would not probably
be safe to suggest either as really the antecedent notion.
The first is the creation of fire, the second the pounding
or primitive miller’s work with rammer or pestle and
mortar.! Very possibly both operations are radically
identical.

The creation of fire is associated in the savage mind
with a process which must have appeared of surpassing
mysteriousness. By twirling a stick in a hollow in a
block of wood, fire, an absolute new thing was brought
into existence. The generation of fire and the genera-
tion of life were associated in name together, the origin
of life resembled the origin of fire.* The word kindle

1 There is an excellent representation of a woman with a primitive mill on a
misericord in Beverley Minster: see E. Phipson, Choir Stalls, Pl. 95, 1896.

2 In Sanskrit we have math, manth, for kindling fire by friction ; the word
manth also means to churn, manmatha, love, the god of love, and pramdtha is

violence, rape.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 113

(Scotch kendle), still retains this double meaning, and
the notion of heat as a generating power is widespread.
Compare, for example, Gothic Brunsts, German Brunst,
with its double use.

(1) The root at the basis of kindle is the one to which
I wish first to refer. This root is Sanscrit gan or gen,
Teutonic, kin or kan. It denotes, perhaps, more fre-
quently bring forth than procreate; although it would
be difficult to assert that one meaning is more primitive
than the other. The Sanscrit ga, as well as the German
ket or kyn, denote rather birth than procreation, and the
same remark applies to Latin gigno and Greek yévo ;
still the latter sense appears to be frequently associated
with these words.’

Modern German kevmen, O.H.G. chinan, M.H.G.
kinen, to bud, to burst, to open, expresses the idea.
That which opens or buds is the kone, O.H.G. qvind,
Goth. gvems, O.N. qvdn, and our English queen. The
woman is thus named after her function of giving birth,
one of the most obvious and primitive distinctions
between man and woman. I am inclined, however, to
believe that a primitive meaning of kone was womb, for
I find that so many early words for woman have this
double meaning. Thus Latin cunnus is used of the
womb and of a strumpet, matrix of the womb and of
a female animal kept for breeding. The Bavarian /és is
used in all the senses of both cunnus and matrix, while
fud is used for woman and womb. Otfrid uses eonkunne
of the bishop who is to have one wife. The peasants

1 The word generation itself in its varied meanings well illustrates the
several notions attached to the root. Compare Greek yevérwp, Latin genitor for
begetter, father.

VOL. II I

114 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

in the Middle Ages termed the priest’s concubines
pfaffenkunnen, ultimately corrupted into pfaffenkiihe ;
the change kiihe, kunne suggests another origin than cow
for English kine, the breeding females. Ayrer, in one of
his Fastnachtspiele, terms the sexton’s daughter, hirch-
ners kiinne, and kunne used for womb can hardly be other
than a variant of kone. We may note also A.S. haémed-
rif glossed nupta mulier, matrona, where rif is literally
womb, and the word haemed is glossed coitus. Thus the
primitive identification of the words for woman and for
her organ of sex is very widespread. ‘The kone is accord-
ingly the woman in respect of her power of giving birth.
Although outside the Scandinavian kone is only pre-
served in Teutonic dialects at the present day in our
English gueen as the head or female ruler on the one
hand, and in quean, a worthless woman or strumpet'
(A.S. hor-cwen, Shetland, hure-queyn) on the other, _
still these two fossils are in themselves highly sug-
gestive. They mark, in the first place, the predomi-
nance of the kone in primitive times, and, in the second
place, the freedom of her sexual relations. The primi-
tive name for woman has been retained for two senses
which specially mark her early status.

The corresponding Greek word is yuv7, but its Latin
equivalent has, according to some authorities, only been
preserved in the name of the goddess Venus. Thus
Venus is the woman par excellence. ‘To term a goddess
simply “ The Woman” is a peculiar feature of mother-
age mythology. . Thus Sanskrit gnd, Zend ghena, is the
goddess or divine woman. We may also notice the

1 Quenie, quean, queyn, is still used in a good sense.in Scotland, |

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 115

Greek xopn, the Maid, as a name for Persephoné, and the
Norse Frud, the Frau par excellence. Similar instances
can be readily collected from Teutonic and Celtic sources,
and they may, indeed, be paralleled by the use of the
expression, the Virgin, for the medizeval goddess Mary.
The senses woman, tribal-mother, queen, priestess, god-
dess, are all closely correlated in these primitive words,
and we see one almost growing out of the other. Venus
as the Latin form of yvv7 is strengthened by the Latin
venter, the womb, corresponding to a primitive Greek
form, yévrep, which actually occurs for yaornp, the belly
or womb. The like addition of a dental brings us from
the root kjn to a common Teutonic (German, Norse,
and English) term for the female organ of sex.

Passing now to what is brought forth, we have a long
series of Aryan words marking the relationship of the
womb, and many of the greatest interest. Thus we have
Greek yévos, Latin genus, Teutonic chint, chnuat, kint,
kind and kin,’ while knabe, knecht, and knight are prob-
ably also associated therewith. Anglo-Saxon gives us

1 I may specially note the phrase kith and kin. It might be supposed that
kith was mere repetition of kin. But I think the phrase has a deeper meaning.
Gothic, githus, O.H.G. quiti, quid, A.S. evithe, O.N. qvidr, denote the female
sex-organ and the womb ; Scotch kyte, the belly, and possibly Kittie, a strumpet,
may be cited. Gothic githwhaft, means pregnant. Thus kith and kin literally
denotes the womb and its fruit, the kone and the kunni, the woman and her
offspring, ¢.¢. the whole tribe. O.H.G. Cutti a flock as of sheep, stands to
kith much as kin to kwnne, probably it originally only denoted the product of
the quiti. In the same sense are to be noted 0.H.G. chizi or kida, O.E. kith,
English kid, and Bavarian kitze, female goat, standing in close relation to quiti
and kith. Possibly Gothic gaits, O.H.G. gaiz, O.N. gett, A.S. gdt, Eng. goat,
may have relation to gat (see later) as kid to githus. A quite parallel word is
A.S. teém for family, offspring, preserved in our English team, formerly of pro-
geny, now chiefly of horses. A.S. tymen, teman, Eng. teem, is to bring forth, to
be stocked or charged. O. Fries. tém, O.H.G. zoum, German zaun, is a staked
row, stockade, or fence. O.H.G. zeman, is to congregate, probably with the
same sexual notion as in gather and gat, treated of below.

116 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

eneos and cyn, gecynd (race, or generation), with the
noteworthy compounds, Gecynde-lum, womb, or lit. kin-
limb ; cyne-hlaford, prince, but originally without doubt
the kin-chief or elected leader of the group, the prototype
of the tribal-father ; cyne-lond, cynerice, cynepeod, king-
dom, but literally the kin-land, the common property of
the kin-group, which only later passed from the kin to the
king. O.H.G. gives us kunnz for kin, and O.N. kundr for
son and kund for daughter (see p. 118 ftn.) Konemdcis
one of the earliest words for blood relationship, but this is
primitively a relationship of thewomb, and kin and kinship
are given by kunnischaft, kunniling (neighbour), and kun-
nizala—all marking the woman as the first idea of any
relationship at all. In a sentence, the woman, in virtue
of her womb-right, is head of the kin, the queen or chief
of the household—a position of power, blood-relation, and
sex well illustrated in the use of the word queen in queen-
‘bee. If we try to find a male correlative to kone, we
are thrown back on kone-man, kon-ing, kining, kun-ing,
king, and king. The words convey no marital relation
to the kone, no sense of authority or power (not the ‘‘can-
man” of Carlyle!), but simply the conception of one
belonging or attached to the kone. The derivation of
king, konag is sometimes asserted to be the man of kin or
race. I would draw attention to the Norse kone (O.N.
qvon and qvdn) woman, and O.N. konr, chief, king,
relative, which occurs as well as the more familiar
forms konungr, kéngr, king. The O.H.G. spelling is
kuning or chuninck, as a rule, and of kone, generally
quena, but chone, chena, both occur. M.H.G. gives
us kon and kone for woman, wife, and generally kiinig

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 117

for king, but also koning and konig. The form kunne,
as in emkunne and pfaffenkunne, is to be noticed.
Even if kénig is to be deduced from kunni, and not
directly from kone, it must be noted that the king is
king in virtue of his being the son of the queen, z.e.
one of the kin, and not because he is a ‘man of race’
or of noble descent. The identity, indeed, of kunne,
the womb, and kunnz, kin, is illustrated by Arabic
batn for belly and kin, and rehem for womb and kin.
The affix -eng in a variety of O.H.G. words usually marks
“the son of.” Thus we have in the primitive idea of
king in all probability only the idea of the offspring of
the kone. The kuning derives his rights from the kone,
the king is evolved from the leader in war—the cyne-
hlaford—of the old kindred group. Only the patri-
archal age could unconsciously produce the kon-ing-inne,
kueniginne, kinigin as a correlative to the kénig. In
England our retention of the word queen has saved us
from this. Thus our first series of words depending on
the root kjn or gan* has led us to the conception of
the womb as the primitive source of relationship, to the
woman as queen and head of the kin, and to the king-
ship as derived from the queen. ‘The reader who will
ponder over this, will understand why kings are so
plentiful in fairy-tales, and why the normal road to a
kingdom is to marry a king’s daughter.

1 Some philologists have connected this root with Sanskrit gna, Latin genu,
A.S. cned, English, knee, and so with a root meaning knee. Compare Latin
nitor, which marks either kneeling or bearing. If this were true, it would
denote that the primitive Aryan woman knelt in giving birth. This posture
seems far from universal among savage women, and if it were, the act of giving
birth would probably receive a name as early as that of kneeling, and there would
be no more reason to derive the former from the later than vice versd.

118 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

As we shall see later, the idea of kinship is accom-
panied by the idea of the wonted, the usual, the known.
Thus és, usage, and é@vos, a relation, caste, tribe, are
not accidentally co-radicate ; Sanskrit svatu a kinsman,
and Germanic situ, sitte, are both connected with the
Aryan root svedhé, the usual, the known. Hence it
comes about that the root gen, kin also signifies to
know, even as in Genesis iv. 1—‘‘ And Adam knew Eve
his wife” ; we see the double sense, which belongs also to
Latin cognosco, Greek ywyvéokw. Nor are other illustra-
tions far to seek; A.S. knési, kindred, may be compared
with know itself; Greek yvwrds is a friend, kinsman,
brother, and the known; Sanskrit gndti is relative,
but gndtdé, recognition, perception. Thus from the
familiarity of the kin arose the conception of the
wonted, the known,! and this was the basis of Gothic
kunsps, the known (kunt, kindred), and so ultimately
of modern German kunst, art.

(2) The next word which I believe to be associated
with the kindle notion is braut, bride. Deecke connects
it with a supposed Sanskrit root, b’rud, to veil. There
is no known instance of this root occurring, and I
believe that the notion of veiling has arisen from an
attempt to make the idea in brde correspond with that
in the Latin nuberve. There is no Teutonic parallel to
this supposed root meaning veil, and I am inclined to
doubt whether in the earliest Aryan period there would
be enough clothing to spare for the luxury of veils.
Grimm and Bopp connect braut with Sanskrit praudha,
a past participle of pravah, to lead away. Thus the

1 Compare Swabian kunt, kund for lover and kundeln for liebeshandeln ; das
kunta stands for the cattle.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 119

bride is the one led away, 2.e. to the house of the bride-
groom. Here, again, the patriarchal notion of early
society is at the bottom of the interpretation, and we
reach our conception of primitive Teutonic society by
working in a circle. Why, too, should we go to a
Sanskrit root, with apparently no Teutonic parallel, to
explain a purely Teutonic word? In Gothic the word
is brups, A.S. brid, O.H.G. prit, M.H.G. brét, and in
modern Norwegian Landsmaal, bruv, in which it is to
be noted the characteristic dental does not appear (com-
pare also the Plattdeutsch briimen for bridegroom). In
O.H.G. the meaning of the word was rather wide, thus,
young wife, bride (before loss of virginity), daughter-
in-law, geliebte, concubine,and occasionally for any young
girl. Phaffenbrit is a priest’s concubine; wdnbrut, a
woman mistaken for a virgin; windesprdat, the whirlwind,
looked upon as a goddess ; bréitswnu is ninth-century Ger-
man for Christ, the Virgin’s son. On the whole, the
evidence seems to point to the initial sense as that of a
young woman, who may or may not have borne children.

It seems to me that Fick has come nearer to the
mark than the above authorities in connecting bride
with the root of the Greek Bpvw, to be full, or bursting ;
M.H.G. briezen, bréz, swell, bud. He mentions Fruti
as a name for Venus, and I suppose we may add Latin
Srutex, that which bursts out or sprouts, a shrub. The
root of braut would thus be the same as that of O.H.G.
priten and English breed ; the outcome of the bruotan,
briten, is the brood, A.S. brod. In M.H.G. briuten
and brivte are the verb and noun for the sexual act.
In modern Low German a term of vulgar abuse is

120 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

briihen, bruen, briiden, which again connects the
brewing and breeding ideas, e.g. Gehey dich nur hin
und briihe dene Mutter! Or again, Lat mi ungebriit !
This is close, I think, to the real root of braut. In
M.H.G. we find:

Gezieret und gekleidet wol,
Als man ze briuten tuon sol,’
Minnedurst.—Von der Hagen, Abenteuer, iii. 99.

That is, “‘ to come well bedecked as befits a wedding.”
A.S. brittan denotes pounding, bruising; while
braedan is either to breed or to warm. O.H.G. bruotan
has the same two meanings (cf. Latin fovere and fovea,
to warm and the womb). A.S. brid, English bird, is
the thing bred, warmed, or hatched. ‘Thus the ultimate
notion is again that of the fire-sticks, or of kindling.
Graff connects bruotan with a root bar, Sanskrit bhr,
bhar, Greek dep, and Latin fer,’ as in fertile. From
this very root he also deduces bhrdtr, frater, bruoder,
brurer, and brother.2 So that the fundamental con-
ception of brother would be the one who causes to bear,
the male as breeder. The notion in brut of breed,
incubate, leads to the word having a variety of uses.
It is progenies, fetus, but is also used of either breeding
male or female, as in brutbiene, for drone, and brut-
henne, for brood-hen. The peasant in Ein Vasnachtspil
vom Dreck terms himself ein pruoter, a brooder or

1 Possibly the notion also in Latin veretrum=feretrwm.

* Ido not think the notion of brother, as parents’ son, existed before the
Aryan scatter. The Greeks use dde\gpés, the co-uterine one, and, like frater in
Latin, this term is used for sister’s children, and indeed for kinsmen by the
womb in general. @pdrpa has a far wider significance than sons of the same
parents,

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP I2I

breeder, rhyming it with muter. The Slavonic brati,
Old Irish brith, for birth, may also be noted. I take it
that the Aryan roots bhara, bear, carry, and bhero,
bear, are ultimately the same. From the former we
have Sanskrit bhartri, mother, child-bearer, and also
bhdrtar, master, spouse, to be compared with Latin
fertor; from the latter brati, brith, and birth. Even
with the same notion | should ultimately connect brheya,
rub, pound, as in Latin friare, A.S. briv, O.H.G. brio,
modern German brez, the fundamental notion in all
cases being the result of the primitive mill, the pound-
ing and the swelling or fermenting of the bruised grain
under the influence of water, the brewing. I take it,
accordingly, that there is no ultumate radical difference
between Sanskrit bhartar, spouse, and bhrdtar, brother,
between Latin fertor and frater, or indeed between
English breeder and brother.

If we find in both bride and brother the same
notion of kindle and breed, we are led back to these
words (Landsmaal, brur and brurer) as correlatives,
and we see that so far from brother originally connoting
the legal protector of the sister, he is in reality her
spouse. We are brought indeed back to that primitive
social system—so amply evidenced by archaic myth-
ology—in which brother-sister or kin-group marriage
was the normal relationship.

This view is to a great extent confirmed by the
fact that the words for both brother and sister are in
early use, and also in modern dialects, used indifferently
for both sexes. Thus schwester, sister, does not seem
in any way correlated to bruder, brother. Geswéster,

122 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

geswester, soskende, systkin, are those who are suds to-
gether—that is, familiar or hevmlich together, and much
in the same sense originally as to become hevmlich is to
pair. Swdsman is O.8. for brother, swdseline Middle
Dutch for relative, and swdsenede for female friend ;
beswas is M.L-G. for related, and swesbedde Friesian
for incest.. Similarly, we may find the same primitive
idea involving both sexes in bar. Sanscrit b’artar is
spouse and nourisher, b’ratardu denotes brother and
sister, brethren of both sexes. Greek ¢pdrpa, kinship,
marks closely the old kin-group, but also a common
meal, a cvoctrov: and I believe that the annual festival
of the Apaturia,? or gathering of the clan, preceded
immediately by the Chalceia or feast of the goddess
Athene, was a fossil of the old kin sex-festival and
the worship of the goddess of fertility.? Doubtless it
was primitively associated with the same intermingling
of kin. Indeed, the root of brother and bride carries
us back to the stage of civilisation which left its fossils
in Iris, sister and wife of Osiris; Freya, sister and wife

1 Compare the Latin sweo to be accustomed, to be wont, and the sexual mean-
ing of consuesco and consuetio. Bopp would deduce sister, svasr, from sva, own,
private, and stér=stri=woman. This str¢ he takes to be a degenerate form of
sitrt and sdtar, from sé, to bring forth, bear, so that sister would stand for
sva-sitar, a man’s own or special child-bearer.

2 There was an enrolling of the new members of the ¢pdrpa—I expect
originally a matriculation (see footnote, p. 203)—there was a torch procession
and a meeting for judicial business—in fact, all the features, as we shall find
later, of the typical sex-festival.

* The record of virgin goddesses is much like that of many early female
saints, the farther we carry it back the more the ascetic character disappears ;
they become agamic rather than virgin. It was a later age which laid patri-
archal stress on virginity, and converted the original pangamic character of
these goddesses, exemplified in the doings of Demeter, into the virgin strength
of Athene or Artemis. The original type is the mother-goddess of fertility,
modelled on the agamic, but certainly not virgin, woman of the mother-age.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 123

of Freyr; Demeter and Hera, sisters and intimates of
Zeus—in fact, it brings us face to face with shadows
of what were once typical goddesses of the mother-age.
(3) The second idea of the sexual relationship to
which we now pass is associated more directly with the
very primitive custom of pounding food in the primitive
mill—a pestle and mortar. Even here the idea appears
not to be unassociated with the rubbing or bruising
idea involved in kindling with fire-sticks. The bald
sexual notion occurs in trudere, in the term ram for male
sheep and in Swabian rammeln. The root, however, to
which I would draw special attention is the Teutonic
hi, hij, how, or, with a guttural attached, hijg and heg.
Other Aryan forms of this word are Sanskrit skz, ksz,
thus ks‘is is a dwelling, k’sitzs is a house, and the place
of residence ksd. The root ksz’ denotes to hew, thrust,
delve, ram, and so is applied to any agricultural operation.
To break up the land is, however, to take possession of it,
and so the root rapidly takes the significance of owning
and ruling. The cognate Latin is civis, a citizen, and
all the words involving city and civil must be traced
back to the same origin. The civis was, there is small
doubt, originally a member of the primitive kin-group
or civitas, from which all social or civil rights arose.
Taking ram as the primitive meaning of hi, we have it
primitively used (i.) for words of sex, (ii.) for tilling the
land, (iii.) for driving in stakes, and so founding a
dwelling. These three meanings, even in early Teutonic
words, pass one into the other and stand as synonyms.
The goddess of love, or, perhaps better, of fecundity, is
the goddess of agriculture and also of the hearth. The

124 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

tilth is used as symbol of sexual reproduction,’ and to
found a home becomes equivalent to marrying. No
root, indeed, furnishes us with so many fossils of primi-
tive Teutonic society as hi or heg.?

In Gothic the root only appears as hewan or haw
in the compound hewafrauwa, the hausherr, or master
of the home, but in Anglo-Saxon and German the
cognate words are very numerous. In mentioning some
of them I should ask the reader to bear in mind the
triple significance of the root, and further the picture
I have sketched of the primitive group, and its gradual
transition from kindred marriage to patriarchal customs
with the assumption of supreme power by the tribal
chief ; this assumption ultimately denoting the subjection
of the females and younger males of the group. We
have to watch the root passing from a purely sexual
use to that connoting permanent family relations.

First in German. In O.H.G. haan denotes rather
cowre than nubere, and this sense is preserved in L.G.
higet uns den hund as a phrase of coarse abuse. In the
seventeenth century mdgdeheyer was used for seducer,
and a good deal of history is conveyed in the colloquial
Lasz mich ungeheit, “don’t bother me,” common in several
parts of Germany,—a phrase fitting only in Frauen-
mund, and the origin of which is now quite forgotten.®

' Notice, for example, Greek yins, dpovpa, for arable land, woman, and womb ;
apsw, plough, beget ; &doé, furrow, womb, wife ; and dporos, tillage, the legal
term for begetting children in matrimony. See Appendix III.

2 It is noteworthy that all that Robertson Smith tells us, in Kinship and
Marriage among the Arabians, of the Hayy, or kindred group, would apply to
the Teutonic Hiwa. Even Eve, interpreted as Hawwa, a mere variation of
Hayy, appears as the great mother, the kone at the head of the kin-group.

3 Hijgaten remained later in the original sense in Bavarian dialect, and is
glossed perforare.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 125

The following are a selection of O.H.G. glosses:
hiwen =cotre; hifuoga=procuress; hiwelich (M.L.G.
hiwelek, Dutch huwelak) = coitus, concubitus ; kehiginnis
lust = delectatio carnis; kehigenden = coeuntes; ungehite

=eunuchi; gehiton ze vro tohteron is the “went in unto
their daughters” of the Bible; hitdt=opus gignend: ;
hiunka = contubernium, concubinage, or living in a hive,
tent, or dwelling together. All these and others denote
the purely sexual relationship, without a trace of the later
permanent marital and domestic relationship. These
words demonstrate, in fact, the promiscuity of the inter-
course out of which the family in our modern sense arose.

Turning to another series of O.H.G. meanings we
find: higot, the god of sex; himdchari, as a gloss to
Hymenaeus; hisaz, a plot of ground, originally the
site of the hive or old family group; hiberg, the hill-
top on which the group met for its great sex-festivals, and
then keliten = conjuges; ze gehienne=uxorem ducere ;
ungehiwat =innuptus; hibar, hibarig=nubilis, rezf,
still retained in Dutch huwbaer, and huwen in the sense
of hien. We find hiwo and hiwa for male and female
conjuges, spouses; and thiw hihun is used in tenth-
century German for the bridal folk at the marriage in
Canaan. Compare Lett. séwa, a wife, and Sanskrit ¢éva,
intimate. Thus we see the merely sexual meaning of
the root extended to more permanent marriage rela-
tions. It is then further extended to any members of
the household; hiwa, at first spouse, becomes female
servant, and is to be compared with A.S. wifhegn, who
is not only a female servant, but a person of loose habits.
In M.H.G. hiwe, hie is not only used for a knecht, but

126 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

for a spouse, or indeed any member of the household ;
while L.G. hie, hige, here, hienman, higeman denote
hausgenoss, hériger, or serf.’

Friesian words related to hi are heia, the whole
family group, the household, and then a crowd; hevve,
servant or domestic; hine, equivalent to English hind;
hyneghe, family ; hionen, members of household ; hyske,
for marriage, family, and household. In Anglo-Saxon
we have sinhiv, a ‘ hiving’ together and hence marriage ;
hivred, family, but also armed band and meeting of
council, a triple meaning quite intelligible if we re-
member the kin as the primitive unit of domestic,
military, and civil organisation. Sivraedene is glossed
with familia and domus. Hivredgerifa, the reeve of
the hivred, is used to gloss the Latin consul, and marks
the growth of kin-headship into tribal leadership. Hiv-
scipe is the family or stock; hivung, marriage ; hiva is
glossed domesticus; hiwunga, the total household ;
hiwa, the family; hiawan, familiares,—marking the
transition of the younger members of the group to the
serving class; and hiwiski is the house and household.
Only one word appears to have survived to modern
English from the Anglo-Saxon, but that is perhaps the
most interesting fossil of all, namely have from hiwa, a
family. But how different from the group we term a

1 ‘We see almost the same series of meanings attaching themselves to words .
related to familia,—sexual relationship, comradeship, domestic service, serfdom.
The cognate faama, said to be Oscan for house, may be compared with heim.
Note the Bavarian éhalt glossed legitimus for hausgenoss, servant, éhaft, the com-
munity, éhaltin, wife, die éhalten, the family, from é. Almost the same series of
meanings attach to Greek xowds, which is ultimately one of the hé series. It
marks common property, the community or state, 7d kowév: Kowol, Kowal stand
for a kindred-group, especially of brothers and sisters ; xoués is also the agreeable,
pleasant ; xowdw and xowwvéw are both used of sexual intercourse; Kolywua,
cowwviaarecommunion, intercourse, community, but especially in the sexual sense.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 127

family now! Still the hive with the tribal mother and
its communistic organisation is by no means an in-
accurate representation of the old kin-group and the
ideas with which hiwa was originally associated.” A
further series of Anglo-Saxon words connected with i are
derived from haémed. Thus haeman is hiwen ; haémed-
ding and haémed, coitio; and haémend, adulterer. Yet
just as in O.H.G. hawen, the original notion is extended
to permanent relations of sex. Haémdo stands for nup-
tials; haémedgemana is matrimonium, while haémedrif
and haémedceorl are wife and husband,—meanings very
far from the literal senses of these words.

We may pass by a whole series of Scandinavian
words, of which Landsmaal hjon for spouse and hjuna,
to pair, are types, to note that hig seems to have been
used for young of all sorts. Thus A.S. lig is young
grass. Sig seems to be more nearly connected with
higen, produce, than with A.S. héawan, hew, chop. Com-
pare the Latin fenwm, having the root fe of fecundus
and fetus. Thus hig as produce of mother-earth is from
its sense related to higen, as kin to keomen and team to
tyman. It is probable that hig, as produce, is left in
A.S. igo and higum for family and domestics.

The addition of the guttural to the root hi gives us heg,
and hag, I believe with the primitive sexual sense of ram;
but it is also used of driving in stakes, and so making a
fence or hedge. The presence or absence of the guttural

i; 1 [think Skeat has too hastily disconnected hive and hiw on account of A.S.
hfe. Notice the L.G. honerhive for a hen’s brooding place. The same changes
occur in A.S. hise for hyse, a youth, and in aéfre for dwa, ever. Compare also
the use of plebs for hive; but the plebs werealso the non-patrician masses who
knew not their male descent.

128 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

does not seem material." Thus O.H.G. hagjan appears
with variations haven, hayen, and haigen approaching
the modern hegen, to hedge round, fence in, protect, or
cherish. This leads us to the third meaning of the root
hi. Inthe Latin of the medizeval law-books haga, haza,
hao is castella, villa, that which was hedged in, the old
oroup-dwelling. A.S. heos is house. /Zuey is tramp’s
slang for a village. Many place-names show hag and
hagen. Hai, gehar in Bavaria denote a dam or fence of
stakes ; hz, hein Norway denote the winter and breeding
quarters of the bears; der hai is the watcher, the
Merker or custodian of the forest under the mark-system.
Hagen, gehag, and hain” are places planted or palisaded
in (hag in Bavaria is now widely used for stall); and
from the same idea* arises Friesian ham, hem; Eng-
lish ham, home; German heim, and Gothic hams, a
village. I take it that the notion of lying is not the
primitive sense of Ai, but the hedged in or fenced lair,
which becomes the lying place. Accordingly I should
not look to Sanskrit ¢z and Greek xetuas, to lie down,
as giving the primitive value. Whether, indeed, we
are to consider haga and haia as arising from two
different roots, the one denoting to fence, and the other
to lie, is perhaps not of great importance for our
present purpose. What, however, is pretty clear is

that the gehag was the hewm of a group with very

1 Compare A.S. diegan, M.E. liggen, English lie, German diegan, and English
lay. Then A.S. lagu, Danish /ov, and English daw, ete.

* Hain is not only the enclosure sacred to a goddess. In hayngarten gehen,
to make oneself intimate in a sexual sense, we seem to see the sacred yard used
as a sexual rendezvous, the seat of the sex-festival. See Appendix I.

® Other words for home express the same idea. Thus in the Asegabuch,
liodgarda is used of the family hearth, garda being the fenced place, the garden, :
i.e. the hag of ‘ unser Liet.’

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 129

unpatriarchal sex notions. The hag, hac, A.S. haege,
haga; English haw, and Scottish haugh, a staked
inclosure or hedged-in place, gave its name to its
occupants. Thus we have the hitherto obscure word
hagestolz, at present meaning a confirmed old bachelor.
Its earlier forms are O.H.G. hagastalt, A.S8. hdgsteald, the
stalt of the hag. Its primitive meaning is, I think, clearly
indicated by the early glosses mercenarius, famulus,
while in Anglo-Saxon it denotes the man who has not his
own household. (Compare the Scotch hagasted, of one —
familiar with a place.) It is precisely equivalent to the
heve and hienman, the member of the hive. Havstaldz is.
glossed agricolae libri, and we see in the hagestalt, the
fighter, the servant, and the agriculturist of the primi-
tive hag group. But how came the word to be used for
old bachelor? In the Rheinpfalz it had the meaning of
childless man, whether married or not; in other parts of
Germany it was used for the bastard or fatherless man—
both are equally significant indications of the primitive
sense. The haistaldi were a class who knew not their
fathers, and this because the hive had the custom of
group-marriage and knew only womb-kinship. As the
patriarchate developed, and men began to possess in-
dividual children by the capture or purchase of wives—
as the patricians became the dominant power,—those
men who still lived under the old group-marriage system,
and had no special children among the progeny of the
hag, were looked upon as childless, even as they were
held to be fatherless and wifeless from the standpoint
of patriarchal man. Thus, as the old kin-group dis-
appeared before the new civilisation, the word hagestalt
VOL. II : K

130 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

became unintelligible, the ideas of wifeless, childless, and
fatherless vaguely remaining associated with it, and
ultimately they crystallised out into the conception of
confirmed old bachelor. Celibates are unknown, how-
ever, in primitive society. How many ‘spinsters’
were virgins even in 1200? How many words for
celibates (caelebs,' virgo, spinster, bachelor, hagestalt,
rapbévos, etc.) can be traced to a primitive root bearing
the sense of unwed? They are either late introductions,
or their first senses are lost in the obscurity of a primi-
tive social order not yet reconstructed by philologists.

If hagastalt was the name for the male dweller in
the hag, we have a still more suggestive one for the
female. This is the O.H.G. hagazusa, hagezissa, con-
tracted to hdzus and hdzusa, M.H.G. hagetisse, A.S.
hiigtesse, haegesse, hdgtis, Swiss hagsch, and English hag.
The haegesse is the woman of the hag; she is the woman ~
of the old civilisation, the priestess of its faith, and the
mistress of its ancient wisdom. Traces of her were found ~
by the early Christian missionaries, and her choral festi-
vals, sex-feasts, and strange sacrifices seemed to them
very devilish; but this is a point on which I have
enlarged elsewhere.” With regard to the derivation sug-
gested for hexe, or rather for its earlier forms hagezissa,
hagetissa, | must mention that Weigand first associated
it with the root hag, and interpreted it to mean woman
of the woods. ‘The earlier derivation from O.N. hag,
A.S. hég, skilful, wise, had already been objected to by

1 Cae-lebs is Slavonic s¢-logu, the bed-fellow, the male unit of the old group-
marriage, exactly like hagestalt /

2 See Essays X. and XII. The tenth to eleventh century translator of
Martinus Capella uses hazessa for the women who eat by night.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 131

Jakob Grimm, on the ground that an old German equi-
valent root is entirely wanting, and that the Norse
itself makes no noun hagr for a wise person.! Grimm
himself suggests hagedissa, a lizard, as a possible con-
nection, because the lizard is a magical animal; but if
there be any relation, I should expect it would be of
the inverse kind. As to the meaning of the second
part of the word, zussa, zissa, tisse, nothing absolutely —
definite can be stated. There is evidence, however, for a
Teutonic goddess, Zisa or Tisa (J. Grimm, Mythologie,
i. p. 248), and it is possible that, as in the case of Frud,
we have here only an old word for woman. Zss is still
used of a female cat. We may compare it with O.H.G.
Itis or Idis for woman, which J. Grimm (Grammatzvk, i.
p. 189) connects with Finnish sé, father, Gothic atta,
father, Finnish datz, mother, and Gothic azPez, mother.
The woman of the hag would be simply hagitis, which
agrees well with the Dutch and Saxon forms, if not so
well with the O.H.G. hagazussa. Curtius connects
adis with a root ath or anth, having the meaning of
budding or bursting. Hence he derives Greek avOos and
av0éw, and probably *A@jvn, who would thus be the
pregnant one, the mother-goddess of fertility ;* for the
maiden-goddess in her early form was like the primitive
types of all virgin-goddesses, only a maid in that she
had no definite husband. The same root probably

appears in Uote and Ada, frequent names for the

1 I should not be surprised if Landsmaal hag denoting the fit and con-
venient, the orderly, be not the primitive sense of hag and hég. In this case it
is parallel with a long series of words to be noted later, which associate comfort
and security with kin, and with the kin home, the hag.

2 For the less reputable side of Athene see Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht,
s. 54.

132 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

queen or tribal mother in the heroic age; also in Hdda,
the house-mother, with which M.H.G. ezde, a mother,
may be compared. Wackernagel even suggests a
possible relation to Sanskrit wdara and Latin uterus,
the womb ( Wérterbuch, p. 324), so that the value of
the root would then carry us back to the kin or gan
conception of woman.

(4) It will be seen that the Ai or heg stratum of
fossils has led us to reconstruct a social system very dif-
ferent from the patriarchal, and we can strengthen this
conception by two most interesting words which I have
reserved to the last. These are O.H.G. hilech and hirdt.
I have already pointed out the part which the old common
meal, the common talk or council, and the choral dance
accompanying the sex-festival played in the old group
life. Tacitus tells us that the Germans of his day met
to take a clan meal, to settle clan business—.e. for the ~
clan council—and to arrange marriages. He also tells
us of the dances of the same tribes. He did not grasp
the real meaning of this combination of offices; it was
merely a reflex of the old group life which I have
endeavoured to illustrate to the reader, and which finds
strong confirmation in hilech and hirdt.

Leich is a choral song, but one which Weinhold tells
us was in the oldest German period invariably accom-
panied by dancing. Hileih is, then, the choral dance
which preceded or accompanied the hyen or sex-festival.
Ulfilas uses lackan for the Greek oxiprdw, which our
Bible translators render by ‘leap for joy.’ In the case
of the Prodigal Son, Ulfilas puts lavkins for yopév, a per-
fect equivalent from the standpoint of the sex-festival.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 133

A.S. lde is ludus and sacrificcwm ; Old French Jai, Eng-
lish lay may be noted. Old Slavonic liku, O.N. leikr
for game, dance, are also to the point. In Landsmaal leck
is still a game with rapid motion, a violent dance ; leckvoll
is the dancing place; leckestova,a dancing-room ; leikfugl
is a bird at pairing time ; and lezke is used for the gambols
of birds at pairing time. But in M.H.G. hélech simply
means marriage. Thus a word for patriarchal marriage
takes its name from the old group custom. It is
reflected in the modern English wedding dance, but
much more strongly in the more or less obscene dances
occurring among the German peasantry at weddings and
at Kurmes, May-day, and other periodic festivals. The
choral wedding song is found in most Aryan races. We
may note the Greek éi@addpios, Swedish bridsdng,
O0.H.G. briitisang, A.S. brijdsang and brijdleod.? In
this respect also we must compare the /élezh with the
mysterious winileod, the cantica diabolica, or ribald
songs sung by German maidens at periodical feasts at
or even inside the early Christian churches. In the
Fivelingoér Landregt, an old Friesian law-book of
which the existing MS. is early fourteenth-century, we
are told that the Friesian bride is to be brought to her
bridegroom with winnasonge.® A more direct link
between the patriarchal bridal ceremony and the old
sroup habits it is difficult to imagine. What, however,

1 T hope later to publish an essay on peasant festivals, and show their
relation to the old kin-group customs.

2 The term Frauentanz also deserves notice ; it was used by the Minnesinger,
eon ps dance, but for a particular form of song, probably originally a choral

’ Edition Hatterna, p. 44. A translation of the whole passage is given in
the Essay on ‘‘ Woman as Witch,” p. 17.

134 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

does wint denote? Winz is a root much like gumah,
with which I shall deal later. It is glossed amicus,
sodalis, dilectus, while winid is rendered by dzlecta,
marita, conjux; winiscaf is foedus, amor (Sanskrit
vdma is dear, precious, health, and wealth). Thus we
have the notion of the friend, the table-comrade, the
spouse,—in short, the male or female member of the
cosexual group. The original kinship of the members is
shown in Old Irish fine, blood relative. What is wind
is friendly, winsome, and what is wunwine is unfriendly ;
just as what is of the kin is kind, and what is not of it
is unkind, or what is of the hag is haglig, fitting, and
behaglich, comfortable and pleasant. It is the kin and
kin-home as the standard of comfort and right, much as
the child’s standard to-day is that of home comfort and
family habit.2 To make the wina series complete, we
may note Fick’s supposed cognates: Greek edvy, a lair,
a couch, a bridal bed; O.H.G. gawona, dwell, and Ger-
man wohnung, a house; Sk. vdnas, lust; O.N. vinna,
German gewinnen, English win, O.H.G. wan, wonne, ete.

Nor is it only in the ideas of kindness and comfort
that we find the primitively sexual link developing
into new social qualities. No root, for example, is
originally of more purely sexual weight than Aryan
gan, Latin gen. But besides a whole terminology for
begetting, child-bearing, parentage, and kinship, we find

1 There is a similar idea in the short At form of the root, thus O.N. hyrv,
soft, gentle; A.S. hedre, O.H.G. hiuri, in the compounds wnhiuri, M.H.G. gehiure,
and German gehewer and ungehewer, for the reverse of comfort. Slavonic
po-sivu is benign ; Sanskrit st is peace, rest, comfort ; Icelandic hyra, joyous-
looking ; while Landsmaal hyra and uhyra stand for good and bad fortune.

2 Compare the Greek ofkos, house, home, family; olxevérns, intimacy,
matriage ; olxetos, fitting, suitable ; and olxelwua, appropriateness, etc.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 135

genalis, nuptial, appertaining to procreation ; and then,
as a result of the association of this fundamental
appetite with pleasure, we have later the significance
joyous, delightful, pleasant, and ultimately our own
genial, with no sexual weight at all! Similarly
genialitas is primarily the sexual feast, but ultimately
it is joviality, geniality in its most asexual and puri-
fied form, as free from the notion of procreation as
kindliness is from the primitive sense of kindle. Then
we have genius, originally for sexual appetite and fond-
ness for good living (7c. the group-meal), passing
through the stages:of taste and genial inclination, wit,
and character, to be purified as talent. Nor does the
range of ideas springing from gen stop here. Generosus
means originally one of birth, probably of known birth,
who could be enrolled in the Fratria, hence one of good
or noble birth, and so to excellency or nobility in the
higher sense; it ultimately reaches in generosity a
social quality free from any sexual atmosphere. Com-
pare O.H.G cétkunni for. guotkunnt, glossed generositas.
Nay, even nobility itself carries us back to Latin nobilis,
or gnobilis, the known or familiar, and gvo is but another
form of gan; the known or familiar are the cosexual
kin-group, the cognati and the cogniti are ultimately
the same people, and gnosco stands to genus as kennen
and kunst to kind, knabe, and kin.

The limitation of my evidence to word-fossils does
not allow me to enter into the great amount of material
which folklore provides concerning the old choral sex-
dances; they find their prototype, however, among
nearly all primitive peoples. One word, however, may
be referred to here as an illustration. Whatis a comedy ?

136 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

I venture to assert that originally the comedy was a
winileod —a choral dance at a sex-festival, a hilevh.
It denotes the ode of the xdpos, but Greek xadpos
signifies a revel, a festal procession. We are told that
at these festivals, which took place on fixed days, the
party ‘paraded the streets, crowned, bearing torches,
singing, dancing, and playing all kinds of frolics,”—such
words stand almost as a translation of the Landregt
description of how the Friesian bride is to be brought
home. In the Alcestis of Euripides (ll. 915 et seq.) the
x@pos is directly associated with the bridal torches and
hymns. The «duos songs were of a phallic or ribald char-
acter, and the name «aos stands not only for the festival,
but for the band of revellers,’ whether male or female—
they are the chorus. But it is singular that a cognate
word c@un means village, and the relation is too strong to
be passed over. It becomes quite intelligible, however, if
we see in the primitive village the hava or home of the
kin-group, in the cduos the hive or band of kin at the
sex-festival, and in the comedy the hileh or song of the
hive. ven the root of «opm is closely related to that
of home, and so to the hi series. We may note xe/w and
ketwat, to lie, coud, to lie down and also to still, and
xoitn, a lair, nest, couch, and especially the marriage bed.
Thus it will be seen that such a refined idea as that of
comedy carries us back to primitive civilisation with its
kin sex-festivals, and that hilezh and comedy are of one
and the same origin.”

1 Compare the way in which cuurdo.oy gets used of a feast, the party at the .
feast, and the place at which the feast is held.

? As comedy, so tragedy comes down to us from the old mother-age worship,

The dancing round the Bock (rpdyos) at the harvest festival, the choral song of
men and women, the collection of money or food for a common meal, are features

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 137

If we turn to Aérdt, we find in it either the council
of the hiwa, the family group, or the kin-talk which
took place at the haen festival. It is not an unnatural
evolution that in patriarchal days the arrangement of
marriages should have come to take place, as Tacitus
tells us, at the kin-meeting, at the meal which in still
more primitive times preceded the sex-festival. Another
name for the old kin-talk, not, however, used like hesrath
for matrimony, was hagespraka. I have found it used
for the annual assembly for judicial purposes of the
Markgenossen — an assembly, be it noted, always
accompanied by a convivial meal.

While hirdt has come to mean marriage in German,
the cognate Anglo-Saxon hired denotes the family and
not the marriage. We have, in fact, the tribe-talk or
council used on the one hand to denote the sexual rela-
tions of the group, and on the other the group itself.
Hiredsmoder is materfamilias, and might, perhaps, be
pressed to show the position of the kin or tribe mother
in council. On the other hand, paterfamilias is rendered
by hiredesealder, the family alderman, as well as by
hiredesfaeder, and probably the use indicates a transi-

of folklore from north to south of the Germanic lands. The sacrifice of a real
goat, gaily bedecked with flowers and ribbons, occurs in Dauphiné, and here, be
it noted, the woman has to hold the goat while it is killed. In Miinsterthal on
Fastnacht the women used to lead round the streets a gaily-bedecked goat, and
carried also wine for a feast. No man before nightfall might be seen even at the
windows (Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, ii. s. 184). Fastnacht falls generally
within the Weibermonat. When we notice also the important part played by
the goat inthe Hexenmahl and its ceremonies, we recognise tpaywdla, ‘ the goat-
song,’ to be only a variant of the hileth.

1 The association of the hag and the mark is very close, and I hope to return
to it. Haaggeld was the fee paid to a lord or chief for protection of a fenced
farm, and haghenne, a similar tribute, paid, be it observed, on Walpurgistag,
the day of the old sex-festival.

138 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

tion from the tribal chief, or ‘ alderman of the kin,’ to
the patriarch. In concluding this part of our subject, I
may stay to remark that if we put on one side words
for marriage which are of patriarchal manufacture
(e.g. brautkauf, ehe (*), veddjan, wedding, conjuguum,
coemptio, Norse and Anglo-Saxon gift, giftung, English
spousals, giwing away, German mitgift, etc.), we find
that the remainder are chiefly deduced from the old
kindred group customs, thus from the common meal
(vermihlung, confarreatio), the choral dance (hileh,
iunv, hymen"), and the kin council (Aéirdt). In these
customs we find the prototype of most Aryan wedding
ceremonies.”

(5) We must now pass to a series of roots for kin-
ship, emphasising still more strongly the endogamous
character of the primitive kin-group.

The next general root for sex relationship which we
will take is mag or mah, and this is simply the root of
our English make. I shall give reasons later for sup-
posing the mother to have been looked upon in primi-
tive times as the maker of life,* and the mould in which
she cast it was the magen (A.S. maga), the belly or
womb. A long series of words marks the relationship
of the magen or womb, or at any rate denote what is
moulded or formed there. Médc, mak, mdg, mach, and

1 Hymen is originally nothing more than the hymn or song, the winileod.

? I take contwberniwm, consortium to be essentially fossils of the mother-age
civilisation. ‘ydmos is also interesting ; its root, as in yauéw, may denote mere
sexual relations, and it is used itself both for the marriage and the feast before it.

3 Kindermachen=roveiv raida, to bear children, was originally used of the
mother in a perfectly refined sense, e.g. ‘‘in dieser nechst vergangen nacht, hat
mich mein mutter erst gemacht.” Then later machen like roveiy is used of the
father. In medieval German it is used chiefly of the mother for children born
out of wedlock—this in itself is suggestive.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 139

méh are used in O.H.G. for all parallel blood relationship,
and stand to magen as kin to kone. The plural magon
is very early glossed cognatz, relatives by birth, or from
the womb.

In Gothic magus is son, child, servant, maw and
magaps,maid. Mégs (= mdga) is curiously a daughter's
husband, quite intelligible if the son be the daughter’s
husband, as in the kin-group, but otherwise difficult of in-
terpretation. Akin to it is the Swedish mdgr for son-in-
law. Both are deduced from O.N. mdgr, denoting blood
relative. O.N. has also mégr for boy. In A.S. we have
maeg for kinsman ; maege for kinswoman, female cousin ;
gemagas, glossed consanguiner, and maegs for kinship.
Maeges in A.S. is of special interest ; we find it denoting
maiden, kin, family, tribe, people, province, nation.
Thus we see the gradual expansion of the mdc with the
growth of a patriarchal civilisation. O.F. mach, child
as in tha moder and thet mach, must be compared with
méch, gdméch, in the same dialect, for gaugenossen,
members of the same mark ; it is a step in the identifica-
tion of the primitive mark with a kin-group. 0O.H.G.
gives us mdcshaft for kinship; gemdgeda for relation-
ship, family ; mdgiu, relative, cousin—z.e. all the chil-
dren of the kin-group ;* magidz for servants—precisely
as hiwe is related to the hawa or hive. Finally, we may
note M.H.G. maget, magad, mait, German mddchen,
and English maid.

So far we have seen only the origin of a number of
kin words in the magen, or make, idea. This is quite
parallel to calling the child the born one, as in bawrn

1 Magiu is glossed cosina, even in medieval Bavarian dialect.

140 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

and barn (Danish ber, the womb, and bern, children *),
but there are other ideas in mdc which we must now
follow up. Besides denoting blood relationship, it
denotes sexual relationship. Thus in O.F. mec stands
for verlobung, meker for wooer, mec-bref for contract of
marriage, metrika for verlobte, which latter may better
be compared with Sanskrit mdtrka for mother, nurse, and
womb. In A.S. maca is glossed par, socius, consors,
conjuc, and in O.N. makz is glossed par, aequalis, con-
juz. Swedish gives us make, a mate or equal, maka, a
spouse, mate; O.D. maet, and Eng. mate, all closely
related to A.S. maeges, and even English maid. In
other words, terms which denote collateral kinship are
identified with sexual comradeship. ‘They are, in fact,
excellently glossed by the Latin consors, which, I take
it, was itself a term for the group consort. These
are evidently fossils of the most suggestive kind, for
they carry us back to kin-marriage, at least cousin-
marriage, if not brother-sister marriage. The AS.
maeghaemed, the hevrath of the mdc, was probably in
olden times no term of reproach. Endogamy was part
of the maeg or might, the strength of the family. The
bond of kin was the source of power and strength. The
whole mdc would have been as wroth as many a Tyrol-
ese village still would be at a maiden who exhibited
exogamous tendencies. She would have been doing what,
in that stage of civilisation, was antisocial or immoral.?

* Compare Friesian ben and bern for child, berninghe for blood relationship,
and benenaburch, the bairn’s home, as a name for the womb.

2 The following extract from an evening paper shows the same primitive
social feeling in Hungary. The outburst occurred at Borsad, a village near
Kaschau :—

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP I4I

The extension of the term mage beyond the fruit of
a single womb is evidenced in the following passages
from early German law-books :—

Dit is de irste sibbe tale, di man to magen rekenet, bruder
kindere unde suster kindere.—Sachsenspiegel.

‘This is the first grade of kinship which is reckoned
as mage, namely, brothers’ children and sisters’ chil-
dren.”

Vnd heizent die chint geswistrige’ vnt hebent die ersten sippe
zal die man zemagen rechent.—Schwabenspiegel.

‘And the children are termed geswistrige, and have
the first grade of kinship which is reckoned as mage.”

The second of these terms the mage, brethren, and
the first identifies brothers’ and sisters’ children as mage
or brethren. The two conceptions would practically be
the same if the word mage originated in a kin-group
with very little or no individualising of fathers or
mothers. Thus in the Heimdallar Galdr, a charm in

A girl, who is a native of the village, was married to a peasant from another village,
but after the wedding a number of the young men of Borsad tried to prevent her
from departing to her new home. The bride managed to escape, but, on seeing this,
the young men set fire to the cottage of her parents, and the flames quickly spread to
other cottages. A murderous fight then began between these young ruffians and the
bride’s friends, with the result that eight peasants were killed, and about twenty of
both sexes injured. The arrival of a detachment of gendarmes put an end to the
affray, and the ringleaders were marched off to prison.

On another occasion (1886) we read :—

The village of Ladis, in the Tyrol, has for generations observed the rule that its
maidens must not take husbands outside their own village. Lately, however, Catherine
Schranz, reckoned the most beautiful girl of the whole district, accepted the proposal
of a suitor from a distant place. The youths of Ladis resented this as a personal
injury. Six of them seized her, tied her on a manure cart, and led her through the
village, the other youths and boys jeering and singing derisive chants. At length her
father rescued her, and took proceedings against her assailants, who were sentenced
to terms of imprisonment ranging from four weeks to two months.

Neither gendarmes nor editors realised the value of these fossils of primitive
civilisation.

142 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

the Hdda, Heimdall says: “I am nine mothers’ child,
I am nine sisters’ son” ;—a passage which has much
troubled the commentators,’ but which is more intel-
ligible from the standpoint of group-marriage.

In later German the origin of mdc is quite obscured.
With the growth of patriarchal notions, terms like
kunkelmdc, spindelmdc, muotermdc, were used to dis-
tinguish relatives on the mother’s side from the vatermdc,
germic, swertmdc, relatives on the father’s side. A.S.
federencyn, federingmag, for father’s relatives may
be compared. In reality the words are the misnomers
of an age which also produced kuensgunne.

The sexual side of the word mdc is found in magan,
which occurs in medizval dialect, and Swabian mégen,
miigen, all meaning to procreate. Further in gemaht,
gemahtr, for the male as well as female sex-organs, and
in modern German gemdchte for those of the male.’
Grimm sees in the latter word a modern evaluation with
the sense of power; but the A.S. gemaecnes, glossed
cohabitatio, is against this, and I am inclined to think
the notion of power in mdc may be largely derived from
kin as a source of strength, a widespread primitive ex-
perience. ‘The procreated are the mdc or the gimageda.
It is to the last word we will now turn for further light
on the kin-group life.

Gamahhida is glossed conjunctio, sodalitas, affinitas,
congregatio, consortium foedus, cohibentia, conviventia.
In other words, a union or gathering together for con-

+ One of the latest, Prof. Rhys, finds in Heimdall a solar or light myth, and
in his nine mothers evidence of a nonary week! See similar cases of many
mothers’ children cited on pp. 203, 235.

2 Machen is still used for any natural office in Swiss and other dialects.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 143

vivial purposes of those forming a community. It
represents the kin living in common, having common
property, a common house and meals. It is the primitive
Roman or Iroquois gens. But the glosses on gamahhida
do not stop at kinship; we find also contubernium,
copula, connubium, cubile carnalium, commercium.
Thus the word denotes sexual union of all kinds. It is
the free sexual intercourse between the mdc which goes
to form the full conception of gamahhida. This word,
like the Latin cohabitatio, denotes not only a living
together, but as a sexual union it marks the collegia et
connubium cognatorum, the communistic and endo-
gamous character of the magenschaft.

While gamahhida represents the group, the individual
members were the gimahide, gimachide, words glossed
by conjux, conjugi, v.e. spouses, gumalido is rendered by
par, gamahcho by socius, gamahho by conjux, uxor; all
indicating equal comradeship and, at the same time, sex-
relationship. Further, the adverbs gamahho, gimacho
are rendered by Latin glosses signifying ‘in common,’
commodiously, kindly, fitly, opportunely, and the noun
gumahi has glosses affinitas, opportunitas. We have
in these words the whole strength of the gamahhida
brought out. A kin-marriage group with all property in
common, living in common, naturally termed what
belonged to the group, easy of access, fit, and convenient,
gemahlih (or as it is glossed connie, “leaning on one
another”). What was not of the group was,uwngamahlih,

1 It should be noticed how the conception of living together has led to the
idea of partaking in feasts together, sharing in festivals, ¢.g. the Latin convivor
and convivium.

144 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

inopportune, hostile, unfitting, evil,—the glosses are
onerosus, iyuriosus, mprobus, malus. In a word, we
have another instance of the kin origin of terms marking
comfort, fitness, and goodness, such as we have already
noted in kind and behaglich.

A shorter form of the adjective is A.S. gamah,
gemaca ; it expresses the same idea and is glossed in the
same way zdoneus, habilis, sodalis, communis. Kamah
sin denotes to be bound together, foederentur. From
this comes a noun gimah, gimacha originally standing
like gamahhida for the entire group or gens, but very
early appropriated to its dwelling-place. It ultimately
denotes a house, or even a collection of houses. Thus
we frequently find it in the Tyrol for village names
(Obergemach), and for villagers’ names (Gemach’l). It
is exactly the same transition as in hava, which is first
the hive group and then the hive home.

To connect gemach, the home of the gamahhida, with
the haa or haga of the hiwun we have the term
gemachzaun, a word used in Bavaria for one of the three
customary modes of fencing or hedging, to which certain
privileges attached. A somewhat similar term is the
gemachmihl of the Salzburg district,—a mill built by
a small group of peasants, probably originally forming a
markgenossenschaft, to supply their own needs.

How little does the modern German, geméichlich in
his gemach, realise the anthropological value of these
terms! ‘Their picture of the old kinship with their
group-marriage, happy in their common dwelling, is
not even a dream to him. The idea of pleasure, of what
is fitting and good, attached to the word gimahlth

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 145

shows us that our old Teuton ancestors considered
such communistic, cosexual life as both moral and
advantageous. It was, indeed, a necessary stage of
evolution, it led to the foundation of a wider conception
of kin, to the tribe, and ultimately to the state.’

(6) The next word to which I would draw the
reader’s attention is associated with a rather different
phase of kin-group life. I refer to the term mahal or md.
One of the earliest meanings which we find attached is
that of the periodic meeting, or judicial assembly of the
markgenossenschaft. This took place at the mahal-
stat, the mahalbrunnen or the mahalberg, on the
mahaltag. At such places, where the mahal was held,
there was usually a mahalstein or altar, and were we
now occupied with folklore and not philology it would
be easy to bring evidence of human sacrifices to a
goddess of fertility at the mahalstein. The corre-
sponding verb mahaljan denotes a speaking together ;
the mahal being the basis of a folk-assembly. Thus
far everything might seem straightforward with regard
to this word—the old tribal parliament, the mark-
genossenschaft, meeting by sacred well or on sacred
hill) But we find attached to the word a _ totally
different set of meanings. Mahal is also a marriage:
mahaltag is glossed dies sponsionis, mahaljan, mdlen,
is to take to wife, and mdlscaz is the bridal treasure,
the brautschatz; mahelkésen is to fondle. In Ger-
man vermdhlung, vermdhlen and gemahl, gemahlin

1 Kinship is the basis of all civilisation, but the origin of the herd or horde,
whether of animals or man, required a wider sexual relationship than monogamic
marriage. The herd once established as a variation, its fitness for the extra-group
struggle enabled it to be independent of its primitive sexual basis.

VOL. II L

146 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

(O. Swedish mdla and gamahalus are vermdhlung and
gemahl), denote the whole round of marriage relations.’
Can this be merely a figurative use of the idea of
talking together for the marriage relation,” or does
the notion arise from something which happened at the
old mahal, or tribal gathering? But, searching still
further, we find the word mdl denoting meal, food,
which has usually been distinguished from mdl, a
talk, an assembly. The ultimate identity of the two
can scarcely, I think, be disputed, although the origin
of mahl, a meal, has been ingeniously associated by
Skeat and others with the root ma, to measure, and so
with a measure of time.’ In this case mahlzeit becomes
a senseless repetition, and the essential notion of meal
as a convivium, a high feast or banquet, disappears from
the origin of the word. Schmeller unconsciously bears
evidence for the close relation between mdél=mahal,
and mél=mahl, when he states that das mdl is par
excellence the hochzeitsmdl* among the Bavarian
peasantry. The mdlgeld, which each peasant has to
pay for this common feast, and his present to bride
and groom termed miéilet (the giving is maelen), come
strikingly close to the mdlpfenning which must be
paid to the mahlmann or judicial official of the mahal,

It is a noteworthy fact that many peasant-festivals, such as the Kirmes,
which I take to be relics of old heathen sex-festivals (see p. 19), we still find a
Gerichtspiel or Amtmanspiel ; a fossil of the old judicial assembly remains in a
redemption of mock pledges.

2 Compare the double use of intercourse, conversation (in older English, and con-
versatio in Latin), fenstern in Swabian, etc. At the kammafensta we find both
chorus and riddle marked features of the primitive sex-festival.

3 Primitively a meal is an epoch of time, before time suggests meals.

4 The original use of hochzeit, not for a bridal feast, but for a communal
dance-gathering, may be seen preserved in Aschenputte/,Grimm’s Mdrchen, No. 140.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 147

and we grasp how it is that the mdlschatz (which
Grimm and others derive from mahal) is yet used in
the sense of bride-money, or is closely related to the
milet. We have on the one hand group -custom
reappearing in bridal, on the other hand in judicial
ceremonies, both, however, were originally part of one
and the same group-gathering. What seems to me,
also, quite certain is that in Tyrolese, Carinthian,
and Styrian Weisthiimer and Taidinge the word mdi,
in the sense of a meal, is used back to about 1300,
and passes almost insensibly into the meaning of mahal,
the assembly. That the mahlmann, obman, or what-
ever else the presiding officer of the mahal is termed, is to
be provided with a gerichtsmahl—ein guetes mall—is
nearly always a special injunction of the Tazdinge; and
traces of the old custom of providing such a meal may
be seen in the provision the English sheriff makes for
the judges on assize. Even the word malzevt is used in
a manner which leaves us in doubt whether it refers to
the duration of the mahal, or to the gerichtsmahl, the
fact probably being that both were originally identical
notions. It is not in the court-poets, the Minnesinger
of the M.H.G. period, that we must look for the use of
mahl for meal, but in the peasant judicial proceedings
which preserved the traditions of the primitive folk.
The mahal notion is accordingly seen to embrace a clan-
gathering, a feast, and asexual commingling.” I venture
to assert that we have again a root representing the old

1 See Zingerle u. Egger, Die Tiroler Weisthiimer, iv. Theil, s. 270.

2 The meal idea in mahal shows us the confarreatio springing out of the clan
vermahlung. The notion is just as much Teutonic as Latin, and folklore shows the
looseness of the relationship from which monogamic marriage arose. Thus in
Ziirich the bridal pair had to use one spoon, so that there might be a genuine

148 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

group habits. The Germans meet, Tacitus tells us, to
feast, talk over tribal matters, and arrange marriages.
Now all these diverse meanings become clear in the
hieht of the hag community,—the mdlberg is the hiberg,
the mdlstat,' the histat.’ O.H.G. mahal, M.H.G. mdi,
O.8. maal, O.N. mal, A.S. mael, covering the notions
of gathering, talk, marriage become intelligible. The
hegemdal, gehegtes gericht, the judgment-place fenced
in, the medizval custom of fencing or “ hedging” a
gericht before holding it become clearer. It is a
symbolic reproduction of the old kin-dwelling, where
the maeg-gemot was held to settle the maeglag. We
see in the mahal only another form of the hirdt. It is
noteworthy that mal is a boundary as well as an
assembly in much the same manner as mark is a
boundary and a group. We may indeed ask what is
the primitive meaning to be attached to the root in
mahal, or mael. The related Aryan tongues, according
to Deecke, who does not go beyond the ‘talk’ con-
ception, offer no parallels to the Teutonic dialects, and
Grimm has no suggestion to make as to mahal, and
repudiates any relation to meal. Notwithstanding this,
I venture to think that German mahlen, to grind, and
mihlen, to promise, are at bottom the same. Thus we
may notice the way in which mahlmann is used of the
officer of the gericht, but also mahlmann and mahlleute
confarreatio. In Esthonia the bridegroom Geis the spoons of his bride and of
himself, upon which the house-father unites the pair. In Norway the bride-
spoon, often beautifully carved, is a family treasure. To love and to be wanton
is termed /éffeln in Germany, and a weak form of the same idea remains in the
phrase to spoon, denoting to flirtin English. In England also the bride-knives,
bride-cup, and bride-cake have probably all relation to the idea in confarreatio.

1 Significantly in M.H.G. this word stands for site of a dwelling, e.g. wunn-
samy malstat.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 149

of the peasant or group of peasants using a mill.
Further maellen occurs frequently for mahlen in the
sense of grind in German dialect. A still stronger link,
however, may be found by comparing Ulfilas’s renderings
of Luke xvii. 35 and Luke iv. 18. In the former passage
the Greek has dA7j@ovea, leading directly to the Latin
molentes, and Ulfilas has malandewns from malan.
In the latter passage the Greek has cuvtetpippévovs,
and the Latin contritos. Now both ddéo and piBw
are to rub, pound, grind, and cuvrpi8e is directly used
of rubbing the fire-sticks, or of any motion of a pestle
in a mortar.. We have thus directly from the Greek
a link between the fire-sticks and the primitive mill.
Ulfilas, however, renders the Latin contritos by gamalw-
dans, giving a verb malvjan, to bruise or pound. This
stands as close to O.H.G. gamahaljan and mahaljan
as to O.H.G. malan.’ If this hypothesis be correct,
the mal root in vermihlung carries us back to precisely
the same notion as the héi in herath, 1.e. to the idea
of the fire-sticks or of pestle and mortar. In the word
mahal all the senses are concentrated, it is the common
meal, the tribe-talk, and the sex-festival. To fully
realise this, we must recollect that the primitive
mill with which most food was prepared, not only
among the Aryans, but among savages all the world

over, is the mortar and pestle;* and when it is of

1 For example, rpt~ax is used by Homer of Odysseus when rubbing the stake
round in the socket of the Cyclops’ eye. ovvrpi84js=cohabitio.

2 The form mdlén appears in O.H.G. for mahalén, signifying to bring a
judicial process, 7.e. to summon before the mahal.

3 Compare the Aryan root ghreudo, pound, leading to Lett. grauds corn,
O.N. grautr, A.S. grytt, O.H.G. crioz, German griitze, and English grits. A study
of the American Indians to-day shows the mill still as the chief instrument in the
preparation of meals, See the representation referred to in the footnote p. 112.

150 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

wood, it is closely allied to the fire generator. That
gamahalo, glossed vir, sponsus, should take its origin,
like hiwo, sponsus, in the notion of the primitive
mill will not seem so far-fetched, if it be remembered
in the first place how widespread is the simile, and in
the second place how persistently tradition associates the
mill and its occupants with sexual license. In this
respect we may note the Latin contero and molo, the
French moudre, the German mahlen, the Greek pirdr\o
(with pvdAds, a wanton woman, wvArds, the vagina, and
pvrros, a cake given at the Thesmophoria and probably,
like the corresponding cakes at the German sex-festivals,
of a phallic character), ete.

If we turn for a moment to folklore, we find in
Verena, the patron saint of millers,’ a goddess of fertility
worshipped in the neighbourhood of Coblenz and Zur-
zach. She was a goddess of the usual Anaitis, Isis,
Walpurga, or Demeter type; to her women offer votive —
tablets for pregnancy and for easy labour. The mill is,
indeed, the scene of most medieval erotic adventures ;
and whether it be Chaucer or Goethe, or whether it be
in Wiirtemberg, Bavaria, or Scandinavia, the miller’s wife
is ever the type of wanton, the woman who deceives her
husband, and is free to all comers. The names of many
mills in Germany still appear to be reminiscences of
their old female occupants, and the mill in medizeval times
is the birthplace of all famous illegitimate children from
Pilate to Karl the Great. The mill-wheel grinds all
things out, love and license, and the sacks carry not
only wheat, but lovers into the mill. Thus finely :—

1 See Boohhols, Drei Gaugittinnen, s. 115.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP IS

Dért hoch auf jenem berge

da get ein miilerad,

das malet nichts denn liebe

die nacht biss an den tag (Uhland, 33),

and more coarsely in the reply of the miller’s wife to
her husband who knocks for admittance :—

Ich steh fiirwahr nicht aufe,

Ich lass dich nicht herein.

Ich habe die Nacht gemalen

Mit sechs schénen jungen Knaben ; ©
Davon bin ich so miid (Simrock, No. 285).

Both Volkslieder remind us of the G'rottasongr, the
mill-song of the Hdda, wherein the mountain giants’
brides grind peace and war, bliss and riches, at Frodi’s
mill. These women are typical of the old mother-age—
half-seeresses, half-warriors, Amazonian figures who rule
the destinies of men. For long ages the mill was a
symbol of woman’s civilisation, grinding was woman’s
work, and so for centuries much of the old mahal free-
dom attached itself to the mill.

Thus from the ideas involved in the root mal and
its cognates we have evidence of a striking kind of the
old kin-gathering and its common meal—the concio of
the mag, followed by the conjunctio of the gemahelun.
The group-habits develop in different directions, and
are still to be found as fossils in medieval marriage
customs, medizeval legal ceremonies, and in the license
of the medizeval Hexenmahi.'

(7) We have not yet, however, exhausted the

1 Religious festivals, e.g. the Lugnassad, and outdoor sports (¢.g. the
** Hollow of the Fair”) were associated in early Celtic days with marriages.
See Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 416, 418.

152 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

words for kin which seem to mark a prehistoric kin-
dred group-marriage. The next to be considered is
the very valuable fossil gat. I suspect this to be the
same primitive as appears in Greek yad. Thus yavddve
contains initially the notion of holding. yavédds is
gaping, wide open; yaréw is to open the mouth wide,
and so to crave; probably also «ddos, a jar or vessel, is
from the same source. There are two Teutonic forms
to be considered.

(i.) Gat. This means an opening, a hole. O.H.G.
katero is glossed valva, ostium; O.N. gad is a hole.
We have also A.S. geat, English gate, and O.8. gat.
In M.H.G. des berges gat is a hill-cave, der lewen gat
the lion’s den, and Reinke de Vos has his gat or burrow.
In M.L.G. gat or weidegat stands for anus, and in
Norwegian Landsmaal gat is a small hollow, and gate,
gato, or gatu stand for button-hole. Gat is also used
in L.G. for a snake’s hole. From these words it is
clear that gat has the primitive sense of small hole,
and is then used for den or lair.’ )

(ii.) Gadem. This denotes a shed, house, or room
—an extension of the den or lair notion. In O.H.G.
cadum is glossed domus, tabernaculum, septum, con-
clave, 1.e. house, tent, hedged inclosure, closet—a com-
bination, in fact, of gemach and hag. In A.S. and
O.8. the word does not occur; it is Swabian and
Tyrolese, but it stretches as far as the Allemani did

1 Considering the ready interchange of & and g in O.H.G., I am inclined
to think O.H.G. chezil, kezil, Gothic katilo, O.F. ketil, A.S. catel, English
kettle, are directly from gat with the diminutive, and not from Latin catillus.
In this respect we must note Icelandic ati, a small vessel or boat, where the
double sense of the words vessel and boat (e.g. as in butter-boat) repeats itself.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 153

into Switzerland, Elsass, and even faintly to Kéln.
It is a single inclosed space built of wood, and its
nature is well-indicated by a twelfth-century Regens-
burg MS. which used gademer in the sense of zimmer-
mann or carpenter. Singularly enough, while no direct
evidence is forthcoming of the use of gat in the sense
of the “bairns’ burgh,’ or for the female organs of sex,
gadem and flerschgadem are in the peasant’s Hastnacht-
sptele very frequently used for the latter. Whether
we have here traces of an earlier sense of the word, or
only ‘ kennings,’ it might be hard to determine.
Whether we give to gat or gadem the significance
of magen or gemach, we find connected with these
words a great variety of terms for kin and kinship.
The first word to be noted is O.H.G. gatalinga, more
frequently written katilinga. This word, denoting off-
spring, appears to be related to gadem exactly as
gamahhida to gemach. Whether the katilinga are to
be considered as the belongings of the same gat in the
sense of lair, or of the same katz/ in the sense of womb,
it would perhaps be impossible to settle. The sexual
weight, however, of the root gat is very considerable,
and may be at once evidenced by such a word as
begatten and a curious Celtic gadal =libidinosus.* In
M.L.G. the word gaden takes a purely sexual meaning
and is glossed conjungi, congregart ad generandum ;

1 Deecke connects with a Sanskrit root gad, denoting to hang upon, cling to,
a nasal form of which gives gand’as, a neighbour, and also relationship. .How
far this root has a sexual meaning I am unable to say. Skeat gives an Aryan
root ghad, from which he deduces xaé, but then bigitan and beget, not begatien
and vergatten and gather. The Teutonic root gad is very close, however, to
ghad, and I am inclined to think that bigitan and bigatten, to beget and to pair,
are ultimately the same.

154 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE.

vorgaden is vergatten to pair, and it later takes the
meaning of vermihlen, marry. That this, however, is
not its original meaning is well marked by the L.G. sick
in echtschop vorgaddern—i.e. to pair in a legal manner.
The same primitive notion is also borne out by the
use of begatten in German solely for animals, although
gatte and gattin are used of husband and wife. We
find gatalinga glossed exactly as gamahhida. O.H.G.
gatulina, A.S. gaedeling, are rendered by comes, sodalis,
consors, consanguineus, while Gothic gadiliggs is con-
sobrinus, the sister’s son. 0.8. gigado, O.H.G. gegate
and gate is given by socius, aequalis, sponsus, comrade
but also spouse. Katilinga is also glossed parentes.
A.S. gaed denotes society, fellowship, company, and
stands to gat as maege to magen. Now all these terms
seem purely idle from the patriarchal standpoint, for
the spouse is not the equal or the blood relative. But
the kindred group-marriage throws light upon them all.
The group of parents are themselves katilinga, they are
comrades, equals, kin; they form one society, wherein
the mother’s sister’s child is on the same footing as the
mother’s child.’ All the katilinga are comrades at bed
and board. But we have by no means completed the
analogies between the katilinga and gamahiida. Asli
have already pointed out, the kin is the sphere of what
is kind, friendly, pleasurable, all beyond is hostile.
Accordingly we have gagat, convenient; getelich, what
is fitting, proper ; gedelik, what is useful ; while gattlich
gets the sense of beautiful, and getelos of all that is
unfitting and improper.

1 Compare ovyyévea, kinship; ovyyevjs, kinsman, cousin, the fitting ;
ovyyevxés, the fitting to kin; ovyylyvoua, to be with at bed and board ;
ovyyévnows = vergaderung.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 155

Fick connects the Teutonic gad with a root mean-
ing fit and good, and so reaches good and gut, and
Deecke cites d-yaos. I am inclined to think if any
such relation is to hold at all—which I doubt—it is of
the inverse kind. The origin of the agreeable and fit
must, | think, among primitive people always be sought
in the notion of sex and of kin.

The habits of the kin-group are represented by a
number of words associated with gat. In the first
place, we have the German vergaderung, gaderung,
and our English gathering, a meeting of the kin of the
same nature as the mahal. This vergaderung, ver-
gatterung, or, in a corrupt form, wirgatum gehen,
remained as a fossil in the medizeval school féte, fre-
quently held on St. Gregory’s Day at Niirnberg and
elsewhere. ‘The children went into the woods and had a
common meal, which was followed by dancing and
singing. To give a full account, however, of this fossil
vergaderung of the sixteenth century would be to desert
philological for folklore evidence—a material to which
I propose to return later. The vergaderung is a sex-
festival, another form of the mahal and the hexenmahl.'

The council or tribe-talk aspect of the mahal is
represented by a number of words connecting the gat
with the mark system. Thus we have gadengericht and
gadenrichter for the court and judge at Rotweil, and
Kaisersgaden was used even of the imperial judicial
chamber. In O.L.G. we even find gaderheren glossed
patres conscripti. Corresponding to the hagegeld and

1 The relation of the judicial mahal to the sex-festival is evidenced in the
custom which forced the Zurzach and Oettingen Landvogts to dance under a
linden, or in a public place, with a common prostitute before they proceeded
to hold their annual courts.

156 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

hagehenne we have gattergeld and gatterhenne, fees
paid to the lord or gatterherr for the dwelling or land
inclosed by a gatter, this being a fence, modern German
gutter. Other forms are L.G. gadder, H.G. gdtter and
getter. The meaning of gatter is quite clear, a staked
fence, interwoven like a hurdle. The forms gataro and
kataro occur in O.H.G., and seem to point to the same
origin as gatte and katilinga. I take it that the gatter
is equivalent to the hag and the gemachzaun, the fence
of the old group gadem. Whether its origin is to be
sought in the bringing or binding together, conveyed in
the word gather or not (the dictionaries are rather at
a loss on the point), the gatter seems to be relatecl to
the gatilinga in precisely the same manner as the hag
to the hagetissa and hagastalt.' This link, however, is
by no means necessary in order to bring out the very
complete similarity of ideas in the hihun, gamahlida,
and katelinga terminology of the old mother-age con-
ceptions of kin and of kindred marriage.

(8) It may be well to turn aside here from our
Teutonic words for kin, and note how generally the notion
of a folk-gathering is a union for food, council, song, and
sex. Consider the Latin grex, a herd, also a troupe,
_ society, band—#in short, the hive; congregatio is a
flocking together, but congressio and congressus, while
denoting friendly intercourse, yet both take the sexual
meaning.” ‘Taking the equivalent Greek dye/pw, with the
same notion of gather or assemble, we have dyopa for the
assembly or tribe-talk, bringing out the judicial aspect of

+ The getling is identified with hagestolz in a Hachberg Weisthum of 1841,

Grimm i. p. 366,
* Compare also O.H.G. zeman, A.S, tymen=convenire, but also tofteam.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 157

the mahal or kin-gathering. dyopd, as an equivalent for
speaking or talking, may well be compared with the cor-
responding Teutonic mal for talk. dyopaia, as an epithet
for Artemis and Athene, marks the primitive origin of
these goddesses as goddesses of fertility worshipped at
the mahal or folk vergaderung. It may be noted that
the dyopd, or tribal meeting-place at Sparta, was termed
xopes, and the notion of chorus is of a body or troupe
who dance and sing within an inclosure. This in-
closure, the xyépros, is also associated with the idea of
feeding, yoprafm being to feast, quite as much of men
as of animals. The idea of the chorus is well expressed
by the dancing within the lists to the erotic song, such
as Alcinous’s people exhibited before Odysseus. In this
respect it is to be noted that no foreigners—z.e. originally
no doubt none but the kin—were allowed to join the
chorus. The picture of youths and maidens dancing
in the chorus is repeated twice in the eighteenth book of
the Llad, although the term yopos is only used on the
second occasion, but the first is peculiarly important for
our present purpose. It runs -—

Also he fashioned therein two fair cities of mortal men. In
the one were espousals and marriage feasts, and beneath the blaze
of torches they were leading the brides from their chambers through
the city, and loud arose the bridal song. And young men were
whirling in the dance, and among them flutes and viols sounded
high ; and the women standing each at her door were marvelling.
But the folk were gathered in the assembly place (dyopy) ; for there

a strife was arisen, two men striving about the blood-price of a
man slain.*

Here, in a highly-developed condition, we have the

1 The Iliad of Homer, translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers, p. 381.

158 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

German mahal, the tribal judicial assembly going on;
but at the same time the winileod is heard, the dance
and the brands of the free Friesian brides are seen, and
dyopd and yopos unite as the hérdt and hileih to
complete the picture of primitive tribe-talk, feast, and
kindred bridal. The association of yopés with feast,
with religious ceremony, and with the hedged or staked
inclosure—its root is the same as in garth, yard, and
hortus—are all paralleled in the campos and hag concep-
tions, with which I have already dealt. It is further
noteworthy that one of the great choral festivals, that
of the Lenaea, took place in the month of Taymor,
which covered the latter half of January and the first
half of February. This month is said to have been so
called because it was a fashionable time for weddings,
but the name much more probably arose from the old
sex-festivals occurring in this period.’ It may be noted
that February in Germany is termed the Weibermonat,
since “im Februar fiihren die Frauen das Regiment” ;
and I am inclined to interpret the O.H.G. name Hornung
in the same sense, z.e. the month of that free intercourse
which resulted in the offsprmge—hornunge, children,
whom a later age regarded as bastard and illegitimate.
The Roman Lupercalia held on February 15th was
essentially a worship of fertility, and the privileges
supposed to be attached to women in our own country
during this month—especially on February 14th and
29th—are probably a fossil of the same sex-freedom.?

1 The ancient Irish ‘‘ annual marriages” were dissolved and new ones entered
upon on Walpurgis Day, another great sex-festival.

* The mysterious festival in January of the Anglo-Saxons, which Bede terms
*“‘modraneht, id est matrwm noctem,” deserves consideration. What also was the

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 159

The important part played by women in the Dionysian
sex-festival is also to be borne in mind. As in Teutonic
lands, so in Greece and Rome we can trace back below
a much more elaborate civilisation the simple habits
of primitive life, with their evidences of a totally
different status for women and a widely diverse sexual
system.

The notion that a gathering is at once a tribal
council, a choral festival, and a military unit is well illus-
trated by the 0.H.G. glosses gasamanz for congregatio,
gesemine for chorus, kesemene for conciliwm, gesemene
for coetus, phalanx, and liutgasameni for folk-gathering.
To these may be added a mysterious brutsamana used
by Notker for ecclesia. But what was a brutsamana in
pre-Christian times? We seem carried back once more
to the choruses of maidens singing the hilezh in the early
Christian churches.

Another word which may be just noted is fare, to
go or travel, but this quite early has the meaning of
fare, to feed. Thus A.S. gefer, gefere is glossed by
consortium, a faring together, gefera by socius, comes,
sodalis, contubernalis, 1.e. a comrade not only on the
way, but at table and in the home. Geferraeden, liter-
ally a talking together of the gefere, comes to mean
household (domus, familias), the intercourse of comrades
(societas, familiaritas), the corporate group of the
markgenossenschaft, but also sex-intimacy, marriage
as we find in contubernum. The root runs indeed

heathen festival of the Spwrcalia, which caused February to be called sporke/-
maand? Wasit from the Aryan root spherag, swell, burst, giving sphoragos,

shoots, buds, but with the sense also of any young life as in German Schdéssling
for Schooskind ?

160 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

exactly parallel to A.S. cynraéden leading to modern
kindred, and A.S. hiwraéden with its modern German
equivalent the heirath. dra is Langobard for family,
relationship; and we thus see the complete round
of the hiwunga and gamahhida ideas again well illus-
trated. See also Appendix IV. on genossenschaft.

(9) The next word for kinship to be considered is
stb. Gothic sibja, O.H.G. seppia, A.S. sib, ON.
sifjar, kinship. In O.N. soft is friend and sift is kin.
A friend can only be one of the kin; and if a person is
to be made a friend, he must be made one of the blood
or kin by commingling or drinking blood with all or
the chief members of the kin.’ All that are related by
birth, cognatio, are sib. Thus cognatos is glossed by szbbo
and gisibbe. Sif'is the name of Thor’s wife, who is a
goddess of fertility, of agriculture, and of childbirth—a
Scandinavian Ceres. She appears in Anglo-Saxon as Szba
or Sieve, and was probably primitively rather a mother-
goddess than a wife-goddess. In the Hdda a ‘ kenning’
for the Earth itself is svuaeru Sifjar, which appears to
identify Sif with Jérd, Thor’s mother, and not his
wife. She has at any rate the characteristics of a
goddess of fertility. The Gothic szfan is to rejoice,
and appears to be related to sop as freuen to fri. Just
as notions of comfort and friendly action are associated
with the mdg, the kin, and the hag, so we find sip
glossed pax, affinitas, foedus.” Thus pax vobiscum is

1 The pobratimstvo or bratstvo, the brotherhood of the Southern Slavs, is one
of the most interesting cases. There appears even some evidence that the
bratstvo was created by a commingling of blood.

* In the tenth to eleventh century O.H.G. translation of Martinus Capella
die sippa Jovis stands for consortia Jovis, the company of Jupiter.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 161

rendered by sibba st iu and vade in pace by far in sibbu
in Tatian. We see in these phrases the primitive man
going away in safety amid his kin. Unsippe is seditio,
hostility, unfriendliness ; unsibja is incqua. G'asibbo and
gasibba are glossed consanguineus and consanguinea,
the male and female blood-relative. In M.L.G. sibbert
is the blood-relative; A.S. gives as its equivalent
sibling (Landsmaal sivjung and O.N. sifjyungr), and
has also sebsum and ungesibsum for peaceful and hostile.
Gothic gasibjon is to pacify, and wnsibis is one who is
an outlaw,—z.e. not of the blood bond. The sipzal and
suptzal is the enumeration of the clan, the ‘tale’ of
the relatives. Norse sift and svift are kin, and I suspect
English sept for clan is really the same, and not a
corruption of sect as Skeat supposes. English gosswp,
of course, comes from the same source. I doubt very
much whether the god in the original godsib is to be
associated with god,’ but rather corresponds to the god
in goodman, or godeman, with the sense of pater-
familias, the head of the sibbe. If so, gossebraede
becomes identical with cynraede and hiwraede in
sense, and our modern gossip expresses exactly the
primitive intimacy of the kin. So far, with the excep-
tion of the idea in Sif, the goddess of fertility and of the
family, the sexual notion has not been shown to enter
into sib. But while Norse sifi is a friend, sjafni is a
wooer, a lover, and sjéfn is a bride. In Prussia
gesuppe is used of a dissolute and lewd company.
This is very probably not a complete degeneration of
the stb notion, but a retention and an emphasis of the

1 T shall return later to the primitive value of the godparents.
VOL. II M

162 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

social and sexual freedom of the primitive seb. Lithu-
anian sébras is a comrade, and very suggestively
Slavonic sebru is a peasant, one of the mark group who
till common land. We may again connect the idea of
‘gather’ by referring to the Sanskrit. sabhd, an as-
sembly, and sabbya, one trusted or fit for an assembly
(cited by Skeat), and I suspect Persian sapah,
sipah, an army, and sipdhi, English sepoy, a soldier ;
thus pointing to the kin as the primitive military
unit.

The root of stp is somewhat obscure. Deecke would
connect it with sz, Sanskrit svv, denoting sew, bind
together. It is more likely to be connected with sip,
to suck, so that the szblings would be the sucklings.’
This is supported by the use of geseppe, gesoppe, and
gesuppe in Bohemia for a crowd of small children.
Skeat connects both sep and sup with a root su, to
express juice, to generate, and so with son, sus, and
swine.” Whether the suckling notion (svp, siippen, si-
peln), or the procreating, generating notion (sw), be at
the basis of svb, we find that the notion of kin sexual
freedom is not so strong in it as in several other terms
for blood relationship. Indeed in Teutonic lands the
blood notion gets weakened, and in Landsmaal syvja
seg is now equivalent to besvogre sig, to enter into
relationship by marriage—an expression far removed

1 Note O.N. seppi for puppy, Swedish sif for bitch, and Persian sipa for
as He will allow no relationship between sty=kin and M.H.G. sip=sieve.
Yet A.S. sife, sibi, and O.H.G. sib, are strangely close to the kin-words. Skeat
says, ‘‘ A sieve is properly for dry articles.”” This appears to entirely overlook

the Danish sive, which is used especially of water, but generally of any penetra-
tion through fine holes.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 163

indeed from the O.H.G. ninth-century wnsipbi wip, for
the concubine of presbyters and deacons. The subintro-
ducta, or concubine, as distinguished from the wife, was
in the earliest time essentially the ‘strange woman,’ the
woman not of the kin.

We cannot leave svb without turning for a moment
to a corresponding Slavonic word Zzupa. In Old
Prussian we have supéni, and in Lithuanian Zupone for
the house-mother, the materfamilias. Siponers is Gothic
for a disciple, probably as ywnge in modern German
stands for puer, famulus, and discipulus. The corre-
sponding Latin appears to be prosapia, a stock or
race. In the Lika district the folk use Zwpa for house-
hold, or family. It is a subject of congratulation to
the head of the house that he has a large Zwpa. The
primitive use of Zwpa appears to be identical with hiwa
and sibbe, but it is used for a village community, for
a pasturage,—probably originally the common land of
the community—and for a parish, Zwpnik, being the
parish priest. Just as in A.S. megs, the sense of the
word is extended from household to village, to district,
and even to county. ‘The head of a zupa is a Zupan;
yet this word, which might be supposed to refer to the
paterfamilias as Zupone to the materfamilias, has been
specialised in the sense of the head of the Zuwpa for
military and judicial purposes. We have, in fact, the
kin-chief,—the rudimentary paterfamilias, never de-
veloped into the actual father, but into the heerfihrer
and herzog, as distinguished from the husband or hus-
mann. He is like the cyne-hlaford, the head of the kin,
who develops into the king, but not into the husband,

164 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

the spouse of the kone! This is well illustrated by the
fact that the upan very early obtained in Croatia the
foreion or German name of knez, or kinig. We have,
in fact, to do with a kin or clan leader, its official head
in administrative, judicial, and military matters. There
is evidence to show that he was in early times elected
by the Zwpa; later the office became hereditary, or the
appointment was made by the national king. The Zupan
was maintained, partly by a grant of the common land
of the Zupa partly by a portion of the royal taxes on
the Zupa, and partly by annual traditional gifts exactly
corresponding to those paid to the obman or mahlmann
by the markgenossenschaft.

To still further illustrate the close relation of the Zupa
to the hiwa, we may note that the zuwpa maintained
a burg, or fenced place of arms,—corresponding closely
to the haga or hava. Round this so-called grada, or
hava, were the huts or dwellings of a group of blood-
related households who tilled the common lands of the
community under the guidance of the leader of the
bratsvo or brotherhood.’ The bratsvo still exists. Hach
blood-related household, which embraces several families,
looks carefully after the marriages of its members, but at
the same time.pays from the common purse the charges
of the marriage feast. While exogamy is now the rule,
there is a good deal of folklore evidence to show that

1 Ducange cites a number of examples of zuppa and zupanus for district or
parish, and its presiding officer. The words also appear in medieval Latin as
supa and supanos. I suspect the suppar=socius, who is in this case also cognatus,
cited in another place by Ducange, is also one of the Zwpa, or of the kin.

2 A bratsvo is a community of several blood-related households with common
lands and patron-saint; a Zwpa seems to have been primitively much the
same organisation.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 165

endogamy was once the custom of these communistic
kindred households. A great feature of a bratsvo, as of
the dparpia, is the kin-feast, conducted by the alderman of
the group household. It is held in honour of the kin-
saint or patron, who has no doubt usurped the place of
some heathen deity. The revelry ends with choruses
and dances of youths and maidens, certain of these
dances being of the type otherwise only performed at
weddings."

Thus, whether we consider the Zupa as philologically
related or not to the sibja, we find among the Southern
Slavs precisely the same communistic kin-households
with their fenced place, their judicial arrangements,
common land, and kin-festivals as we have found among
Germans and Greeks. It is clear that we are dealing
with a type of Aryan civilisation, not with something
peculiarly German; and what is more a type funda-
mentally inconsistent with the patriarchal system.

(10) Another general word for sex-relationship is
freien, with the noun freite, one of the earliest
Teutonic words for sexual freedom. It is noteworthy
that freven now stands for the wooing or courtship
which precedes marriage, and very generally but by no
means universally all sex-relationship. Precisely in the
period of wooing, however, the woman, even under the
patriarchal system, has more of equality and comrade-
ship than at any later period. The period of courtship
forms, I believe, a faint reflex of the relation of the
sexes in the mother-age. This period is essentially a

1 For the above and many other particulars of the Zupa and bratsvo see
Krauss, Sitte wu. Brauch der Siidslaven, Vienna, 1885.

166 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

time of freedom for the woman, and it is remarkably
significant that the modern name for it should be that
for the free intercourse of the old social system. — It
shows that comradeship—freedom and friendship—were
ideas evolved from a sex-relationship, which nowadays
would be universally condemned as antisocial.

The ultimate root of freien is fri, Sanskrit pri, to
embrace, love in the sexual sense, enjoy. In Sanskrit
Pritis is the wife of the god of love; pryas is the loved
one, the bridegroom, the spouse, and pryd, the loved
woman; prydja is to be intimate. Gothic fryén is
to love, fryapva signifies sexual love, and fryéns kiss ;
fryénds and frydéndia stand for male and female lovers,
friends. A.S. frigjan is to love, to embrace, and fredd
is love. O.N. fré is spouse, wooer, fra to love. Danish
frie is woo, marry. Dutch vryen, M.H.G. vrien, both
to woo.' L.G. fryte stands for wooing, and thence we
might pass to a variety of Teutonic words deduced from
freien, still extant, and denoting courtship, wooing, or
matrimony.

We may further note Bohemian prvte/, a male friend
or lover; O.N. frill, Landsmaal fridla, O.H.G.
friudil, lover, bridegroom, spouse; friedila, a loved
woman ;” and M.H.G. mzlchvriedel, a beardless lover.
Danish frille stands for mistress or concubine, Friesian

1 T suspect Gothic fraiv, seed (as in the parable of the sower), and race or
offspring, O.E. fri for family or offspring, and English fry, Swedish /ré for
spawn, are related to the root fri, as hiwo, spouse, and hiwa, family, hive, to
the root hi.

2 It is most noteworthy that in 0.H.G. friudalin is used of a concubine,
and friedila is used for virago, for a woman quae virile implet officium, runs the
gloss ; strange but weighty evidence of the importance of women under the old
free sexual system, and of the impression they formed on the men of the new
civilisation.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 167

Jrudelf is a lover. With such evidence as this before
us, there can, I think, be no doubt that the primitive
value of fri is love in the sexual sense; and, further,
that love as a bond between friends is the outcome of
this sexual love. In participle form we have, besides
the Gothic fryjénds already cited: O.N. friantr, friends ;
later fraendi, confidant, relative, friend; O.8. friwnd,
relative, friend ; O.H.G. vriunt and vrunt, relative, male
lover, spouse, friend, but also serf and vassal; Dutch
vriend, Friesian friond and friuene; O.8., O. Swedish,
and O.H.G. variations of friwntscaf are rendered by
relationship, friendship, intimacy, and wnfriuntscaf is
all that is hostile to the friantscafida.

Now the historical evolution of the word is certainly
sexual lover, relative, friend, retainer, serf. We have,
in fact, precisely the same succession of ideas as in hiwo.
Grimm asserts that in the older languages a distinction
is made between még and vriwnt, the kinsman and the
friend, but he cites nobody earlier than Walther von
der Vogelweide; and the notion of relative and kinsman
attaches to vmunt or friend in all Teutonic dialects,
of which the separation occurred ages before Walther’s
day. Thus, in Norse, fraendi is especially the kinsman
as opposed to ven, the friend, in modern sense. In the
Nibelungenlied we find friunde occur as the persons who
may be kissed, e.g. the kin.’ In old M.L.G. law-books
vrunt is used frequently for relative, and vruntelink for
one of the kin, corresponding to A.S. frundeling,

1 The limitation of the kiss of women to the blood kin is of special signifi-
cance, when we note how the words for sexual intimacy and kissing pass into
each other, e.g. Gothic frijéns, kiss, is here to the point.

- 168 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

a relative; also freund, frunt, is repeatedly used for
verwandter in the Tyrolese Wezsthiimer. Swedish has
frainka, fraeundkona for female relative, and O.H.G.
friuntin, M.L.G. vriundin, denote not only the mis-
tress and concubine, but also the consanguinea. Indeed,
vriuntschaft is used for consanguinitas, blood relation-
ship, and also, but probably later, for affinitas. Nagel-
vriunt is identical with nagelmdc, and often the only
additional persons included in the vriuwnde beyond the
mac are the members of the household, the vassals—pre-
cisely the extension we have seen in the use of hiwa.
Thus we see the chain connecting two such different
glosses as friunte = parentis and friuntscalh = clrens or
serf. We accordingly conclude that the notion of friend-
liness has arisen from the old kindred group-marriage,
in precisely the same way as the notions of kindliness,
comfort, and beauty in kind, behaglich, gemédchlich,
etc. Before we pass to another important conception
acquired by the old mother-age vriwnte, we may briefly
consider the old deities associated with this root fr
or pri.

Besides Sanskrit Pritis for the wife of the god of love;
Pryeis the old Bohemian goddess of love. Then we have
a wide range of Teutonic mother-goddesses, goddesses of
fertility and sex. In the first place, we may note Frea
of the Langobards; then, farther north, Fria, Frya,
from whom our Friday is derived, essentially a northern
Venus; and ultimately, in Scandinavia, we have two
notable forms—Freyja, Frowd, Fraujé, or simply Fra
(Frau), a most typical mother-age goddess, as well
goddess of death as of fertility; and Frigg, Friche, or

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 169

Fricke,| Woden’s wife, whom Paul the Deacon identi-
fies with Frea, and who is essentially a goddess of sex.
Frowd is a good example of the early mother-age, for
she marries her brother FPreyr. The names of both
mark the old brother and sister wooers, and are especially
valuable, as her name has become the general name for
woman and wife. She is the woman, the wooer, par
excellence. Frigg, on the other hand, bears the girdle
of Aphrodite; the plough, the symbol of fertility, is
sacred to her, while the cat, which shares with the dog
—the attendant of Holla and Walpurga—the doubtful
honour of representing lustfulness among the Teutons,
is her constant companion. From the Oddriunar-Grdtr
in the Hdda we learn that both Frigg and Freyja were
appealed to by women in labour. We further see how
in the later father-age the earlier freedom of sex in
Frigg and Freyja is brought out as traditional. Thus
in the Hyndloliod, Hyndla accuses Freyja of a pro-
miscuity worthy of a she-goat, running after her lover
at night. In the Lokasenna Loki finds Freyja full of
lewdness, for all the Anses assembled in Aegir’s hall had
been in turn her paramour. Frigg in the same song
Loki scolds as a wanton, for she had taken to her bosom
Vea and Vilja, Odin’s brothers. Thus we see in both
Frigg and Freyja survivals in a father-age mythology
of mother-age deities—daughters of Mother Earth—
whose early practice of kin group-marriage survives
only as a tradition to be raked up by Loki, when he
chaffs the assembled gods. The relation of Frowd to

1 This guttural modification of Frowa should be compared with the hig
variants of hi, e.g. hige for hiwe, etc.

170 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

the earth and to fertility is evidenced in some interest-
ing O.H.G. glosses. Thus Hrdfréwa is a gloss for
Cybele, and Liutfréwa for Juno Populonia.

As fret, free, is related to Frea, and froh, glad, to
Frowé and Fri, so freck, shameless, is related to Fricke ;
they suggest the essential features of the sexual character
of these Teutonic mother-goddesses, who are the Western
representatives of Astarte, Isis, and Anaitis. They are
fret, froh, and freck all at once. I do not think we
can separate the ultimate root of Mrea from Frau, and
the Sanskrit prt, embrace, enjoy, finds a corresponding
cognate in pra-av, satisfy, satiate. Associated with this —
we have the Wendish god Prove, the god of the plough-
share, and counterpart of Preyr, the wooer and par-
amour. ‘The notion of the sex-relation as ploughing, or
sowing, tilth, is common to nearly all Aryan nations,’
and the goddess of sex is invariably the goddess of the
plough, of agriculture and fertility in general. A highly
suggestive parallel may, in this respect, be drawn between.
Demeter-Ceres and Freyja. Demeter is essentially
Mother Earth, and is the paramour of her brother Zeus.
She helps man to the discovery of the plough, and
teaches him how to sow corn. The Thesmophoria in
her honour commemorate the origin of civilisation, which
may be identified with the beginnings of agriculture.
Demeter falls in love with a mortal, and lies with him
in a thrice-ploughed field. In Germany a field is made
fertile by the Frau, doubtless symbolising Mrowd, going
through a representation of the same act. A somewhat
similar folk-custom used to be gone through as a maiden

completed the operation of grafting fruit trees. In both
1 See Appendix III.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 171

we have close traces of the origin of agriculture and horti-
culture in the old woman-civilisation, with its peculiar
worship of mother-goddesses of fertility. Such worship
is to be found also in those other festivals of Demeter,
the Cerealia and Eleusinia, which were essentially sur-
vivals of the old woman-directed religious observances
of the mother-age. They may be illustrated from the
witch-gatherings and periodic festivals of the Middle
Ages. At present I must be content to point out how
Freven leads us up to the kin-group, with its periodic sex-
festivals and its licentious worship of mother-goddesses.

There remains, however, two important senses of the
root which I have not yet touched upon,—those of frez
or free, and freude, joy. As the kin are the friends,’
so the kinsman is the freeman as distinguished from
the bondsman; the source of the idea ‘freedom’ is
to be sought in the bond between the old vriunte or
co-wooers. As Grimm long ago pointed out, the root frv
takes us into a chain of words dating from the highest
antiquity. These words cross and recross into each
other with a great flexibility of sense, but they are one
and all intelligible if we go back to the primitive mean-
ing of fr7,—which is undoubtedly that of sexual love,
—and then attempt to realise the circumstances of
that kin-group which was the primitive unit for family,
society, and sex. It was in the kin-group of wooers,
among the wriunte, that there was freedom, peace, and
pleasure. Precisely as other names for the kin-wooing

1 With Frea and the vriwnte may be compared “Hpa and the #pwes, the tribal
mother and her progeny, the freemen, who have become the goddess and the
tribe-founders. I take Latin heres to be related ; it stood for the male or female
member of the kin-group, the heirs.

172 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

are the sources of kindness and comfort’ (sebsam, win-
some, gemiichlich, kind, higlich, gdtlich, etc.), so the
root frz, in the early dawn of civilisation, gives us the
first conceptions of friheit, fridu, and frawit, the basis
of all further human achievements. It is only by grasp-
ing the original primitive sources\of these three ideas
that we can appreciate why it is that their cognates
so often return to their primitive sex-value, or under-
stand why so many equivalent terms appear from one
and another of these three words. From the notion of
sex-freedom among the kin springs the conception of
the kinsman as the freeman, as distinguished from the
bondsman; and from the freeman, with his privileges,
the whole judicial system suggested by fresding, frei-
gericht, and freiherr. To make aman a freeman is to
make him of the vrvunte, of the kin-wooers; and thus
freven means either liberare or matrimonium inire.
Freiding is only another fuller development of the
hirath and the mahal, and the frecherr a disguised
form of the kin-alderman, the mahlmann or Zupan.
But the whole series of words for freedom carries us,
like labertas, up and down the scale, from the highest
to the lowest conceptions; free has its good and bad
senses.” The frechart is the stroller, the vagabond ;
the freifrau is not only the frecherr’s wife, in early
times she is the mulier vaga, and the word is used
like frevwerb for a prostitute—a double development

1 Even from this root fri we note the first befriedigung and freude as the
sexual. Compare Sanskrit priti for befriedigung and prita, loved, pleased.

? Curiously enough the notion of licentious in frei passes over at every turn
into the notion of joyous, beautiful, and commendable, as in wrt wnd vrwm, and
Lessing’s Wie frei, wie schiin ist sie.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 173

precisely comparable with queen and quéan. Freimann
is not only a freeman, but also a wooer and a pimp, just
like frever, which leads us to freverin and freieres in bad
senses. Even a trace of the same idea has associated
itself with freigeist and freethinker, which latter has
often been identified with libertine.

Noteworthy is the sense attached to freihof and
frevort, not merely of free land or house, but of a
place of shelter or refuge,—it is the kin-dwelling as
an asylum. ‘This leads us up to frevung or vriunge
for a fenced-in or palisaded place of refuge—precisely
the notion of the hag. ‘Thus the fredhof is also
called freihof, and we pass to the notion of friede,
JSriedigung, as in einfriedigung, and Swabian frid'
and gefride, a fence,—the freedom or peace maintained
by a fence. In this case the fridhag, fridgatter, and
JSridzaun (a gloss for sepes), as parts of the old mark
system, are of great suggestiveness. The fact that all
early judicial assemblies were held in the open air, and
derived all their authority from a society of freemen,
makes the proclamation of bann and frid, and the
hegung of the gericht, of special importance. The
notion associated in the earliest times with bann and
Jrid, asin fridbann, was much more that of a limita-
tion to the going and coming, a fencing in of the
assembly, than one of orderliness and peace in the
modern sense of these words. Spannen is used in
much the same way as hegen. ‘The lager, camp, or
‘outspanning’ of a group of freemen or kinsmen, is
as much the origin of the judicial unit of peace as it

1 Compare the deorfrid of the Saxon Chronicle.

174 KINDRED. _ GROUP-MARRIAGE

is of the social and sexual units. The freiding passes
insensibly over into the O.H.G. friduding. The friede
words, however, pass just like the fres words back to
the sexual sense with friedel and friedela.

If we turn to the notion of frv in frawi, frawida,
freude, joy, we find this phase of the root closely
associated with O.H.G. /fré, the man, master, lord
(Gothic frawja, O.8. fraho), and O.H.G. fréwd (Norse
fré, German frau), the woman, lady. These words
fré and fréwd, are identical with the Norse divini-
ties Freyr and Freya.’ Grimm would deduce fré,
man, from froh, joyous, but this seems to invert the
natural order; the fundamental idea still seems that of
wooers or sexual-lovers, and the notion of pleasure or
joy is deduced from this. The word has remained with
its primitive weight in freudenhaus, freudenmddchen,
freudenspiel, and freudenkind. As Grimm has him-
self pointed out, there is in freude a strong sense of
voluptas, the pleasures of the meal and of sexual love,—
an aspect of the word represented in freudenmahl and
freudentanz.

The double sense of free is represented in other
words than those from the root fr. Thus O.H.G. laz
is free and libertinus in the double sense, while lazza
is a harlot. But a still more complete analogy for the
origin of the notion of freedom in the group-marriage
will be found in the Latin lzber, free, itself. Here
libert denotes, like fry, the offspring, the free kin.
But liber, besides free and frank, also means licentious.

1 Freya and Freyja are essentially the brother and sister wooers, the man
and woman, the brother and the bride.

GENERAL WORDS. FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 175

Even Freyr and Freya find something of counterparts
in the deities Lnber and Libitina, the first a god of
lust, and the second a goddess of death; but probably,
like Freyja and other mother-goddesses, originally a
goddess of fertility as well as a goddess of death,’—a
view confirmed by the identification of Lnbitina with
Persephone.2 In the form /%b or lub’, the sense of laber
passes essentially to that of pleasure, desire, lust, sex-
love. The Sanskrit root is lubh or lob, desire; lubdha
is lustful, and such words as Latin lubere and lubido
indicate the peculiar significance. The root appears in
Slavonic /juwb, whence ljuba, a spouse; A.S. df, O.F.
liaf, a spouse, male lover; M.H.G. liep, the lebchen
or loved one. ‘Then we have a whole round of cognates
in lieb and love, which the reader can easily follow up
if he desires to trace how mankind has evolved the
noblest of human attributes out of an original lust.’
What is quite clear is that the primitive value of lub is
sexual desire, and this root corresponds completely to
fri, although the notion of freedom has only remained
in the Latin liber. .

Connected with the same root we have the German
verlobung, although, perhaps, indirectly. The primi-
tive notion of desire, lust, changes in the Gothic galubs
to the desired, the valued; and hence, through the
idea of praised, approved, as in loben and geloben, to
the conception of a mutual approval, contract, vow,

1 Compare the Celtic Tailitiu, at once a goddess of death and agriculture,
i.e. fertility. See p. 200.

2 Persephone was undoubtedly a goddess of fertility ; it is characteristic
that she was the child of a brother-sister union.

° The notion in dust of relaxation, freedom (Teutonic Jus, to set free), may
itself be compared with the idea of freedom in liber and fret.

176 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

as in geliibde. The earliest use of loben with regard
to marriage does not appear to have connoted what
we should now understand by a marriage vow or
promise, but rather a mutual approval expressed in
the presence of the kin, out of which the notion of
the compact or promise itself developed and became
attached to the lub’ root. Thus originally verlobung
is not the promise of future nuptials, but the expression
of mutual approval, which follows the recognition of
mutual desire.’ In fact, we can trace almost stage by
stage the evolution of the word from the mere notion
of sexual desire in lub’ up to the promise of future
nuptials conveyed in verlobung. It is also clear that
in the earliest period the geldbnis, or the lofte, was
immediately followed by the sexual union. Both
Fischart and Luther use the word verloben as identical
with marriage. In M.L.G. lovelbér is used for the
marriage feast, and bratloft is identical with marriage.
Here we may also draw attention to the medizval
gelobtanz or lobetanz, a dance of the whole commune
in a public place. In the sixteenth century we are told
the young women would not serve in the parsonages,
because they were not allowed to go over the green to
the lobetanz. Whitsuntide and St. Lawrence’s Day
(August 10th) were the times, and under the linden
tree was the place for these dances, which a sixteenth-
century writer tells us ‘“‘ were maintained by our ances-
tors in order that their children might be seen by their

neighbours, and marriages result.” It is difficult not

1 It is not only that the approval, dob, follows the desired, but that what is
the desired is the be-lieved, the glauben,—an argument for the acceptance of
belief recently advocated by a distinguished author ; see vol. i. Essay VI.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 177

to see in these dances a fossil of the old sex-festival
with its hilech or chorus. What we here deduce from
philological considerations is amply confirmed by folk-
lore! The verlobung in many country districts is
the all-important factor in the marriage ceremony.
There is always a schmaus, a rede, and a tanz; in
other words, all the elements of the old group mahal.
In old days, too, the sexual union at once followed,
and preceded the trawung, which in the Church sense
often did not take place at all, or not till long after-
wards. This view of verlobung, as really resulting
from the ancient mother-age sex-relations, receives con-
firmation from the old Prussian use of salé@ba and the
Polish use of s‘lub for marriage. Thus verlobung, with
its Scandinavian cognates, meaning now betrothal,
must be in the first place associated with the sex-idea
in lubh. Of the two elements of the modern sex-union,
the verlobung is the mother-age fossil, and the trawung,
or tibergabe der braut, the patriarchal supplement of
the primitive marriage form.

With Jove, as derived from the sexual Jubh, may be
compared the love-series derived from Aryan ka, kar,
kam, to yearn after, desire, love sexually. Sanskrit
kam is to love, kamra is charming, cakamdnd, desire,
yearn after, kama, a wish; Lettish kdrs is dainty, kdrét,
to desire; Slavonic kochati is love; Irish cara is a
friend, caraim, I love; Latin carus is dear, beloved,
caritia is the quality of being dear, affection (probably
for camrus and camritia; possibly comis, for cosmas,

' As I have mentioned above, I hope on another occasion to deal at length
with peasant customs in their relation to the mother-age.

VOL. II N

178 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

friendly, loving, is also related), amo for camo, and all
the terms dealing with the amorous and amatory may
be added, eg. amicus, friend, amica, female friend,
mistress; caress =fondle, hug, is again from this root.
Fick is of opinion that Gothic hdrs, a male lover,
O.H.G. huora, English whore, are also derivatives of
kar, with its primitive notion of sexually yearn after.
Thus we see the sexual appetite again leading us toa
series of less and less animal affections, passing through
the ideas of what is charming, dainty, friendly, and
concluding with all the feelings summed up in charity.
An almost similar evolution leads us from the root
ghar, to yearn after, through the notions of desiring,
rejoicing, pleasing, to the ideas of grace and gratitude.
In short, we pass from O.H.G. girt, giridi, glossed
concupiscentia, to the graciousness of the Charites, by
stages each one of which marks a gradual refinement of
the purely sexual longing. It is possible that camera,
chamber, and carmen, song, from the kam, kar root,
and ydptos, hortus, yard, with yopds, chorus, from the
ghar root (making no wltvmate distinction between ghar,
yearn after, and ghar, seize), correspond to the notions
in gemach, hag, coun, and in hileith, winileod, cop@édia,
the mating-places and the mating-songs, which we find
arising from other roots with primitively a sexual value.
(11) A difficult root or possibly pair of roots may
now be noted, namely, the Aryan dhar or dar, to hold,
fix, keep. Thus we have Sanskrit dh, to hold, and
dridha, hard, firm. The Teutonic root trewa meaning
the firm, the fast, and ultimately true, is really, I take
it, at the base of the idea in both tree and true, although

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 179

the tree notion only has survived in most Aryan tongues
(Gothic triu, Danish trae, Slavonic drevo, Greek Spis,
Sanskrit dru, ddru, etc., wood, tree, although these
have been connected with the root dar, to split, tear).
The notion of hold, keep, is widely retained, as in
Opovos, a chair, throne, Latin firmus and fretus, a bridle,
and Sanskrit dhar, fix. Then we have the long series
of Teutonic roots: O.H.G. trewwa, Friesian triuwa, A.S.
treop, O. Icel. tra#, German treve, English truth and
troth, with the verbs, O.H.G. triuwen, O. Icel. trda, |
Gothic trauan, A.S. treopian, English trow, etc. The
general notion, as in treowscipe and tréleikr, is that of
firmness, fidelity. It might at first be supposed that a
formal plighting of fidelity was sufficient to explain the
use of the root trewa in the sense of marriage, thus
German trauen, English troth, and Dutch trowen, used
in the sense of marry. But the remarkable feature of
the use of this word for marry is this, that as we trace
that use backwards, it appears to point more and more
to a temporary or illicit sexual union arising from
familiarity or confidence, and not to a permanent
marriage. In the laws of the Langobard Liutprand
(A.D. 723) triwuva is used of a peace-pledge, and
in O.H.G. katriwuete denotes men who are thus linked
together, foederate. Thus the Helcand describes Christ’s
disciples as trwwiston man, and causes the cen-
turion of Capernaum to say that he has erlé gitrost.
This Old Saxon gitrost, O.H.G. trust and trustis, has
the sense of auailiwm, clientela, or following, those
fixed or bound by some form of pledge to a chief.
O.N. traust is protectio, refugvum, and O.H.G. trést,

180 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

is solace, help, while trostjan is to console, comfort.
Turning to another form of the root, we have trdéé in
0.H.G. glossed dilectus, amicus, sodalis. It is used for
a pupil or disciple; Abraham’s trute is his son; in
Otfrid God’s drut is used for his angel. It is the dear one,
the geliebter or the geliebte, the male or female lover.
The Italian drudo is a gallant, a male lover, and druda
a sweetheart, mistress; the Gaelic drdth is a mistress, a
prostitute. In O-H.G. tritin, trutinna, is the beloved
woman, or sweetheart; trétscapht is intimacy, familiarity,
sexual love; tréitlet is a love song, probably a winileod
or hilech; dritman is used by Otfrid for a beloved
follower or vassal. In M.H.G. trétgemahele is a beloved
wife, trdtfriunt a loved friend, and trdtgesprelin a loved
female comrade. These words show that the idea in
trét is not that of a formal marriage pledge; other-
wise tréitgemahele would be tautology. This is further
evidenced by O.H.G. and M.H.G. tréten, triuten, love,
fondle, and also know sexually; as well as M.H.G.
trutschel, coquetry. The word trut appears also in a
great number of O.H.G. names for women?! as Adaltrut,
Inuttrud, Gertrud, Sigitrud, ete., and this leads us
to a still wider conception of its significance. For we
find in Norse that Herthridr, Jarthridhr, Sigthridr,
correspond to these names, while O.N. Thridhr is the
name for a special goddess, the daughter of Thor; but
also for goddesses and occasionally for women in
general, although it frequently marks a woman of
titanic character, a Valkyrie. Later M.H.G. trut, trute,

1 Names for men, Trutpert, Trutwin, Trutman, Trutbald, etc., suggest also
their relationship to the trué or mistress,

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 181

Bavarian and Tyrolese trud, drud, trite, triitl, Modern
German drude, denotes a witch, magic-working woman,
or spirit, who comes as an wncubus at night. That the
trud who came and pressed the sleeper at night was,
like the witch’s devil (see Essay IX. p. 23), often very
human, is evidenced by Bucher’s tale of the Capuzine
Father, who found out that his trut was the kerzlerin,
i.e. the woman who sold votive candles in the church.
Tritennacht is Walpurgisnacht, the night of the great
witch feast and sexual gathering. Zrutenbaum, Truten-
hausen, Trutenberg, are all suggestive place-names for
old folk-gatherings. Anglo-Saxon records show a
Thryat or Drida, a wood-maiden, who ultimately
married Offa of Mercia, but is stated to have com-
mitted many evil deeds in both France and England.’
Anglo-Saxon dry is magus, sorcerer, and dryas, male-
fict, enchanters, may possibly be connected. The
Drudenfuss is a well-known symbol of magic and of
protection from magic. It will be seen that the drude or
trét is in almost every respect identical with the hexe. In
folklore there is precisely the same relation to children, to
domestic animals, and to women in childbirth, as we find
in the case of the hexe. Just as in the latter word, the male
hexenmeister, so the druder, is derived from the female,
and we find just the same sexual cult on the same day.
Carrying the word back, we find its sexual weight still
preserved but leading us in trét and trétina to mistress,
spouse, and bride, and in many women’s names to some-
thing which denotes little more than female comrade. It

1 Possibly a nursery variant of the Drude is Dame Trot ; she at any rate is
accompanied by the appropriate cat.. Compare the German Frau Trutte.

182 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

seems to me that the evolution of trét is exactly parallel to
that of the hagezisa,the hexe—the gradual corruption of a
term for female comrade to the evil sense of female demon,’
as the old heathen sexual customs become of bad repute.
Accordingly I do not think that drude can be connected
with any root meaning press, or oppress, as in English
tread and Gothic us-thriutan, trouble. I think with
Johannes Schmidt we must connect all these words for
trude in the evil sense with Norse Zhrédhr, and with
Italian druda, the divine woman, and the loved one or
mistress.” Hence ultimately we are led back to the idea
in triu, Lithuanian driitas, fixed, the idea of fast and
firm, the idea of a group of people, who have trést,
protection, solace, help, in the trvwuva or peace-pledge
among themselves ;* it is their schutz und trutz.* As
usual, whenever we come across such a group, within
which is peace, szbja, we find at once the free
sexual relations, which are the physiological basis upon
which such ‘firm’ groups have been built up. The
trdtgeselleschaft is nothing more than the union, social
and sexual, which we have already noted in the gamah-
ida and the katilinga. The sexual and social group
troth is the basis of all the more spiritual ideas which
are afterwards associated with true and truth.

Closely associated with the Aryan root dhar, hold,

1 Even Ulfilas had to render Sa:uévov by the feminine wnhultho. Unholde
appears to be only a derivative from Holde, an initially fairly beneficent goddess
of fertility.

2 The term godes drdden for the Virgin Mary (e.g. Arnsteiner Marienleich
of 1140, see line 226) gives exactly the double sense of divine woman and of
loved mistress on which the old monks delighted to play (see Essay XII.)

3 Compare the gamahhida as consortiwm foedus, pp. 142, 144.

* 0O.H.G. truzi, clientela, adherents ; compare trustis, referred to above.

~ : : qt

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 183

fix, is the guttural form dharg, having practically the
’ same sense. The notion of hold appears in German
tragan and English drag. Old Saxon and Anglo-
Saxon dragan, carry, standing between the two. ..We
get from this guttural form words with senses almost
identical with the trét terms. Thus Old Slavonic
drugu is socius, amicus; Russian drugu and druginja,
amicus and amica; Czech druh, druha, male and female
comrades, druzny, companionable; Lettish drdugqs,
comrade, drdudse, commune, dréudsiba, community ;
Lithuanian draiigas, draiigalka, male and female com-
panions, and draugé, community. Then we have Old
Saxon druht, O. Friesian dracht, Anglo-Saxon dryht,
Old Norse drétt, O.H.G. truht for a troop, a crowd, a
folk, or even an army; Gothic gadraihts is a soldier.
Close following on truht, we have the leader of the truAt,
the truhtin, truhten of O.H.G. and M.H.G., the lord,
chief; A.S. dryhten, leader, prince, but often god; O.N.
dréttinn, leader, chief, and even priest. O.N. dréttning,
Swedish drottning, Danish dronning, lady of high estate,
queen. In most Teutonic dialects truhtén is specially
used of God or Christ. A more especially folk-term is
O.H.G. truhsdze, M.H.G. truhtsaeze, Old Friesian drusta,
Swedish drottsdt, drots, Danish drost, the foresitter of
the truht group, and later an important court-official,
the representative of the king, truchsess, also the
chief of the royal larder. So far we see in this root
much the notion of the katriuwete, the foederati, or group
held together by some special bond of comradeship ; but
a few words suffice to show that this bond was originally
sexual. Thus Polish druzba is ‘ Brautfuhrer, Old

184 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

Friesian dracht is used in general of the bridal following ;
while A.S. dryhtguma is vassal, follower, warrior,
truhtigomo in O.H.G. is paranymphus, bridesman ;
O.H.G. truhtinc is pronuba, paranymphus, sodalis,
sponsalis, and O. Saxon druhting, drohting, a wedding-
guest, one who attends the bridal procession and feast.
Thus we are again led to the idea that our ‘fast’ group
is not only a social group and a military group, but also
a bridal group; the base of the truht is seen to be not
only a peace-pledge, a civic unity, but also a sexual bond.
It corresponds exactly to the words for marriage and
family arising from the root é@, or ehe, a pact. The co-
sexual social unit may not be as clearly illustrated in the
dhar and dharg terms as in some others we have come
across, but we find unmistakable traces of it even here.
(12) The last general words applicable to a co-sexual
community to which I shall refer are offshoots from the
Aryan root in Sanskrit bhw or bu, Greek ov, Latin fe, and
Teutonic bu or bau. The primitive value here appears
undoubtedly to be to produce sexually, for this significance
at least is common to all the Aryan languages. We then
have the notions of procreate, grow, form, and ultimately
produce or create in a non-sexual sense. Starting with
the Greek we have gv, bring forth, produce, beget,
generate, grow, wax, etc.: ditap is a father; didous,
creature, kind, sex, and sexual organs, obtained in course
of time an overgrowth of abstract notions; ¢urdév is a
creature, a plant, a tree, and may be compared with
German bawm from root bau; gitiw and ¢uredve still
carry the notion of bear or beget, or engender ; ¢irus is a
begetter, and ¢irv, the begotten; gvdz is a clan, connected

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 185

by blood and local habitation, but it is also a primitive
military unit,—a conception precisely identical with what
we have traced in the hag and Zwpa words; the same
range of ideas is also associated with ddov and other
co-radicates. Without the notion of clan we find the
purely sexual weight of the root preserved in Latin
fecundus, femina, fenus, fetus, and most probably feles,
the cat as the fecund one, and felix, the fruitful and so
the lucky.’ Sanskrit has bhé@ with the conception of swell,
burst ; bhdti for source, origin, and bul for the female
sex-organs ; while in bhavana we pass to the notion of
a dwelling as in the Teutonic words to be considered later.
Turning now to the Gothic, we have two or three most
valuable fossils. In ufbauljan the primitive notion of
swelling is maintained; in gabaur we have Ulfilas’s
rendering of cduos, a common meal and revel ; in gabawr-
jopus we have the Gothic for lust and pleasure, while
gabaurjaba is fittingly ; lastly, gabauan is to dwell, and
bauains, a dwelling. Thus in the root bhd we see the
primitive idea of sex again expanding in the side notions
of common meal and of dwelling, and of what is pleasur-
able and fitting. Besides these Gothic words, the sense
of procreation, and so of lust, is still maintained in the
widespread German folk-use of bauer; although this word
is now used chiefly, but not invariably, for abuse of sex.
Just as we found hag and gemach expressing not only
dwelling-places, but related through sexual significance
to the ideas of comfort and pleasure, so we find bauer also
used of a habitation in O.H.G. pir, A.S. bér, and English
bower. In particular, it seems used in Old Norse, Old

1 Is fenwm, hay, possibly related to the root fe, as hay itself to ht?
* See pp. 143, 160, ete.

186 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

High German, and Anglo-Saxon for the place of the
females or of the bride, the brét in bére,' a notion still
retained in the form byre, a shed for cows.

When we turn to bauer, a peasant, we must, in the
light of the above, consider it as ultimately related to
the primitive sexual value of gv or bAd, and not related
directly to the later sense of bauen, to till or cultivate
the land. In Scandinavian bi is a neighbour of the
male and béa of the female sex, while bu is a home, the
household, the household effects, and lastly the cattle of
the house; bu or bua is to dwell, and also to rush together,
gather, or swarm (Landsmaal),—a conception which
carries us back to another sex-word hi with its deriva-
tive hive. Thus it is seen that the notions attached to
Modern German bauen, 2.e. to build and to cultivate,
are really derivatives, developing out of an original
meaning of cohabitation in the double sense. Nor is the
primitive weight lost in Old High German. Thus we
find béari, whence comes the modern bauer, glossed
habitator; gabur, gaburo is glossed municeps, civis, a
burgher, gabura the nominative plural is affines, junctos,
contribules, vicint, 2.e. relatives, neighbours, clansmen ;
geburda is the district; geburo glosses domesticae res,
precisely like bu, the household effects, and may be com-
pared with Friesian bodel and budel. Inburro is glossed
vernaculus, a domestic; geburliche dinge are civil and
municipal affairs. Thus bauer, like covis itself, takes us
from a purely sexual relationship through notions of co-

habitation to clanship, from co-dwellers to co-burghers,

1 In Beowulf brydbdar is used for the queen’s apartment. In the Heliand the
biida imu bi thero brddi used of Herod’s relation to Philip’s wife gives us again
the sexual weight of bw.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 187

from dorfgenossen to neighbours. In other words, the
purely sexual instinct leads us step by step to citizenship
and neighbourly feeling. As a fossil of the course of
evolution, we find the term bauer still used in Low
German as a feminine noun for a societas colonorum, any
small local club of yeomen or landed proprietors. In the
same Low German which uses bér and birschap for the
community, we have bérrichte and biérmdl, the court for
civil processes, and the freedom of the city ; bdrmester
for the burgomaster, and bérsprake for the meeting of
the bér, or community at which old and new laws were
proclaimed—in short, the parliament, or mahal, and its
mahlmann. An almost similar development may be
marked in the Norwegian bygge form of bu, with its by
for collection of houses, bygd' for district or parish,
bylag for union of inhabitants with their bygderet and
bygdeting. In short, we pass here, as in all the words we
have hitherto examined, from the simple sexual notion
to cohabitation (beiwohnen) and common meal; and
lastly, to a wider conception of community among neigh-
bours and citizens. It is only in its degeneration that
the term used to mark an endogamic union for common
life and common tillage of the soil has been narrowed
down to this one meaning of cultivator of the land—a
meaning emphasised in the earlier days by the use of

such words as lantbdarz or feldbiar.’

1 Like geburda, no doubt, originally it had the sense of the land under tillage
belonging to the clan or kin-group.

2 An almost similar development to that of the bu-bawer series is that of tak,
Aryan root tégo, procreate, which proceeds from the notions of generate, produce,
to make, contrive (as we shall also notice in m@). Thus we have Sanskrit toka,
a child, and taksh, to form ; Greek rixrew, generate, but revxew, make ; réxvov, a
child (to be compared with O.N. fegn, and M.H.G. degen), but réxrwy, a carpenter,
etc., and so ultimately to réyvy and the Greek notions of art.

188 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

(13) Our investigation of the general words for
kinship in the Teutonic dialects has led us to the con-
ception of an endogamic group having a common dwell-
ing, common land, and common festivals. Kinship and
descent are reckoned through the woman, and a woman
appears as priestess or tribal-mother (kone, queen) at the
head or source of the group. A male leader of the kin-
group or clan, the kuninck or Zupan was elected by the
mahal or béirsprake, and became the centre from which
the patriarchal system ultimately developed. The sexual
freedom within the group, marked by a kinship based on
the female, led, as we have seen, to some of the chief
words for blood relationship being based on names for
the womb. Nor was this all, there was often an
apparent identification in name between woman and her
sex-organ or functions.’ Nothing of this kind can be
definitely asserted in the case of the male sex-functions ;
they are not the origin of any system of kin-names. The
male organs of sex are generally termed after some fanciful
resemblance, and with no relation to their function.”
Very rarely, indeed, do they give their name to the male,
as happens so frequently in the case of the other sex. In
Swabia schwanz is used among the peasantry, boorishly,

1 Of course not every word for womb has been developed into a kin termin-
ology. Thus O.H.G. lehtar and href or ref (Tatian speaks of Saint Elizabeth :
‘¢thaz kind in ira reve’’) have originated no such systems. The former may be
related to ligan, lie, as Greek \exH to Aéyw, but this is at any rate obscure. The
latter is also difficult. A.S. vif is glossed venter, and rift is rendered velum, vesti-
mentum, much as volva is used both of womb and veil. On the other hand,
modern rift is a fissure, and leads us to riven, to rive, burst open, and so to the
idea in keimen. Some Germans even ventured to connect with corpus !

2 The Germanic zagel, zisel, ruthe, pynte, zers, schwanz, etc., are similar to
cauda, queue, etc. Thesame non-functional description appears in A.S. eowend
for membrum virile, probably from eowen. An exception must possibly be made
in the case of O.H.G. fasel=proles, and M.H.G. vasel=penis.

GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 189

but not indecently, for all that is male ;* and it is just pos-
sible that German kerl, Icelandic karl, and English churl
for man may have sexual weight. The earliest glosses
for karl are amator and conjux, maritus; for charalon,
amatores; charala is used even for the males of animals.”
Fick connects charal with the Sanskrit g’drds, a lover,
a gallant. A.S. ceorlian is to marry of the woman,
as vifian is to marry of the man. Swestarkarl, sister’s
man, is not glossed by a term for affinity, but by
cognatus—a striking reminder of the old kin-group.
Thus we see that in charal the essential feature is the
male, rather than the husband. As buari degenerated into
bauer, so charal degenerated into churl with the change
of social institutions.’ If we seek further for the origin
of the term, we note that Sanskrit gérdmz means to rub,
erind; O.H.G. char, Modern Bavarian kar is a small
pot or vessel, a gat; ypaiay appears in Hesychius as a
kneading trough or mortar; O.H.G. keran, chéran,
and A.S. cyrran, cernen are to turn, shake, churn ;
the upright axles of the local mills in Sweden and
Norway are still called kvarnkall and kvernkall, 1.c.
churn-karls.* Lastly, we have the Spanish expressions
cara and carajo for the male organ of sex. Thus
without definite proof, there is still some evidence in
favour of charal as a name for the male taking its

1 A possibly similar case is that of Armenian Ordz, a man, to be compared
with the Greek dpxis.

2 A.S. carlcatt, O.N. karlfugl ; Landsmaal has kallbjérn, Rjupekall, ete.,
where kali stands for karl.

3 On the other hand, Czech, Serbian, Polish, Russian, and even modern
Greek dialects (kralj, krdlj, krol, karéli, xpddns) seem to have developed the
word precisely like kwninck from the sexual sense to that of king.

4 In parts of Norway mor (mother) is used of the massive millstone,

190 : KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

origin in the primitive analogy of fire-sticks and pestle-
mill to the sexual act. Be this as it may, however,
there is nothing in the early meaning of charal to mark
a monogamic relation. We find a name for man as lover
eradually becoming specialised for the single husband.

It is, indeed, the same with all the Teutonic cor-
relatives for a monogamic pair. Such are man and
wife; husband (the house-dweller, not the householder,
be it noted) and housewife, mann and frau. All these,
like hagetisse and hagestalt, merely denote a male and
female, possibly members of the same habitation." When
monogamy became the custom, it simply specialised
words already existing, and expressing in themselves the
much freer sexual relations of a primitive civilisation.
The reader who has had the patience, however, to pass
in review the various fossils of that primitive civilisation
which I have collected, will not fail to have been struck
with the large part the woman’s function of child-
bearing has played in the creation and naming of kin,
as compared with the man’s function of procreation.
Herein is the key to several characteristic features of
the mother-age.

1 It is noteworthy to what a small extent the idea of householder had grown
into the idea of husband or father before the Aryan scatter. Thus we have the
pan-Aryan vic for clan-dwelling or house, in Sanskrit vegdé, Greek Fotkos, Latin
vicus, Slavonic visi, Gothic veths, A.S. wick, O. Irish fick, Cornish guwic ; and
yet only in Greek olxodeorérys, Sanskrit vigpdti, Zend vigpaiti, and Lithuanian
vészpatis, do we reach the notion of Zwpan, house-father or lord. The house-
holder as chief does not thus seem to have been a widely current notion in early
Aryan times ; still less widely spread was the notion of the householder as sexual
father. Compare Latin dominus (Sanskrit dampati) from domus, with its mini-
mum of the sense of paternity or sexual relationship. On the other hand, the
idea of co-dwellers does at once lead us to terms for kinship and comradeship.
Thus notice the Greek ofxla, household, family, lineage, race (like olkos also),
olxeérns, relationship, friendship, intimacy of man and woman, marriage,
oixelwua, relationship, affinity.

Parr III

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP

He who would still hold familiar intercourse with them, must train himself
to penetrate the veil which in ever-thickening folds conceals them from the
ordinary gaze ; he must catch the tone of a vanished society, he must move in
a circle of alien associations, he must think in a language not his own.— ARTHUR

J. BALFOUR.

In the first part of this paper we considered the accepted
picture of the primitive Aryan family; in the second
part we deduced from the general words for sex and
kinship a picture of the primitive Teutonic group
entirely at variance with the hitherto accepted views on
Aryan kinship. It now remains to be shown that the
special words for sex and relationship, upon which the
latter views are based, are themselves capable of a different
interpretation, not only consistent with, but tending to
confirm the existence of a primitive kindred group-
marriage. In studying these special words | propose
still to keep, so far as possible, to the Teutonic forms.

(1) Of mann, beyond the statement that originally
it appears to have denoted a human being apart from
sex, there is little to be said. An anthropologist would
probably give more weight than the philologists appear
to do to the notion of remaining, dwelling, in the root,
and less to that of thinking, remembering.

192 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

Werb, wife, wifman, woman, requires a good deal more
consideration. O.H.G. vip, M.H.G. wif, wib, appear closely
related to weibén, wibon, to move about, flap, fluctuare,
agitari. A cognate Sanskrit root is 1 to weave, plait,
or bind, and we find the notion again in Latin viere and
wibrare to shake, and in many words denoting the bent,
shaken, woven, or' plaited. In Anglo-Saxon vaefan,
vaifjan is to wrap up, wefan to weave; and we have a
host of German and Scandinavian cognates for covering
up, and for veils, clothes, etc. Thus we appear to have a
variety of senses to choose from. We might say with
Wackernagel and Graff that the wezb is the agitator, the
moving, busy one; we might suggest with Skeat that
the wife is the agitated one, the trembling bride; we
might consider with Deecke that the wife is the weaver ;
or consider with others led by the notion in nubere that
the wife must be the veiled or covered one.* Against
all these views many objections may be raised; in the
first place, web does not necessarily connote one who has
been a bride; in the next place, it is highly probable
that the name arose before the Teutons had much idea
of clothing, still less of weaving. Nor does the complex
notion of the woman, as especially the busy, moving one,
seem likely to strike the primitive mind; it seems much
more the discovery of a modern student, who found in
man the thinker, and in woman the active disturber of
his study. With Schmeller, I think, we may assert
that the neuter gender of wevb must denote that it was

1 It seems much more probable that the term nubere either arose from the
symbolic covering with one blanket which is so common in the folklore of mar-
riage, or was used as the term ‘cover’ by horse-breeders, than that it was
primitively due to a veiling of the bride.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 193

originally used figuratively for woman. If its original
sense had been woman, then the formation of such a
compound as wifman seems inexplicable. The wif in
wifman could not primitively have had the force of
woman more than the maeged in maeged3man had
primitively the force of maiden.* The wif marks rather
some idea which is associated with the fully developed
woman (0.H.G. wipheit is glossed menstrua), as distin-
guished from the mdget or maid, with the active child-
bearer rather than with a future potentiality of child-
bearing. If, then, we turn to seek other explanations than
those provided by the philologists, it is not only because
from the anthropological standpoint the instincts of sex
and of feeding form the basis of most primitive nomen-
clature, but it is also because the latter explanations fail
to meet the difficulty as to the neuter gender of wezb.
In the first place, we might note that the Sanskrit
vi, or a fuller form wp,’ had a sexual meaning; that it
is used for receiving seed, conceiving, and so also for
sowing, procreating ; this sense is probably connected
with the quick motion of shaking or throwing out as
in sowing. There is also a Bactrian word vip for sexual
intercourse, and another wipta, used of a male lover.
Further, in Sanskrit vapra is a seed-field, and vapa-
nam, seed. As Deecke has already indicated, however,
to deduce wip from this sense of wip is hardly in accord-
ance with the assumed passive function. Still, starting

1 As we have seen in A.S. maga is womb and so blood-relative, but with the
notion of kin comes that of power ; maga is potens, and maeged is might, and so
to maiden. The power of reproduction, of giving birth, is the symbol of all
power ; the chief deity in the mother-age is the Earth, as All-mother, and every
tribal deity is a goddess of fertility, e.g. xaudvn as name for Demeter.

2 Sanskrit vip is tremble, shake, O.N. veifa, O.H.G. weibén is shake, vibrate,

VOL. II O

194 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

from the sexual standpoint as that of the primitive
savage, we may, however, look at a similar root,
swang, which occurs in O.H.G. swengen, and our
English swing. We find the O.H.G. glossed vibrare,
quassare, to shake and to quake—a rapid, flapping
motion, exactly expressed by wip and weipon. But
immediately derived from this root is swangar, Modern
German schwanger, used of the pregnant woman, while
schwingern is to impregnate, which may possibly throw
light on the sexual sense of vz. Now the first sure
sign of pregnancy is the quickening, the first moving
of the child in the womb, a quaking, vibrating feeling,
which has been described by those who have experienced
it as “like holding a small, live bird in the hand.”
Indeed, the primitive value of quake seems to be
identical with quick, and to signify the giving life to.’
It is this rapid, fluttermg, quaking motion, which is the
notion in swangar, that I conceive also to be the
primitive notion in wip. Daz wip is that which
quickens, and, as in the case of several other names for
woman,” I assume the womb to have given its name to
the wife. Thus the neuter gender and wifman—z~.e.
womb-man—become intelligible. It is noteworthy that
as the root wip may be associated with words denoting
wrapping up as well as rolling, flapping, and flowing
motion (vaefan, weban, wiilzen, welle, wave, weave, etc. ),
so Latin vulva, volva, womb and wrap, appears to be

1 M.H.G. qué, O. Fries. quik, kuik, denote young cattle. Is it possible
that Aryan g’eltd, Sanskrit jarta, Greek 5é\ra, Gothic kilthet, for womb, is also
related to the Aryan root gelvo, shudder, shake ?

2 I may add to those already cited the Breton gwamm (=womb) as a term
of contempt for woman.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 195

related to volvere, to turn, roll about, perhaps even as
wip to weibon.’ Finally, with regard to wif, three
Anglo-Saxon words may be noted, namely, wifping,
glossed coitus, wiflag, glossed fornicatio, and wifung,
matrimonium. It is clear from these that wif has no
special relation to matrimony, and that the attachment
of the monogamic relation to one of the words is a
purely arbitrary development. Indeed, the first word
seems to lead us again to the primitive vergaderung, the
conventus ad generandum of the old group-marriage.
We may, then, safely conclude that the term wife in no
way takes us back to primitive patriarchal institutions ;
it did not have its origin in an age of weaving or of
trembling brides, but it arose from a purely physiological
aspect of woman’s sex-functions.

(2) Turning to the corresponding male names, we
have as correlatives of wife, mann, hisbond, wirt,
hiswirt, gomo, charal, all glossed maritus,.conjux. But
there is nothing philologically to mark the married man in
any of these, and, with the possible exception of charal,
they do not in any way mark man’s sexual functions.
They denote man primarily as a human being, wi, mas,
or they refer to his domestic position or occupation.
Originally they refer to any man,’ and only with the
development of a new social system have they been
specialised for the monogamic male mate. Another
series of words as correlatives to wife, namely, kone-man

1 It is even possible that vagina may be related to the root vag, which appears
in vagus, and denotes swerving, wavering, wagging, notwithstanding the change
in the value of the vowel.

2 Thus hasbond=his-biand, the one living in the house. In Norway the
corresponding husmand has been specialised for the cottager, but never for the
male mate.

196 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

ehe-man, pruti-gomo, shows us that there was no primi-
tive word for husband, and that man and gomo were
far from originally conveying this idea. We see indeed
that the words ultimately adopted for the male and
female of a permanent monogamic union originally
signified on the male side no sexual function at all, and
on the female side a far more general sexual function—
namely, the simple act of reproduction without regard
to any individual male.

(3) The next word of relationship to which I pass is
mother—Sanskrit mdatr, Latin mater, Greek ujrnp, O.H.G.
muotar, médor, and English mother. According to the
philologists the fundamental root is m@, signifying first
consider, think, and then build, prepare, plan, produce.
Thus Jakob Grimm holds the mother to be the thinking,
the planning one, and Deecke the managing, the order-
ing one; both derivations suppose a fairly complete
home organisation, and a developed system of abstract
ideas, as preceding a name for one of the most primitive
and obvious relationships. From the anthropological
standpoint, recognition of a concrete fact precedes the
formation of an abstract idea; and the patent fact about
the mother is the production of the child; that she plans
and thinks for the household is a much later conception.
Such activity might be a function of womankind in
general, but it is difficult to see why it should have
been specialised for mothers in particular. Still more
remarkable is it, if mother signified originally the
thinker, that the word should have been transferred at
a very early date to the female of animals and to the
womb. In opposition to Professor Skeat, I think there

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 197

is evidence to show an original sense of produce in the
root md, and that the notions of mould, measure, and
_ plan really flow from this. In other words, md is to be
given much the same weight as mdéc in its relation to
gamahhida. As evidence of the notion of production
rather than that of planning in forms from mda allied to
mother, I would cite the Russian use of matka for the
female of animals, and the use of the same word in the
Oberlausitz for queen-bee. Then we have in Greek
the short forms pata for midwife, nurse, or mother,
pads for midwife, and pavedowas for playing the mid-
wife. Majus, May may possibly be the producing,
fertilisng, but can hardly be the thinking month.
Greek pyrpa, Latin matrix, and maczernica in the
Oberlausitz, stand for womb. Greek patpvrn, for a
bawd, is probably for pytpirAy. In Sanskrit mdtrika is
womb, mother, and nurse. In O.H.G. méter is glossed
both vulva and matrix, while in M.H.G., as well as in
all Teutonic (including Scandinavian) dialects, muotor,

1 Tf it be objected that we are again returning to the primitive sexual
instinct, it must be remarked that this seems anthropologically the correct
direction in which to turn, and that the manner in which some writers reduce sex-
words to asexual origins must be considered as unscientific. Thus sex-functions
were facts requiring names long before an abstract notion of pleasure—probably
ultimately based on sexual gratification—was formed. The concrete instance
first gives a name to the abstract, as when ‘cakes and ale’ stand for festivity,
warmth and sunshine for gladness, and restful quiet for pleasure. As an in-
stance of the opposite method of procedure, we may cite the treatment of gez/
in Grimm’s Wéorterbuch, where it is asserted that the primitive notion of the
word was pleasure and the derived notion lust, while its use for parts of the male
or female organs of sex was only incidental. Yet we find in Old High German
such glosses as keili, petulantia carnis and geil, libidinosus; in A.S. gal is glossed
libido and wifgal, libidinosus, while giella is used in O.H.G. for concubine, and in
a variety of long separated dialects the root is used to mark the complete male
animal, or its virility. That the root was used also for festive meals or gatherings
(as in the Old French gale), wild peasant dances, and the licentious students who
attended such festivities (geiJhart and golliard), is not to be wondered at if the
meal and dance of the old conventus ad generandum be borne in mind.

198 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

or its cognates, are used (equally with bdr- and gebdr-
mutter) for the womb; and further, for openings and
spaces into which screws, bolts, and other bodies pass.
In English, Landsmaal, and Dutch, simply, and in Ger-
many as mutterbeschwer, we find mother used for the
sexual passion in woman. In Sanskrit mdtdrdu, a
dual for both parents, as well as in Latin matermtas and
matrimonium, it is very difficult not to see a primitive
sexual productivity emphasised long before an organis-
ing or thinking activity.

Granted the idea of production in the term mother,
we may still question how it is related to other cognates
from the root md. Here a brief digression into mythology
may possibly be suggestive. The earliest deity appears
to be identified with the untilled Earth; to the savage,
not yet developing primitive forms of agriculture, the
swamp, mud, mould, dirt, are symbols of fertility ;* their
apparently unassisted reproduction strikes his mind. The
male is not directly, or at least emphatically, associated
with the offspring. Mother Earth springs from chaos,
and her first children have no known father. A trace
of such a goddess is to be found in most Aryan cults.
Then with the growth of agriculture the notion of seed
planted and generating becomes prominent, and is con-
nected with sex-functions. Mother Earth is replaced
by, or develops into, a goddess of fertility and of agri-

1 This word must be primitive, for it marks an original mother-making as
the source of matrimony. It exactly expresses the earliest Teutonic notion of
group-marriage as a mother-making. In later days marriage became a bedecken, a
connubium, or coverture, as in ‘unter eine Decke kommen,’ ¢.e. get married, and
finally an che, conjugium, wedding, yoking, or pact.

2 Notice that Frigg’s house is termed Fensa/, swamp-hall, and that Frigg
was a goddess of chaotic fertility.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 199

culture, and the tilth becomes the symbol of sexual union.’
Demeter and Freyja are of this type, and a fossil is to be
found in the Kornmutter or Roggenmutter of German
peasant tradition. This corresponds to a period in which
the mother is the titular head of the group, and during
which mother-son dual deities, as well as the Matrae
and other goddesses of hearth and home, appear. Such
a period only could originate the ideas expressed in
muttersprache, mutterwitz, and mutterland, untporons,
and pntpoxopla. As the Sanskrit mdtar,denoting not only
mother, but mythologically the Earth, is characteristic
of the earlier period, so mdtdputrdu in Sanskrit and
moed’gin* in Old Norse used to denote the pair, mother
and son, is characteristic of the latter stage. From the
first stage we may note such a word as Latin materia,
English matter, the substance, probably looked upon
as Mother Earth, from which all things were made.
In much the same sense we have moder in M.L.G. for
slime, and in various dialects mott, mode, mudde, till
we reach English mud and its extension mudder, mother,
sediment. It is singular that in English, Dutch, Scandi-
navian,* and German, the cognates of moder, dirt, slime,
have all been confused with the corresponding cognates
of mutter; and it is difficult to believe that this is a
mere chance coincidence, and that there is no root-
connection between the two series as there is between

1 Compare Sanskrit wlva, womb, and wrvdrd (for ulvdrd), tilth. The sym-
bolism remained through the Middle Ages; for example, the queen in the
Marchen, Das Eselein, says: ‘‘Ich bin wie ein Acker, auf dem nichts wichst,”
to mark her barrenness. See first footnote p. 122, and quotation p. 207.

2 Also moed’gna denotes mother and daughter.

3 In Landsmaal mor is mother, and not slime, but stuff, material, as in a
mass of stone.

200 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

materia and mater. But it is clear that in materia
we have the stuff useful for production, and md is used
in the sense we require it in matrix, and not in the
sense of planning.’ Nor is this notion of the mother
as the moulder infrequent, and it is a use which clearly
shows why the term for mother is so readily transferred
to the womb. Thus in Nassau the people say of a
woman in reference to childbirth :—

Wenn eine Frau gemacht hat ; ?

and Shakespeare writes :—

My wife comes foremost ; then the honour’d mould
Wherein this trunk was framed.

From this conception of maker or moulder or
mould, we pass to a series of words deduced from
secondary forms of md, namely, mad and mal, and
denoting moulds, vessels, and ultimately measures, e.g.
Gothic mat, O.H.G. multra, M.L.G. molt, M.H.G.
mulde, Latin modus, and English mould. The con-
ception, however, of fitting, planning, measuring, seems
to follow, not precede, that of production. |

The mother appears in primitive times as the
moulder of raw material, the maker of new life, and
not as the planning and organising member of a complex
household. Early man noticed how his dead comrade
mouldered away to earth, and he did not hesitate to
identify the primary with the final process—his goddess
of fertility was also a goddess of death.* This primitive

1 T hold that there is not evidence enough to justify the root mw as at the
basis of the mother=slime, words.

2 Kehrein, Volksitte in Nassau, Bd. ii. s. 178.

3 See pp. 168, 175, 342 footnote, and 352 footnote.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 201

conception of the forming of new life out of materia,
so to speak, is well illustrated by the legend of Jehovah
moulding Adam out of clay, and is fossilised not only
in the ‘Earth to earth’ of the Anglican burial service,
but in a still more remarkable Troparion of the Greek
service, which runs :—

O yawning Earth, receive him who was formed of thee at first, and
returns now to thee his Mother.

Here we have Mother Earth, the primitive goddess
of fertility, symbolising by her processes the produc-
tivity of every human mother as indicated in the
relation of mater to materia. We are amid concep-
tions immensely more antique and far more universal
than are involved in the mother of the Aryan household
as she has been sketched for us by the philologists.*

(4) Before we leave the ideas associated with mother,
it is well to turn to a number of co-radicates, which are
to be found in nearly all Aryan tongues. An early
development of a monogamic or patriarchal marriage
might have been expected to give rise to a clearly
marked terminology for the mother’s relatives. On the
other hand, in the case of a kindred group-marriage we
should expect to find much less division between the
mother and her sisters, for with regard to the community
at large, they are all members of the same sub-group.’
It is precisely this want of clear demarcation which we

1 The identity of the mother with the woman, not the house-director, is
evidenced by Lithuanian méfé=woman generally. Again Sanskrit ambd,
mother, is simply Greek viugn, young woman, bride.

? It is noteworthy that in the antique festival of the Matralia, the matrons
are reported to have prayed for their sisters’, not their own, children, a fossil
probably of praying for the children of the whole group of Muhmen. I expect

202 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

actually find. Modern German for the mother’s sister
is muhme, equivalent to the Latin matertera. In»
O.H.G. it is mudma, mome, practically only a variant
of mama. In Plattdeutsch, méme, mum, is, however,
used of mother ;' thus the Devil’s mother is termed des
diibels mime. The Kornmuhme was doubtless also a
goddess of fertility, and with the Devil’s dam a fossil
of a mother-goddess of the Demeter type. The appear-
ance of muhme as mother in such antique expressions
indicates its primitive weight. In early Low German
documents mome is repeatedly used in the sense of
mother ; thus, grotemome for grandmother, hundemome
and eselmome for the female of dog and ass; while such
expressions as ackermome and wiehmome show the
term in general use for women engaged in agricultural
pursuits, especially for the headwomen on a large farm.
Wisemome stands for the midwife, and should be com-
pared with Sanskrit mdtrzkd, for mother and nurse, and
Greek pata. The Sanskrit for mother’s brother is
mitrkds, which would suggest that mdtrkd had stood
for mother’s sister. In High German itself we find the
use of muhme for mother’s sister somewhat loose, and
it is readily extended to any relative through the womb.
Thus Geiler von Kaisersberg speaks of the children of
sisters as mumen,—a use well in accord with kindred
group organisations. It was further used for foster-
mother and nurse, and as in Low German for the chief

that the prayers were offered for the nepotes, originally denoting (see p. 219) all
the children of the group; but the primitive significance of this word being
lost, it came about that the women were supposed to pray for their sisters’
children, their nephews and nieces. Bachofen’s interpretation (Das Mutterrecht,
p- 32) is, I take it, much too artificial.

1 See, for example, the Mirchen, Dat Maken von Brakel, Grimm, No. 139.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP. 203

maid on a farm. Luther writes in his Zable - Talk
of one “der seine mutter und sonst fiinf mumen gar
auszgesogen,’ which reminds us at once of Heimdall and
his nine mothers (see pp. 142, 235). In A.S. we have
modrige, médrie, and in O.H.G. muoterjyd, O. Fries.
medder and moye, all used much as méme. Muomun-
sunt stands glossed consobrini, cousin-german on the
mother’s side. The serf, mumbling, shall follow, we
are told, the nearest of his mother’s relatives within the
proscribed degrees of marriage,—evidence for the ancient
mother-custom of descent. Lastly, we note that the
sexual freedom of the old group of mothers is still
shadowed in the early glosses amasia for médme, in its
use for students’ concubines, and in the term muhmen-
haus for brothel,—another link to the many which
connect that resort with the frauengadem of the old
group-dwelling. In these words, then, for mother’s sister
we find evidence again of the old sex-customs, and of a
group of females hardly distinguished in name from each
other, and all termed muhme, méme, or mamma by the
children of the next generation.

Probably closely related to méme, mama, is amme.
This in O.N. stands for grandmother, in Swabia and
other parts of Germany it is used for mother, but more
generally it signifies one who gives suck, the foster-
mother, and simply nurse. Possibly, like méme, it was

? Perhaps one of the best and yet least recognised fossils of this custom from
the root md is to be found in the word matriculation from Latin matricula,
a public register or list. This is only the diminutive of matrix signifying in
succession, womb, mother, stem, and descent, and is then used of a list in which
originally the descent was stated. The reader may note also how progenies,
descent, and progenitor, ancestor, are probably primarily associated with the
producing of the mother. Cf. O.H.G. chonot from kone glossed genealogia.

204 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

applied to any female of the group, z.e. any woman of
the mother’s kindred, not necessarily the mother herself.
It appears in hebamme as midwife, and so may be com-
pared with Greek pata and Sanskrit mdtrka (mother,
nurse, grandmother, womb). It ought, however, to be
noticed that in O.H.G. amme frequently appears as
anna and with the aspirate hanna, thus hefhanna
glossed obstetrix. Such a form would suggest a con-
nection with the root gan, to produce, and so lead us
to the same round of ideas as we have followed from
ma to méme, if amme be thus not directly related to
mamma. The aspirate is, however, peculiar to O.FL.G.
although co-radicates are common in all Aryan tongues,
e.g. Spanish ama, nurse, mistress of the house, amo
master, Languedoc ama, grandmother, Gaelic am,
mother, etc. One would prefer to connect O.H.G.
ano and and, grandfather and grandmother, Modern
German ahn, with anna, amme, rather than with anan,
to breathe, as the expired ones.!' Their origin, however,
is very obscure.

(5) We now pass to the paternal relationship. Accord-
ing to the accepted theory, this relationship in Aryan
civilisations receives its terminology from the root pd
which has the sense of feed, water, look after, as of
cattle; thus we have Latin pasco, and the pa in
pabulum, panis, and Greek waréoya, feed. In Gothic
the word fat’an might be expected, but it has not been
preserved ; we have, however, fodjan, to feed, to rear,
and fodewns, food. In O.H.G. foten, viten, fuoten
is to fodder, fatten, cram, while fotar, vuoter, viter is

1 So Deecke loc. cit. p. 214.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 205

the fodder, the food. These Wackernagel connects with
fadar, as other philologists pater with pasco, pastor,
and pasture. As the protector and feeder of the herds
is their ruler, so the father is said to be the feeder, ruler,
protector of the household. In this sense the whole round
of cognate Aryan terms—Sanskrit patar, Latin pater,
Greek aatjp, A.S. fader, Gothic and O.8. fadar, O.
Friesian feder, etc., is interpreted as signifying that the
father was originally the patriarch, the feeder and ruler.

Now the notion of ruling in pd seems to be second-
ary to that of feeding, and, as I have indicated, the
appetites of food and sex are the primary facts of primi-
tive human life. May we, then, take it that the father
received his name from the fact that he was the feeder ?
It could scarcely be that he was the feeder of the child;
in the first years of life and generally for long after,
the mother fulfilled that task. Was he, then, the feeder
of the household? Hardly this, for as a general rule
among primitive peoples the women collect and cook
the food; they do what simple tillage there may be,
and bruise and cook the grain. Very often indeed if
the man hunts and brings his quarry home, it is tabu
to the rest of the household. It is difficult to conceive
that the central fact of the relationship of father to
either child or household would in primitive times be
his provision of the food. It is certainly hardly con-
sistent with the part played by men in the early kin-
groups. That the kin-chief developed into ruler and
protector, as kuninck and Zupan, is fairly clear, but to
assert that civilisation had already reached this stage
when the name father was specialised, is to demand a

206 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

high degree of development antecedent to the use of a
term for the paternal relation, and further to neglect.
the argument as to date which arises from the great
diversity of Aryan terms for patriarchal ruler. On
these grounds it seems to me that the notion of father
as feeder of the household must be rejected, and that
we must again turn to the sexual conception to find
the origin of the word, even if in so doing we are
charged with having only a midwife’s horizon. Such
is, in truth, largely the horizon of the primitive savage,
whose conceptions we are tracing. Nor are we without
the warrant of philological parallels ; the Armenian hayr,
father, is possibly derived from a root corresponding to
hi, beget; the Greek drap, father, is similarly associ-
ated with gv, and the word parent has a like origin.
Accordingly we may ask, whether any trace of the
sexual idea is to be associated with the root pd?
The reply must be in the affirmative. The Sanskrit
patis denotes a spouse, Greek zéouw, has the same
meaning; wotwa is kone, queen, and mistress. Latin
potens and wmpotens carry with them the notion of
sexual virility and its opposite. We have also mos,
macs, kinsman, and Latin paro in paricida, mark-
ing an Aryan root pdsos. Possibly connected with
the root pd@ are Sanskrit pdsas, Greek méos for the
female organ of sex; and Greek zéos, Latin penis (? for
pesnis), M.H.G. vasel, A.S. faselt for the male organ.
Noteworthy in this respect is the O.H.G. fasel for
proles, offspring. Further, Gothic fodjan, 0.8. fodian,
O.H.G. fotjan, M.H.G. viten, O.8. fuddan, have the
sense of fill, feed, and, according to Schade, of gebdren.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 207

This is certainly true of Old Saxon fédian, which is
used in the sense of bear, produce, in the Heliand.
O.N. foesa is procreate, as well as bring forth; and
Swedish féda, Danish fdde, are both to nourish and
to bring forth. In such words there appears to be a fossil
of an old meaning of the pd series, namely, to feed or
fill in a sexual sense—a conception retained by Milton
in the lines :—

Zephyr with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-maying,

There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,

Filled her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Or, by Shakespeare,’ when he writes in Measure for
Measure :—

Your brother and his lover have embraced :

As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

If we take the primitive sense of pd to be fill, we see
how the notion of pabulum, fodder, and the conception
of father as dvrwp arises. ‘There is still a further series
of words to be noted. Most of the German writers
identify vuoter, food, and vuoter in the sense of futteral,
sheath, case,—in other words, the ‘fill’ and the filled,
Now the Gothic fodr is sheath, vagina; O.H.G. fotar,
fodar, A.S8. fodder are theca, envelope, sheath. Medi-
eval Latin fodrus, Italian fodero, are both occasionally

1 In an allied sense when he makes Adriana complain in the Comedy of
Errors that her husband ‘‘ breaks the pale and feeds from home.”

208 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

used with the sexual significance. In the fifteenth-century
Fastnachtspiele there is a good deal of obscene play on
this double meaning of vuotar, and the term vuotar-
wanne for the female organs of sex carries us at once to
Milton and the conception of pd in the father series.
One further word must be noted: M.H.G. wut, Icelandic
and Norse fui, Modern German fud and fotze for the
female sex-organs.' Schmeller connects fud with O.S.
fuodan, as Fick connects pdtra, Sanskrit for vessel,
holder, with »d@, nourish, feed.? It would thus simply
be equivalent to vuotar, the sheath. We thus see the
original value of the pd or father root, to lie in ‘ fill,’
developing on the one side into fill with food, and on
the other with child, the two primitive savage concep-
tions. The ‘fill’ value of the root is borne out by two
series of words denoting the ‘fill’ or fodder, and the
filled—vagina. If this view be correct, the primitive
Aryan father must not be looked upon as one having
special relations to the household, still less to the child,
but as simply a lover of the mother—a ¢drap.°

(6) As we have found a special name for the
mother’s sister almost interchangeable with the name
mother itself, so we find there is one for father’s brother
closely related to father. This is Sanskrit putrvjas,

1 The word fud is used for woman in Bavaria without any double meaning,
also gefidach for womankind. In the Tyrol it is still used, but contemptuously.
In Allgau fédel, contracted into /é/, is still retained in use for woman.

2 Possibly an 7 has been lost, 7.e. vutr for Gothic fodr, as A.S. fade, father’s
sister, for fadre.

3 In another widely-spread Aryan word for father, Greek rdra, Bohemian éata,
Welsh tad, English dad, Bavarian tatte, and Westphalian ¢eite (see the Marchen,
De beiden Kiinigeskinner), we do not find any definite idea of paternity. Thus
Sanskrit ¢dtas is friend, Greek rérra is a term of affection used by a youth to his
elder ; while the corresponding Sanskrit form ¢dta is used by parents and teachers
to children. Bavarian tatt/ is any old man, from the deity to the village dotard.

on

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 209

Greek wdrpws, Latin patruus, A.S. fidera, O. Fries.
federia, O.H.G. fataro, L.G. vedder, M.H.G. vetero,
Modern German vetter. Originally these words stood
for father’s brother, but then we find the sense extended
to patruelis, father’s brother’s child, and ultimately to
cousins. It seems to me that feteron was probably the
title of all the adult males of the gamahhida group in
relation to the children, as mdémen stood for the adult
females. But the males who were feteron to the children
of the group, were vetter in the modern sense among
themselves ; hence the double and somewhat confusing
sense of the word. Even to the days of Luther we still
find vetter used in the sense of father’s brother, along-
side its use for father’s brother’s son. As strong evidence
that feteron were a group of co-fathers, I would cite
the Anglo-Saxon law as to halsfang, a penalty to be
paid to the near relatives of one who had been killed.
“ Heals-fang gebyres bearnum brésrum and feederan.”’
“Halsfang belongs to children, brothers, and feteron.”
Here it is hard to conceive that the paternal uncle is
included to the exclusion of the father, but rather
bearnum stands for the younger, brésrwm for the
contemporary, and federan for the elder generation.
This view is confirmed by the use of the phrase binnan
enedwe for the same group, for the relations entra genu
certainly included the father.

Another remarkable use of the word, which again
suggests the primitive value of feteron as the co-
fathers of the group, arises from the use of O.H.G.
gavatero, A.S. gefaedera, O. Fries. fadera, Danish

1 R. Schmid, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 1858, p. 394.
VOL, II . is

210 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

jfadder, and Modern German gevatter for godfather.
Ninth-century glosses give gavatero for compater,
and gavatera’ for commater, godfather and godmother.
It is singular that these terms, which can only be
strenethened forms of fetero and faedera,’ should have
been chosen at such a comparatively early date for
the Christian sponsors. Indeed the Middle Latin com-
pater and commater look much more like a translation
of gavateron than vice versa. Some light on this point
might be obtained from a study of the early use of com-
pater and commater. In one respect their use differs very
widely from modern godfather and godmother ; the latter
terms mark a relationship between the sponsors and child,
the former precisely as gafatero and gafatera, mark a
relation between sponsors and the child’s parents. Thus
the Lex Langobardorum (ii. 8, § 5) expressly defines a
commater as commater to one whose child she has taken
from the font, or to one who has taken her child from
the font.’ <A decretal of a.p. 614 (Lex Canonica, Pars
IT. Causa xxx. Quaestio i.) orders that a man shall not
continue to live as husband with his wife, if she has by
mischance acted as godmother to her own child. The
wife is spoken of as the man’s commater, and in Modern
German gevatterin would translate it, but clearly not
English godmother. Thus the compatres or gafateron are
much closer and more familiar relations than godfather
and godchild,—they belong, as a rule, to one and the

1 The feminine is not such an anomaly as it might first appear, if pé (as in
JSédian) be conceived as having attained the meaning reproduce, bear, as well as
procreate ; thus we have Gothic fadreins for both parents.

2 Compare Friesian fedria, fetha, father’s brother, with faedrum, fatherum,
godfather.

* This sense was accurately retained for many centuries in the Lea Canonica.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 211

same generation. In this sense compater and gafatero,
or gevatter, are used as terms of address between equals
where there is no spiritual relationship, or at least where
no stress is laid on it. Thus in M.H.G. comrades in the
fight address each other as gevatter, and Isengrin the
wolf calls Reynard the fox gevatere! The dog is gevatter
to the wolf in Grimm’s Mirchen, No. 48; the fox and
the wolf, gevatter and gevatterin in No. 74; and the
gevatterschaft is a pretty widely-spread relationship
among the characters in Der alte Hildebrand (No. 95).
Hugo von Trimberg and many medieval writers use
gevatter in the sense of English gossxp and French
commere, for intimates and even scandalmongers.' The
former idea of intimacy is probably retained in the term
Gevatter Tod. It may be said this use of gevatter is
only a degeneration of its use for a spiritual relationship,
which marked a much closer intimacy in the Middle
Ages than it does to-day. I am inclined, however, to
believe that more weight must be given to the origin of
the term in the feteron of the primitive social group.
In this respect the frequent association of vetter and.
gevatter as terms for intimates, and the fact that the
earliest—ninth-century—gevatter gloss is gwvatarun, com-
matrem spiritualem, are suggestive for both the original
gavateron and the original commatres or compatres
having also had a non-spiritual meaning.” Bearing in

1 Low German vadder is compater, vadderkols, gossip, vadderspel, nepotism ;
while vaddersche, commater is even used to render Latin nutrix.

2 The terms compater spiritualis and commater spiritualis, which Ducange cites
from an early date, would appear to illustrate the existence of a non-spiritual
compater and commater. The earliest use of these terms would certainly appear
to be Germanic. Thus they occur in the Lex Langobardorum and in a cartulary
of Karl the Great. The Council of Mainz in A.D. 813 speaks of compatres

212 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

mind what has been said of the medieval frauengadem,
—as remaining as a fossil of the sexual license of the old
kin-group,—it is somewhat noteworthy to find the term
commatres used for young women living in the houses of
bishops and priests about 1300, whose conduct created
scandal, while the term to go ad commatres seems to
have been used in a still worse sense. Ducange gives
instances of compater being used for sodalis, amicus, and
not in a spiritual sense ;*
case of the date 855, in which compater actually denotes
the father’s sister’s husband, is also cited by him. Sucha
use is quite intelligible if the compatres were originally
the males of the kin-group, sharing bed and board; it
becomes quite obscure if the term compater was a term

and a particularly important

originally devised to cover the spiritual relationship.
Turning back, indeed, to heathen times we find asso-
ciated with the exposure of children practices closely
akin to Christian baptism. The new-born child in
Scandinavia was either taken to the father, or left on
the floor (golf) where, according to ancient custom, the
mother had given it birth, for its fate to be settled. If
the father took it to his breast or raised it from the
ground, its life was preserved, otherwise it was exposed.
If the father accepted the child, he was asked how it
should be named; he then poured water over it and
gave it a name. Occasionally he left this ceremony to
one of his near kin, who then named and ‘baptized’

spirituales, and the same words are used by the Council of Worms in 868. The
term patrinus also appears to have a Germanic origin,—it is used first in a charter
of Pipin (A.D. 752)—and, as I have hinted in the text, I expect compater as well
as patrinus to be late Latin translations of gevatter.

1 Note also how French parrain, godfather, is used for a second in a duel and
for any intimate friend ; also wn bon compére=a merry fellow.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 213

the child. This same heathen ‘baptism ’—with the
naming of, and the pouring water over, the child—
existed also in Germany.’ We find both German and
Scandinavian heathendom fighting hard on the advent
of Christianity for this right of exposure, and there
can be little doubt that the heathen ceremony of infant
baptism influenced the Christian. It was precisely the
males of the old kin-group who would be concerned
with the preservation or exposure of a new life; they
took upon themselves the responsibility for it, and
hence the name gavateron, originally equivalent to
fateron, was very naturally adopted for the Christian
sponsors and name-givers of the new-born child.? It
would appear that Boniface must have written to
Gregory III. about this heathen baptism, for we find
that Pope writing in reply that such baptism is to be
held invalid.* Ecclesiastical decrees of a later date
forbidding any persons to assert compaternitas, because
they have poured water on the linen or swaddling
clothes of the infant, appear also to be directed against
a heathen survival.* Brother Berthold, so late as 1250,
preached against baptismal practices of an apparently
heathen origin.’ The earliest account we have of Chris-
tian baptism, Tertullian’s work against Quintilla,’ shows

1 See Weinhold : Altnordisches Leben, pp. 260 et seg., and Die deutschen Frauen
in dem Mittelalter, ii. p. 95.

2 A good deal of the gevatter folklore thus becomes intelligible, eg. the
proverb, Wer bei seiner ersten Gevatterschaft ein wneheliches Kind hebt hat Gtiick
zum heirathen, may be taken to mean that he who becomes one of the fateron in
a kin-group (¢.e. where the children are ‘fatherless’) will have the favour of the
women or join in the old hi-rath (see p. 137).

3 Jaffé, Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum, iii. s. 91.

4 See Ducange under fasciatoriwm and compaternitas.

5 J. Grimm, Kleinere Schriften, Bd. iv. p. 325.

® See Opera, Lyons, 1675. De Baptismo, A.D. 160-200. ~

214 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

us that originally the ceremony concerned in the first
place adults, and Tertullian refers only in Cap. 18 (fol. 231)
to child baptism as an undesirable thing. He mentions
it as introducing a new danger owing to the need for
sponsores. The term compater is not used. It would
thus appear that infant baptism was unusual in
Tertullian’s day. We may therefore, I think, conclude
that the growth of infant baptism was largely favoured
by Germanic heathen customs—the Church adapting,
as in so many other cases, what it found already
existing to its own usages. If that be so, the special
characteristics and the folklore of the Teutonic gevatter
may alike be taken as illustrative of the fateron, or
eroup of fathers of the old kin-community.*

(7) If the terms for mother’s sister and for father’s
brother originally stood for any of the women of one
generation, and for any of the men of one generation
within the kin-group, then we should not expect any

1 In the Saxon Laws, Ine (before 694) has godfeder, godsunu, Aithelred
has (cirea 1008) gefaederan, and Canute (circa 1026) uses the same word. The
exact meaning of god in godfather and godmother is very open to question. It is
hardly god, deus, as Skeat, for example, among many writers suggests. O.H.G.
gota is admater, commater, godmother, and gétti is adpater, compater, godfather ;
gotele is filiola, goddaughter. From the Middle Ages we have gott, paternus,
gottin, maternus, gittlein, filiolus, and gétla, filiola, in fact, the whole of the Anglo-
Saxon godsib, modern gossip. The words are still in German dialect use, der
géd is the godfather, die god, the godmother. God/ is, however, frequently
used of the goddaughter, and indeed of any girl whatever. Gttenléffel is the
‘silver spoon’ ; gotteit is gevatterschaft. This obscure O.H.G. goto, gota, has been
associated with goting, tribunus, sacerdos;(possibly also found in the place-names
Giding and Gottingen), and with Gothic gudja, Icelandic godt, priest, judge.
However this may be, the source of god in god-parents is not the obvious one of
god, deus, but in all probability dates from some hitherto unelucidated heathen
notion involved in the O.H.G. names goto and gota. In this respect it seems of
significance that gétta, godfather, appears to be a derivative from gota, god-
mother. The heathen goddess Frau Goode, who can be traced throughout large
districts of Germany, must also be borne in mind.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 215

very definite names with cognates in all Aryan tongues
for mother’s brother and father’s sister. Only when
exogamy succeeded endogamy as the ruling custom
would such names become necessary, and such change
in custom hardly preceded the origin of the Aryan
names for relationship. This expectation is justified in
so far that the Teutonic words for mother’s brother and
father’s sister do not find co-radicates of the same sense
in all Aryan tongues. Further, their significance in the
Teutonic dialects is itself very variable, and their
primitive sense by no means clear.

The word for mother’s brother is O.H.G. dhe,
M.H.G. éheom and dham, A.S. edm for eahdm, O.
Fries. em, M.L.G. ohm. The O.H.G. dhewm is
glossed avunculus, maternal uncle, and héhevmes sun,
consobrinus, cousin-german through the mother. Prob-
ably the word has the same root as Latin avus and
Gothic ava (grandmother), but the source of the word
is very obscure, and its Gothic form, which might have
been of assistance, has not been preserved. In late
German, at any rate, the word is applied to father’s
brother and father’s sister’s husband. Comparatively
early it is used of the sister's son or nephew, and then
for other blood-relatives. In the second or exogamous
period of the matriarchate, the mother’s brother plays
an important part,’ and it is noteworthy that the two
chief uses of oheim, i.e. for mother’s brother and sister’s

1 One among many fossil indications of this occurs when Brunhilda in the
Nibelungentied gives her castle and lands in charge to one ir héhsten mdge (er was ir
muoter bruoder), when she leaves for Worms. He is to look after it until her

husband can come and manage it. Ultimately, of course, the latter will in turn
be succeeded by her daughter’s husband. Compare Creon’s relation to Oedipus.

216 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

son, correspond to the first heirs of a man under mother-
right custom.’

The most widespread German word for father’s
sister is O.H.G. basa, L.G. wasa, and Modern German
base. In O.H.G. we find basa, wasa, and pasa all
glossed amita. In Modern German its use has occasion-
ally been rather wide, thus Luther uses it for father’s -
brother’s wife, and in Low German we find it used even
for mother’s sister. Dialect uses show a still more general
value. An old woman I knew, who used to sell wine in
a tower at Lorch on the Rhine, was termed by the whole
neighbourhood (in 1879) Sette bas, she being a public
character on account of her having seen the Russians
cross the Rhine when the Allies marched on Paris.
In Bavaria the term bas/ is applied to any married
woman, especially if she be old, and the term basele
to any not fully grown girl. ‘The origin of the word is
very obscure. Grimm appears in favour of a derivation
analogous to the Norse faster =farsyster, and would.
equate basa and fadarsuestor. Graff, Deecke, and
others connect basa with bésam, bésm, English bosom.
Thus gebusamen is glossed consanguineos, blood-
relatives. According to the patriarchal system of
these writers, the father’s sister is the one who takes
the motherless child of her brother to her bosom. But
bésam in this sense denotes bosom, lap, relationship
through the womb. In O. Fries. boste, N. Fries. boaste
is marriage, and O. Fries. bostigia, N. Fries. boostgjan is
to marry, and boesen to kiss. This certainly does not

1 That the oheim, like the muhme, originally belonged to a sub-group of the
kin-group is supported by the Zend brdtdirya, for oheim as well as muhme.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 217

accord with the exogamous period of the mother-age,
during which the conception of the father’s sister would,
on our theory, begin to be developed. It would accord,
however, with basa having originally stood for a name
for some of the group women’ in the endogamous
period. Without being able to explain the origin of
‘the word, we may remark that the folk-feeling with
regard to its weight is very different from the affection-
ate atmosphere which surrounds muhme, and approaches
in some respects that attached to gevatter and gevatterin.
Thus bdiseln is to chatter, gossip in a bad sense. The
basen are, in popular opinion, wrinkled, ugly, aged
spinsters who sit, spin, and spread scandalous stories.
Above all, it is they who raise a ‘philisterhaftes
Zetergeschrei,’ when any one does not do what is
exactly customary. Thus kaffeebase, klatschbase,
baseret, philisterbasere: are all names the reverse of
complimentary to the base, and not finding their
equivalents in any ideas associated with French tante or
English aunt. There is certainly nothing in the word
to give any weight to a patriarchal conception of the
primitive Aryan family. It would seem to represent
some class of women in the community, whose age and
position rendered them responsible for the maintenance
of social tradition and custom.’

In A.S. fade, fasu, in O.F. feté, in L.G. vade, fede,

1 For example, elder sisters or elder female cousins, whom there is some
evidence to show were first separated from sexual relations with their younger
kin. In many languages, for instance, there are different words for younger
and elder sisters, and the latter are treated with far greater respect.

2 Perhaps Friesian bds, Dutch baas, Norse bas, English boss, master, overseer,
deserve to be considered in relation to base.

218 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

in M. Dutch vdde were used for father’s sister,
aunt, and are probably obtained by the loss of an
r from faire, fetre, or fetere. At the same time,
Gothic fabs, master, used chiefly in compounds, as
in bruthfaps, bridegroom, must be taken into con-
sideration. Fedethom appears used in M.L.G. for
the offspring of father’s sister, as fedriethom for that
of father’s brother. As to the history and develop-
ment in use of these words, I can find nothing of real
value.

(8) Having considered aunts and uncles, we may
now pass to nephews and nieces. If these had no
definite and clearly conceived existence during the
period of kindred group-marriage, we should expect
to find, as in the case of uncles and aunts, considerable
confusion in the nomenclature, which would not be
explicable had the patriarchal family been the earliest
type and formed the basis of the Aryan terminology
for relationship.

The primitive form of the root is here suggested
by the Sanskrit ndpdt, descendant, son, grandchild.
The signification is apparently the one who is not (nq)
a spouse or master (pdtis); perhaps, remembering the
sense of the root pd, it might also be rendered the
umpubes. It will be seen at once that there is in this
no trace of the modern nephew idea. We have exactly
what we should expect in a group with two broad
divisions, the young, not yet spouses, and the adults with
a communal marriage. We find also Sanskrit nafsu,
offspring, grandchildren, naptjam, family; Old Per-
sian napdt, grandchild; Greek dveyuds, cousin, nephew,

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 219

vérrodes, descendants; Latin nepos, descendant, grand-
child, nephew ; Gothic nzpjis, nipjo, cousin; A.S. néfa,
grandchild, nephew; O.H.G. nefo, glossed nepos, cog-
natus, sobrinus, t.e. any collateral womb-relation, or,
indeed, any blood-relative ;' O.H.G. nzft, glossed neptis
and privigna, niece and stepdaughter; M. Dutch neef,
grandchild, cousin, nephew; M.H.G. néve, relative,
cousin, néveschaft, cousinship, niftelin, granddaughter,
niece; M.L.G. neve, grandchild, nephew, or niece,
nichte, nichteke, granddaughter, niece; Old Norse neji,
offspring, grandchild, nephew, nepi, a brother, nift, a
sister, and also a bride. Now all these diverse mean-
ings, even to the last—brother, sister, bride—are intel-
ligible on the basis that the véodes were originally the
offspring of the kin-group—offspring ’ to some, nephews
or nieces to others, cousins, brothers, sisters, and ulti-
mately spouses among themselves. The children of the
gamahhida, they will ultimately form a gamahlida
among themselves. They are the wmpuberes, while the
others are the conjuges; they are the young and the
others the old, the eltern; they are the enkeln, O.H.G.

1 Tn an old medieval vernacular Christmas church ritual, the Virgin Mary
terms Joseph lieber neve mein, and Joseph the Virgin liebe mueme mein. In the
LambacherPassionsspiel Jonn also addresses Maria as liebe mutter vind mume.

? That the offspring is the sister’s son is also evidenced by old Irish niae,
son of a sister, i.e. not of a brother. As I have pointed out, the ancient
gods—created in man’s image—marry like their makers, and when we have
passed the stage of no known fathers, of the mother-son dual deities, we reach
that of brother-sister marriage—Freyr and Freya, Niordr and his sister, Zeus
and Hera, Cronos and Rhea, Jupiter and Juno, Janus and Camisa, Osiris and
Isis, and many others in the mythologies of much less civilised peoples. Nor
does brother-sister marriage occur in mythology only. Besides its frequency in
Ancient Egypt and Modern Madagascar, we may cite its occurrence in the Celtic
hero-legends, e.g. Caibre Musc and Duben, Conchobar and Dechtere, Medb,
Ethne, Clothru, and their three brothers, the latter appearing to be a kin group-
marriage.

220 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

enenkel, eninchil for aninchli, the little ano or ahne,
which we have seen applies to their older ascendants.*

(9) As we have already dealt with brother and
sister as words containing general evidence of the primi-
tive kindred group-marriage, we may now pass to the
terms for son and daughter. |

One of the first desires of the parents of a new-born
child is to ascertain its sex. Is it a boy or a girl?
This must be at once announced to the community.
The nomads of Central Asia indicated the sex by
placing spear or distaff at the entrance of the tent.
The Greeks put an olive wreath for a boy and wool for
a girl at the door of the house. The South American
Indians place a weapon for a boy and a spindle for a
girl. The negroes of New Guinea a bow for the son and
a stir-about stick or cooking-spoon for the daughter.
The ancient Chinese marked the male birth by a bow
to the left, and the female by a girdle to the right of
the door. The Dutch indicate by the colour of a silk
pad fastened to the knocker the sex of the new member
of the community, and there is little doubt that the
glove formerly seen on English doors originally indicated
by its colour or position the same thing. ‘The routine
and festivities which, in all parts of the world, follow
birth take their character and magnitude from the sex
of the new-born child. The sex is thus seen to be of
first importance, not only to the parents, but to the

1 Compare éimchen for niece. I doubt the objection raised by Grimm to this
derivation, namely, that the enkel is not a ‘little forefather.’ Clearly the niece
is not a ‘little uncle,’ yet she is termed éhmchen. The term ano being applied
to a particular group in the community, it was not a long step to term little
anan, a group of the same constitution which had not yet reached maturity.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 221

social group of which they are members. It is the
first question to be answered, and at that early stage
the answer is only to be obtained by reference to the
primary sexual characters. ‘It is a son, a seed-giver,”
says the primitive midwife, or “It is a daughter, a
suckler,” as the case may be.

In Sanskrit the root su denoted primitively pour
out, wet, squeeze out juice, as in savam, water, and
simas, river. But it has, in addition, the sense of
beget, procreate, whence we have sénus, the son, the
begetter. The co-radicates are Gothic swnus, O.H.G.
sunu, A.S. sunu, O.N. sonr, English son, German sohn,
and probably Greek vids for cwds. Some writers have
held that the sw in sénus denoting procreate, the son
is the procreated. Against this must be remarked the
almost universal use of the word for the male offspring.
Sanskrit sut@, daughter, appears to come from a past
participle, and so to mean the procreated. The sdénus
series is, however, to be connected with a present parti-
ciple sunvant, procreating.' The same root occurs in
other words, one or two of which are sufficiently sugges-
tive for our present purpose to be mentioned. ‘Thus San-
skrit sétu, pregnancy, Old Irish suth, the fetus, Greek
cds (ds in Homer), a hog or wild boar, Latin sus, O.H.G.
su, O.N. syr, Modern German sau, English sow, where
there appears to be a transition first to either male or
female, and then to the female only. The procreative
capacity of the pig is obviously the source of the name,
the animal itself from Scandinavia to Greece being a

1 That son and daughter originally stood for boy and girl simply, and not

for a relationship, is in keeping with the Celtic tongues, which have no name
for son and daughter as distinguished from boy and girl.

222 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

symbol of fertility, or a metaphor for sexual license.
Another interesting word is the Greek tew, probably for
ovew, to rain, with the notion of the rain as a fertiliser.
Thus Bacchus was termed és, probably as a god of
fertilising moisture; while Zeds ins reminds us of the
golden shower with which he fertilised Danaé. Possibly
the same idea of creating, fertilising moisture is retained
in the Sanskrit sémas,' the mysterious drink of the
Vedic gods, whom it animated to great achievements.
To the same root also tujv, hymen, the god of love and
the song of love, may probably be ultimately traced,
thus carrying us back in the root su of sunu to that
kin-gathering with its common meal, songs, and sexual
license which has so often reappeared.

As we find the idea of su, beget, leading to swna, son,
so the same notion in pu leads us to pusus, putus, and
puer,aboy. Sanskrit putra is a son. If Latin puer
be for puter, as Grimm suggests, then again it is the
procreator which is emphasised. The origin of puer
would thus correspond to ¢vTwp from ¢v, and, on our
theory, to patar from pd. All signify the male begetter,
but the former 7 potentia, the latter two in esse. The
Teutonic form is buobe, bube, at first sight only the male
procreated, but in Alpine bua=lebhaber; and in the
forms buhl, buhle, lover; bil =amica, meretrix; Swiss
biihlc = Kirmes-mistress, dance- partner on May Day;
buhlgabe = morgengabe ; buhlgesang = hileth, etc., point-
ing to the procreator and the sex-festival.

Turning now to daughter the cognates are: Sanskrit
duhitd, Persian dokhter, Greek O@vydrnp, Gothic dauhtar,

1 Compare Sanskrit s@mas, water, milk, moisture ; Greek épdw, to pour out,
and épdw, to love sexually, épos, love, desire.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 223

O.H.G. tohtar, M.G. tochter, O.N. dédttir, A.S. dohtor,
etc. The Sanskrit root dug, or duh, is to milk in either
the passive or active sense, as in malchen and melken.
Swedish ddggja, Danish daegge, Gothic daddjan, are to
give suck, while English dug is the nipple of the breast.
In Sanskrit dig’d is a cow, déhas, a milking or milk, and
dégd‘ri, a cow or nurse. From these cow-words, with-
out apparent co-radicates in the other Aryan tongues,
arose the idea of the daughter as the milker of cows in
the pretty theory of the happy patriarchal life of the
primitive Aryans. ‘This idea, that the terminology for
daughter awaited the discovery of a peaceful occupation
for her later years, has now been given up by most philo-
logists (not, however, by Skeat), but it serves to mark the
want of anthropological instinct in the philologists of the
last generation. As the son is the begetter in potentia,
so the daughter is the suckler, the mother of the future
—a far more primitive concept than that of cow-milking.
(10) I shall now pass to some remarks on the
Teutonic words for relationship by marriage. Such
words differ widely in most Aryan dialects, and this is
sufficient to indicate their late origin." Many of the
Aryan words suggest a very different primitive sense to
their present, and several have clearly been perverted
from their old kin-group significance to suit patriarchal
institutions. I must here, however, confine my attention
to some peculiarly German terms, as my space is limited.
German ezdam, A.S. dbum, and Fries. ddum, appears
connected with eid, oath. The son-in-law is the oath-
1 Clearly, if the patriarchal system had been a primitive Aryan one, the

names for such relationships ought to have been co-radicate, for they must have
been needed at an early date.

224 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

man, not the bloodman. He is the man whose trewwa,
peace, or szbbe, is not preserved by his blood-link, with
its sanctions of blood-feud and blood-vengeance, but by
an oath of peace which he has taken to the kin, so that
he ceases to be wnsibbe. For him marriage is not a
right of kin, but a pact, an ehe, and he is an ehemann.
This name eidam for son-in-law probably arose when
exogamy was becoming the rule, but the woman re-
mained within her own kin-group, a form of marriage
largely illustrated by the German Marchen, and equiva-
lent to the beena marriage of the old Arabians. The
same notion of sworn relationship is probably to be
found in the Swedish svdramoder, svdrafader, svdra-
dotter, etc. Here, although the ultimate root may have
been the same as that of Swedish svoger and German
schwager, there has been undoubtedly assimilation to
svdrja, swear, owing to the conception of the son-in-
law as the sworn-man. It is noteworthy that eidem is
used in M.H.G. for either father-in-law or son-in-law ;
this double use was very probably much older, and
simply marks the sworn relationship of the two.

From the chief Germanic root for relationship by
marriage no terms whatever exist for children-in-law
till we come to the late compounds schwiegersohn and
schwiegertochter. These facts must be borne in mind
when we come to sum up the origin of this relationship.
Turning to other Aryan tongues we find considerable
diversity of words, with very significant roots. Thus we

1 Grimm connects eidam with a root e, related to ju, bind (as jug in jungere)
and equivalent to Sanskrit jam. He would thus connect eidam directly with
Sanskrit gdmé for jami, daughter-i -in-law. This leaves the dental quite unex-
plained, the primitive notion in both may be bind ; but the bond in the German
word is that of the oath, and in the Sanskrit that of sex.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 225

have Sanskrit gémdtrz, Greek yauB8pos, Latin gener, for
son-in-law. The base idea here seems to be simply that
of the begetter, the procreator, the root being yam, gam,
with the sexual weight, as in Greek yayéo and Latin
geminus. In Lithuanian the word is Zentas. Thus,
while the German word evdam points to son-in-law as
an exogamous relation, there is nothing in the Sanskrit,
Greek, and Latin words inconsistent with endogamy, 2.e.
with the gener being originally one of the gamahhida,
the kin-group.? Indeed there is a good deal to be said in
favour of it. Greek yayS8pds has the usual vagueness of
a word which has been specialised from a wider primi-
tive sense; for, besides son-in-law, we find it used for
father-in-law, sister’s husband, and wife’s brother, and
then still more generally for bridegroom, wooer, suitor.®
Sanskrit gd@mi for daughter-in-law is used also for
sister. Lastly, Lithuanian gente, gentere, sister-in-law,
can hardly fail to be connected with the Scandinavian
génta, merely signifying girl or young woman, appear-
ing O.N. genta, Swedish gdnta, Landsmaal gjenta, and
Norwegian jente.

This identification of a word used primitively for
young woman with a marriage relationship occurs in
- cognate words. Thus Greek vvds, daughter-in-law, is
used for any female connection by marriage, and further
for a bride or a wife. The word is probably a corrup-
tion of ovvcds. Latin nurus (=snurus), daughter-in-
law (Italian nuora), is used by Ovid of any young

1 Zend zdmédtar, son-in-law, and z@mi, birth, may also be noted.

2 That the son-in-law was originally from the kin seems to be evidenced by
the Gothic mégs, Swedish mdgr. See p. 139.

3 Early and dialect usage. ;

VOL. II *

226 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

married woman. In Low Latin nwrus is. used for
vuudlos, sponsus, or bridegroom, and nwra for daughter-
in-law ; this use of nurus has almost certainly a basis in
an older sense of the word. The Sanskrit is snushd,
Czech snacha, A.S. snora, O.H.G. snur (also, be it noted,
glossed as noverca, stepmother), and Modern German
schnur. According to Schade, the Albanians use votceja
for daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and any newly married
woman, While vovcepia is the period of a woman’s life
between marriage and the first confinement (? pregnancy).
Various origins of the word have been suggested, all more
or less unsatisfactory. Kuhn would have us believe that
snushd = sam-vasd, the cohabitant, or one dwelling with
her parents-in-law; this result assumes the exogamy,
and also the existence of patriarchal custom, among the
primitive Aryans. According to Fick, snusd perhaps
stands for sunusa, the ‘sonness’ or female of the son;
and, as suggestive of this source, Old Slav synocha,
Polish synowa (from syn, son), and Swabian séhnerin
have been cited. It is difficult to see how the wide-
spread use of the word for any young married woman
could then have easily arisen, for it may be taken as a
universal rule, which we have seen exemplified in many
instances, that words of kinship and sex begin with a
very wide and general sense and are afterwards special-
ised. Lastly, we have Weber's deduction from an Aryan
root snu, meaning to flow. Thus Fick has snevd, snau,
to drip, wet, flow, connected possibly with which is
the Gothic snivan. This root is certainly in accord-
ance with the primitive weight of snur, as merely the
young woman or bride. It might account also for the

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 227

curious Albanian vovcepia, while it is consistent with the
great part which the sexual life of the woman plays in
early folklore.*

Another term for daughter-in-law undoubtedly shows
the patriarchal exogamous system. This is Sanskrit
vaduja. The root vedhé and Lithuanian ved signified
bring, lead away, and ultimately marry. Thus Sanskrit
vadwuja (and vadht) is also beast of burden, so that the
notion of leading appears to be that of the bound or
captive kind. Sanskrit vadhi is young woman, bride,
young wife, daughter-in-law, and in Zend vadhemndé is
bridegroom. Welsh ar-wedd is glossed gerere, and
dyweddio is marry. Very suggestive is Lithuanian
wadéti, to redeem a pledge. Welsh gwaudd and
Cornish guhit stand for daughter-in-law, and so does
Lithuanian wedekle. Besides these, Whitley Stokes
notices Welsh gwaddol and Greek &évov for a gift to
the wife or to her relatives,’ probably originally a price
for the rape. The forcible character of the ‘leading’
involved is evidenced by the cognates which are rendered
ducere and dux, e.g. Old Slavonic vodite and vozdi.

We thus see two chief sources of the idea daughter-
in-law—the one, in the great majority of Aryan tongues,
arising from the idea merely of a young marriageable
woman, and probably known in the endogamous period ;

1 It is possible that a similar notion occurs in O.H.G. huora, O.N. héra,
English whore, which Grimm connects with the root har in the sense of flow.
The origin of the word would thus be no more evil than that of hexe, with which
indeed it is closely connected by a series of folk-proverbs, such as jung eine
hure, alt eine hexe. The word originally would signify any young woman,
the freedom in matters of sex attached to the word arising from the traditions
of the old group sex-freedom. Fick would connect hure, not as Grimm with
the notion in har, flow (and Sanskrit gara=Gothic hérs, adulterer), but with
ka, desire, yearn after. See p. 179).

2 Compare the primitive sense of pledge in Anglo-Saxon wedldc, English
wedlock.

228 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

the other, much less common, marking an exogamous
origin for the daughter-in-law, the capture or purchase
of the bride. For son-in-law we have the endogamous
notion, the bridegroom as a mere procreator, or even
as mégs, one of the kin, and the exogamous, but still
matriarchal, notion of the son-in-law as of the kin by
reason of his oath. He is the man who lives in his
wife’s home, as the lucky Hans of the Miarchen.?
Passing now to parents-in-law, we find one main root
—hardly yet satisfactorily dealt with—running through
most of the Aryan languages. This root is exhibited in
German schwiiher, father-in-law, schwieger, mother-in-
law. In Gothic svazhro, mother-in-law, is used thrice of
the wife’s mother, and once of the husband’s mother ;?
and svathra, father-in-law, once of the wife’s father.
O.H.G. swehur and swigar are glossed socer (once levir),
and uxoris mater, socrus. In M.H.G. we find swéher,
contracted into swer and swir, for father-in-law. In
Bavaria schwiger, die schwega are used for mother-
in-law, wxorrs mater, and socrus, while schweher,
schwer, der schwega are used for pater uxoris, socer.
Swedish svdra?* is mother-in-law. Old Slavonic svekru,
Russian svékoru stand for wife's father-in-law, e.g.
husband’s father, so also the Lithuanian szesziuras. .
Polish swrekver is used both for wife’s and husband’s
father. This appears to be the case with Latin socer
(for svocer), Italian suocero, Greek éxupéds (for oFe-

1 Or Oedipus, who, for a riddle-solving service to the state, gains the queen
and kingdom. The queen retains ‘equal sway,’ however, and the brother is
the ‘ peer of both,’ and therefore feared by the king. See Oedipus Tyrannus,
ll. 579, 581, 378, 631, et seq.

2 Jah brup vipra svaihron izos (Matt. x. 35), t.e. the bride against her
mother-in-law. The Greek has viudy and evdepa.

3 Sver and sviru occur in Norse runes (see pp. 224, 231).

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 229

xupds), Welsh chwegrwn, Sanskrit ¢vagura, for father-
in-law, while the corresponding words, socrus, éxupa,
cvacris, for mother-in-law, are used for both husband’s
and wife’s mother. It would be interesting to ascertain
whether these words have not in their earliest usage a
bias towards either husband’s parents or wife’s parents
exclusively. It is quite clear that in an exogamic matri-
archal marriage the wife’s parents, and in an exogamic
patriarchal marriage the husband’s parents, would play
the chief part as the parents-in-law. In either case
their relations to the young couple would be somewhat
different, and we should not unnaturally have expected
different names for the husband’s and the wife’s parents-
in-law.'_ The apparently nearly equal weight for both
husband’s and wife’s parents of the svekr terms, as well
as their widespread use throughout the Aryan languages,
might suggest that they arose in the endogamous group-
period, when monogamous unions within the group were
becoming the rule, but the parents of both mates were
on a nearly equal footing within the group.’

It cannot be said that any satisfactory account
has been given of these words. Bopp and others
have deduced svacgura from sva, own, and ¢uras, the
hero, the strong one, as in Greek «dpos, authority,
xvptos, master, and Old Irish cawr, cur, hero. But,
besides the difficulty of tracing the second word in
other than the Sanskrit and Greek forms, this origin

1 It would be of considerable value to ascertain, if possible, whether Greek
éxupés and éxupd, father- and mother-in-law, and zrevOepés and 7revOepd, father- and
mother-in-law, were ever specialised in this manner.

2 Slight evidence that the mother-in-law was originally of the kin may
perhaps be found in Lithuanian angta, mother-in-law, clearly related to and,
female ancestress, Greek dvvis, grandmother.

230 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

appears to leave the terms for mother-in-law unac-
counted for, although in several cases they appear to
be as primitive, if not more primitive, than the male
terms; for example, Welsh chwegr and Cornish hwegr.
Anthropologically, also, we should expect the mother of
either mate to appear before the father, and this view
is favoured by the Welsh chwegrwn, which suggests, as
Whitley Stokes has pointed out, svekr-unos as the base
form. Here the unos would be an affix corresponding
to that in sobr-cnus or uter-inus, and it would be a
meaning for the root svekr that must be sought." Now
this form corresponds closely to the Teutonic form for
brother-in-law, and, with much hesitation, I am inclined
to hold that possibly the words for parents-in-law are
deduced from the term now used in Teutonic lands for
brother-in-law. There is much to be said against this
view. In the first place, there is no word for brother-
in-law connected with either Latin socerus or Greek
éxvpos: in the next place, Sanskrit actually forms a
derivative, svakurjas, for brother-in-law ;? and, in the
last place, the Celtic languages seem to use for mother-
in-law a term most closely corresponding to that for
brother-in-law in the Teutonic languages. But against
these weighty objections must be set the following :—
(i.) The Teutonic schwager is far more extended in

1 Latin socrus for socerus appears to have been originally of either gender, and
suggests the same idea. Against this view, namely,—that the brother-in-law
is primitively a person of more weight than the parents-in-law—may be urged
the formation of complimentary words for father by marriage, as in the case of
French beaupére, and Teutonic stiuffater, stepfather, pater honoris causa, as
Schade neatly expresses it. Note also the use in Scotland and Northumberland ~
of goodfather, goodmother, goodsister, etc., for relatives-in-law.

2 This might possibly be compared with the origin of kénigin, from
kéning, and ultimately from kone.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 231

its meaning than either schwdher or schwieger, and
appears in many cases to cover father-in-law as well as
brother-in-law, and indeed a variety of relationships in
more or less degenerate forms.

Thus in M.H.G. swager is used for sororius, levir,
socer, and gener; in O.L.G. swager was also used for
either socer or gener, and indeed for any other
verschwigerte person. In Bavarian dialect schwager
is brother-in-law, geswagerlich means related sexually,
either by marriage or by ‘ Unehe’; while schwager in
general is used as a term for some friendly relation,
thus the driver terms his fare, and craftsmen of allied
trades term each other, schwager.'| In Anglo-Saxon
sweger is mother-in-law, sweor, father-in-law, Old
Swedish svaer is father-in-law, Old Norse sver is
mother-in-law. In Danish we have svoger for brother-
in-law, while swiger attached to fader, moder, datter,
etc., gives all the relatives-in-law. Old Friesian and
Dutch swdéger are both brother-in-law and son-in-law.

Turning now to shortened forms we have O.H.G.
swio for brother-in-law, O.H.G. gaswio, M.H.G. geswie
for relatives by marriage, brother-in-law and sister-in-
law particularly; M.H.G. geswige is the sister's
husband ; gsweyen in Bavaria denotes children of sisters
(consobrint), der geschwie, the father-in-law, and die
geschwein, the wife’s brothers. Still more generally in
Old Saxon swri stands for cousins, and in Anglo-Saxon

1 The Bavarian terms schwag for an alp or cattle-pen, with schwaiger for
its owner, and schwaegerin for its tender, the sennerin, might possibly throw
some light on the meaning of swig in the old group-kindred days of the hag.
Or, is O.H.G. sweiga for cattle-pen merely equivalent to medieval Latin soca,
soga, a measure of land, and Greek onxés, caxds, a pen for cattle, an inclosure ?

232 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

geswirja for sister’s son. We may also note Anglo-
Saxon suhterja, brother’s son, nephew, and suhtorfdidera,
parents-in-law, possibly for svzhtorya and svihtorfddera,
and so connected with the root of swehor.’

Now, whether the series of words in the last para-
eraph has arisen from a primitive sweh or svih, or has an
origin independent of the svekr series, it is very difficult
to believe in the face of such widely extended meanings
as these words certainly have in early Teutonic dialects,
that the whole terminology for relations-in-law should
have arisen as derivatives of the term for father-in-
law.

(ii.) The use of the svekr terms in Lithuanian, in
Russian,” and other Slavonic tongues for the husband’s
relatives points, so far as it goes, to the husband as the
source of the svekr terminology, and this is supported
by such a word as geschwdgert for any connection by
marriage, and by its limited and comparatively late use
for son-in-law. The general weight of the svekr terms
in the Teutonic dialects certainly seems to bear the
impress of a word used for intimacy and familiarity on
the same level, and accordingly, if the origin of the word
is to be sought in sva, own, proper, intimate, familiar, I
believe it must be in the relationship of brothers- and
sisters-in-law. It is also true that sva, or its fuller
form svas, peculiar, dear,’ does lead to many terms for

1 Hindustanee sds, mother-in-law, swsra, father-in-law, may be connected
with the sve root, but doubtfully with svekr. The female is here the primitive.

2 In Russian svojack=schwager, svékoru = wife's father-in-law, svekrovi, wife’s
mother-in-law.

3 Compare Gothic sves, own, property. Then we have Aryan svedhé, to ‘self,’
to become use to; the sved co-radicates meaning good, sweet, nice, the swavaum,
consuesco ideas, and lastly the Fé@os, Gothic sidus, German sitte, ‘ wont’ notions.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 233

relationship. We have already referred to the Teutonic
terms swisman, swaseline, and swdsenede; we may add
Slavonic svoja, become intimate, whence svatu for
relative, and Lithuanian svotai for the relatives who
attend a marriage. Hence schwager may only be —
another method of expressing swdsman, the intimate
man or brother. It is to a very intimate relation of
this kind that we shall find other words for the brother-
and sister-in-law connection directly lead us.

If we look back on the origin of endogamous
monogamy in a kin-group, the first appearance of it
would be heralded by the exclusive attachment, at any
rate for a time, of a man of the group to a particular
woman. He became her ‘own’ or ‘dear’ man, her
leofman, léfmon, leman, in the best sense of this last
word. The leman was with more or less rigour tabu to
the other women of the group, hence would arise the
first traces of a brother-in-law relationship. The
leofman stands in a new relation to the other women
of the group, but not one which absolutely excludes
traces of the earlier sexual communism. The same
process that we have indicated here actually went on in
the public brothels of the medizval towns. The town
councils repeatedly issued regulations against the public
prostitutes having their liebe mdnner, their ‘ dear men,’
with whom they were intimate to the exclusion of the
public in general. Here we have the worse sense of
leman. It is to such a specialisation of lovers within
the group, an exclusive intimacy, that possibly the sve
in svekr may refer, whether the k-r- stand for kura or
not. From the svekr are deduced the svek-r-uno, or those

234 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

connected by blood with him. The correlative to father-
in-law, namely, daughter-in-law or son-in-law, might then
be expected to have a different and perhaps much later
origin. I am fully aware of the many difficulties of this
account, but I doubt whether they are more or harder
than those which any one will meet with who starts
from svacura, the father-in-law, and tries, not only to
deduce all the svekr terms from it anthropologically and
philologically,* but by asserting the recognition in a
position of honour of the husband’s father among the
primitive Aryans, will also have to overthrow all the
evidence that can be collected in favour of matriarchal
custom and kindred group-marriage.

We now turn to the terminology for brother-in-law
and sister-in-law beyond that connected with the term
schwager already referred to. Tor sister-in-law we have
in Greek yddows, yddos, with the Latin glos, both of
these denote the husband’s sister, the term—which is
possibly related to yada, as duhita to dadhan—appears
as Slavonic zluva, Czech zelva, but not otherwise.

We find another series of terms spreading through
several Aryan languages, but not universally, namely,
Greek eivadrepes, Latin janitrices, for the wives of two
brothers. There is also a Sanskrit ydter (for yndter) and
Slavonic yetry for husband’s brother’s wife.” Janitrices
is possibly only an attempt at eivdrepes, and we find it
glossed aderpdv yuvaixes. Isidore gives us a quaint deri-
vation: ‘“Janitrices dicuntur uxores duorum fratrum;

1 For example, the use of schwager in Swabia for co-wooers, rivals for the
hand of the same lady !

2 Fick connects Lithuanian gente, sister-in-law, also with this root (see
p. 225).

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 235

quasi eandem januam terentes vel per eandem januam
iter habentes.”

This, however incorrect, describes well the position
of eivdrepes as cohabentes in the early Aryan days. The
group-mairiage is again suggested by the gloss ctvyvupdos
= consponsus =janitrix. Curiously enough, conspon-
salis is used in the sense of commater in the Leges
Presbyterorum Northumbriensum cited by Ducange,
which reminds us again of the link between the god-
mother and the co-mothers or co-brides of the group.
‘Grimm connects eivdtepes and janitrices with the root
gam, bind, as in yayeiv, but the origin seems very
obscure. It is noteworthy that Polish iatrew, Czech
jatrev, Serbian jetrva, akin to Sanskrit ydter, denote
cognata, blood-relative, another trace of the kindred
group-marriage. It may further be remarked that the
children of the consponsae, or co-brides, would be cousins,
Low Latin cosinus, Latin sobrinus, consobrinus, San-
skrit svesrino, Lithuanian seserynai, a series of terms
which again point to a group of sisters as the co-brides.
The Greek gives us dé for brothers-in-law whose
wives are sisters. The only co-radicate | have come
across is Sanskrit sydlas, said to be used for the brother
of the wife,—again, so far as it goes, evidence of a
group of sisters ‘married’ to a group of brothers.’

1.In the Indian fairy tale of Punchkin (J. Jacobs’ Indian Fairy Tales) we
have just such a group of sisters marrying a group of brothers, with many
traces of the old group habits, e.g. ‘‘ About a year after this Balna had a little
son, and his uncles and aunts were so fond of the boy that it was as if he had
seven fathers and seven mothers,” etc. Another Indian tale, The Son of
Seven Queens, is also probably a fossil of the same group-marriage period. In
Arabia the ‘‘two mothers” means the mother and her sister, and this was
probably the origin of the term Acujrwp for Dionysius, however differently
interpreted when its value had become obscure. Precisely the same thing

236 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

For husband’s brother we have a word running
through several Aryan tongues, and pointing to an
Aryan word daivér as its source. Thus Sanskrit devdr,
Greek Sarjp (for daF yp), Latin levir, Lithuanian déveris,
probably Armenian tagr, Anglo-Saxon tdcor, and
possibly O.H.G. zethhur (this may = zuehir = suueher =
sweher, for it is glossed both socer and levir) are from
this source, and denote husband’s brother. The root of
the word appears in Aryan davdz, denoting share, as in
Sanskrit ddyate, Greek Saw, whence dais, 4 meal, and
English tide (time), German zezt, all marking a division
or share.’ It would thus appear that the original sense
of devér is the husband’s brother as sharer. With all
the folklore and other evidence that we have for the
existence of the lewrate custom, both before and after
the death of the husband, there can be little doubt that
it is the wife that the share refers to.

Thus, whether we turn to the words for sister-in-law
or brother-in-law, we find primitive meanings strongly
supporting the hypothesis of kindred group-marriage,
and very hard to reconcile with an exogamic patriarchal
system. Further, the terms for son-in-law and daughter-

occurs in the Irish legend of Cachulainn, who was the son of King Lug from his
sister Dechtere, who shared his sleeping-apartment. The boy was reared by
one of the sisters of his mother and of the king, and the king remarked that
there was ‘‘little for her to choose between her own son and her own sister’s
son” (see Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, p. 431). The German geschwister for
brothers, sisters, and cousins tells the same tale. I expect Norse systkin,
Danish soskende, now used for brothers and sisters, originally included all the
children of sisters. In this respect the Danish soskendeseng, a rough bed rigged
up on the floor for travelling companions, is perhaps not without suggestiveness
for the old group customs: see my remarks in Ashiepattle, p. 80.

' Here again, as in the ma/ root, I am inclined to think that the sharing
notion first led to a name for the common meal, and then that the notion of
time arose from the meal epoch: see p. 146.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 237

in-law are quite consonant with a derivation which
supposes them specialisations of terms used inside an
endogamous group. Lastly, the Aryan terms for
father-in-law and mother-in-law are far more difficult of .
interpretation on any hypothesis, chiefly, I believe,
because the source of the word used for the relationship
(z.e. whether it be the father-, mother-, or brother-in-law)
is far from clear. ‘They do not, however, seem to me to
offer greater difficulties on one than on another hypothesis
as to primitive marriage. ‘They require for their elucida-
tion a more complete study than I have been able to
make of the earliest’ passages in which they are used in
the several Aryan tongues.

(11) I propose to deal with only one other word
which has been used to suggest the completeness of the
exogamous monogamic patriarchal system among the
primitive Aryans, namely the term for widow. We have
Sanskrit widhdvd, Latin vidua, Gothic viduvd, Old
Friesian widwe, O.H.G. witawd, M.H.G. witewe, wittib,
Dutch widewe, Irish fedb, Cornish guedeu, Old Slavonic
vidova, for widow. It is significant throughout that the
word in all these languages applies to ‘the female, the
male widower being formed from it. The primitive root
appears in Latin di-vido and Sanskrit widh, to be void,
to want; Latin vwiduus, Sanskrit vidhi, denote lonely,
isolated, spouseless; Welsh gweddwi, lonely, German
weit, and English wide. The widow is thus the lonely
or spouseless one." Now there are many circumstances

1 | think it impossible to accept the hypothetical derivation given by some
writers from vi, without, and d@’avas, a man or sacrificer. The latter term appears
only in late and isolated Sanskrit use.

238 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

under which such a condition would arise within even a
co-sexual kindred group, and from which the later idea of
a widow as one who has lost her spouse would naturally
develop itself, e.g. a woman past the child-bearing age
and taking no part in the tribal sex-gatherings. This
conception of the widow as the spouseless one seems to
find support in the Greek 7ieos (for a-FideF os), meaning
a youth not yet married, a bachelor in the modern sense ;
n0én is also used for wapOévos, a virgin. In this case it
is not the loss, but the want or absence of a spouse,
which is expressed by the wd or Fd root. Hence there
appears to be no sufficient reason to associate the idea in
widow with more than the weight of spouseless, and such
a condition, as the Greek words suggest, could arise as
well within an endogamous group, as in an exogamous
patriarchal system.

(12) Summary and Conclusion.—tThe first general
conclusion that may be drawn from our discussion of the
Aryan terms for sex and kinship is its confirmation of
the anthropological principle that the sex-instinct, as
one of the two chief motors of primitive life, has been
chiefly instrumental in creating, not only terms for
relationship, but also terms for the chief human affec-
tions and desires. The standpoint of the midwife must
in this case be the standpoint of the interpreter, because
it is largely the standpoint of primitive man, the creator
of these terms. Their very naiveté saves them from
obscenity, and we cannot reject scientifically the mid-
wife’s interpretation because it clashes with our precon-
ceived notions of a golden age in the past. We are
civilised men, our ancestors were savages, and their most

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 239

distant forebears mere animals struggling for food and
sexual gratification. Are we to suppose that language
with its terminology for relationships and passions waited
until those relationships were moulded in their current
senses, and those passions refined and purified into the
most social virtues and most complex affections? On
the contrary, if we are genuine believers in the doctrine
of evolution, we shall seek the origins of nomenclature
in those fundamental animal instincts which have been
the chief motors of evolutionary change. It is precisely
in sex-calls and food-cries that we notice animals first
giving to sounds distinguishable weights. Hence it is
precisely here that we ought to seek the senses of
primitive roots. We shall not then be surprised that so
many roots have originally a sexual sense, and are by
analogy or association afterwards used for wider house-
hold, agricultural, or social occupations.’

Accordingly, if we find in the sexual impulse not
only the source of a developed terminology for relation-
ship, but also the first germs of the social instincts
in man, shall we not cease to regard it as “a most
unlovely germ of appetite,” and recognise it for what
it really has been—nay, still really is—the ultimate
basis of the very highest, as well as of the very lowest,
phases in human action and human feeling? The
spiritual man who lives in a world of peace, gladness,

1 A similar evolution may be observed in the language of children. To my
infant son I am bappa. But as his nurse used to put ared shawl over him
when carried from his nursery to see bappa in the study, a shawl becomes bappa.
A hat, which like the shawl covers his head, becomes also bappa ; hence any
hat, even in a picture, or any covering, as a lid of a box, is bappa. Next to put
on a hat is to go out, hence to ‘go bappa’ is to go out in the mail-cart. The
original shawl being red, red things, at least for a time, were bappas. Thus
the original word has been developed into a complexity of meanings which no
philologist could unravel who had not observed the successive stages of growth.

240 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

generosity, and charity, and despises from his ethereal
heights what he is pleased to term the loathsome or
disgusting animal instincts, may well be asked to ponder
on the evolution of such emotions as love and friendship.
The social virtues may in his imagination have arisen
in many diverse ways, but the stern fact remains that
among the Aryans they took their origin in the sexual
instinct ; and he must be a rash sociologist who would
affirm that this primary instinct is even now incapable
of producing any new social virtue.

In the course of our investigations we have come
across fossils of several stages of sexual habit. These
stages pass one into the other without a rigidly marked
division, and the terms used in one stage remain in a
later stage, often with modified, or perhaps quite changed
senses. The first fundamental distinction is between
groups which lay chief stress on maternal, and those which
lay chief stress on paternal descent—groups which con-
veniently, but not with strict accuracy, may be termed
matriarchal and patriarchal. The first group, without
giving an all-dominant position to woman, still placed
her in authority, directly and indirectly, in religious
matters—the first deity was a goddess of fertility, and her
ministrant a matron-priestess." The fact that woman
was then the conduit by which power and property
passed from one man to another, also gave her an
increased importance. Hence the term matriarchal
without being exact is to a certain extent significant.

Perhaps it is quite as significant as patriarchal, for

1 The priestess is often identified with the goddess at the sex-festival, e.g.
the Sakiies. Compare also the high-priestess at the Argive Heraea (see p. 171)
with what Tacitus tells us of the worship of Nerthus, a Teutonic Earth-goddess.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 241

there are stages in the patriarchal evolution where the
- patriarch has to serve for his wife, or to pay serious
respect to her rights or deities.

Starting with an early stage of the matriarchal
period, we find the woman as kone, surrounded by
the offspring of her womb, kunni, kin, or kind. The
primary and natural result is sexual relationship with
those nearest in place. and blood. We have at once
the basis of that brother-sister marriage which looms
through all ancient mythologies. Nor is this endo-
gamous relation without advantages. An exogamous
or monogamic relation could never lead to such a group
as we find in the fratria and the clan. The kindred
group -marriage provides a maximum of sexual tie
between individual members, and of kindred tie between
successive generations. What is within this group is the
pleasant and the comfortable ; the kin are the kind, the
known, the noble, the free, those outside are the unkind,
_ the unknown, the ignoble, the unfree. Peace (szbbe,
friede), joy (freude), trust, faith (trewa), charity (caritas),
freedom (fretheit), generosity, the moral and the ethical
(sitte), are human feelings and attributes, all of which
we can trace back to their origin in the sexual relations
of a group of men and women of kin—the mdcscaf, the
gamahhida, the hive. More than one word shows us
the lair turning into the common dwelling-place, and
this into a village. The community with its fenced
abode is represented by the group of gatilinge, at once
kinsfolk and co-spouses. From their intersexual re-
lationship arise love, neighbourliness, and friendship,
the conception of the genial, the convivial, the fitting,

VOL. II R

242 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

and the good. The communal life which flows from
their co-sexual life leads to words of sex receiving the
additional senses of tilth, of building, of construction,
and ultimately of art (bau, tak). The gathering (ver-
gaderung, ayopa) for clan-meal and clan-talk is the first
germ of civic institutions, of mahal, gericht, and finally
of parliament. The choral mating-songs,—developed
sex-calls,—which followed the clan-meal, lead to chorus,
hymns, comedy, and tragedy on the one hand, and to
most of the still existing marriage customs and habits
on the other. Music, art, social virtues, civic rights,
are one and all seen to take their origin in that
ultimate sex-freedom of kin, which is opposed to every
moral feeling of the civilised man of to-day. Hven
many features of his religious belief and his religious
ceremonies can be traced back to the old kin-group
worship of the goddess of fertility. The common
meal, the drinking of blood to establish a sibbe or
peace-kinship, the adoration of mother and child, the
baptism and the god-parents, all have their prototypes
and origins in the matriarchal period of human evolu-
tion. Nor is the product of that period only evidenced
by Aryan words for sex and kinship, it is manifest in
Aryan folklore of every kind; it is exhibited in the
earlier history of all the other branches of the great
human family ; it is to be found in many phases of still
existing savage life; nay, we may note isolated features
of it still extant among the less advanced Aryan races
of to-day. Among the Slavs we still find village com-
munities having many of the features of the communal
kindred group, and practising religious ceremonies which

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 243

some have held to be perversions of Christianity, but
which are, in truth, the old Aryan worship of the god-
dess of fertility and tilth, only slightly disguised by the
use of Christian terms and symbols.

Thus the Russian sects of the Christs and of the
Skoptsy hold periodical meetings at which prayer is
followed by the dancing and singing of men and women ;
the choral dance is itself succeeded by unrestrained
license of the ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters.’ These meet-
ings are often accompanied by the worship of the Holy
Virgin, who is represented by a young woman. It is,
in fact, the old heathen priestess representing the god-
dess of fertility." She is sung to and danced round as
Mother Earth, adored as the emblem of generative force,
and the children she may bear to the men of the com-
munity are, as ‘little Christs’ and ‘little Maries,’
especially sacred. Among the sect of Christs the
common meal is represented by the priestess distri-
buting raisins, among the Skoptsy by an actual com-
munion of her blood.” It is clear that only in name is
there anything Christian in these gatherings; they are
a survival of the old Aryan vergaderung, and cor-
respond to the Semite festival of the Sakées both in
license and in cruelty. The same sex-festivals, here
seen from their religious side, may still be traced in
the fairs and periodic festivals of the Slavonic peas-
antry. In the Government of Nijnii- Novgorod we
find the youths and maidens meet at periodical in-
tervals upon a hill, After choral dances, the youths

1 See footnote, p. 240.
2 See N. Tsakni, La Russie Sectaire, Paris, 1888, for these and other details
of sex-festivals in Russia.

244 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE

carry off the maidens and pass the night with them ;
this conduct is so customary also in the Archangel
district that a girl who finds no such temporary lovers
would be reproached by her parents. In the Government
of Stavropol this hilltop vergaderung repeats itself at
every wedding; the young men and maidens, after the
customary wedding dance, pass the night in pairs,
engaged folk together, and the other young people in
temporary couples. A similar habit prevailed among
the peasantry in large districts of Germany almost up
to the end of the Middle Ages.*

Thus we see that the Aryan sex- festival, with its
common meal, its dance and song, which is so strikingly
evidenced in our study of the words for kinship and sex,
is no philological cobweb. It is fossilised in practices
which we meet everywhere in folklore, and trace in many
existing peasant customs. We are not dealing with local
perversions of the sexual instinct; our study of the Aryan
words for kinship shows that they are fossils of what
was once a widespread phase of primitive civilisation.
The sexual and the social institutions of that phase of
human development may be wholly repellent to the
morality of to-day ; we may shudder at blood relation-
ship as the permit and not the ban to sexual intimacy.
But we must also remember that if exogamy promotes a
wider range of variation for natural selection to act
upon, endogamy may originally have established a
sufficient degree of correlation between human char-
acters to give mankind stability and the advantages of
race. Above all, those human affections, those civic

-1 See Appendix I. : On the Mailehn and Kiligang.

SPECIAL WORDS FOR SEX AND RELATIONSHIP 245

institutions and social virtues, which we now prize so
highly as the most social features of our own civilisation,
were undoubtedly the product—albeit in a primitive and
crude form—of a period of kindred group-marriage, a
period in which the animal instincts appear to us to
have been all-dominant.

Shall we despair because we find all that man values
as unselfish, pure, and noble—his love, his friendship,
and his charity—have their origin in what some are
pleased to term base and loathsome animal passions ?

On the contrary, if we survey the past, and see what
mankind, solely under the pressure of animal passions,
has achieved blindly amid blood and struggle and un-
regarded pain, may we not confidently hope that the
strong social instincts which have been evolved from,
but which now dominate the more selfish and animal side
of man’s nature may carry him forward more quickly
and more smoothly to still more complex stages of de-
velopment? Out of the low came the high, out of the
high may well come the exalted. Only those who dream
that morality sprung fully developed from the brain of
a deity can dread to learn its lowly animal origin, or fear
to acknowledge that our current morality, social and
sexual, may be as crude and repellent to the future as
that of the matriarchal civilisation in its kindred group-
stage now appears to us.

XII

THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY: A STUDY IN THE
EVOLUTION OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY *

For my part I never feel my liberal faith more firmly rooted in me than
when I ponder over the miracles of the ancient creed.—RENAN.

1.—Introductory

WHILE a study of primitive human customs forces
us irresistibly to the conclusion that the social
characteristics, which men value most highly to-day,
have been evolved in the course of long ages from
very animal instincts, so a study of early religious
beliefs shows us the source of the most highly developed
religious sentiments in strangely barbarous habits and
superstitions. If the first study demonstrates for us that
morality is not the creation of moralists and teachers,
but that the moral feelings have been evolved in that
struggle of group with group which gave the victory
to the more stable society with the more intense gre-
garious instincts, so the second study leads us from
human sacrifice, cannibalism, and nature propitiation

1 Extracted from notes for a course of lectures on medieval German litera-
ture delivered in 1883, and therefore containing but few references to more
recent publications on the religious drama.

INTRODUCTORY 247

through more and more social stages of religious feeling
to the Eucharist and the doctrine of the Atonement.
In neither case do we touch the absolute; the current
religion and the current morality are not what the
philosophers and theologians of the time describe them
in their treatises ; they are entirely relative to the habits
and instincts of the great masses of the people. Nay,
even the ‘absolute’ morality and the refined religious
doctrines of the thinkers of one age are seen by the
critical minds of a later generation to be but idealised
forms of the folk-religion and folk-morality of the
same period, ‘The relativity to the age and to its special
aspirations is still to be found if it be glossed with
greater verbal subtleties, and if the popular trimming
of creed to current economic and social needs be less
orossly obvious. To the unprejudiced student of com-
parative religion, the Christianity of Jesus is as widely
removed from that of Tertullian or of Augustine as
these are removed from the Christianity of the Middle
Ages. Such a dispassionate inquirer will find almost
more unity of ideas, dogmatic and artistic, between
medizval folk-Christianity and modern Burmese Bud-
dhism than between the former and the popular mani-
festations of Christianity to-day. The great lessons of
comparative religion have, hitherto, been principally
based on a study of oriental religions, and their com-
parison with Christian doctrines. But one of the chief
of these lessons, the relativity of all religious belief to
the social and artistic conditions under which the belief
flourishes, can easily be learnt within the history of
Christianity itself. From our earliest childhood the

248 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

gospels have rendered us familiar with the Christianity of
Jesus; the experience of everyday life shows us the
active elements in the Christianity of to-day. <A study
of the medieval passion-plays will, perhaps, most easily,
and with the least danger of wide misconception, bring
before us an intermediate link in the chain of evolution.
Thus the potent truth of the relativity of religious
feeling may be recognised within the bounds of those
impressions and beliefs which have been an essential
factor in the development of our own western civilisa-
tion. |
Nor is it from the standpoint of comparative religion
only that a study of the passion-plays may prove to
be of interest. The want of a deep sympathy with
the past—that past which in its struggles, by its very
failures as well by its successes, has achieved what we |
value most highly in literature and art—can never be
fully compensated for by a knowledge, however com-
plete, of modern thought and current literature. Our
civilisation is the product of the past; its traditions and
customs are the growth of the past; and without a
sympathetic study of the past we cannot realise the
richness of our own civilisation, nor appreciate its cap-
abilities. One phase of our past growth is too often
neglected, especially by the narrower school of Protest-
ants. It is often assumed that the Middle Ages were
Dark Ages, that Roman Catholicism was merely a super-
stition, hampering the forward movement of humanity ;
that Medizevalism has no intellectual value for an en-
lightened nineteenth century. Yet Medizvalism has,
perhaps, even a higher claim than Hellenism to be

INTRODUCTORY | 249

considered as an essential factor of modern culture. The
Gothic cathedral is more a part of our western nature—
nay, is in itself a greater artistic ideal—than the Greek
Parthenon ; for depth of intellect, St. Thomas Aquinas
may be fairly spoken of in the same breath as Plato,
and nothing in Greek literature exceeds in tender-
ness and beauty the medieval devotional books, or in
vigour and inspiring ring the Latin hymns of the
Church. Those who do not understand and appreciate
these things are to be pitied, even as those who have
never walked the streets of Athens with Socrates, nor
listened to the parables of the Bodisat “long ago when
Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares.”

There should be no misunderstanding, however, as to
what we mean by the medieval factor in modern cul-
ture. The wise do not mimic the outward life of the
Greeks. It is childish to strive for the reintroduction of
medizeval forms into modern life. We cannot profitably
bring back into this age of ours the religious guilds, the
passion-plays, the great religious festivals; it is mere
trifling to play nowadays at monks and priests. There
are other calls to action, other opportunities of self-
renunciation, other ideals for which to battle, the beauty
of which is none the less real, if it be too often dis-
regarded. The task of the medieval student is not to
reinstitute, but to justify ; to prove to the Present that
the Past did not for a thousand years toil in vain. The
most enthusiastic Hellenist by no means strives to recon-
struct nineteenth-century life on a Greek model; he is
content if Hellenic thought permeates our intellectual
habit, if Hellenic art is part of our plastic conception ;

250 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

shortly, he desires that Hellenism shall be a factor of
our culture. The true medizvalist can wish for no
more, but he claims as much. It is no resurrection of
the dead, no reversal of the theological current of the
Reformation that he strives for. He believes that as
the mind of man ponders more deeply and more often
over ‘‘ the miracles of the ancient creed,” the broader will
become his intellectual horizon ; he will realise more com-
pletely the social origin of all-creeds, their economic and
moral genesis, and with this recognition of the relativity of
religious belief the firmer will be the basis of his own
liberal faith. The intellectual progress of the microcosm
of the individual mind can lay no claim to completeness,
if it has not passed in review the same phases as have
been successively reached by the macrocosm—the mind
of humanity at large mirrored in its intellectual history.
M. Renan has said that it is heartrending to have to
admit that the charlatan who has never studied the past
can yet attain to “the Alpine heights of philosophy.”
But the strength of his hold, the permanency of his foot-
ing, may well be doubted if he has not had the experience
which arises in the course of a laborious journey over the
lower summits of past thought. The Protestant, who
lauds the Reformation and abuses medizval Catholicism
without having once opened a fifteenth-century devotional
book ; the Freethinker, who condemns Christianity with-
out having read a line of St. Augustine, or studied, even
at second hand, the thoughts of the great Doctors; the
modern Socialist, who has never considered the medizeval
ouild and town government,—these may, one or all,
have reached the Alpine heights of philosophy, but what

INTRODUCTORY 251

is their foothold worth if they have neglected all the
experience gained by their ancestors in a thousand years
of toil? This mass of human labour—civic, religious,
scholastic, literary, artistic—is not and cannot be worth-
less in the light of modern thought. It is the duty of
the medizvalist to justify the past to the present, to
convert what has been rejected as institution and as
dogma into a fruitful factor of the culture of to-day.

If the chief task at present before the student of
western civilisation is to obtain a fuller recognition of its
earlier struggles, and a fuller appreciation of its earlier
achievements, a slight study of one phase of medieval
thought—the passion-play—may be of service, although
the writer sets himself no very wide and ambitious aim.
He has merely sought to interest the reader in medieval
ways of expression and medizval modes of thought; to
excite in him a desire to study further. This is not a
history of the religious drama in Germany, it is an attempt
to portray one phase in the medizeval folk-conception of
Christ ; and it must be read in the spirit that recognises -
in the current religious conceptions of the great bulk of
the people the actual religion of the day. It is this
religion, and no other, which is an active social force,
helping to mould the spiritual and economic life of its
devotees. That the reader may pass on, whenever he
lists, into fresh fields and onto the little-trodden byways
of medizval religious literature, considerable space has
been given to footnote references. These references,
however, have no claim whatever to completeness, every
student will recognise how they might have been in-
creased a hundredfold. Like the scanty remarks on the

252 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

English and French plays, they are inserted for illustra-
tration ; they are a few among the many sources from
which a conception of medizeval Catholicism can be
drawn, even to its smaller dramatic details.

But beyond the intellectual value of the medieval
factor to modern culture, has not the study of the life of
the Middle Ages a practical value for to-day? Is there
not much directly bearing on our great machine age
which can be learnt from the old religious socialism ?
For our capitalistic society may not it be suggestive
to study a civilisation in which labour had not been
reduced to a market commodity, nor the craftsman to a
tool? ‘The self-assertion of the individual was in those
days checked by a strong religious sense; the awe of
an active ecclesiastical system prevented the anti-social
from complete domination over the weaker and more
ignorant. Protestant writers are apt to treat the
Reformation as if its first and greatest effect was the
freedom of the intellect from the tyranny of dogma.
This may have been an after-effect, but that it was not
the aim of the Reformers themselves their treatment of
Erasmus and Servetus amply testifies. The first and
greatest effect of the Reformation was the destruction,

1 In this respect the Canon Law compares favourably with the Roman Law,
the spread of which was one of the causes of the Peasant War. The extent to
which the Church, even in the fifteenth century, endeavoured to hold in check
the oppressors of the poor and weak is manifest in the confessional books of the
period. Not only usurers and false traders were denounced, but princes and
magistrates boldly reproved. It may suffice to mention, among many instances,
Der Spiegel des Siinders (Augsburg, c. 1470) and Dat Licht der Sele (Liibeck,
1484). Both, in small part only, are reprinted in Geffcken, Der Bildercate-
chismus des fiinfzehnten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1855). In this respect Luther
remained true to Catholic traditions, and a study of his sermons (eg, Von
Kaufishandiung und Wucher, 1524) would surprise many as showing him more of
a socialist than the most advanced of the moderns,

INTRODUCTORY 253

for good or ill, of an elaborate philosophy of life. No
student of comparative religion can term that philo-
sophy the religion taught by Jesus in Galilee. It was
the product of active and masterful, not of passive and
submissive races. It was the folk-religion of Western
(in particular Teutonic), not of Eastern peoples. To
many, notwithstanding its grave defects, it will appear to
contain social, economic, and esthetic elements wanting
in the civilisation of to-day. To the narrower Protestant
the Middle Ages appeared Dark Ages; probably he
regarded them in much the same spirit as the early
Christians regarded the palmy days of Greek culture.
Yet the day came when Hellenism broke in upon
Christianity and forced mankind to recognise it as a
co-equal factor of human thought. Perhaps the day is
not so distant when medizevalism, rejected long ago as a
religion, shall be recognised as an essential feature of
modern culture. It only awaits an interpreter with
inspiration as well as knowledge." Meanwhile the object
of the present writer will be more than fulfilled if his
essay leads any reader to a study of medieval thought
and expression for their own sakes. He is certain that
such a study cannot be without fruit.

1 The name of William Morris will occur to most readers as a noteworthy
exponent of that culture, and more so in 1896 than it was even in 1883,

254 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

List OF THE PRINCIPAL GERMAN MEDIZVAL RELIGIOUS
PLAYS WITH Kery TO LETTER REFERENCES

Altteutsche Schauspiele. Franz Joseph Mone. 1841.

Schauspiele des Mittelalters. 2 Bde. Franz Joseph Mone, 1852.

Alsfelder Passionsspiel. C. W.M.Grein. 1874,

Das Oberammergauer Passionsspiel in seiner iiltestenGestalt, August

Hartmann. 1880.

E. Heidelberger Passionsspiel. Gustav Milchsack. 1880. Biblio-
thek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, Bd. 150.

F. Egerer Fronleichnamsspiel. Gustav Milchsack. 1881. Biblio-
thek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, Bd. 156.

G. Die Oster- und Passionsspiele, I. Die lateinische Osterfeiern. Gustav
Milchsack. 1880.

H. Schauspiele aus dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert, Julius Tittman,

CQ

2 Bde. 1868.
I. Erlauer Spiele. Sechs altdeutsche Mysterien. Karl Ferd. Kummer.
1882.

J. Ludus scenicus de nativitate Domini et Ludus paschalis sive de
passione Domini. Spiele einer Handschrift des XIII. Jahrhunderts
aus Benedictbeuern. Carmina Burana. J. Schmeller. 1847.
Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, Bd. 16.

K. Freiburger Passionsspiele des XVI. Jahrhunderts. E. Martin.
Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fiir Beforderung der Geschichte,
Alterthums- und Volkskunde von Freiburg, Bd. 3. S. 1,

L. Christi Leiden, Marienklage, etc. Hoffmann von Fallersleben.
1837. Fundgruben fiir Geschichte deutscher Sprache und
Litteratur, Theil II.

M. Der Siindenfall und Marienklage. Zwei niederdeutsche Schauspiele.
Otto Schéneman. 1855.

N. Das mittelalterliche Drama von Ende des romischen Katserthums.
Gerhard v. Zeyschwitz. 1878. 3

O. Ludus de decem Virginibus. L. Bechstein. 1855. Wartburg
Bibliothek, Bd. 1. |

P. Theophilus. Niederdeutsches Schauspiel. Hoffmann von Fallers-
leben. Zwei Theile. 1853 & 1854.

Q. Weihnacht-Spiele und Lieder aus Siiddeutschland. Karl Weinhold.
1855.

THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY 255

JY

R. Weihnachtlied und Wethnachtspiel in Oberbayern. August Hart-
mann. 1875.

S. Ordnung des Frankfurter Passionsspiels§ G. E. von Fichard.
Frankfurtisches Archiv fiir altere deutsche Litteratur und
Geschichte, Bd. 3.8. 131. 1815. | .

T. Volksschauspiele. In Bayern und Oesterreich-Ungarn gesammelt
von August Hartmann. 1880.

U. Die lateinisch-bohmischen Oster-Spiele des XIV.-XV. Jahrhunderts.
J.J. Hanus. 1863.

W. Das iilteste deutsche Passionsspiel, von Karl Bartsch. Germania,
Bd. viii. Wien, 1863. This is a fragment from about 1300.

X. Dat spil fan der Upstandinge, Gedichtet 1464. Herausgegeben
von Ludwig Ettmiiller. Quedlinburg, 1851. This is another
edition with prefatory matter of the first play in B. ii
pp. 33-107.

Y. Zuckmantler Passionsspiel, Programm des Obergymnasiums zu
Troppau, ed. Anton Peter, 1868. A seventeenth-century play.

Z. Das Lambacher Passionsspiel. Herausgegeben von Sebastian
Mayer. Programm des Obergymnasiums zu Kremsmiinster,
1883. This is an operatic Marienklage, the manuscript of
which dates from about 1593,

I, p. v., R, pp. 1-4, and U, pp. 18-22, give copious references to other and earlier
literature of the German religious plays.

256 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA VY

Il.—The Unity of the Passion-Play

To form a mental picture of the universe and its
history as a connected whole has been the aim of man
from the earliest dawn of intellect. His problem has
ever been: How am I related to the past, to the future,
to the wide expanse of surrounding nature 2 He has
laboured in many ages, in many ways to find a unity
in history, and a unity in natural phenomena. In our
own day we find a light, by no means an all-penetrating
daylight, yet a steady search-light, in the principle of
evolution. Man’s conduct no longer regarded as the
axis of the universe, the source of unity in all creation,
we turn to science rather than to religion to find the .
unity in the world-drama. In the Middle Ages Ptolemaic
conceptions were still supreme; the earth was the centre
of the universe, man was the centre of the earth; round
his wants all physical nature centred, and for his purposes
the universe existed. But for man then,as now, the vital
question was conduct; on conduct depended the very sur-
vivalof social groups, and the gregarious instinct had early
emphasised, with the strong religious sanctions embraced
in such terms as sin and righteousness, the fundamental
features of social and anti-social behaviour. Thus in the
Middle Ages men sought the unity of the world and its
history in the problem of man’s conduct. The current
religion—widely developed from the scanty formule of
original Christianity—gave an answer. ‘The unity of the
world-drama lies in the struggle of man against sin, in his
fall and his redemption, in the punishment of the wicked

THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLAY 257

and the reward of the just. The medizeval treatment
of the world-drama had the same purport as the best
melodrama of to-day. It was not realistic,—the social
triumphed and the anti-social met with retribution at
last,—but it emphasised the advantages of the moral
life, strengthened the influence of conscience, and so
increased the action of the gregarious instinct in man,
A more realistic treatment does not always have the
same moral weight with the half-cultured.

The great world-drama as a non-realistic melo-
drama with Christ as its chief character is the keynote
to the fully developed passion-play. It took several
centuries to complete this development; but it is just
because the passion-play developed step by step with the
_ religious ideas of the Middle Ages, and step by step with
their social and political conceptions, that its evolution
is of such great interest. The history of the religious

drama shows us at once the stages in the growth of medi--

eval Christianity and its changing relation to the people.
The rise of medizeval socialism is largely mirrored in the
development of Easter-plays and passion-plays. The fully
developed passion-play illustrated to the medizval man
the unity of the world’s history, and the unity of all
life, good and bad, sublime and ridiculous. In those
days religion was a very active feature of everyday
life, and every life was itself a factor in the great world-
drama which, beginning with the creation, ended only
with the day of judgment. The huge Kgerer Fron-
leachnamsspiel carries us from the fall of Lucifer to the
Resurrection of Christ. Judging from German analogies,
I have little hesitation in describing the ZYownley
VOL. II S

iN

258 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Mysteries as but the consecutive scenes of one con-
tinuous passion-play, stretching from the creation to
the day of judgment. The Coventry Mysteries and the
York Corpus Christi plays certainly covered all time from
creation to doomsday. Another German play, built up
by Kriiger in the sixteenth century from older material,
takes us from the fall of Lucifer to the day of judg-
ment.. It is characteristically entitled: ‘A right fine
and merry new ‘Action’ of the beginning and end of
the world, embracing therein the whole story of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” ? The whole of history
is thus regarded as a unity working up to and onward
from the birth of Christ. In his life history finds a
justification for the world’s existence. The modern
philosophical historian may smile at a treatment which
links the history of the world to one phase of civilisa-
tion. Yet we must not measure the value of the
medieval theory solely by its outward garb of fable and

1 T leave out of account the last two pieces printed under the heading of
the Townley Mysteries (Surtees Society, 1836), namely, the Suscitatio Lazart
and Suspensio Judae, both of which I suspect to be additions by a later hand,
and intended to be introduced in their proper places. A strong argument in
favour of the unity of these mysteries in a single passion-play is the appear-
ance of the Ze Deum only at the end of the Juditiwm (p. 321). It naturally
concluded every complete play (see all the plays in the Mystéres inédits of
Jubinal, the plays of Hilarius, Weinhold’s Wethnachtspiele, the Ludus de
adventu Antichristi, etc.) This customary conclusion probably originated in
the religious dramas having in early times been played between the third
response and the Ze Dewm. Looked at in the light of a complete passion-play,
the Townley Play for its freedom from tradition, for its flow of language, and
general treatment, compares most favourably with its German rivals. Another
play of some originality is the Low German Siindenfall, which, starting from the
fall of Lucifer, ends (probably as a fragment) with the consecration of the
infant Mary. A curious metaphysical conception of the freedom of the will,
as associated with the fall of man, runs through this play ; the Creator takes a
more important part in it than in the other dramas, and, to judge from his
language, must have made a close study of Augustine, Peter the Lombard, and
the Vulgate ! 2-H, Bad. ii.

THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 259

perverted fact ; its value lies in the spiritual idea of a
unity in history, of a continuous development of life
even asin a drama. The student of evolution to-day
is really working at the same idea, albeit with better
tools and a wider knowledge of facts.

The view of history taken by the passion-play writers
is, of course, characteristic of all medizevalhistorians. They
seek a unity of the world-drama in the story of man’s fall
and redemption. ‘The reader must not, however, imagine
that historical knowledge remained stagnant in the “ Dark
Ages.” There is as great an advance from the twelfth-
century rhymed chronicle of the Kaisers— with its
unbroken line of Roman Emperors from Julius Cesar to
Rudolf von Hapsburg—to the fifteenth-century Niirn-
berg Chronicle of Schedel, as there is from the latter
work itself to any nineteenth-century Weltgeschichte.
History did not stand still, even if all historians accepted
the fundamental idea that the unity of history was to be
found in the great Christian drama, the real- passion-
play.

In this spirit Herrad von Landsberg, abbess of ,
Hohenburg, wrote towards the end of the twelfth éen-
tury her Hortus Deliciarum, a compendium of history
and science for the nuns committed to her charge.
Therein, by word and by picture, she carried her sisters
from the creation of the world even to the perpetual
damnation of the wicked, who—popes, bishops, emperors,
nobles, and common folk—descend in a long line into
hell. Hartmann Schedel started with the creation of
the angels, and concluded with the resurrection of the
dead and the final day of judgment in the valley of

260 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Jehoshaphat. In doing this he much amplified and de-
veloped the accepted standard history, the Fasciculus
Temporum, which carried events only from the creation of
heaven and earth to the year of its publication, 1474.
Still later, in the first half of the sixteenth century,
Sebastian Franck, in his History-Buble, starts his story
with a philosophical discussion on the nature of God
and on his method of creation, and traces it down to
the coming of Antichrist and the last day.’

What the playwright put into his drama of the
passion, and the historian into his chronicle, that the
artist put into his pictures and engravings. Herrad in
her miniatures, Wolgemut in his woodcuts to Schedel’s
Chronicle, Albrecht Diirer, and many another in their
passion-series carry us from the creation, or at least
from Adam and Eve, to the final day of judgment.
Thus in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries
the passion-plays, the chronicles, and the engravings
mutually illustrate each other. A knowledge of the
chronicles makes the unity of the plays intelligible, and
an acquaintance with the plays renders clear much that
at first is obscure in painting and woodcut ; the latter in
their turn throw much light on the scenic arrangement
and on the mode of acting the plays themselves. Whence
did the artists draw the symbolism, nay, the very in-
cidents and groupings of their passion pictures? There

1 Kaiserchronik, herausgegeben von H. F. Massmann, 1849; Fasciculus
Temporum, Coln, 1474 ; Buch der Croniken, Niirnberg, 1493 ; Sebastian Franck,
Chronica, Zeytbuch, und Geschychtbibel, Strasburg, 1531. The unique MS. of
Herrad von Landsberg’s Hortus Deliciarwm was burnt in the last siege of
Strasburg. Reproductions of such miniatures as had been copied are now
being published by the Elsass Society of Antiquaries. Cf. also Herrad von
Landsberg und ihr Werk, Hortus Deliciarum, von C. M. Engelhardt, 1818, and
Herrad de Landsberg, par Charles Schmidt, 1896.

THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLA VY 261

can be little doubt that it was from the religious plays
of their native towns. ‘The importance of these plays

for Christian iconography has already been noted by
Didron :-—

The representation of miracles and mysteries served to put in
action the persons painted on glass windows, sculptured on the
capitals, and encrusted in the vaultings of cathedrals. . . . Words
and gestures interpreted what outline and colouring had expressed,
and the intention which actuated both was the same; in short, the
graphic and dramatic arts became a book to those who could read
no other. It is in this light that they must be regarded ; in this
character we must seek a clue to the interpretation of the figures
—true hieroglyphics of the Middle Ages—which Christian Arche-
ology, although at present only in its infancy, already begins to
decipher and comprehend (Christian Iconography, p. 6).

Schréer has shown how, in the Oberufer Spiel—
still performed in 1853—the traditional scenic group-
ings were actual copies of old woodcuts.t Such works
as Diirer’s Grosse Passion, or Holbein the Elder’s passion
picture at Augsburg (No. 87), are invaluable to the
student of the medizval religious play, while Wolge-
mut’s woodcuts in the Schatzbehalter of 1491—especially
in the old coloured copies—provide the best graphic
conception possible of a medizeval passion-play.

It is worth while illustrating this correspondence
between the medieval artist and playwright in one or
two typical cases. The student of the pictures and
woodcuts of the Middle Ages must often have noticed in
representations of the agony in the garden of Geth-
semane an angel bearing a cross or cup. It occurs, for
example, in famous pictures by Holbein the Elder and

1 Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungarn, 1858: see also R, p. 24.

262 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Wolgemut at Munich (Pinakothek, Nos. 5 and 22), and
in Cut 10 of Albrecht Diirer’s Kleine Passion, and Cut
4 of his Grosse Passion. This piece of symbolism seems
unnecessary for a great artist ; he could represent some-
thing of the agony by facial expression. On the other
hand, on the great outdoor stages with craftsmen for
actors little could be trusted to facial expression and
gesture. Hence symbolism is in its right place there,
and its use in the passion-play probably long continued
to influence the artist. Thus we find it a common
stage direction of passion-plays that “‘ Here an angel
shall appear with a cross (or a cup, as the case may
be)” ;* and the direction was actually carried out in
the Brixlegg play of 1882. Another frequent subject
for the artist is that of the soldiers brutally playing
with the blindfolded Christ. A good example will be
found in Diirer’s Kleine Passion (Cut 14). This game
of puczpirn, as a symbolic emphasis of the torture, is
a favourite incident of the passion-plays.* One of the
earliest references to it occurs in The Legends of the
Holy Rood, published by the Early English Text Society

(pp. 178, 179).
The cloth beforn thyn eyn too
To bobbyn the they knyt it soo.

In the Coventry Mysteries (Halliwell, p. 296) the
stage-directions bid the Jews ‘“‘castyn a cloth ovyr
his face.” In the Townley Mysteries a ‘vaylle’ is

1 See Lukas Cranach’s Passion, Cut 1, and his Wittemberger Heiligthums-
buch, k, iii, These representations, with those of Holbein, Wolgemut, and
Diirer, should be compared with F, p. 157 ; B, Bd. ii. p. 263; and R, p. 23, ete.

2 See F, pp. 168, 176; E, p. 181; C, p. 114; B, Bd. ii. p. 275; and com-
pare the Old English Miscellany, E.E.T.S. p. 45.

THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLAY 263

brought and bound over Christ’s eyes, and then we

read :—
1st Tortor. Who smote the last ?
2nd Tortor. Was it I?
3rd Tortor. He wote not I traw.

Even in the recent Brixlegg play a game at Blindesel
was introduced.

Lastly, we may notice the symbolic method of mark-
ing the agony endured in the crowning with thorns. The
crown being put on Christ’s brow, is then pressed down
by means of two or three long stakes placed across the
head, upon the ends of which several ruffians throw
their weight, or push with all their power. The oldest
representation of this torture | have met with occurs
on a fourteenth-century wood panel from Landshut in
the National Museum at Munich (Saal III. 96). There
is another early one (c. 1400) in a typical Leben Jesu
from Meister Wilhelm’s school at Cologne (No. 96; see
also No. 53). Then we have the sketch by the Elder
Holbein for the picture of the Paul’s Basilica in the
Augsburg Gallery. A picture by the Elder Cranach at
Munich (Pinakothek, No. 749) deals with the same idea,
among several other scenes almost unequalled from the
passion-play standpoint. In woodcuts we have the
stakes’ incident given with brutal force in the Schatz-
‘behalter (Fig. 72), in Diirer’s Kleine Passion (Cut 18),
in Lukas Cranach’s Passion (Cut 7), and his Passion
Christi und Antichristt (Cut 3), not to cite innumer-
able other instances. In such representations, we see
the very grouping and action which occurred in the
Brixlege passion-play, and in most medieval plays

264 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

also! But even in less legendary scenes from the
passion, such as the scourging, the nailing to the
cross, the burial, the descent into hell, and the resurrec-
tion,2—we find the same close relation between the
graphic and dramatic, representations. Indeed, in
my experience, the very best guide to a great German
medizeval cathedral or museum is the text of a fully
developed passion-play, like the Egerer Fronleich-
namssprel.

Having indicated the sympathy between playwright
and artist, we may turn to another point in which they
combine to illustrate the medieval spirit. We have
already noted that to the medizval mind all history was
a unity, a continuous drama, the chief movements in
which were the Fall of Man and the Atonement. Thus
every event which preceded the birth of Christ was
held to have some more or less direct bearing on the
incidents which follow that centre-point of the world-
drama. In this spirit every occurrence in the Old Testa-
ment was treated as ‘prefiguring’ some incident in
Christ’s life, or as foreshadowing some future event in

1 See E, p. 220; F, pp. 201, 202; and B, ii. p. 300, etc.

? The illustrations of the resurrection are of peculiar interest, as in their
earlier form they throw much light on the church ritual of the Visitatio
Sepulchri. Compare the numerous examples in Hefner Alteneck’s Trachten des
Mittelaliers. Or, to take out of a sister art one of many instances, we may
mention the ten sculptures on the tympanum of the western door in the tower
of Higham Ferrers Church. Especially interesting is in this case the visit of
the three Maries to the sepulchre—a coffin on an Early English trefoil arcade,
beneath which are the four watchers ; an angel is seated to the left. The very
priestly aspect of the three Maries—not unnatural in the case of the church
ritual—has lead to an amusing error in Parker’s Architectural Notices of the
Archdeaconry of Northampton, 1849, where there is a woodcut of this sculpture
entitled ‘Disciples at the Tomb.’ The Higham Ferrers representation really

gives as good a notion of the Easter Visitatio Sepulchri as the miniature repro-
duced by Mone, B, i. p. 8.

THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 265

the history of the world. The conception of evolution
being absent, a mystic relationship was conceived as
holding between the past and the future. Thus, if the
Queen of Sheba visits Solomon, this is a ‘ prefiguration ’
of the three kings at the cradle of the infant Jesus.
Jacob’s flight and David’s flight are but prototypes of
the flight into Egypt. Judas’ betrayal is prefigured by
the sale of Joseph, the mocking of Christ by that of
Elijah, the crucifixion by the brazen serpent, the three
days in the sepulchre by Jonah’s incarceration in the
belly of the whale, the passage of the wicked into hell
by the burning of Sodom, and the last judgment by
Daniel’s condemnation of the elders who bore false
witness against Susanna. In the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries such prefigurations were largely used
in the instruction of the common people; a knowledge
of them solves many a mystery in the arrangement of
the painted windows of our churches. They were the
subject of many manuscript miniatures, possibly in-
tended as guides for cloister artists in glass and stone.
Still later they were in the early days of wood-engrav-
ing grouped together and published as_ block - books.
Manuscripts and block-books of prefigurations have
received the somewhat misleading name of Biblia Pau-
perum. They would be better described by Sebastian

1 In the Schatzbehalter, to the cuts of which we have already referred, will be
found a considerable number of Old Testament ‘ prefigurations’ very typical of
the passion-play interpretations.

2 One of the most curious prefigurations of the religious plays is that of the
Siindenfali (M, p. 68), where Melchisedek, after interpreting the burning bush
as a symbol of the Light that shall come into the world, then proceeds to cele-
brate mass, the consecration of the yet unborn Light! Compare the Chester
Plays, p. 60.

266 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Franck’s term Geschychtbibel ; they illustrate the medi-
zeval notion of unity in history. Nor is the prefigura-
tion of the passion-plays entirely confined to Old Testa-
ment scenes and characters. Besides the prophets, the
Church Fathers appear largely. Thus Augustine is a
sort of ‘precursor’ in the Frankfurt play (8, p. 137).
Then we pass to the Sibyls, who occur as frequently in
dramatic as in plastic and pictorial art’; and last, but
not least, we may mention Virgil, not the familiar
Roman of our schooldays, but rather his mysterious
medizeval shadow, the Virgil of Dante, not uncoloured
by the legends of his sorcery. These and others—to us
a strangely incongruous group, but to our medieval
ancestors linked by the great spiritual thread of all
history—figured on the passion-play stage.’

All the plays, however, are not equally prolific in
prefigurations. In some we have only a few incidents
from the Old Testament, which many pious Christians
to-day would consider to have a fairly direct bearing on
the life of Christ. In others we have merely one or two
sentences repeated by the leading prophets. Yet in a
third group, however, we have a very much more com-
plete sketch of the Old Testament story. Of this group the
igerer Spiel may be taken as a sample. In that play the

' One of the most complete series of Sibyls occurs on folios x, e¢ seg. of the
Hore beatissime v'ginis Marie ad verwm Sarisburiensis ritwm, printed by Prevost
in Paris, 1527. Their symbols and prophecies are given. There is a seeond set
of Sibyl cuts scattered through the same Salisbury Hours. The reader may
consult an Appendix by Marsh to Husenbeth’s Hmblems of Saints for further
information as to the Sibyls.

2 Virgil is probably introduced on account of the contents of Bucolics, Eclogue
iv. The reader should consult Simrock’s Volksbiicher, xiii. p. 448; Gérres’
Volksbiicher, p. 238, and of the religious plays in our list—J, p. 81; K, p. 23;
M, p. 92; B, i. p. 805; and Q, pp. 73, 74.

THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 267

following string of incidents and of characters precedes the
birth of the Virgin and the usual New Testament scenes :
—(i.) The Creation of the Universe, (ii.) the Fall of the
Rebellious Angels, (iii.) the Creation of Adam and Eve,
(iv.) the Fall of Mankind, (v.) the Murder of Abel by
Cain and of Cain by Lamech,' (vi.) the Flood, (vii)
the Sacrifice of Isaac, (viii.) the Golden Calf, (ix.) David
and Goliath, (x.) Solomon’s Judgment, and (xi.) the
Prophets. The events which these scenes foreshadow
are not directly stated, but an audience well acquainted
with the usual prefigurations would at once realise their
bearing on the incidents of the Passion.

Still a fourth group makes prefiguration the very
framework of the play. ‘The Heidelberg passion-play
might be described as an acted Biblia Pauperum. Here
prefigurations do not precede but are interspersed with
the incidents of the Passion. Of the thirty-six New Testa-
ment scenes, the twelve most important—from that of the
woman of Samaria to the entombment—have each their
characteristic prefiguration. Thus the woman of Samaria
and Christ at the well is foreshadowed by Eliezer and
Rebekah at the well—an incident acted at considerable
leneth—and the Last Supper by the feast of Ahasuerus.
The intimate relation between the pictorial and dramatic
arts is again brought out by the correspondence between
the prefigurations of this play and those of the Wolfen-
biittel Biblia Pauperum (see Laib und Schwarz, Biblia
Pauperum nach dem Original zu Constanz, Synopsis,
p,. 9).

1 On the medizval legend of Cain as a part of ‘history’ see Fasciculus Tem-

porum, Céln, 1480, folio 22 and 2; Buch der Chroniken, folio ix» and x®; and
Franck’s Geschychtbibel, folio ix®.

268 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

The prefigurations, however, are not solely of interest
as illustrating the medieval notion of history. Much
of the Old Testament and even secular matter thus
introduced into the passion-play, developed in detail,
broke off from the parent stem, and obtained an inde-
pendent existence in more wieldy plays, many of which
reached the greatest popularity. Thus, for example, in
the sixteenth century we find innumerable authors, in-
cluding a duke, a schoolmaster, and a cobbler,’ treating as
playwrights the story of Susanna. Of course it is not
possible to consider all independent dramas dealing with
scenes which occur in the great passion-plays, as originally
offshoots. The passion-plays do not appear in their
complete development till about the fifteenth century,
and I shall presently trace their growth from small.and
fragmentary ritual plays. Many of the smaller religious
dramas are of much earlier date,” and have had an inde-
pendent and parallel development, not improbably origin-
ating in the dramatic performances of cloister scholars. |
Nevertheless a great variety of small dramas of the late
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries may be safely looked
upon as developed offshoots of the passion-plays, and a

good deal in the history, even of the secular drama, thus
becomes intelligible. The chief dramatic model set before
the playwright of those days was the great passion-play,

1 Heinrich Julius, Herzog von Braunschweig, Paul Rebhun, Schulmeister
zu Zwickan, and Hans Sachs, Schuster zu Niirnberg.

? For example, in the first half of the eleventh century we hear of certain monks
who ‘‘neque in refectorio comederent, exceptis rarissimis festis, maxime in
quibus Herodem representarent Christi persecutorem, parvulorum interfectorem,
seu ludis aliis aut spectaculis quasi theatralibus exhibendis comportaretur sym-
bolum ad faciendum convivium in refectorio aliis pene omnibus temporibus vacuo,”
Gerloh von Reichersberg.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PASSION-PLAY 269

and in this symbolism took the place of gesture and of
character in the modern sense; nor was the unity one of
place, time, or person, but of the thread by which the
historical world-drama itself was supposed to be linked
together. The reader who bears this in mind will the
better comprehend the crudeness and apparent helpless-
ness of the earliest attempts at the secular drama in
Germany— its authors had to learn how to replace
symbolism by acting, and how to build up a new concep-
tion of dramatic unity." It was the English actors and
English playwrights who chiefly helped them in this
matter.

I1I.—On the Spirit of the Passion-Plays

The reader who comes without a preliminary study of
the medizeval spirit to the perusal of a fifteenth-century
passion-play will probably be struck in the first place by
the incongruous juxtaposition of religion and humour.
He may feel inclined to assert that the people who could
bring the sublime and the ridiculous into such close con-
tact, who could joke even with the most sacred personages
of their faith, must have had no deep religious feeling.
Such a reader might even be inclined to agree with
certain Protestant authors who have asserted that the
medizval treatment of sacred topics, as evidenced in the
passion-plays, shows how little hold their religion had
upon the people in the fifteenth century. Yet such an
opinion is not only a misapprehension of the medieval

1 The relation of the passion-plays to the Fastnachtspiele cannot be discussed
here, but the chief defects of the latter are closely connected with essential
features, rather than defects of the former.

270 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

spirit, it is also a superficial view of human nature. In
real life the ridiculous is close to the sublime, and the
naive spirit of the Middle Ages realised this, much as
Shakespeare realised it. There is something incongruous
to the modern mind in the manner in which Shakespeare
expresses this great truth by the introduction of fool
interludes, yet we do not hold him incapable of appre-
ciating the higher phases of human feeling. It is from
the same standpoint that we must judge the passion-play,
nay, much of medizval art and literature, if we would
really understand the naive mixture of the earnest and
the grotesque which, indeed, characterises all popular
expression, but especially that of the Middle Ages. It
marks no want of reverence, it is no sign of loss of faith.
It is a childlike, semi-conscious recognition of a great
truth, the form of which often becomes traditional, and in
the medizeval spirit received, as everything else, a symbolic
expression. ‘T'wo of the most popular and most effective
books of the fifteenth century illustrate this principle,
the one from the religious and the other from the moral
standpoint. No more earnest books exist than the Art
of Dying and The Ship of Fools, yet, both verbally and
pictorially, they bring the most weird humour into juxta-
position with the deepest moral and religious teaching
of their day." Without that mingling they never would
have won the position they did among the people, and
those who would write for the moral or religious profit of
the masses to-day would do well to bear this fact in mind.
The Christianity of Jesus was not polytheistic, nor festive,

1 Even more characteristic, perhaps, of this combination of the solemn and
the grotesque are the Dances of Death, already referred to in Essay I,

THE SPIRIT OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 271

nor humorous. Yet polytheism, festival, and humour
had to be brought into it, before it was fully acclimatised
among the Teutonic races, before it could become the folk-
religion of the Middle Ages. Little by little the ecclesias-
tics gave way, and Christianity was moulded to the needs
of the robuster Western nations. The Christianity of
the Middle Ages was not that of Christ, still less that of
Paul; it was these p/us Teutonic heathenism, plus an in-
definite amount of medizeval folk-humour and folk-feeling.

It is in this spirit that we must endeavour to
interpret the grotesque inside and outside the churches,
the weird humour, sometimes verging on the indecent, of
occasional miniatures in monkish manuscripts, and, above
all, the combination of sacred and jocular in the passion-
plays. There was a widespread reverence for the papal
hierarchy in the Middle Ages, yet a pope or two in hell’
and an imp of a devil teasing a cardinal are traditional
in medieval art. There was a true religious earnestness in
the folk of the fifteenth century, but, like the Greeks, they
could laugh at their gods; the belief in the Devil had a
very real influence over conduct in the Middle Ages,
but a medizeval audience thoroughly appreciated his
humorous side on the stage. As in other matters, the
spirit of the passion-play here mirrors the general spirit
of its day, and I may illustrate it from the drama,
leaving the reader to find its analogies in other forms of
literature and in pictorial art.

1 T once showed a popular preacher some fifteenth-century representations
of the day of judgment, with all types of ecclesiastics descending into hell. A
few Sundays later he preached on evidences of the Protestant spirit before the
Reformation, and cited these pictures as an example of the popular feeling to-
wards the Catholic hierarchy! This was a marked case of the need of the
medieval factor in culture.

272 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

While the comic element became an all-important
‘factor in the greater passion-plays, as well as in the
shorter religious plays, and invaded even the scenic
representation of the most sacred portion of the Passion,
there still remained a simplicity and earnestness about
the action and words of the central figure which could
not fail to impress both sturdy burgher and rougher
peasant. Next to the figure of Christ, that of the
Virgin appeals most strongly to our religious feeling
and dramatic sense. ‘There is scarcely a single greater
passion-play in which the beauty of the Marienklage—
the grief of the Virgin at the Cross and tomb of her son
—does not fill the reader with a deep sympathy, and
render him conscious of a truly poetic, nay dramatic,
feeling struggling with a primitive mode of expression
and often a pitiable versification. There is something
almost of the Greek tragic spirit in the Marienklage,
and this relation to the Greek is not so accidental
as might be supposed. The earliest Marienklage which
I have come across actually exists in a fourth-century
Greek passion-play, Xpuctds macyov.' This remarkable
production appears to have been hardly sufficiently
studied in relation to the medieval religious drama.

1 Printed as an appendix by Wagner and Dibner in Fragmenta Euripidis,
Paris, 1846. The opening lamentations of the @eordxos on hearing of the
Crucifixion may perhaps interest the reader :—

"Td wo, id.
at al, Tl dpdow; kapdla yap olxerat.
mwas was 5 ere §S kal pépw raivra «ve ;
iSety 5¢ radra Hs ror’ olow TavTdpwr ;
ir’, & yuvatkes, THs Tadidalas réxva,
mpocelrar’ avrév, kat mpoméuware xOovds.
& Setre pirat, detre, Nlrwpuev déos.

The reader should also notice ll. 370 et seg. See footnote p. 384.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PASSION-PLAY 273

To the medizval student it is peculiarly striking owing
to its free treatment of the gospel narrative, its absence
of additional traditional incident, and to the strong
influence of the classical models which it exhibits. The
loss the passion-play suffers when the Marienklage is
omitted is well illustrated by Kriiger’s play, who in his
narrow theological prejudice considered it necessary to
entirely cut out the character of the Virgin. He shows
us at once his ignorance of what forms the chief emotional
factor in the drama, and demonstrates how impossible the
passion-play becomes when it is adapted to theological
controversies.’

It must not, however, be supposed that true poetic
spirit is confined in the greater passion-plays to the
lamentations of the Virgin, and that much even of the
tone of these is due to a Greek source. This is far from
being the case. As a striking instance of the contrary,
we may cite Lucifer’s appeal to the elements in the
_ Egerer Spiel, and his offer to perform the most terrible
penance if he can but obtain forgiveness. Here, for an
instant, we have an approach to a higher dramatic concep-
tion, that of a glorious, large-hearted rebel Satan. The
refusal of mercy to this heartrending appeal of Lucifer’s
contrasts curiously with the assertion in a thirteenth-
century poem, A Moral Ode (Old English Miscellany,
H.E.T.S., 1. 214), that the Devil himself might have
had mercy had he sought for it. The same intellectual
difficulty as to why the Devil could not do penance and

1 See H, Bd. ii. Kriiger introduces instead of the Virgin, a monk Franciscus,
and a Lutheran Christophorus, who holds ‘das recht evangelium.’ It is, per-
haps, needless to add that he consigns these to their fitting places, hell and
heaven, on the day of judgment.

VOL, II d

274 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

receive pardon like Adam crops up again in the See-
brucker Hirtenspiel (R, p. 134), and is peculiarly
suggestive of the nature of the medizeval conception of
penance. As a third example, which may be compared
with the Marienklage and Lucifer’s appeal, we may
refer the reader to the extremely fine lamentation of the
Foolish Virgins, written in the metre of the Nebelungen-
lied, with which the Ludus de decem Vuirginibus
concludes (0, pp. 30, 31).

Yet although powerful, almost dramatic, passages
are not wanting in the greater passion-plays of the
fifteenth century, it is still true that their general tone -
exhibits a naive folk-spirit, expressed in a strong but
crude folk-language. Only occasionally can we trace
instances of the ecclesiastical spirit and the old church
language, reminiscences of a time when the people had
made neither the plays, nor the Christian religion, their
own, but both were still in the first place associated with
Church ritual. In the lesser plays, especially in local
plays from out-of-the-way districts, where the peasants
were actors, and where there was no authority with the
will or the strength to repress extravagance, we find
the comic element predominant. This is peculiarly the
case in the short Easter and Christmas plays which,
even as early as the fifteenth century, had lost all
pretence of religious earnestness, and were related to
the greater passion-plays much as a Gaiety burlesque

1 According to the tradition it,was a representation of this play which led
the Landgraf of Thiiringen so to despair of the mercy of God that he fell down
in a fit of apoplexy, from the results of which he died. The tradition at any rate
is of value as illustrating how deeply the religious plays could move the medizval
mind.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PASSION-PLAY 275

to the corresponding Lyceum drama. Thus in a short
LIudus in cunabilis Christc the characters are Joseph
“who leads Mary seated upon an ass,’ the midwife
“ carrying cradle, pap-bowl, and spoon,” and a shepherd
“leading two big dogs.” Joseph, after pointing out
the child to the shepherd as the one announced by the
angels, invites him to drink from his flask; this is
passed on to the Virgin and then to the midwife, who
thinks a drop of wine would make the child sleep.
She then rocks the cradle and sings Magnum nomen
Domini. The flask again being passed round, the
shepherd remarks that it must be cold for the child;
Joseph agrees, and—exeunt omnes! This play is
by no means unique (compare the shepherds in the
Chester Plays, p. 119*); indeed, a perhaps still more
purlesque example of an Infancy Play has been
published by Weinhold (Q, p. 106) from oral tradition.
In this case Joseph is represented as rocking the
cradle and singing :—

Kindla wiega, Kindla wiega !

fch koan nich menne Finger biega
Hunni sausi,

der Kitsche thut der Bauch wih !

Kitsche is Katzenjammer, and there is perhaps
something of naive folk-realism rather than of burlesque
in the baby Jesus troubled by the wind.

1 See I, No. i., and compare Hin Weihnachtsspiel aus einer Hs. des XV.
Jahrhunderts, edited by K. W. Piderit, 1869. Flogel’s Geschichte des Grotesk-
Komischen, 1861, p. 246, may also be consulted. It must be noted, however,
that the rocking of the Christ cradle actually occurred as a part of the Christmas.
church ritual, and a fossil of it remained in a Protestant church in Tiibingen
even as late as 1830. See E. Meier, Sitten wu. Gebriuche aus Schwaben, p. 464.

276 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Obstetrices occur also in the Freising play, Herodes
sie magorum adoratio (Q, p. 60), and indeed in
innumerable medizval representations of the births of
Christ and the Virgin." The predominance of the
grotesque (even allowing for what is only grotesque
to modern minds) is characteristic of Christmas plays.?
But the same tendency, as we have already indicated,
is to be found to a greater or less degree in most of the
religious plays.* Thus, in the Ludus de decem Vir-
gunbus,* we find the strange stage direction Dominica
persona habet magnum convivium, while in the Siin-
denfall® Solomon, at a feast to the prophets, treats
them to the much-praised Himbecker beer. We shall
have occasion in the sequel to notice like instances from
the greater passion-plays themselves.

With these instances before him, the reader may
find it still more difficult to associate the extravagances
of the shorter, and the comic incidents in the longer
plays with the existence of a really religious spirit among
the people. Ican only reiterate that if he fails to grasp
this association, he will fail to understand the folk of
the Middle Ages, and in particular the state of feeling
in the fifteenth century. The century which preceded the
Reformation was distinguished from its immediate prede-
cessor and successor by its essentially religious character.®
If we look at the outer formal side of religion, it was

? The origin of the midwife is to be sought in the Protevangelion, ch. xiv.
The somewhat unsavoury incident with the midwife Salome is reproduced with
amplifications in the Coventry Mysteries, pp. 149 et seq.

2 Q, pp. 97, 104, 111.

® Townley Mysteries, Surtees Society, 1866, pp. 84, 98; Jubinal, DMystéres
inédits, Paris, 1837, ii. pp. 71-77. * 0. te oer

5M, p. 76, 6 More religious, but of course far less theological.

THE SPIRIT OF THE PASSION-PLAY 277

peculiarly the age of church-building, of religious
sculpture, painting, and engraving, and of the fully
developed passion-plays. If we turn to the inner
spiritual side of religion it was an age of great ver-
nacular preachers and of delicate spiritual teachers. ‘T'o
say it was the century of Thomas von Kempen conveys
a great deal more than is at first apparent. The deep
pietism of the author of the Imitatio Christi is not indi-
vidual; it is characteristic of most of the devotional
literature of his period. The Seelenwiirzgdrtlein, the
Himmelstrasse, the Hertzmaner, and the Guldin
Spigel des Siinders, are only types of a widespread
and deep religious pietism, which appealed in the
vulgar tongue directly to the heart, and erected no
ecclesiastical barrier between the soul and its God.’
Symbolism in ritual and in religious art, the grotesque
in passion-play and engraving, by no means denote
that the more spiritual side of religion was dead in
the fifteenth century. If we wish to understand the
medizeval spirit, and the Reformation as well, we must
continually bear this in mind. An appreciation of the
passion-plays will help us immensely in this very
respect. In them we do not see the folk looking to
the priest for its religion; the words and incidents
of the Bible are brought home to the folk, while it

1 For a list, by no means complete, see J. Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen
Volkes, Bd. i. p. 142.

2 See Vincenz Hasak, Der christliche Glaube des deutschen Volkes beim Schlusse
des Mittelalters, 1868, and the appendices to Geffcken, Der Bildercatechismus des
fiinfzehnien Jahrhunderts, 1855. Much useful insight into the religious life of
the period may be obtained from Geiler von Kaisersberg’s sermons (an abridged
edition has recently been published by P. de Lorenzi) and the confessional books,
e.g. Miinzenberger, Das Frankfurter und Magdeburger Beichtbiichlein, Mainz, 1881.
For cloister sermons, see Jostes’ edition of Johann Veghe’s sermons, etc. etc.

278 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

dramatically represents and at the same time moulds
its religion for itself.*

Were we to leave out of account the great mass of
vernacular devotional literature, and to put on one side
the eighteen editions of the German Bible which pre-
ceded Luther’s, we should still find the passion-plays
impressing the events, the teaching, and largely the
very words of the gospel story, with all the vividness
of the stage upon the minds of the people. Every
town, almost every village had its yearly or bi-yearly
play ; and then for one, two, or even three days,’ the
people would make holiday, and, with due allowance for
meals* and sleep, spend their whole time on the market-
place watching the great drama, which for them was
the story of the world, slowly unroll itself, a drama
which in those days was rich in interest and deeply
significant in meaning for each one of them. They
might see one of their fellow-citizens personify God the
Father,* they might laugh at the repeated discomfiture

1 The historic myths so widely held, namely, that before the Reformation
(a) the Bible was unknown to the people, (4) there were no church hymns in the
vernacular, (c) there were no sermons or devotional books in the vulgar tongue,
have been completely destroyed by scholarly research. See, besides the works
referred to in the previous footnote, Maitland, The Dark Ages, pp. 188 et seq. ;
Karl Meister, Das deutsche Kirchenlied ; The Academy, No. 699, p. 199; No.
701, p. 240; No. 704, p. 293 ; No. 744, p. 84; and No. 1193, p. 238; and The
Athenewm, No. 2925, p. 680; No. 2930, p. 809; and No. 2953, p. 694.

2 The Frankfurt passion-play lasted four days in 1498, besides a day of feast-
ing for the actors and a day later with a procession in costume. In 1409 the great
play of the London clerks at the Skinners’ Well (Clerkenwell) lasted eight days.
The Chester Mysteries took three days.

3 At the passion-play resuscitated by the Brixlegg peasants in the early eighties
the audience sat at tables placed in the open village street, each table being presided
over by a peasant woman, who worked vigorously with soup-ladle and carving-knife.

4 At the play referred to in the previous note it was God the Father who
came onto the stage with, and claimed an owner for, an umbrella found after the
morning performance ; nor did the element of the grotesque in this incident
at all strike the peasant majority in the audience.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 279

of the Devil, and smile at the mode in which Judas’
soul was carried off to Hell; yet none the less God,
Devil, and Hell were intensely real to them, and became
rather more so than less when the earnestness of their
religion was softened by touches of humour in its stage
representation. The realism of life itself ever brings
the ridiculous into closest contact with the sublime.

IV.—The Growth of the Passion-Play

Although much research is still needful to complete
. our knowledge of the successive stages in the growth of
the passion-play, we are nevertheless able to appreciate
fairly accurately the influence of the three chief factors
in the development of the German religious drama.
These factors were the following: (a) a love of festival
and symbolic representation dating from heathen days
and peculiarly national in character. This factor fostered
the demand for dramatic ritual rather than moulded the
character of its growth; (b) the Church ritual; and (c)
the influence of the cloister-schools and scholars. The
last two factors were both international in their char-
acter, and account for the cosmopolitan elements in the
plays. While the second factor was ecclesiastical and,
on the whole, conservative, the third was progressive and
democratic. It was the influence of the strolling scholars
which replaced Latin by the vernacular, and ultimately
handed over the religious drama to the people to mould
according to the folk-conceptions of Christianity and of
life in general.

One of the most striking features of a popular fifteenth-

280 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

century passion-play is the retention amid the vernacular
of certain Latin responses, hymns, and stage-directions
taken almost verbatim from the Easter or Christmas
ritual of the Church. A further investigation shows us
that the earliest religious plays, if plays they can be
called, were amplifications of a few sentences accom-
panied by descriptive action which had been introduced
between the last response and the Te Deum into
the Christmas or Easter services. We have the words
~ and directions for such dramatic ritual passing im-
perceptibly into ritualistic drama in eleventh-century
manuscripts from both France and Germany. Herein are
undoubtedly to be found the first germs of the great
religious plays. We have yet, however, to find a reason
for the introduction of such dramatic ritual into the
Church service. The ultimate cause is not far to seek.
The drama itself—tragedy and comedy—developed, as
I have shown elsewhere,! out of the choral and sexual
dances in honour of a goddess of fertility. The drama
is thus essentially of religious origin. Now although
Germanic heathenism had not developed out of its
religious festivals at the introduction of Christianity
anything like the Greek drama, it still possessed a wide
range of choral and symbolic representations, the whole
of which the folk endeavoured to associate with their
new religion, and this for the simple reason that they
were still in the stage of civilisation when religion and
semi-dramatic representation are closely allied. It stands
beyond question that the first notion of the Germans as to
the new churches was that they were convenient meeting-

1 See Essay XI. p. 136 and footnote.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 281

places for dance, festival, and dramatic representation.
From this standpoint Jakob Grimm has accounted for
the existence of the religious drama by supposing that
the primitive heathen delight of the German folk in
semi-dramatic festival forced its way into the churches,
and that the old sacrificial gatherings, the May festivals,
the summer and winter myth plays, etc., must be looked
to as the real origin of the German drama.’ It will be
well to consider the evidence in favour of this view
at some length, for it lets in a flood of light upon the
relation between primitive Teutonic Christianity and the
folk among whom it was afterwards to develop.

That the old heathen religion was an essentially
dramatic one can scarcely be doubted; we have proof
enough not only in written statements, but in a vast
number of dramatic folk-customs of heathen origin.”
We find many cases in which heathen customs were
introduced into Christian churches. The German warriors
did not hesitate to sing in their new gathering-places
ancient war-songs in honour of their new hero Christ,
choruses of girls and youths chanted love-glees in the
same sacred places,*? while later both monks and nuns
indulged in dances and masquerades directly connected

1 Kleinere Schriften, Bd. v. p. 281.

2 See Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed. pp. 35, 52, 214, 637, etc., and Wackernagel,
Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, § 22.

3 See Wackernagel, Joc. cit., and compare with Miillenhoff und Scherer,
Denkmiler deutscher Poesie und Prosa, 2nd ed. p. 363. The custom of dancing
in the churches survived in some places till the second half of the sixteenth and,

_ perhaps, into the seventeenth centuries: see Hartmann, Wethnacht-Lied u. Spiel,
pp. 44, 45. Ina play published by Marriott in his Collection of English Mysteries
and dealing with the Massacre of the Innocents, we actually find in the poet’s
epilogue an appeal to the minstrels to use their diligence and “ A fore our depertyng

geve us a dawnce” (p. 219). Possibly the reference to the virgins in the prologue
(p. 200), who are to “shewe sume sport and plesure,” has some bearing on this.

282 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

with heathen festivals. The capitularies continually
returned to these practices, and most stringently forbid
them. “It is not permissible for choruses of laymen
and girls to sing songs and prepare banquets in the
church,” runs a statute of 803; while another of the
same century forbids any presbyter to take part in or
allow in his presence unseemly clapping, laughing, or
foolish stories at funerals, or singing, or shameful games
with the bear or with female gymnasts, or the wearing
of masks of demons, for “all this is devilish.” Other
records of a similar date speak of the monks mumming
as wolves, foxes, or bears and of other “ diabolical”
masquerades, which were clearly remnants of the old
heathen festivals. Hven in the fifteenth century the
Church had not freed itself from these strange per-
formances. The ‘feast of fools’ had become an established
institution. A fool-bishop having been chosen with
many absurd ceremonies, monks and priests conducted
him to the cathedral. With faces smeared with ochre
or hidden by hideous masks, clad as women, as beasts,
or as jugglers, these clerical mummers proceeded singing
and dancing to the very altar-steps. The fool-bishop >
read the service and gave his benediction, while his
bacchanalian following threw dice and ate sausages on
the altar itself. The burning of dung and old bits of
shoe-leather took the place of incense, and the utmost
license and disorder prevailed both inside and outside
the sacred building." It is clear that the very clergy

1 See Mone, B, ii. p, 367, and Flogel, Geschichte des Grotesk-Komischen, pp.
225, 460. Among the Statuta Sinodalia in diocesi Havelbergensis, printed at
the end of the Breviarius Havelbergensis, 1511, we find a *‘ Statutwm Tiderici in
quo prohibetur ludibria lavarum et alias abusiones in ecclesiis fieri sub pena

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 283

themselves long joined in heathen scenic festivals which
had survived the introduction of Christianity. Thus in
Bohemia in the middle of the fourteenth century they
still took part in the heathen ritual of the Hxpulsion of
Death, accompanying the figure of Death cum rithmas et
ludis swpersticiosis to the river, where it was drowned.!

But although customs of the kind described, surviv-
ing through many centuries, demonstrate the strength of
the folk-passion for religious spectacles, and show how
it forced its way into the churches, neither Grimm nor
any of his successors have been able to point to a single
passage in the earliest of the medizeval religious plays
which might be used to support the theory that they
have any formal or verbal relation to the old heathen
scenic festivals. It is this absence of direct relationship
which has led Milchsack, one of the most thorough
students of the medizval drama, to reject entirely
Grimm’s theory. There is, however, a method of recon-
ciling the views of Grimm and Milchsack which has

excommunicationis.” See lii> and compare with m. vi», The date of the
statute is 1374. According to Martene, De antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus, Liber iv.
cap. 13. § 11, the feasts of fools arose from the service being performed by
children on Innocents’ Day. This seems hardly warranted by what we find in
the order issued by the Council of Basel in its twenty-first session, and printed
by Martene himself. It runs as follows :—

Turpem etiam illum abusum in quibusdam frequentatum Ecclesiis, quo certis
anni celebritatibus, nonnulli cum mitra, baculo, ac vestibus pontificalibus, more
episcoporum benedicunt, alii ut Reges ac Duces induti, quod festum fatuorum vel
TInnocentium, seu puerorum in quibusdam regionibus nuncupatur; alii larvales
ac theatrales jocos, alii choreas et tripudia marium et mulierum facientes, homines
ad spectacula et cachinnationes movent, alii comessationes et convivia ibidem
praeparant, haec Sancta Synodus detestans, statuit et jubet (loc. cit.)

The whole statute is of interest as showing the prevalence of heathen customs
—the hileth (p. 132)—within the churches.

1 See Loserth, Hus und Wiclif, p. 35, footnote 2.

2 Milchsack, Oster- wnd Passionsspiele, p. 10, to be compared, however, with
Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed. p. 657, etc.

284 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

much to be said for it. The absence of all direct
connection between the scenic rituals of the old and new
religions does not demonstrate that the one was not the
effective cause of the other. May not the early Christian
missionaries, recognising the hold which religious festival
and scenic display had upon the minds of the Germanic
peoples, have found it impossible to push their own
faith without dramatising its ritual? They found it
impossible to repress the love of spectacular festival ;
nay, they found it forcibly invading their own places of
religious gathering. Accordingly they endeavoured to
attack heathenism by adopting attractions similar in
spirit to its own. Thus the scenic ritual, and ultimately
the religious plays, indirectly owe their origin to the
‘very heathen ceremonies which their introduction was
designed to repress... Nor was the end proposed in the
least achieved. A new formal expression can be given
to the spirit of the people, but the essential features of
that spirit will remain quite unchanged. We see this
truth over and over again manifesting itself in the
struggle between western heathenism and eastern
Christianity. The Kirchweth was designed as a solemn
Christian feast to replace old heathen festivals. And
what happened to it? The folk seized it as its own,
made it the centre for all types of old folk-practices, till
the modern Kirmes is one of the most fruitful sources of
our knowledge of old heathen religious and social customs.
Again the early Christian missionary could not root out
the old district goddesses; he endeavoured to replace

' The view here expressed is not, I think, identical with that of Gustav
Freytag in his De initiis scenicae poesis apud Germanos, 1838.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 285

them by virgin saints of chaste and holy life. Again
what happened? The folk at once found a field for its
old polytheistie tendencies, local goddesses reappeared
as Christian saints, but with them came back many of
the old folk-festivals, and much of the old sexual cult.’
As in these cases, so it was with the dramatic ritual. It
was intended as a solemn scenic effect to counteract
heathen habits; but the folk flocked into the churches,
took possession of the ritual, and added to it the dancing,
the feasting, and the humour which characterise the
passion-play. Thus in three typical cases we see the
folk moulding oriental Christianity to its own spirit,
and making a foreign religion something peculiar and
relative to itself.

Nor is the view here expressed simply that of a critic
writing many centuries later with but an obscure record
of what actually took place in the early days of Germanic
Christianity. A writer of much insight, nearer by seven
centuries to that folk-struggle for religious festival and
dramatic ritual, held much the same opinion. There
is an apparently neglected passage in Herrad von

Landsberg’s great work, the Hortus Deliciarum, which
runs thus :—

The old Fathers of the Church, in order to strengthen the belief
of the faithful and to attract the unbeliever by this manner of
religious service, rightly instituted at the feast of the Epiphany or
the Octave religious performances of such a kind as the star guiding
the Magi to the new-born Christ, the cruelty of Herod, the dispatch
of the soldiers, the lying-in of the Blessed Virgin, the angel warning

* In other essays of this volume some references will be found to the Kirmes
and the local goddess as Christian saint (see pp. 19, 25), but I hope on another
occasion to deal more fully with these topics.

286 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

the Magi not to return to Herod, and other events of the birth of
Christ. But what nowadays happens in many churches? Not a
customary ritual, not an act of reverence, but one of irreligion and
extravagance conducted with all the license of youth. The priests
having changed their clothes go forth as a troop of warriors ; there
is no distinction between priest and warrior to be marked. At an
unfitting gathering of priests and laymen the church is desecrated
by feasting and drinking, buffoonery, unbecoming jokes, play, the
clang of weapons, the presence of shameless wenches, the vanities of
the world, and all sorts of disorder. Rarely does such a gathering
break up without quarrelling.+

This passage from Herrad’s Hortus is a peculiarly
instructive one; it not only shows us what in the
twelfth century was supposed to be the reason for the
dramatic ritual,—its aim was to attract unbelievers—-but
it proves that even at that early date the plays, though
still acted in the churches, had advanced beyond the
customary ritual, and had attained to a considerable
fulness in dramatic details. What appears of still
oreater interest, however, is the evidence, which Herrad’s
words afford, that the heathen festivities, which in still
earlier days had been associated with the churches and
caused grave scandal to the higher ecclesiastics, were in
the twelfth century again manifest in connection with
the religious dramas acted inside the churches. The
views of the abbess of Hohenburg are fully confirmed
by a contemporary monk, Gerloh von Reichersberg,
(1095-1169), who was head of the chapter-school in
Augsburg, magister scholarum et doctor guvenum. He
writes with the greatest disapproval of the plays of
King Herod.2. Thus we see that the first factor in the

1 Engelhardt, Joc. cit. p. 104.
? Cited in Hartmann, Oberammergauer Passionsspiel, p. 98.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 287

growth of the passion-plays—the heathen love of spec-
tacular display and of religious festival—had already
forced the hands of the ecclesiastical authorities in the
twelfth century, and at that date the religious drama had
advanced far beyond the Church’s dramatic ritual.

In order to study the influence of the second factor,
the Church ritual, on the growth of the religious drama
it will be necessary to consider the nature of that ritual
at some length. It will be noticed that Herrad refers
especially to dramatic ritual connected with the birth of
Christ, while it is ritual connected with the passion and
resurrection of which we find most evidence. The first
is to be looked upon as the prototype of the Herod or
Magi plays, while the latter leads up to plays dealing
with the crucifixion and death of Christ. The one series
of rituals is associated with Christmas, the other with
Easter ; both alike contribute elements to the developed
passion-play. At the very first consideration, however,
a difference manifests itself between the Haster and
Christmas scenic rituals. The earliest Haster scenic
ritual occurs in a manuscript of the eleventh century,
and that of the fifteenth century remains practically
identical with it. But by the eleventh century we find
in existence entire or fragmentary plays of the Wise and
Foolish Virgins, of the Birth of Christ, of the Resurrec-
tion and the Disciples at Emmaus, and of Herod and the
Magi. For example, Weinhold gives two Herod-plays
of the ninth to the eleventh century,! and Gervinus even
mentions one of the fifth century.2, Mone supposes the

1 Q, pp. 55 et seq.
2 Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, 5th ed. Bd. ii. p. 563, footnote.

288 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

religious plays to have sprung directly from the Church
ritual,’ but if this be so, the ritual must have had an
earlier origin than we have any manuscript warrant for.
Due weight must of course be given to the fact that the
ritual actually remained practically constant in form for
four centuries, and therefore this ceremonial conservatism
may easily have existed for a long period before the
eleventh century. If this be the case, the Easter ritual,
as we know it, is only a survival of a primitive stage in
the life of the religious play ; it has continued to exist
side by side with its more highly developed offspring.
Against this view it may be remarked that there is no
sufficient evidence to show that all the eleventh-century
plays originally formed parts of the Church ritual. Very
possibly they may have been performed by monks and
cloister scholars. Latin plays with biblical and other
themes—perhaps even those of Terence *—appear to have
been acted in the cloisters before the religious play in
the Church had attained any considerable degree of
development. Yet the independent cloister-play*® can
scarcely have been the source of the fully developed
passion-play ; for if it were, how shall we account for
the responses and hymns of the Church scenic ritual

1 A, pp. 13, 14. In B, vol. i. pp. 6, 7, 55, Mone holds the origin of the
Easter-plays to have been the responses of the Church service, and of the
passion-plays the recitation of the gospel.

2 Hroswitha’s anti-Terentian plays certainly suggest this, and Magnin’s
opinion that they were intended for acting does not seem to me so absurd as to
some German critics. It isa curious and important fact that the earliest Herod-
plays show traces of classical knowledge on the part of their writers, ¢.g. pass-
ages are interpolated from Virgil, Sallust, Claudian, ete. See Du Méril, Origines
latines du thédtre moderne, p. 164, and R, p. 9.

3 As a typical play belonging to a class independent of Church ritual and
evidently of scholastic origin we may note Der Siindenfall, although it is of
course of much later date, namely, about 1450.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 289

which are to be found in so many of the passion-plays ?
The Church and the cloister have evidently worked con-
temporaneously ; and we can hardly doubt that the latter
was progressive, and exercised much influence in expand-
ing the conservative ritual of the former. But the exact
manner of the action and reaction between the two ap-
pears at least for the earlier stages of the religious drama
to be still very obscure. To the influence of the strolling
scholars who wandered from cloister-school to cloister-
school, introducing at a later stage of development
new and cosmopolitan elements, I shall return below.
The four portions of the Church scenic ritual which
chiefly concern us are—(i.) the Officrwm Stellae at the
Epiphany or, as it is sometimes termed, the Officium
trum Regum; (ii.) the Adoratio Crucis or Sepultura
Domini on Good Friday ; (iii.) the Hlevatio Crucis or
Hlevatio Corporis Christi on Easter Eve, or early in
the morning of Haster Day; and (iv.) the Resurrectio
or Visitatio Sepulchri during the Easter Day morning
service. In addition to these there appears to have been
a scenic ritual connected with Christmas, which was prob-
ably closely related to the birth-plays and Christmas
hymns. A feature of this ritual would undoubtedly
have been the singing at the cradle of the Christ-child.
A cradle such as the nuns in the fourteenth century used
to rock the Christ-child in is exhibited in the National
Museum at Munich (Saal III.), and this rocking ceremony
in the churches has survived almost to the present day.*

1 See Q, p. 49; R, p. 24; and T, p. 585. The cradle, and Joseph’s by-play
with it, are special features of the Christmas dramas even as early as the fifteenth
century; see Piderit, Hin Weihnachtsspiel aus einer Hs. des XV. Jahrhunderts,
1869.

VOL, IT U

290 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

Some account of the Christmas Day ritual is given
by Martene (De antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus, Liber iv.
cap. 12, §§ 9 et seq.) In most churches the lessons were
distributed among several readers, so that the recital
might be given a dramatic character. The verses of
the Erythraean Sibyl were also read (see Martene, Lib.
iv. cap. 12. § 13), to which practice we doubtless
owe the Sibyl’s appearance in the passion - plays.
At Rouen, Nantes, Tours, Laon, etec., there was a
ritual similar in character to the office of the Three
Kings, which I shall consider later; it was, however,
less fully developed. At Rouen a manger was erected
behind the altar and the image’ of the Virgin placed
upon it. A boy in the choir, representing an angel,
announced the birth of Christ. The shepherds then
entered the choir, and going to the manger greeted the
Virgin and Child. Their progress was accompanied by
the hymn Paz in terris. Mass was next celebrated at —
the altar, and after it the priest said to the shepherds:
Quem vidistis pastores ? to which they replied, Natum
vidimus. There were only slight variations in the
ritual at other French churches. At some, choristers
with crooks took the part of the shepherds, but they do
not appear to have said more than Natum vidimus, or
Infantem vidimus. It seems singular that no form of
this ritual for English or German churches should have
been preserved, but I have not been able to find one.

1 Here, as in other like rituals, the most sacred persons were not at first
represented by the clergy themselves, but by symbols or images. Exception
must possibly be made in the case of a Besancon Advent ritual in which a well-
dressed maiden replied to the deacon, who represented the archangel Gabriel
(Martene, Lib. iv. cap. 10. § 30). According to Martene, this ritual dates from
the early thirteenth century, and is the first case known to me of a woman
taking part in the ritual.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 291

It does not, however, appear that a really comprehensive
search has hitherto been made. I pass now to the
rituals more closely connected with the passion-plays.

(i.) The Officiwm Stellae.—The earliest version of this
ritual that Ihave come across is published by Martene
(De antiqus Ecclesiae Ritibus, Liber iv. cap. 14.
§ 9) and is entitled Officcum trium Regum secundum
usum Ecclesiae Rotomagensis. Martene merely tells us
that he has taken it from “‘an ancient manuscript” at
Rouen, which leaves us in some doubt as to its actual
date. It is clearly a ritual so fully developed that it
may fairly be termed a religious play, and its comparison
with the Orleans* and Freising’ Magi-plays will impress
the reader with the amount the religious drama really
owes to the Church ritual. The frequency of the ritual
is demonstrated by another form from Limoges, given by
Martene (§ 12). As the student who has never read
through one of these scenic rituals can have little
appreciation of their spirit, nor have grasped the extent
to which the drama had invaded the Church, I venture
to print the Rouen ritual at length, merely requesting
the reader who has no interest in medieval Latin to
pass it by with measured protest.’

Die Epiphaniae, tertia cantata, tres de majori sede, cappis et |
coronis ornati, et debent esse scripti in tabula, ex tribus partibus
ante altare conveniant, cum suis famulis portantibus Regum
oblationes, indutis tunicis et amictis, et debent esse de secunda sede
scripti in tabula ad placitum scriptoris. Ex tribus Regibus medius
ab Oriente veniens, stellam cum baculo ostendens dicat alte: Stella
Sulgore nimio rutilat. Secundus Rex a dextra parte veniens respondeat :

1 Wright’s Early Mysteries, p. 23. 2 Q, pp. 56 et seq.
3 A translation would fail to give much of the character of the original.

292 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

Quae Regem regum natum demonstrat. ‘Tertius Rex a sinistra parte
veniens dicat: Quem venturam olim prophetiae signaverant. Tune
Magi ante altare congregati sese osculentur, et simul cantent : Hamus
ergo, et inquiramus eum, offerentes ei munera, Aurum, Thus et Mirrham.
Quo finito, cantor incipiat responsorium: Magi veniunt. Et moveat
processio. Sequatur aliud responsium, si necesse fuerit: Interrogabat
Magos. FProcessione in navi Ecclesiae constituta stationem faciant.
Dum autem processio navem Ecclesiae intrare coeperit, corona ante
altare crucis pendens ad modum stellae accendatur, et Magi stellam
ostendentes ad imaginem 8. Mariae super altare crucis prius positam
cantantes pergant: Ecce stella in Oriente praevisa, iterum praecedit nos —
lucida. Haec, inquam, stella natum demonstrat, de quo Balaam cecinerat
dicens : Orietur stella ex Jacob, et exurget homo de Israél, et confringet
omnes duces alienigenarum, et erit omnis terra possessio ejus. Hoc finito,
duo de majori sede cum dalmaticis ex utraque parte altaris stantes
suaviter respondeant: Qui sunt hi, qui stella duce nos adewntes inaudita
ferunt? Magi respondeant: Nos sumus quos cernitis, Regis Tharsis et
Arabum et Sabbae, dona ferentes Christo Regi, nato Domino, quem stella
deducente adorare venimus. Tunc duo dalmaticati aperientes cortinam
dicant : Ecce puer adest, quem quaeritis, jam properate adorare, quia ipse
est redemptio mundi. ‘Tune procidentes Reges ad terram simul
salutent puerum ita dicentes ; Salve princeps saeculorum. 'Tunc unus
a suo famulo aurum accipiat, et dicat: Suscipe Rex aurum. Et
offerat Secundus Rex, ita dicat et offerat: Tolle thus tu vere Deus.
Tertius dicat et offerat mirrham signum sepulturae. Interim fiant
oblationes a clero et populo, et dividatur oblatio praedictis duobus
canonicis. Tunc Magis orantibus et quasi somno sopitis, quidam
puer alba indutus et amicta super caput, quasi angelus in pulpito
illis dicat hance antiphonam: Jmpleta sunt omnia quae prophetice dicta
sunt, Ite ob viam remeantes aliam ne delatores tanti Regis puniendi eritis.
Hoe finito, Reges secedant per alam Ecclesiae ante fontes, et intrent
chorum per ostium sinistrum, et processio intret chorum, sicut
consuetum est in Dominicis, cantore incipiente hoc responsorium :
Tria sunt munera. YV. Salutis, si necesse fuerit. Ad missam tres
Reges regant chorum, qui Kyrie fons bonitatis, Alleluja, Sanctus, et
Agnus cantent.

Such a ceremony as this is Church ritual, if we lay
emphasis on the canons and choir as actors, and the

~~

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 293

Church responses and hymns which occur. On the
other hand it is drama, if we note that the actors are
clothed to suit their characters, that there are stage-
accessories, the star, the gifts, and the cortina,' and
that gesture and motion are indicated. Indeed, the
Church becomes a stage, and the altars, nave, aisle, and
choir are all used in a manner very suggestive for the
later passion-play arrangements. Lastly, some evidence
of the antiquity of the ritual may be drawn from the
fact that the divine personages are still only represented
by symbols, the cross and the image, as in the early
Easter scenic rituals. [I will now turn to what is
known of these rituals, treating them, however, with
less detail. |

(ii.) The Adoratio Crucis.—The Easter ritual centres
round the so-called ‘sepulchre. In most churches
there was a permanent sepulchre placed alongside the
altar, or in its immediate neighbourhood, and especially
designed for the Easter ceremony.’ In other cases, the
sepulchre would be temporarily erected for the rite. Thus
occasionally it would consist of a hollow pile of books
upon the altar, wherein the sacrament could be placed ;
at other times, as in the miniature reproduced by
Mone,’ or, as in the case of Tyll Ulenspiegel’s prank,’
it would be capable of containing one or more persons
who acted as angels. |

The sepulchre having been prepared after nones on

1 It is not clear whether the cortina is a hollow vessel representing the cradle,
or the curtain hanging beside the altar.

2 As to the position and nature of the sepulchre see Parker, Glossary of
Architecture, 5th ed. vol. i. p. 420. The sextons in English village churches will
still frequently point out the sepulchre as ‘some of the old choir-stalls.’

3 B, vol. i. p. 8. 4 Die dreizehent Historie of the Volkbuch, see below.

204 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Good Friday, the rood taken from its usual place, or a
veiled crucifix, was carried by the officiating clergy with
bare feet towards the altar. Here followed the Adoratio
Crucis, with prayer, response, and hymn, notably the
orand—

Crux fidelis inter omnes
Arbor una nobilis, etc.!

The rood was gradually unveiled and elevated; then
the priest, having washed his hands and brought the
host, consecrated on the previous day, to the altar, sings
portions of the mass. After this the rood, the Corpus
Christi, and the chalice, one or all, were deposited in
the sepulchre—a ritual symbolic of the entombment.
The priest intoned the verse: In peace his place is
made, and the choir gave the response: And in Sion
his habitation. So ended the first portion of the Easter
ritual.? In a rubric to one of its versions we are told
that, if the host could not be left under safe custody
in the sepulchre for three days, the priest should remove
it to his cell after vespers were concluded. Generally,
in the larger churches, watchers were appointed to sing
psalms and take charge of the sepulchre until Haster
Eve or Easter Morn. It will be seen at once that this
ritual gives scope for a considerable amount of dramatic
action. As in the Officowm Stellae, the deity is as
yet only represented by symbols; but, as in that case,

1 Mone, Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters, No. 101.

* For the general description here, as in the other two Easter rituals, I have
followed as a comprehensive version the Ordo Augustensis of 1487 (see G, p. 126,
and compare with other versions in the Appendix). So far as the scenic ritual of
the resurrection is concerned, this version is identical with those of the eleventh

century. It has the advantage, however, of throwing light on the Passion- as
well as the Easter-plays.

THE GROWTA OF THE PASSION-PLAY 295

so in this, several of the responses recur in the
passion-play entombment scenes." The widespread
character of this ritual, and some interesting variations
in type, will be found illustrated in the references
given below.*

(iii.) The Elevatio Crucis.—The elevation of the
cross, or the resurrection of the Corpus Christi, took
place between Easter Eve and Easter Day matins, some-
times in the night. In one version, all the church
doors being closed and the populace excluded, the

1 For example, the Sepulto Domino of the ritual (G, p. 122) will be found in .
the Alsfelder Spiel (C, p. 214), the Egerer Spiel (F, p. 275), and others.

2 I have been able from various printed sources to considerably extend the
collection published by Dr. Milchsack. In the first place, I may note a
Directoriwm Missae for the diocese of Mainz, published without date or printer’s
name about 1490. On folio a. viii. will be found, in the De officio in die parasceves,
an Adoratio Crucis, with the usual responses and hymns (Ecce lignuwm crucis and
Crux fidelis). We read :—

Deinde sacerdos officium celebraturus casula indutus accedat ad locum ubi corpus
Christi histerna die reservatum fuit.

The host being brought to the altar, the Directory continues :—

Sed sacerdos exuat casulum qua indutus erat accepto corpore Christi in mundis-
sima theta reconditum sive imaginum crucis procedentibus candelis et processione cum
pulsu in tabula lignea cantando submissa voce: Ecce quomodo moritur justus, usque
ad locum sepulchri. Et in eodem loco corpus Christi sive imago sanctae crucis quasi
sepeliendo devote ponatur et thurificetur cum incenso et aspergatur aqua benedicta.
Et ponantur candelae et lumina apud sepulcrum quae die noctuque usque ad elevationem
crucis in nocte pascali ardebunt. Et in recessu de sepulcro cantetur sub silencio re-
sponsorium ; Sepuwlto Domino, quibus omnibus finitis, exuat se et recedat. C In aliquibus
ecclesiis legetur psalterium die et nocte apud sepulcrum usque ad elevationem crucis
in nocte pasce.

The Directoriwm thus contains evidence of the existence of the Elevatio Crucis
ritual, although it gives no directions for this, nor for a Visitatio. Durandus
(Rationale divinorum Officiorwm, Liber vi. cap. 77. §§ 19 et seg.) gives some account
of the Adoration, but none of the Sepultwre. Additional information and various
rituals will be found in Martene, De antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus, Liber iv. cap. 23.
§ 14 Adoratio Crucis, and § 27 De Officio Sepulturae, with the texts at the end of
the chapter. From English sources a good deal may be extracted. In the earliest
portion of the Leofric Missal (Warren, A.) there is no ritual for the ceremony, but
the Good Friday service ends: Adorata cruce communicent omnes, which shows
its existence. In theeleventh-century Canterbury Missal (Corpus College, Cam-
bridge) there is a rubric Adorata sancta cruce et reposita in loco solito (Warren,

‘p. 96 footnote), which shows that the adoration, but not the deposit of the cross in

296 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

officiating priest, “with a few assistants and two
candles,’ raised the host and rood from the sepulchre,
where it had been deposited on Good Friday, and
carried it to the altar, amid resounding psalms and cries
of Kyrieleyson! After the host and rood had been
thurified with incense, the appointed prayers read, and
the responses recited, a procession was formed, and the
objects of adoration were carried to the main door of
the church. The officiating priest struck this door with
his foot and sang: Luft up your heads, O ye gates,
and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors! The choir
continued: And the King of Glory shall come in!
Then the bishop or other high church official struck the
door with a rod.t. At this a subdeacon, dvessed as the

the sepulchre, was then usual at Canterbury. In the later portion of the Leofric
Missal (Warren, C) we have a dramatic incident in the Good Friday ritual at the
words: Partiti sunt vestimenta, when two cloths were to be torn asunder and
carried off by two deacons in modum furientis (p. 261). At vespers there was an
Adoratio Crucis. The cross was placed at some distance in front of the altar,
and was adored by bishop, clergy, and people in turn (p. 262). The response
Ecce lignum crucis and the hymn Crux fidelis occur as in the German forms, but,
while in the Augsburg ritual it is directed that the cross-bearers shall walk with
bare feet, in the Exeter it is ordered that the cross shall not be adored nudis
pedibus. In the York Missal (Surtees Society, vol. i. pp. 105-108) we have a
fuller ritual for the Adoratio Crucis accompanied by the sepulture: Tandem
adorata cruce bajulent eam duo Vicarii usque ad locum sepulchri .. . Postea
Praelatus ponat flexis genibus crucem in sepulchro ..., etc. The same ritual
in a somewhat amplified form will be found in the Manuale et Processionale ad
usum Ecclesiae Eboracensis (Surtees Society, 1875, pp. 156-161). Another version
of the same ceremony is contained in the Sarwm Missal (Burntisland) col. 329 et
seq. On the whole, the English ritual is not nearly so developed as the German.
It may be more primitive, or the need for dramatic ritual may have been less.
An account of a very complete Adoratio Crucis, sepulture and resurrection, which
was formerly the custom at Durham will, however, be found in Davies, Rites of
the Cathedral. of Durham, 1672, p. 52. In this case the rood appears to have been
kept not in the rood-loft, but inside the body of an image of the Virgin, which
opened from the breasts downwards.

+ There is a somewhat similar incident in the processional for Palm Sunday
given in the Rituale Romanum Pauli V Pont. Max. jussu editum Romae, 1750.
It runs thus: ‘‘In reversione Processionis duo vel quattuor Cantores intrant in
Ecclesiam et clauso ostio stantes versa facie ad Processionem incipiunt Versum

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 297

Devil and standing outside the door, cried in a gruff
voice: Who ws the King of Glory? The choir re-
sponded: The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord
mighty vn battle. The blow on the door and the above
responses were thrice repeated. The door was then
opened, the populace admitted, and the choir and
ecclesiastics form the head of a procession, which
marched to the altar with the appropriate 139th Psalm
and the Kyrieleyson.' The host was then elevated, and
the priest sang the hymn :’—

O vere digna hostia
per quam fracta sunt Tartara.

Afterwards the Haster matins were conducted in the
customary form.°

We have in this ceremony a most important factor
in the development of the passion-plays. The ritual
itself is based upon the account given in the Gospel

Gloria laus . . . Postea Subdiaconus hastili crucis percutit portum qua statim
aperta Processio intrat Ecclesiam cantando Responsorium : Ingrediente Domino,”
A still fuller form of this ceremony even, with the Aftolite portas and Quis est iste
Rex gloriae of the office of the Hlevatio Crucis, has been printed by Martene, De
antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus, Liber iv. cap. 20. § 14, and Ordo 4 & 8.

1 In one version, a rubric states that the Guild of Butchers are to carry the
cross back to the altar,—the thin end of the popular wedge.

2 Mone, Lateinische Hymnen, No. 161.

® Concerning the Zlevatio Crucis our information is more scanty than in the
case of the Adoratio Crucis. Beyond the rituals given by Milchsack I can refer
to none with the devil incident. The Breviarius Havelbergensis, 1511, gives a
simple elevation in sancta nocte pasce (c. iiiib), The York Manual and Pro-
cessional (p. 170) runs :—

In aurora pulsatis campanis ad classicum congregato clero et populo, flexis genibus
dicitur Oratio Dominicalis et postea Sacerdos thurificet sepulchrum et proferatur
sacramentum cum imagine cum corona spinea,.

In a footnote the editor quotes two other rituals. In the first of these (St. John
Lawson’s MS. Manwale, A.D. 1405) the pyxidem cwm Corpore et crucem were raised
from the sepulchre ; in the second (the Sarwm Processional), after the Corpus
Christi and cross had been raised from the sepulchre, a procession went round the

298 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

of Nicodemus (chapters xv.-xx.) of the descent into
hell, where use is made of the 24th Psalm. Supple-
mented by further extracts from that gospel, it forms
the entire backbone of the popular hell-scenes of the
passion-plays.*

We can scarcely doubt the Hlevatio is as old as the
Visitatio, which immediately follows ; and we may safely
assume that we have here the first origin of the Devil
as a character in the religious drama—a character
which in after ages became all-prominent, and acted
as a centre for the introduction of popular and comic
incidents into the original tragedy of the Passion. In
the form of the ritual given above, the populace are
excluded from the church while the ceremony of the
resurrection takes place. They stand outside with the
Devil, and are only admitted when the procession,
returning to the altar, signifies the ascent from hell.
The opportunity thus given to the ‘ subdeacon dressed as
the devil’ for a little pantomime, while the ceremony
went on inside, is obvious. The exclusion, however, was
not universal. Sometimes the ritual was prefixed to the
matins, and formed an integral part of the service; at

church. It seems doubtful in this case whether the public were admitted. We read:
‘* Ante missam et ante campanarum pulsationem conveniant clerici ad Ecclesiam.”
Compare also Martene, Joc. cit. Liber iv. cap. 25. §§ 5,7. Inan Ordo Bajocensis
Ecclesiae printed by Martene the populace is expressly mentioned as being
present. In his § 9 we read: ‘‘In pervetusto etiam libro rituali Parthenonis
Pictaviensis 8. Crucis haec reperio: In prima vigilia noctis Paschae duo Presby-
teri revestiti cum cappis pergunt ad sepulchrum . . . Inde elevatur et defertur
Corpus Dominicum ad majus altare, praecedentibus cereis et thuribulis et pulsanti-
bus signis.”” I think it in nowise possible to accept Milchsack’s view that the
populace were always excluded from the Zevatio. It may have been done in
certain localities to repress heathen practices or beliefs, which, as I have remarked,
were only too readily associated with the ceremony, but it was certainly not
general,
1 F, p. 284; I, p. 141; C, p. 224; D, p. 88; B, vol ii. p. 341, ete.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 299

others, being performed at night, it collected, we hear,
a great crowd of men and women, a superstition having
arisen that those who witnessed the Hlevatio would
not die within the year. On this account a Synod at
Worms in 1316 ordered that the public should be
excluded from the office.’

(iv.) The Visitatio Sepulchri.—The last portion of
the scenic Easter ritual was the visitation of the sepulchre
by the three Maries. Of this ritual, from its most
primitive form in the eleventh-century manuscripts to
its growth into an almost independent religious play,
Milchsack has collected upwards of thirty examples
(see G). In the earliest versions two or three priests
clad as women, with cloaks over their surplices and
censers in their hands,” went between the last response
and the Te Dewm to the sepulchre, from which, before
matins, the elevation had taken place. They chanted:
Who will roll away the stone from the door of the
sepulchre? Two persons clothed to represent angels
answered from the sepulchre: Whom seek ye in this
sepulchre, O worshippers of Christ? The Maries
replied: Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified, O Sons of
heaven.* To which came the response: He 1s not
here, he has arisen as he prophesied. 'The Maries then
swung their censers over the sepulchre, and the angels

1 G, p. 119 footnote.
2 I have already referred to the miniature reproduced by Mone (B, vol. i.
p. 8) of three priests representing the three Maries. A fragment of a Visitatio

scene, representing a priest or monk dressed as an angel, with thurible in hand, is
built into the wall of the south side of Higham Ferrers Church.

% Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o christicolae ?
Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o coelicolae !

The whole is taken from Mark xvi. 3-7.

300 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

continued: Go announce that he has arisen from the
dead. With this the priests returned to the choir, and
the Te Deum of the morning service followed.’ Such a
primitive form is, however, exceptional. In most cases
the ritual, or play—for there is little to distinguish them
—begins with a hymn or series of responses as an intro-
duction, various portions of which are still retained in
the fully developed passion-plays. In a twelfth-century
version from Einsiedeln we find a double choir, one half
of which represents the prophets, and chants the fine
Christmas hymn :*—

Gloriosi et famosi

regis festum celebrantes
gaudeamus,

cuius ortum, vitae portum,

nobis datum praedicantes
habeamus, etc.

Then there is an expanded dialogue, and the action is

1 I may add a few references to rituals not given by Milchsack. The
Breviarius Havelbergensis of 1511 (c. iiii») orders that in churches where the
holy and praiseworthy custom of the visitation of the sepulchre is maintained, it
shall be performed without Judibrio sew qua vanitate, and according to the local
use. It should conclude with Christ ist upgestanden from the folk, and the Te
Deum. The Breviariwm Frisingense of 1516 (fol. 197) has the rubric jit
interea processio ad sepulchrum; et ibi representatur planctus mulierwm
sepulchrum visitantium ; angelorum quogue apparitio Christi resurrectionem
nunciantium. The words of the dialogue given are of the primitive type
above referred to, but they conclude with: Populus: Christ ist erstanden,
Chorus: Te Dewm. The introduction of the vernacular into these rituals is of
interest. Much valuable information as to the Visitatio will be found in
Martene, Joc. cit, Liber iv. cap. 25. In § 17 we have a primitive form from
Tours ; in § 11 a peculiarly interesting and full form from Narbonne (ef.
Milchsack, G, p. 58). In § 8 there is a primitive form from Laon ending
with the Victimae Paschali. In columns 500-507 (Antwerp edition, T. iii.) will
be found various other rituals from Strasburg, Vienne, etc. At Vienne there
appear to have been two distinct forms, one based on the sequence Victimae
Paschali and the other on the gospel narrative. As a rule, but not quite
invariably, the ceremony is stated to have concluded with the Ze Dewm.

B, vol. i. p. 10; G, p. 36,.

THE GROWTHA OF THE PASSION-PLAY 301

not ended when the two or three Maries* return to the
choir. There they announced the resurrection to two
of ‘the older and more worthy canons,’ who represent
Peter and John. ‘These two elders, while the choir
chant John xx. 4, run to the grave, sed junior citius
seniore, and receiving from the angels the burial linen,
exhibit it to the congregation. They return to the
choir chanting, Behold, O comrades, the linen and
the napkin, the body is not to be found in the
sepulchre.”

Still further development was attained by increasing
the lamentations of the three Maries, by a dialogue
between Peter and John; and then by the introduction
of an entirely new scene between Mary Magdalen
and Christ as the gardener.’ With this it might be
thought that the gospel narrative, so far as it could be
used in a scenic ritual, had been exhausted. But this
is by no means the case. Pilate can be introduced
sending soldiers to the sepulchre, and then bribing them
to conceal the fact of the resurrection. Jesus, having
once been introduced as the gardener, and no longer
merely represented by the rood or host, can have his
part widely extended; we can have his appearance to
the Twelve, and the scene with the unbelieving Thomas.
Nay, the playwright, for so we must now call him,
remembering the verse which states that the three
Maries had bought sweet spices (Mark xiv. 1), soon
inserted a colloquy between the women and _ the
dealer in spices. All these elements have already

1 Mary Magdalen, Mary Salome, and Mary the mother of James (Maria
Jacobi), 2 See G, p. 51. 3G, pp. 66, 71, 75.

302 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

been added to the primitive ritual in the twelfth-
century mystery from Tours.’

In this play we see at once what an advance has
been made on the primitive ritual, which still, for several
centuries, remained current in various localities in its
original form. The Tours Mystery was still intended to
be given in the church (Maria Magdalene in sinistra
parte ecclesiae stans), and probably during the Easter
morning service,” yet the author has raised scenic ritual
to religious drama. Here, albeit in the language of
the Church, we have many touches which have won
a permanent place for themselves in the great folk
passion-plays. Here we find the first actually authenti-
cated case* of a comic incident in the treatment of the
mercator—the later ‘medicine-man’—who boasts the
wondrous properties of his drugs. ‘‘ Come,’ he cries,
“buy this ointment, and you will do well” :—

Quod si corpus possetis ungere,
non amplius posset putrescere,
neque vermes possent commedere.
Another salve possessed such wondrous potency that it
cannot be sold for a small price :—
Hoe unguentum, si multum cupitis,
unum auri talentum dabitis,
ne aliter unquam portabitis.

This mercator is the prototype of Magister

Ypocras, whose salves possess the power of bringing

1 Drames liturgiques, E. de Coussemaker ; and G, p. 97.

* It concludes, like the scenic rituals, with the Ze Dewm. Owing to the loss of
the first page of the manuscript, we do not know how it commenced.

3 The Devil in the Elevatio ritual, and the race of Peter and John to the
sepulchre in the Visitatio ritual, would probably be regarded by the folk as
humorous, but we cannot assert that they were at first actually intended to be so.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 303

the dead to life again, and who drives the hardest
possible bargain with the three Maries (C, pp. 236 et seq.)
It is very significant that in the German sixteenth-
century play, with its highly developed medicine-man,
the same Latin words are sung by the actors before
they speak in the vernacular as occur in the twelfth-
century French mystery.’

Thus we see that in France as early as the twelfth
century the scenic ritual had developed into a fairly
complex Church drama; nor is Germany—to judge
from manuscript evidence—much, if anything, behind
hand, for we have from the thirteenth century a play of
the nativity with nearly thirty characters and further a
passion-play wherein we find transferred to a salve-dealer,
from whom Mary Magdalen buys ointment to anoint
Christ, the very words used by the mercator to the
Maries in the Tours Mystery.? Clearly between 1150
and 1250 there was some cosmopolitan element at work
forcing the pace at which the scenic ritual developed, and
introducing folk-elements of a scarcely religious char-
acter. This leads us to the cloister scholars as the third
factor in the evolution of the passion-play.

The two German plays to which we have just
referred occur in the middle of a manuscript of the
thirteenth century which formerly belonged to the abbey
of Benedictbeuern, and can hardly fail to have been the
production of the cloister scholars. The remainder of
this manuscript is occupied with Latin poems of a very
typical character. Exactly the same or very similar

The earliest (c. 1300) German passion-play gives a quite original sketch of
the pedlar or paltenaere taking out a license from Pilate: see W, i.
2 See J, pp. 80, 85.

304 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

poems are to be found in several English and French
manuscripts of a like date." These poems were the
common property of the wandering clerks or strolling
scholars—men who, in pre-university days, wandered
over the face of Europe from teacher to teacher, and
from cloister-school to: cloister-school, seeking theology
in Paris, classical literature in Orleans, law in Bologna,
and perhaps magic in Toledo. They were young, poor,
merry, and often vagabond. They would create a riot
in Paris about the high price of wine, or a disturbance
in Orleans on account of the charms of a fair but frail
damsel. They were mostly in lower clerical orders or
were about to enter them, for their education could only
be of service to them in the Church. Adepts in the
Latin tongye, they did not hesitate to turn it to both
religious and secular purposes; religious drama, pro-
cessional hymn, love-song, and satire were all one to
them, and what the Church lost by their license, she did
not fail to regain by their Latinity. Some of the finest
Church hymns and some of the tenderest medizeval songs
to the Virgin were most probably the creation of these
strolling scholars. Such men, with their command of
language, their love of amusement, their folk-origin,
their semi-clerical and cosmopolitan character, were
eminently fitted for developing the scenic ritual into a
religious folk-drama. It was they who introduced the

1 Besides the Carmina Burana (see J), the reader may consult Zhe Latin
Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, ed. Wright, 1841 ; Die X Gedichte
des Walther von Lille, Hannover, 1859 ; Gedichte auf Friederich I. den Staufer,
J. Grimm (Kleinere Schriften, Bd. iii. p. 1) ; Poésies populaires latines, ed. Edel-
stand du Méril, Paris, 1848 and 1847 ; Harly Mysteries and other Latin Poems,
ed. Wright, 1844. The best account of the strolling scholars is to be found in
Giesebrecht, Vaganten oder Goliarden, Allgemeine Monatsschrift, Halle, 1853 ; see
also Hubatsch, Die lateinischen Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters, Gorlitz, 1870.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 305

folk-spirit and the vernacular; they helped largely in
that complete transformation of Hastern Christianity
which turned its fast-day into a festival, its holy day
into a holiday, and satisfied the wants of the populace
for a festive and dramatic religion comparable with the
old heathen faith. The strolling scholars naturally took
part in the dramatic performances of the cloister-
schools; such performances were not infrequent and
their texts fairly developed even in the twelfth and.
thirteenth centuries. Then, as the scenic Church ritual
grew in extent, and its requirements exceeded the strength
of the resident clergy,—as might easily be the case in
non-monastic or in parish churches,—a strolling clerk was
called in to assist. It appears probable that the whole
of the Easter scenic ritual was occasionally entrusted
to a company of strolling scholars; and then they
readily expanded the somewhat elastic ritual, or even
re-wrote the bulk of the dialogue." Nor can there be

1 Besides the strolling-scholar plays printed by Schmeller in the Carmina
Burana, there are three plays due to Hilarius dating from the first half of the
twelfth century and of a like character (see Champollion-Figeac, Hilarius,
Versus et Ludi, Paris, 1838). That Hilarius was a genuine Golliard his satirical
verses De papa scolastico (p. 41) demonstrate. In the first two of his plays, the
Suscitatio Lazari (p. 24) and the Ludus super iconia Sancti Nicolai (p. 34), we
have a mixture of Latin and French, precisely as in the corresponding German
plays we have a mixture of Latin and German. For example, a verse of Mary’s
lamentation in the first play runs :—

Ex culpa veteri

Damnantur posteri

Mortalis fieri.

Hor ai dolor

Hor est mis frere morz

Por que gei plor.
The same play ends with a significant rubric, showing that it was intended to be
acted at matins or vespers in church: Quo finito, si factum fuerit ad matutinas
Lazarus incipiat Ze Dewm Laudamus, si vero ad_vesperas Magnificat anima mea
Dominum.

Another play due to the strolling scholars is the remarkable De adventu
Antichristi (see N), due to the twelfth century. At the end of the next century we

VOL. II x

306 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

much doubt as to the direction in which they strove
to develop the religious drama. To win the popular
approval meant at least a good meal when the play
was over. There is both direct and indirect evidence
connecting several early plays with the Golliards. Thus
in the thirteenth-century Benedictbeuern play we find
Mary Magdalen, before her conversion, singing a well-
known strolling-scholar drinking-song :—

Mundi delectatio
dulcis est et grata
cuius conversatio
suavis et ornata,?

and buying—this time in the vernacular—rouge of the
mercator in order to entice her lovers :—

Chramer, gip die varwe mir

diu min wengel roete,

da mit ich die jungen man

an ir danch der minnenliebe noete.
Seht mich an,
jungen man!
Lat mich eu gefallen ! ®

must certainly credit them with the Ludus de decem Virginibus (see 0), we read :
‘‘Ludus est factus apud Isinach in orto ferarum (Thiergarten) a clericis et a
scholaribus de decem Virginibus, cui ludo marchio intererat” (Chronicle of 1335,
cited O, pp. 3, 4). For evidence of the handiwork of the scholars in the
Bohemian plays, see U, pp. 47, 84.

1 More than one of the later German passion-plays conclude with the
request that the scholars may receive a good meal (see I, p. 30; A, p. 144; B,i.
p. 264 footnote ; and F, p. 326), Something of the same kind seems to be the drift
of Gratemauvaiz’s speech at the end of La Nativité de Jhésu-Christ (Jubinal, Zoe.
cit. vol. ii. p. 77). The meal to the actors was often kept up even in the case
of the great passion-plays. In Frankfurt three days after the play the Town
Council gave the performers a breakfast. In the expenses of the Coventry
Mysteries for 1490 we find entries for ale, gallons of beer, wine, ribs of beef,
and geese figure largely. See also Appendix II.

2 J, p. 96. The very same song occurs 200 years later in a Ludus Mariae
Magdalene in gaudio (I, p. 105).

5 **Pedlar, give me rouge to colour my cheeks that I may force the youths to
thought of love, Look, youth, at me, and let me delight you.”

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 307

Pedlar and youth reply to the Magdalen in
German, and we thus have evidence of the strolling
scholars directly introducing the native tongue. In
the same play Mary, after her conversion by an angel,
strips off her gay clothing, upon which her lover
and the devil fly from her. She then goes to buy the
ointment. Most of the incidents of the Passion are
given shortly and in Latin, but it is noteworthy that
the lamentations of the Magdalen over her sin, those
of the Virgin at the death of her Son, and the final
songs of Joseph of Arimathaea and of Pilate are in
the vernacular.

This example must suffice to indicate how the
tendency of these vagabond scholars was to secularise
the religious play. At the same time their cosmopolitan
rovings fully account for the close resemblances in
both incidents and words between French and German
plays of the most distant districts. The incident of the
mercator occurring in plays scattered all over Europe
from France to Bohemia’ is no more accidental than
the recurrence in manuscripts from all quarters of
the same strolling-scholar Latin songs and hymns.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the strolling
scholars are perpetually classed with wandering min-
strels, actors, yoculatores, jesters, and buffoons. There
is still in existence the song of a strolling scholar,
one John of Niirmnberg, of the fourteenth century,
who bemoans in his Vita Vagorum his own hard
life. He tells us how he must go about as a medi-
cine-man to cure the parson’s maid of wrinkles, how

1 For Bohemia see U, p. 72,

308 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

he no longer frequents the courts of archbishops and
prelates, but associates with the dregs of society—
he has become a magician, a hawker of wonders, and
a quack. Such a song casts considerable light on the
life of the vagabond scholar, who developed the part
of the mercator, the pedlar of the passion-plays. He
is a man of the people, and he moulds the religious
play in the spirit of the people. He played a note-
worthy part in the adaptation of Christianity to the
needs of medizeval man.

The capture of the religious drama by the people was
not, of course, achieved entirely through the agency of
the strolling scholars. There is a rubric to one of the
scenic rituals which clearly illustrates another route by
which the folk-spirit penetrated into the ecclesiastical
citadel. It runs as follows :—

It is allowable for those who peradventure cannot find persons
of this type (i.e. the necessary clergy) to perform the Visitation
of the Sepulchre after the above manner with other persons, if
they be of becoming and discreet behaviour.’

This rubric left a considerable latitude to the
local clergy—themselves sons of the people—and
the following incident from Tyll Ulenspiegel* will
sufficiently exemplify what sort of persons in the
fifteenth century, and probably long before, were
considered in country places to be of ‘becoming and
discreet behaviour.’

1 Grimm, Alideutsche Walder, ii. p. 49.

2G, p. 129. The rubric was probably common long before the fifteenth

century, when we first find it attached to a very primitive form of aah ritual.
3 XIIT Historie, ed. Lappenberg, p. 16.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 309

Now as Easter approached the parson said to Ulenspiegel, his
sacristan: “It is the custom here that the peasants every Easter
give in the night an Easter-play of how our Lord arose from the
grave.” And so he (Tyll) must help, since it were fitting that
the sacristan should arrange such matters. ‘Then Ulenspiegel
thought: How now shall the peasants get through this Mary-
play ? And he said to the parson: ‘‘ There is no peasant here
who is learned enough; you must lend me your maid, who can
both write and read.” Then said the parson: ‘‘So be it, take all
who can help you, man or woman; my maid, indeed, has acted
often enough before.” The housekeeper was right glad, and
wished to be the angel in the grave, for she knew the requisite
verses by heart. Then Ulenspiegel took unto himself two peasants
that they might play with him the three Maries, and he taught
one peasant the Latin verses. And finally, the parson was our
Lord, who had to arise from the grave. Now when Ulenspiegel
came before the sepulchre with his two peasants dressed as Maries,
the housekeeper, as the angel, recited the Latin verse, Quem
queritis?+ Whom seek ye here? Then said the peasant who
represented the first Mary, even as Ulenspiegel had taught him:
“We seek an old, one-eyed, parson’s concubine!” 2

The resulting catastrophe may be easily imagined.
The angel sprang from the grave and rushed in a fury
at the Maries. In the scuffle which followed, her wings
were knocked off; then the parson dropped his resur-
rection-banner and came to her assistance. A scene

1 See our account of the Visitation ritual, p. 299.
2 This defect in vision appears to have been common to the class. Thus a
Cellarius complains in the Consultatio Sacerdotum :—

me regit una bestia, sinerem salire,
sed meretrix monocula renuit abire.

Poems of Walter Mapes, p. 175.

The widespread existence of these women deserves a careful consideration,
when the moral aspect of Catholic asceticism is considered. Much information
will be found in the Church visitations of the sixteenth century, but more,
perhaps, in medieval literature. Considerable insight may be gained from a
perusal of the Heidelberg quodlibet disputation, De fide concubinarum in
Sacerdotes, edited by Crato of Udenheim about 1500 and often reprinted.

310 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

of wild confusion arose round the sepulchre, which
Ulenspiegel noting
removed himself opportunely, and ran out of the church and from

the village, and came not again that way. God show them where
to find another sacristan !

The above narrative—putting on one side its farcical
termination—is instructive. It shows us the general
arrangements and the character of the persons employed
in rural districts. We note that the time is the night
following Easter Eve, and thus the play was not invari-
ably given at Easter Matins, as supposed by Milchsack.
The angel is winged,' and the deity no longer represented
by a symbol, e.g. the cross. The parson, who carries a
banner—the resurrection-banner with a cross on it—
now acts the part of Christ. The gradual growth from
cross to banner and then to banner-bearer appears clear,
and this fossil, the cross-banner, remains not only in the
greater passion-plays, but in woodcuts and pictures.?
From the thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries we
find that the plays, although still acted in the churches,*

1 The angels in the Narbonne ritual (Martene, doc. cit. Liber iv. cap. 25.
§ 9) are ‘‘induti albis et amictibus cum stolis violatis et sindone rubea in facies
eorum et alis in humeris.”

2 See for example both the larger and smaller woodcut passions of Albrecht
Diirer. This banner occurs not only in the resurrection, but also in the descent
into hell. It appears very early ; thus we find it in the descent into hell
in the Antiphonary of St. Peter’s at Salzburg (1092-1120). In the Codex
Ottoburanensis (circa 1200) Christ is seen prodding the devil-dragon with the
end of the banner stock. Three centuries later, in the famous Cranach altar-
piece at Weimar, we find Christ trampling on Death and Devil, and thrusting
them down with the resurrection-banner.

3 In 1303 Robert de Brunne translated an Anglo-French poem written about
1250, the Manuel de Peché. We find therein the lines :—

He may yn the cherche, thrugh thys resun,
Pley the resurreccyun,

which shows that the plays were then usually performed in church.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 311

were more and more popularised owing to the changes
we have indicated in the nature of the dialogue and
the character of the participating personnel. The folk-
passion for theatrical representation had reasserted itself
in religion, even in the most sacred sphere of Church
ritual. The very instrument designed by the Church to
destroy the delight of the people in heathen spectacular
festivals was taken by the people into their own hands,
and used to supply a want which, although it arises
from the same emotions as produce popular religions, is
none the less scarcely ecclesiastical. The most striking
sign of this folk-influence was the growing use of the
vernacular. The Latin verses, sung or chanted, were
immediately followed by German translations (or often
amplifications) for the benefit of the unlettered. The
end of the thirteenth century and the fourteenth century
present us with extraordinary medleys; portions of the
old scenic ritual, the noblest hymns of the Church, and
dramatised words of Scripture, were curiously inter-
mingled with the homeliest of folk-phrases and folk-
ideas.’ .
At such a period of transition a new factor of growth
seems to have come directly or indirectly into action.

1 See L, vol. ii. pp. 272 e¢ seg. Also the St. Gallen passion-play (B, vol. ii.
p- 72), wherein the actors first sing in Latin and then speak in German; the
Marié Himmelfahrt and the Auferstehung Christi (A, particularly pp. 139 e¢ seq.) ;
and even later in the Lrlauerspiele (iii, and iv. of I). The Play of the Foolish
Virgins (see 0), composed about 1300, is peculiarly such a medley. The stage-
directions are all in Latin ; Latin responses, antiphones, and hymns, and slightly
altered Vulgate verses are frequent, but the body of the play is in a crude and
lame Thiiringian dialect. The customary Latin hymns and verses of the Easter
ritual, followed by German adaptations and expansions, occur in the Easter-play
printed by Schénemann (M, p. 149), etc. Precisely the same mixture of Latin .
and vernacular occurs in the Bohemian plays from about 1400 (see U, pp. 26

et seq.)

312 - THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

The great medizeval religious epics written in the verna-
cular could hardly fail to influence the translators and ©
adapters of the Latin Church plays. Long before the —
fourteenth century Latin had ceased to be the chief.
language for religious lyric and epic. From the eleventh
century onwards there is a continuous and increasing
production of religious poems in the German tongue;
on the one side we have the lyric hymns to the Virgin,
on the other.the epic legends of the saints and the lives
of Christ and of his Mother. In the thirteenth century
the passion for religious epics reached its climax. The
same spirit as we have noted in the chronicles and the
early history-books, the conception of the world-drama
centring round the person of Christ, manifests itself in
an endeavour to represent the story of Christ as a
great world-epic. ‘Thus one noteworthy poem, laying
in its title, The Redemption,’ emphasis on the moral
solution of the world-problem,’ takes us from the
Creation to the Day of Judgment, and gives an
especially dramatic colouring and language to the
events of the Passion.

Another—the Passional*’—in more than 100,000
lines describes the birth of the Virgin and that of
Christ, then follow the gospel narrative, the lives of
the disciples and the apostles, and, finally, of all the
saints from Nicholas to Catherine. These two poems
alone are an immense storehouse of medizeval thought

1 Die Erlisung, edited by K. Bartsch, 1858.

? The reader may turn to what has been said as to this point on pp. 256-259.

3 Das alte Passional, Parts i. and ii., Hahn, 1845, and Das Passional, Part
ili, Kopke, 1852. These books are of first-class importance for the student of
medizval art.

THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 313

and feeling, and their study would serve equally well
with that of the passion-plays as an introduction to the
medizval spirit. Here we can only refer to them as
influences working potently on the adapters of the
thirteenth-century Church plays. The influence of The
Redemption, in particular, is so great that Milchsack
has not hesitated to attribute all the German passion-
plays to a common original, which was itself a drama-
tised version of The Redemption.’ If the liturgical
basis of so many scenes in the plays, and the existence
at a very early date of incidents common to the French,
English, and German plays, seems to exclude this rather
extreme theory, we may still admit that the religious
epics exercised very great influence on the development
of the Church dramas in a folk-direction.

While the passion-plays in the course of the fifteenth
century grew from elements of the Church service into
great folk-dramas lasting two or three days, they never
entirely freed themselves from their original liturgical
character. In most of them Latin Church hymns re-
mained, and to the very last we find almost without
exception the stage-directions given in Latin.” But the
Church ritual had another and more indirect influence
over the folk-drama; it gave the passion-plays their
operatic character. It is not only the choruses of chil-
dren at the triumphal entry * who sing, but so does the
High Priest,* the Magdalen, and the Virgin. Even
Christ himself at the Last Supper and upon the Cross

1 See G, p. 21, and E, p. 295. Compare the sounder views of Kummer in I,
Einleitung, p. lii.

? Some relics of this usage have possibly survived even in the drama of to-day.

3 E.g. F, pp. 120-125. 4 F, pp. 149, 150.

314 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

sings his part... A play which, at the moment of its
climax,—the death on the cross—directs that the chief
part is to be sung and gives the music can only be
classed as an opera. Hitherto the musical side of the
passion-play does not seem to have been sufficiently
emphasised ; it may fairly be called the parent of the
modern oratorio. Thus we see the song of the old
heathen folk-festival appearing in a new form in the
religious drama; as we shall see later, it was not long
before an excuse was found for the introduction of the
dance.

With the rapid growth of the passion-play, when
once the folk-element had become predominant, we can-
not now deal at length; indeed, the material necessary
for a complete review of its later growth is only just
being published.” It must suffice to say that, literally
and figuratively, the folk carried the religious drama
from the Church onto the market-place.* There, at the
end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries, it attained to its fullest bloom. A sketch of
such a fully developed play I shall later place before
the reader, meanwhile it is needful to say something of
the medizeval stage and its accessories.

1 F, pp. 120-125. See also p. 348, and the stage-directions of almost all the
passion-plays already cited. |

2 E.g. in 1882.

3 Probably the first step to the market-place was the churchyard, or, as in
Freiburg, the cathedral close. Of course the drama did not at once, or indeed
ever entirely, desert the church. Plays appear in England to have been given
in connection with the churches even after the Reformation: see Appendix II.
At the beginning of this century Magi-plays were still performed after mass in
some of the churches of Upper Bavaria (see R, p. 34). At Zuckmantel, even in

this century, the first part of the passion-play was acted in the church, the cruci-
fixion on a neighbouring hill (see Y, p. 11).

THE STAGE OF THE PASSION-PLAY 315

V.—On the Stage, Stage Furniture, Costumes, and
Symbols of the Passion-Play

The Stage.—Nothing appears more suggestive of the
ecclesiastical origin of the passion-play than the arrange-
ment of the stage. The two forms of stage with which
we are acquainted may be described not unfitly as the
flat stage and the elevated stage; the former was more
common in Germany, the latter in France, but there
were no rigid geographical or national limitations. In
both cases the stage consisted, as a rule, of three divi-
sions, but the origin as well as purport of these divisions
in the two stages were quite different. There has been
considerable discussion as to the reason for these two
forms of stage having been adopted, but it appears to
me that, if due weight be given to scenic church ritual
as a primitive source of the religious drama, then con-
siderable light will fall on the stage arrangements from
a consideration of the internal divisions of a medieval
cathedral or church. In such a building it will be found
that the choir is usually raised several feet above the
nave. Underneath the choir is frequently a crypt, the
entrance to which is either in the middle or at the
side of the steps leading up from the nave.’ Within
the choir there is usually a gallery of some sort,’ the

1 Compare Keller’s Bawriss des Klosters St. Gallen vom Jahr 820. The cases
of many cathedrals will occur to the reader. There is a church at Lastingham,
in Yorkshire, with such a crypt, but the rood-loft has disappeared. The St.
Gallen Church had a gallery behind the altar.

2 The rood-loft, or at least its staircase, can be found in many English parish
churches, There is a gallery round the choir in Gloucester Cathedral; one
behind the altar in Compton Church, Surrey. The sepulchre at Bampton
Church, Oxfordshire, is built in ¢wo stories, the upper was probably used for the

316 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

triforium, the rood-loft, or even a gallery running along
the top of the choir-stalls, and in some cases behind the
altar. This gallery will be reached by a staircase or by
steps from the choir. Now such an arrangement is
eminently suited for the Easter scenic ritual. The door
of the crypt serves for the gate of hell, the main body
of the choir containing the sepulchre for earth, while the
rood-loft or gallery represents heaven. Where the folk
were admitted to the Hlevatio Crucis (see p. 295), the
main door of the church could not represent hell-gate,
but some other had to be selected, and the door into
the crypt was a very suitable place for the subdeacons,
who represented Satan and his followers, to stand. It
is further to be noted that the rood, symbolising the
deity, after being taken from its ‘usual place’ on Good
Friday and placed in the sepulchre, was restored after
the Hlevatio on Easter Day.’ Now the ‘usual place’
for the rood is either the rood-loft, if one exists, or above
the altar, or above the entrance to the choir. The
removal of the rood marks the earthly mission, the
descent from heaven; its replacement the fulfilment of
the mission, and the return to heaven. Gallery, choir,
and crypt thus obtain a new significance, they are the
heaven, earth, and hell of the scenic ritual; and their
relative elevations are in accordance with folk-belief.

‘heaven.’ On the left of the sepulchre there is a door which may well have
stood for hell-gate. This arrangement should be compared with an engraving
by the Swabian master (E. S.), dating from 1466, in honour of Our Lady of
Einsiedeln ; below there is a sepulchre, above the Virgin and the Trinity in a
gallery. Compton Church, with its altar-gallery, has also a sepulchre which is
reproduced in the Glossary of Architecture, vol. i. p. 422.

1 Deinde crucifiaum reponitur ad locum swum solitum, Augsburg Ritual, G,
pp. 129; 182. -

mS Maa ME

316,

To face p

By THE MASTER E, 8.

Fic. 3..—HEAVEN AS A GALLERY.

rs - : % . “— 7

a a a eh Sa
Pr “Sle we Bae ete epage nk! =
= f meen »9 .

| 751 hs oe ae
: as ee we ae a e a 7 y
i.

THE STAGE OF THE PASSION-PLAY 317

This was the basis of the elevated passion-play stage.
_ We have three floors, one above the other, connected
by stairs. The top floor represented heaven with the
Trinity, the angels, and sometimes the Virtues; the
bottom floor, hell, with Lucifer, Satan, Death, the
smaller devils, the damned, and the patriarchs;* the
middle floor, earth, and there the main portion of the
play took place. By means of the upper flight of
stairs God and the angels visited earth, and the souls
of the blessed were carried heavenwards. In _ like
manner the lower flight gave Satan and _ his coadjutors
access to earth, and enabled them to carry off the
damned; at the same time, it afforded facilities for the
rescue of the patriarchs. Such a form of stage evidently
had popularity in Germany as well as France. Thus
Kriiger’s passion-play of the sixteenth century pre-
supposes such an arrangement.” In the Ludus de
decem Virginibus it would seem, from the stage-direc-
tions, that there was a gallery at the back for God and
the angels, while the actors were further able to descend
from the main body of the stage onto a level with the
spectators. ‘The general idea of the elevated stage did
not escape the medieval artist, and the Trinity in an
upper gallery is a favourite topic.’ Occasionally the
three-storied stage was still further developed, and we

1 The ‘hell’ seems to have been pretty fully developed even before the
drama left the precincts of the church. Thus we read of a permanent hell made
of iron and wood in a fifteenth-century church (see Glossary of Architecture, vol. i.
p. 422). For the Chelmsford hell, see Appendix II.

2-H, vol. ii. p. 21.

3 As suggestive for the passion-plays, see inter alia the 1466 engraving Our
Lady of Einsiedeln, by E. S., the cut in Tengler’s Leyenspiegel, fol. cxxii,
ete.

OC Sapa THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

hear of a stage at Metz no less than nine stories
high."

The elevated stage erected upon the market-place,
or in the cathedral close, must have been a conspicuous
object towering above the surrounding booths. At the
same time it offered, by its peculiar construction, every
opportunity for the interchange of a rough folk-wit—a
sturdy if sometimes coarse badinage—between the devils
on the ground-floor and the hawkers, quacks, and cheap-
jacks, who then, as now, thronged to popular festivities.
To restrain this humour, the play itself had to be made
more and more humorous, extended vdles had to be
given to the devils, and the comic element made a
feature of the first importance.? Indeed, if it were not
that in the twelfth-century Tours. Mystery we already
find a medicine-man inside the church, we might
readily suppose the original of this character to be the
market quack, whose flow of wit could only be silenced —
by drawing him into hell,’ whence he ultimately mounted
to earth, and took his part in’selling salves to the three
Maries or ointment to the Magdalen.

For the origin of the second form of stage—the flat
stage—we must seek, we believe, in the transverse
division of the church. From the nave to the altar we
find in many early German churches two, three, or

1 See Otto Roquette, Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, p. 157; and also
Strutt, Manners and Customs, vol. iii. p. 130.

2 The humorous devil was, however, not confined to the stage, compare the
devil trying to hinder Christ from rescuing the patriarchs on the carved altar by
Hans Briiggerman in Schleswig Cathedral ; the date is about 1515,

3 At Alsfeld, we hear, a space was cleared round the passion-play stage, and
any one trespassing upon it was handed over to the safe keeping of the devils. It
is still more noteworthy that in the Bohemian plays the devils found the damned
souls to carry off to hell by raiding the audience itself: see U, pp. 85, 86,

THE STAGE OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 319

even more partitions carried right across the choir, not
to mention a possible apse-chapel cut off by the altar-
screen from the body of the church. These partitions
were not merely nominal divisions, but frequently sub-
stantial screens of lattice-work containing doors for
ingress and egress. The presbytervwm, with the altar,
was divided from the main body of the choir, and the
choir itself from the nave. In some cases a portion of
the nave in front of the choir was inclosed, and in this
inclosure pulpit and reading-desks were placed.* It is
clear that the scenic ritual would have to pay attention
to these partitions; the altar, the sepulchre, the ‘ usual
place’ for the rood, and the seats of the officiating
clergy, would not necessarily fall into one division.
The door of one screen may have represented that of
heaven, while a second door may have been conveniently
used as hell-gate.

If we examine the flat form of the passion-play
stage, we find its plan a long rectangle, trisected by two
barriers with gates. These barriers appear to serve no
useful purpose in the development of the scenic action,
nor do the three divisions, as in the elevated stage,
correspond to heaven, earth, and hell. We are com-
pelled to regard them as fossils of the primitive stage,
and from this standpoint the choir-screens naturally
suggest themselves. The so-called ‘houses’ or stations
to which unoccupied actors retire are scattered about
these divisions in a manner convenient for the suc-
cessive incidents of the play, but having no relation to
the barriers. Attached to the manuscript of the Donau-

1 Bauriss des Klosters St. Gallen, pp. 16, 18.

320 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

eschingen passion-play is the plan of such a stage.’
Supposing this stage to correspond to the choir of a
church, we should pass from the nave to the ante-choir
by the ‘ first gate’ (1). Within this first division we find

a. ad

445 (\-7
19 ia

D

if

12 B

Re

2
9
is ig
(YJ

PLACE FOR SPECTATORS

SHOLVLOAdS UOL AOVIT

b | c

FLatT PAssION-PLAY STAGE AFTER Mong. A, B, C, ARE THE THREE DIVISIONS,
SEPARATED BY THE THREE GATES, 1, 5 AND 13.

to the left the hell (2); to the right, the Garden of Geth-
semane (3) and the Mount of Olives (4), the latter
probably placed here in order to be ‘ outside the gates.’

1 B; vol. ii. pp. 156, 184. Among the ‘houses’ mentioned on the last page

cited we find the Magdalen’s Garden, the Apothecary’s Shop, the Well of
Samaria, Lazarus’s Grave, etc.

THE STAGE OF THE PASSION-PLAY 321

Entering at the ‘second gate’ (5) into what would
correspond to the choir proper, we notice immediately
in front of us ‘the scourging pillar’ (8), and behind it
‘the pillar with the cock’ (9).' On our left hand appears
Herod’s ‘house’ (6) and the ‘house of the last supper’ (12);
on our right the ‘houses’ of Pilate (7), Caiaphas (10),
and Annas (11) are arranged in order. Passing through
the ‘third gate’ (13) into what would correspond to the
presbytervum, we find the Calvary with the three crosses
(18, 19, 20) and the four graves out of which the dead
arise on Christ’s death (14-17); to the right lies the
sepulchre (21), and in the position corresponding to the
high altar, the ‘heaven (22).’ Considered as arising from
the internal divisions of a church choir, it will be seen that
the flat passion-play stage is in part explicable. I have
not come across another hypothesis which throws any
light on the threefold division and the remarkable barriers.

Mone supposes that as the play proceeded and
its action passed from heaven across the world to hell,
the spectators would walk along by the side of the
stage and halt at the point where the action was about
to take place. He thus accounts for the Silete, which
precedes all new incidents. Although, in the absence of
overtures or entr’acte music, the Szlete on a crowded
market-place hardly needs accounting for, it is still
possible that the spectators moved about. We have,
however, no very definite notion of the size of the

1 This is the bird which warns Peter of his denial. The ‘pillar with the
cock’ has a heathen ring about it. The medieval peasant-dances round a cock
on a post—the so-called Hahnentanzen—at the times of the fire-festivals may be
cited (see Grimm, Mythologie, p. 558 ; Simrock, Mythologie, p. 284 ; Mannhardt,
Der Bawmkulius, p. 174; and for a pictorial representation, Albrecht Diirer’s
Randzeichnungen zum Cebetbuche).

VOL. II *

322 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY ©

stage ; and, as it is probable that the so-called ‘ houses’
were only spaces marked by posts at the corners, there
may, after all, have been no difficulty in a stationary
spectator hearing and seeing all that was going on.
The only definite measurement I have come across is
that which may be based on the stage-directions of the
Freiburg passion-play given in the manuscript of 1604.
The stage in this case was not divided, but the actors
made their exits and their entrances at what we may
term the ‘wings.’ Readers who have visited Freiburg
will remember the fine old fifteenth-century Kaufhaus
which immediately faces the south door of the cathedral.
The passion-play stage was built right across the cathe-
dral yard from the south porch to the portico of the
Kaufhaus. Thus we read in the stage-directions :'
‘While the Jews surround Christ, the disciples are to
fly to the Kaufhaus” ; “The Council stand up and
retire to the Kaufhaus, the Jews lead Christ into the
Minster”; and “ Judas comes out of the Minster,” ete.
At this point the cathedral yard must be from 110 to
120 feet broad, which will give some notion of the size
of the stage in the sixteenth century. As in the case
of the elevated stage, the spectators would take their
places on both sides, which was thus very suitably
termed a ‘bridge.’? The flat stage, although chiefly
adopted in Germany, was still well known in France.’

1 K, pp. 124, 134, 159, 161, ete.

2 Briige, Britsche, Briicke. See K, pp. 69, 118; also Schmeller, Bayerisches
Weorterbuch, i. 347 ; and compare with B, vol. i. p. 22, ete. ; vol. ii, p. 24. See
further D, pp. 50, 53 (‘‘iiber die prugk ”’),

* A complete account of such a stage, with Jes mansions, is given in the opening

verses of the play, La Réswrrection du Sauveur, Fragment d'un Mystere inédit.
(ed. by Jubinal, Paris, 1834), p. 4. The date of the play is 1050-1150. ‘‘ D’abord

THE STAGE OF THE PASSION-PLAY 323

Both stages existed contemporaneously, and there is
no reason to suppose one supplanted the other.

When the passion-play developed—especially in
England—into a pageant, movable stages on wheels
were drawn, often by a dozen men, through the streets.
These stages, as at Chester, were sometimes built in two
stories, the lower to dress in and the upper for acting.
As at Coventry, the sections of the drama were then
repeated in all the principal streets.

Stage-Accessories.—If we turn from the stage to
its accessories, we find that they are of an extremely
primitive character. Neither the flat nor the elevated
stage, both open at the sides, admitted of any scenery
in the modern sense; while the most crude apparatus
readily suggested to an indulgent audience the required
effect. A tub or cask answered innumerable purposes.
It served for the throne of Lucifer, or perhaps for his
own peculiar olla Vulcani, the pot of torment wherein

he was bound.’ In the Alsfelder Spiel we read :—

Omanes diaboli circuent doleum corisando et cantando Lucifer in dem throne.. .

In a thirteenth-century play we find St. Dorothea “‘sedens
in dol,” and returning thanks to God that the boiling

disposons les lieux et les demeures, 4 savoir: Premiérement le crucifix, et puis
aprés le tombeau.” There must be a gaol for the prisoners. ‘‘L’enfer sera mis
d'un cé6té et les maisons de l’autre, puis le ciel et les étoiles.”” Then follows the
places of Caiaphas, Judas, Nicodemus, the Disciples, and the three Maries, The
town of Galilee is to be in the middle of the stage, etc.

1 C, pp. 4, 14, etc.; B, vol. ii. pp. 19, 54, etc. On the boiling pots of hell—a
common medieval notion—see B, vol. i. p. 294, vol. ii. pp. 27, 88, 285; The
Eleven Pains of Hell, etc., in the Old English Miscellany (E.E.T.S.), pp. 148,
181; Des Teufels russiger Bruder (Grimm’s Kindermérchen, No. 100). The
damned are cooked and eaten by the devils in the Zyerer Spiel (F, p. 188).
Medizval art occasionally depicted the hell-pots ; thus, in the Day of Judgment cut
in the Schatzbehalter (Fig. 62), a soul is to be seen cooking in a pan; also in the
hell-fresco at the west end of Chaldon Church, Surrey, thereis a large pot with many
souls over a fire. ;}A like notion occurs in Siam (see Alabastor, Wheel of the Law).

324 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

oil cannot injure her. The same dolvwm inverted will
serve for the pinnacle of the Temple, the Mount of Olives,
or the rostrum from which the Conclusor may recite
the epilogue of the drama.’ In the Frankfurt play,
however, the Mount of Olives was represented by
‘“virides arbores in modum orti’”—an almost isolated
attempt at scenery.” The thunder and earthquake
which followed the crucifixion were represented by the
firing of a gun.* The doors of hell must have been of
a fairly substantial character—after the type of their
original, the church door—for we hear of heavy bolts
being drawn across them as Christ appeared. In some
cases a devil was represented as placing his long nose in
the bolt-hasps, only to have it promptly torn off as the
triumphant Christ broke open the gates.* The cruci-
fixion was somehow managed with the live actor, and, as
a rule, the live Judas hanged himself,’ although we hear in
the Frankfurt play of an “imago facta ad instar Judas”

1 SeeL, p. 291. In the Alsfelder Spiel we read: ‘‘Sathanas ducit eum ad doleum
quod positum est in medio ludi representans pinnaculum templi” (C, p. 36).
In the Frankfurter Spiel we find the stage-directions: ‘‘ Deinde Sathanas ducat
Jhesum super dolium quod positum sit in medio ludi, representans pinnaculum
templi” ; and again: ‘‘Item Sathanas ducat Jhesum ad alium locum ludi super
dolium representans montem excelsum” (§S, p. 139), For the inverted tub of the
Conclusor see B, vol. ii. p. 104.

2 §,-p. 146. 3 K, pp. 61, 173; B, vol. ii. pp. 324, 339.

4 F, p. 284; C, p. 225 (where Lucifer first looks out per fenestram), ete.
On the long-nosed devil Rapax see H, vol. ii. p. 70; and compare with
Mathesius’ Sermons, quoted in Flogel, Geschichte der Grotesk-Komischen, p. 239.
He frequently appears in medieval art. The barring of the gates of hell is an
incident in the Vision of Piers Ploughman.

5 Real death was occasionally the result of these mock death-arrangements of
the stage: ‘‘C’est ainsi que la chronique de Metz rapporte que le curé de Saint-
Victor de cette ville faillit périr en croix, dans un mystére de la Passion, ot il
représentait Jésus-Christ, et que l’acteur qui représentait Judas s’étrangla presque
en se pendant” (Jubinal, Mystéres inédits, vol. i. p. 42). A like incident is re-
ferred to in Platter’s Autobiographie (ed. Fechter), p. 123. At Zuckmantel (see Y,
p- 11) the Christ wore a tight-fitting, flesh-coloured linen garment, strong enough
to support him on the cross, when the nails were driven through it.

THE STAGE OF THE PASSION-PLAY 325

being hanged. ‘The three crosses are frequently, and
stocks for the two thieves * occasionally, mentioned; the
scourging pillar and a table for the banquets are also
among the usual stage-accessories.

Of the heavenly bodies sun and moon are referred
to, but we are not told how they set at the crucifixion.’
The ‘Star in the East,’ however,—one of the most
interesting of medizval religious symbols—is a very
important stage-accessory. The stella aurea always
precedes the Magi; sometimes it is carried by one of
their servants, sometimes by an angel, sometimes by
Herod’s chief captain, while not infrequently there is a
special actor termed the Stellafer or Sterntrdger.’ The
star itself may be either a great painted mass of red and
gold, and even blue, or it may be embroidered on a
banner. In the pictures of the Hungarian peasant
Christmas-plays given by Flégel (loc. cit.) the star is of
the former kind, and the Stellafer, dressed in a blue
blouse and top boots, is able to flash the star about by
means of a gigantic pair of lazy-tongs. The medieval
importance of the Star in the East arose from its associa-
tion with the woman who, in the Book of Revelations
(chap. xii.), is mentioned as having the moon under her
feet. The Catholic Church has always interpreted this

1 B, vol. ii. pp. 156, 184. 2 C, p. 199; B, vol. ii. p. 324.

3 See I, p. 18. A wood-cut of the Fasciculus Temporuwm (Coln, 1480) also
represents the star as carried by a servant of the Three Kings. It is an angel in
K, p. 23. The Limoges ritual (Martene, Joc. cit. Liber iv. cap. 14. § 12) has a
stellam pendentem in filo. In Silesia the lads at Christmas still go about in
gold-paper crowns, with a great star carried on a pole (Q, p. 127), and the same
custom exists in Upper Bavaria, e.g. Oberammergau (see R, pp. 51, 59, 109).
The English clergy at the Council of Constance in 1417 gave a Nativity-play with
a great gold star suspended from a fine iron wire. Interesting information as to
the costumes and accessories of eighteenth-century Magi- plays will be found in
Flégel: Geschichte der Grotesk-Komischen, p. 246.

326 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

passage as referring to the Virgin Mary, and medieval
art constantly represented the Mother of God as seated
upon a crescent with a crown of twelve stars. Very
early also in the history of the Latin Church the term
stella maris, star of the sea, was applied to the Virgin
Mary; and medieval writers invariably derive the name
Maria from mars stella.” At what time these three con-
ceptions—the Star of the East, the Woman standing on
the Crescent, and the stella. maris—became associated
and identified I am unable to say definitely; but to
the writers, and presumably to the spectators, of the
great passion-plays they were interchangeable symbols.
The Magi in the Hgerer Spiel* describe the star they

1 For a graphic representation we may refer to the title-page to Diirer’s
Marienbilder, In a fifteenth-century Metz MS. Horae, once in my hands, one
miniature represented the Virgin, with the infant Saviour in her arms, standing
ona crescent and surrounded by a glory. This is the representation on the collar of
the papal robes, The crescent with a star—the ste//a maris—occurs on the banner
carried by one of the attendants in Martin Schongauer’s Adoration of the Magi.
La Résurrection de notre Seigneur (Jubinal, Joc. cit. vol. ii. p. 352) discusses at
some length, in the dialogue of the play itself, the significance of the estoille de
mer. The splendid description of the woman on the crescent seen by Benvenuto
Cellini in his well-known vision will occur to readers of his autobiography.

2 The derivation occurs in the writings of Jerome and Isidore (see Miillenhoff
und Scherer, Denkmdler, pp. 375, 435). Compare the Arnsteiner Marienleich,
Melker Marienlied, and several sequences in the Denkmiiler, pp. 109-125. Also
Hroswitha, ed. Barak, pp. 16, 17; Herrad von Landsberg, ed. Engelhardt, p. 124 ;
further Fortunatus’s hymn, Ave stella maris, as well as innumerable Latin
hymns to the Virgin; see also W. Grimm, Konrad von Wiirzburgs Goldene
Schmiede, p. 44, etc.

3 See F, pp. 63, 65, 69. Compare this especially with the medizval folk-
book of the Three Kings (Simrock, Volksbiicher, Bd. iv. p. 442). In the Devil's
Parliament we find that the Emperor in Rome saw three suns in one, and in
their midst a maid bearing a child. This vision immediately preceded Christ’s
birth (Hymns to the Virgin and Christ, ed. Furnival, p. 45). A like notion
occurs in a very popular medieval book, Der Anfang der neiéen ee vad das
passional von ihesu vnd marie leben (Sorg, Augsburg, 1476; reprinted in Liibeck,
1478, as de nye Ee vnd dat passional von Jhesus vnd Marien lewende, the wood-
cuts being chiefly copies of Sorg’s). We have a paragraph entitled, ‘‘ Here
Sibylla and Octavianus see the Child and the Maid in the Sun,” the woodcut
shows the Sibyl and Emperor looking at a half-figure of the Virgin and Child on

THE STAGE OF THE PASSION-PLAY 327 -

have seen as containing within it the figure of the
Virgin Mother with the child on her bosom. In the
Freiburger Spiel the guild of tailors not only acted
the Three Kings, but also ‘Our Lady in the Sun’—
the star-crowned woman standing on the crescent of the
Apocalypse. The tableau was probably drawn on a car,
as the earlier version of this play appears to have been
processional. The Star in the Hast thus gave an
opportunity for much symbolic spectacle,—a phase of
the important adoration of the Virgin to which we shall
later return. |

Another useful stage-accessory was an ass,” which
could be used for the Flight into Egypt, the Triumphal
Entry, and several of the Old Testament prefigurations.
The ass also appears with a calf and a basket of doves
as part of the lumber Christ clears out of the Temple.
Sometimes there is a direction at the beginning of a
play referring to all the stage-accessories and costumes
that will be required. Thus in a Ludus triwm Magorum

the crescent. In the legend of the Three Kings which accompanies this work,
and which is only an abridged version of John of Hildesheim’s Liber de gestis
trium regum (Coéln, Guldenschaff, 1477), we have a section entitled, ‘‘ Of the star,
in what shape and form it appeared on the hill Vaus,” wherein the star is merely
described ‘as clear and bright as the sun at noon.’ On the other hand, in the
translation of John of Hildesheim’s work, published by Johann Priess at Strasburg
soon after 1480, there is a wood-cut of the star on the hill Vaus, which shows the
star containing the Christ-child. The hill is frequently termed Mons Vic-
torialis. The Chester Plays (p. 115) introduce the Sibyl and Octavianus looking
at the star containing maid and child. Stars formerly used in the Magi-plays are
preserved in the church at Otterfing in Upper Bavaria ; there is in each a Christ-
child under glass in the centre (R, p. 98). In the Oberufer Spiel we read:
**Ein ungewonlich Gestirn ist erstanden, Darin eine Jungfrau ein Kind tut
tragn” (R, p. 96 footnote). 1 See K, p. 24.

2 See B, ii. pp. 156, 184, 229. An ass was the principal stage - furniture
of a travelling passion-play company I saw in the Black Forest in 1879. It
was not only useful on the stage, but helped to transport the company. In this
case the Virgin Mary in costume took the money at the door.

328 | THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

we are told that for this play four crowns will be re-
quired for Herod and the three Magi, with ornaments
for their robes; there must also be cups for the feast,
and a sceptre and royal robe for Herod. Mary, Joseph,
and the angels may be provided with such dresses as
seem fitting to the ‘manager’; there is to be a gold-
bedecked star, and lastly, the manager is to provide a
meal and other necessaries, if he wishes to meet with
general approval.*

The above remarks will show that the stage-acces-
sories, although generally of a primitive descrip-
tion, varied very much with the play, the locality,
and the period. Sometimes, indeed, the expenses were
sufficiently great to warrant either a collection or
a fee from the spectators. Thus the Precursor in
the Vienna Easter-play states that the play about
to be acted is both cheerful and cheap.” On the
other hand, in 1557 the journeymen barbers of
Freiburg refused any longer to act “St. Ursula and
the 11,000 Virgins on the Ship’”—one of the sections
of the great processional play of that city—owing to its
great cost.°

Costume.-—There are but few printed records which
cast much light on the costumes used in the German
religious drama. In 1821 a chest was found in the
parish church of Friedberg containing stage-directions
and costumes for the passion-play of that place. I have

1 See I, note p. 30. We find a demand for money in the Trial of Joseph and
Mary which forms one of the Coventry Mysteries, p. 131. Nor is this to be
wondered at, for we find in the expenses for 1490 wine, ale, bread, beef, geese, etc.,

or the refreshment of the actors at both rehearsals and performance.

* L, vol. ii. p. 298; and B, vol. ii. p. 163. 3K, p. 201.

THE COSTUME OF THE PASSION-PLAY 329

not been able to discover any published account of these
dresses, and they have by this time probably perished.
The library at Luzern also contains much informa-
tion, but this is not yet accessible in print. Probably
the best idea of the passion-play costume is to be
obtained from a study of medizeval pictures and wood-
cuts of the Passion,—the then current notion being
that all the world in Christ’s day (and before it)
dressed like medizeval men and women. I may note
a few particulars, which have been gleaned from
a variety of sources, as an addition to the dress
rubrics already cited when we were considering the
early rituals.

In the Haster ritual’ Christ appears dalmaticatus
candida dalmatica, candida infula infulatus, phy-
lacteria pretiosa in capite, crucem cum labaro in
deatra, textum auro paratorium im sinstra habens.
He would thus have a very priestly aspect. Rorbach
tells us that at Frankfurt, in 1498, the parson of
Obern - Eschersheim, who had previously played God
the Father, put on a grey coat and a diadem and
began, as Christ, the passion-play with the choice of
the disciples. Christ was represented with golden

1 G, p. 81; see also Christ’s costume in the Tours Mystery (G, p. 102). God
the Father in pontifical robes occurs as miniature xxiii. of the Metz Horae,
already referred to (footnote, p. 326). It is acommon form of representation with
Albrecht Diirer ; God appears as pope in a coronation of the Virgin by a Cologne
artist in the Munich Pinakothek (No. 625). He is represented as an emperor
in the Schatzbehalter (Cuts 2 and 23). In the famous Heller altarpiece of Albrecht
Diirer, representing the Marid Himmelfahrt, Christ with a papal crown and God
the Father with an imperial crown place an imperial crown upon the Virgin. In
Diirer’s Allerheiligenbild at Vienna God the Father and the emperor down below
have the same crowns. As to God as pope and emperor see Didron, Jconographie

chrétienne, pp. 205 et seg. ; his localisation of the two modes of representation is,
however, incorrect.

330 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

hair, and in some few cases with a red beard,’ which
is, however, usually the attribute of Judas.” God
the Father appeared either as an emperor, or with
the triple crown of the pope and priestly robes. The
disciples wore the usual medizeval costume, Peter
having a bald pate, and probably a limp.*® The devils,
from Lucifer and Satan down to Happa and Puck, we
may reasonably suppose to have been dressed according
to the medieval demon conception, 2.e. with all the dis-
tortions and contortions of Stephan Lochner’s perhaps
unequalled Day of Judgment in the Cologne Gallery
(see the frontispiece to this volume), the block-book
Ars Moriendi, or Albrecht Diirer’s woodcut of the
descent into hell.* The patriarchs and prophets, when
rescued from the lower regions, are to be clothed in
white shirts ‘as spirits,’ or else go naked, which is
certainly to be the condition of our first parents and
of the massacred innocents (“vil kleiner kinder gantz

1 The old English mysteries gave both God the Father and God the Son golden
hair. For a red beard see B, ii. p. 291, and Didron, Jconographie chrétienne,
p- 577. The authority for Christ’s hair, etc., is probably the apocryphal
Lpistola Lentuli ad Caesarem. John of Damascus gives a different description ;
Christ had a black beard, and resembled his mother (Opera, vol. i. p. 630). Accord-
ing to the Tyrolese Ludus de ascensione domini (ed. Pichler, p. 9), he was in per- ~
son and face like James the Greater. The Plenariwm, published in 1473, probably
by Zainer in Augsburg, gives a fine full-length cut of Christ on its first pages,
and tells us that this exactly represents the hair, beard, and clothes of Christ,
as he walked with bare feet on earth ; further, his head was longer than that of
any other human being. For some discussion of the medieval Christ-portraits see
K. Pearson, Die Fronica, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Christbildes im Mittelalter,
Strasburg, 1886. |

2 For Judas’ hair see F, p. 108. The notion that the red-haired man is neces-
sarily wicked is strongly insisted on in the Middle Ages, Thus in the Proverbs
of Alfred (Old English Miscellany, E.E.T.S.), 1. 702, ‘* He is cocker, bef and
horeling, scolde, of wreckedome he is king.”

3K, p. 117, vide infra.

4H, vol. ii. p.17. Lucifer and his comrades put on Jeuwfelskleider before their
fight with the angels.

THE COSTUME OF THE PASSION-PLAY 331

nackent”).! We may note that the artists of the Middle
Ages seem to have been somewhat puzzled to know how to
represent spirits and souls. Yet such a representation was
very necessary for the passion-plays, where not only many
souls had to be fetched away by angel or devil as the
pointed moral of a good or bad life, but the Day of Judg-
ment itself had to be put plastically before the audience.
When the souls had to walk and talk they were repre-
sented by persons dressed in white shirts,” but when this
was not necessary a more symbolic method was adopted.
A common device was a suitable bird let fly at the right
moment; a white dove would symbolise the soul of
Christ,’ and a raven that of Judas.* Still another very
customary method was to take a little naked figure
away from the dying man; this figure was generally
held by a thread from his mouth, by which organ the
soul was always supposed to leave the body. It was
thus that the souls of the two thieves were represented
in the Donaueschingen play,’ and it found great favour
with the artists,” for example, in the last cut of the

1 B, vol. ii. p. 342; H, vol. ii. p. 72; and compare the Schatzbehalter, Cut 79.
Adam and Eve were naked in the Chester Plays (p. 25) and in the Coventry
Mysteries (p. 27). The stage-directions include stabunt nudi and the covering
genitalia sua cum foliis, Marriott cites the following from The Travailes of the
three English Brothers, published in 1607 :—

Sir Anthony Shirley. And what new plays have you?

Kempe. Many idle toyes, but the old play that Adam and Eve acted in bare
action vnder the figge tree drawes most of the gentlemen.

2 The soul in the ‘‘ Morality of Wisdom who is Christ ” (Digby Plays, p. 140)
is dressed ‘‘ as amayde in a whight cloth of gold, gyntely purfyled with menyver,
a mantyll of blak, therupon a cheveler lyke to wysdam, with a riche chapetelet
lasyed behynde, hangying down with ii knottes of gold and syde tasselys.”

3D, p. 68; and F, p. 253.

4 B, vol. ii. p. 284. The souls of criminals appear as crows in Die beiden
Wanderer (Grimm, Kindermédrchen, No. 107). 5 B, vol. ii. p. 324.

§ Compare also, in the Luther-Cranach Abbildung des Bapstwms, the devils re-
moving the souls of pope and cardinals who hang on the gallows ; or again the

332 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

famous Ars Moriendi block-book, where the angel
carries off the soul of the dying man. The reader who
will consider the medizeval notions of hell and the soul
as illustrated in the passion-play, will recognise how
much the medieval spirit added to primitive Chris-
tianity, and how much of that addition has remained
current in folk-belief even to the present day.

To the costumes already given we may add that of
- Mary Magdalen—who, while in gaudio, is gaily be-
decked with trinkets, and appears superbo habitu—and
of John the Baptist, who is very meanly clad in a skin.
Indeed, so meanly is John clad that the devil Tuteville
tries to keep him in hell, considering that Christ could
not possibly want to rescue such a miserably clad person.’
This is all the material I have been able to find in
the earlier plays bearing on costume. A good many
details of stage and wardrobe expenses in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries are given by Hartmann
(T, pp. 404, 426, etc.) The painting and dyeing of
Teufelsklerder seems to have been a relatively large
item. A few costumes from more recent peasant plays
—doubtless traditional in their naiveté—may interest

the reader. _ Mary appears in an old-fashioned blue

picture at Prag by Holbein the Elder (Woltmann, Holbein, p. 82). In the
famous Z'riumph of Death, in the Camposanto at Pisa, angels and devils are
fighting for souls represented by little children. Angels and devils remove little
naked figures from the mouths of the dying in the curious drawings of the
Heidelberg MS. (No. 438) (see Geffcken, Bildercatechismus, Appendix, col. 15).
St. Michael and the Devil fighting for a like soul issuing from the mouth of
a corpse occurs in a French Horae known to me. Upon the buttress of the west
porch of Rheims Cathedral the souls of the martyrs appear as naked and sexless
little children. The soul of St. Martin on a window at Chartres, and that of St.
Calminius on one at Mauzac, are represented by naked infants. The souls of the
blessed are thus represented in the hands of God (see Didron, JIconographie
chrétienne, pp. 124, 134, 210, 243).
1C, p. 55; J, p. 98; I, p. 117; B, vol. ii. p. 56; and compare §, p. 142.

THE COSTUME OF THE PASSION-PLA VY 333

dress, with white apron, cap, and long veil. She carries
a wooden or wax doll. The shepherds wear green
knee-breeches, with rose ribbons, green braces, and
white stockings, and carry a crook adorned with rib-
bons.’ A prophet is smartly clad in silk-hat, spectacles,
frockcoat, and white stockings reaching to the knee.
He carries a telescope in his hand, apparently as a
symbol of the range of his vision,” etc.

Much more detailed information as to costume may be
found in the English plays. The character of the ward-
robe may be indicated by a few extracts. In the Coventry
Mysteries (p. 224) we find Annas dressed as a ‘ bischop’
of the old law in a scarlet gown, and over that a blue
tabberd furred with white, and a mitre on his head
‘after the old law.’ Two doctors stand beside him
with furred hoods, and one before him with his staff of
state, and each of them on their heads a furred cap
with a great knob on the crown, and “one standing
before him as a Saracen, the which shall be his mes-
senger.” From the accounts of the Guild of Smiths at
Coventry published in part by Marriott, I extract the
following items: Cross with a rope to draw it up;
gilding the pillar and cross; two pair of gallows; four
scourges; standard of red buckram; four jackets of
black buckram with nails and dice upon them for tor-
mentors; God’s coat of white leather, six skins; a
staff for the demon; crest of iron and falchion for
Herod ; cheverels (wigs) for God, Jesus, and Peter, the
latter two gilt; a girdle for God; a sudere or sweat-
cloth for the Veronica incident. In the Chester plays

1 Q, pp. 113, 125. 2 R, p. 116.

334 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

we find that the Holy Ghost was a source of consider-
able expense. Thus we have :—

Itm payd to the sprytt of god . . 14d.
,, for the spret of god’s cote . . 2s.
3 for the making of the same cote , 8d.
, for ii yardes and halfe of bockram to
make the spyrit’s cote. ; » Ga, id,

VI.—Characterisation in the Passion-Plays

Having endeavoured to present the reader with a
general view of the stage and its accessories, | have next
to indicate how character was dealt with in the medieval
drama. A student of the passion-plays may at first feel
inclined to deny all characterisation in the roéles, and
in a certain sense he will be right. Those who seek for
character as we paint it to-day—the mixed motives, the
opposing emotions, the scarce distinguishable shades —
of good and evil impulse to be found even in the most
commonplace mortals—will discover no trace of it in
the passion-play. There is not the feeblest germ of a
Hamlet nor the suggestion of a Faust. The knowledge
that there is no wide gulf fixed between good and evil,
between strength and weakness, between morality and
immorality, could only be attaimed by an age of critical
introspection, which examined motives rather than
deeds ; it had not dawned on the mind of medizeval man.
His morality was like his religion, one of works and
formal observance.’ Thus, as in the modern melodrama,

1 These terms are used in no bad sense; much of the morality which is of
most social value must always be of this kind, only alternately we find the deed
and the motive, the law and the spirit, the Pharisee and the Nazarene, under or
overrated,

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAV 335

we can assert of a passion-play character what the
nursery rhyme tells us of the child, that—

When it was good, it was very, very good,
And when it was bad, it was horrid.

To distinguish between good and evil was to the man of
the Middle Ages no hard task. All deeds and all beliefs
were already classified in a rigid code, and obedience or
disobedience to this code constituted goodness or bad-
ness. ‘This point must always be borne in mind when
we consider the readiness with which medieval man con-
demned his opponents to eternal damnation.t He felt
as certain in his judgment of what was good and evil as
he considered the great Judge would be at the time of the
catastrophe with which he concluded the great world-
drama. He left no place for individual thought or indi-
vidual conduct; each man must think and act as his
fellows, and for a time society undoubtedly prospered
under this strict socialism. With such a view of life no
growth of character seems possible. Christ and the
Virgin are so very good and pure, Satan, Judas, and
Pilate so very wicked, that all finer shades of character-
isation disappear, and, from the standpoint of the higher
drama of to-day, we have parts but no characters.

There is another distinction also between the modern
and the medizval dramas to which we have already
drawn attention, namely, the actor of to-day renders his

1 Thus in the Alsfelder Spiel (C, p. 36) Satan comes to tempt Christ in the
garb of a Lollard. In the Townley Mystery, Extractio Animarum, the devil
Tutivillus says he is now ‘ Master Lollar.’ The same devil occurs in more than
one German play, and there is here again evidence of that cosmopolitan element
in the plays to which I have before referred.

336 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

character by a more or less subtle combination of gesture,
speech, and motion; the playwright of the Middle Ages
entrusted little but speech to his actors. He endeavoured
by means of symbolism to arouse the appropriate feel-
ings in his audience. ‘To appreciate the extent to which
symbolism was a factor of both social and religious life
in the Middle Ages is one of the hardest tasks to the
modern mind—harder, perhaps, to the cultured than to
the uncultured. Yet a comparative study of civilisa-
tion shows a stage in which symbolism is widely current
in the majority of highly developed religions. To the
student of Buddhism nothing is more repellent at the
outset of his studies than the lists of truths, paths,
fetters, sins, and suchlike; it is only as he strives to
penetrate beneath the numerical form that he reaches
the ideas symbolised, and finds each catalogue pregnant
with meaning. Precisely the same phase of symbolism
meets us in our study of medizevalism.* The Hours, the —
Stations, the Seven Words on the Cross, the Ghostly and
Bodily Works of Mercy, the Deadly Sins, these and many
other categories, which hardly reach the heart of the
modern reader, were yet symbols very close in both life
and death to the heart of medizval man. So close,
indeed, that they could not be omitted from the great
Christian drama. It did not weary him to hear the
whole catalogue of the Acts of Mercy recited during the

1 IT have collected upwards of twenty such numerical lists from fifteenth-
century confessional books. They range from the Seven Works of Ghostly Mercy
to the Four Sins which cry out to Heaven for Vengeance. A very fair appreciation
of this spirit of enumeration may be obtained from the Penitentionarius de Confes-
sione (Hain, 13156-13166), or indeed from Wyclif’s sermons. The special folk-

need which gave rise to this common feature of medieval Buddhism and
medieval Christianity is of singular interest.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY — 337

stage representation of the Day of Judgment; nor did
he find any anachronism in the Virgin Mother proceed-
ing to the Stations.” These symbols from his childhood
onwards were deeply significant to the Christian of
the Middle Ages; and unless we grasp something of his
feeling towards them, we shall miss much of the power of
the religious drama, just as we shall fail to appreciate
many shades of medieval thought even in the sermons
of Wyclif and Tauler. |

But to this ecclesiastical symbolism, designed to
arouse by association certain deep religious feelings, we
find added in the passion-plays a peculiar folk-symbolism
intended to work upon other emotions, and often doing
it in a manner which grossly offends the less robust
taste of modern times. Both types of symbolism exer-
cised a noteworthy influence over pictorial art. One
action by which the medizval playwright succeeded in
expressing symbolically an almost endless variety of
moods was the dance. The dance could be rendered
symbolical of holy or of fiendish joy, of insult, of
horror, or of wantonness. Foremost among such sym-
bolic dances we may notice the Dance of Angels and the
Dance of Devils—both in a certain sense religious dances.
Of such corybantic symbols the faith that came from

? The recital of the Seven Acts of Mercy by Christ on the Day of Judgment is
traditional so far as the religious drama is concerned. Besides the German plays,
I may refer to Townley Mysterics, pp. 316-318. See also the Old English Miscel-
lany, E.E.T.S., p. 81; and the Manuel d’Iconographie chrétienne, p. 277. In
the Coventry Mysteries (p. 82) the Virgin, when three years old, repeats in the
Temple the Fifteen Psalms—a miraculous repetition of another medieval category,
which naturally astonishes the Episcopus.

* See A, pp. 45 et seq., p. 186. Erasmus satirises a like anachronism by a
discussion between the monks as to which book of Hours the Virgin used (see
also B, vol. ii. p. 285 ; H, p. 110).

VOL. II Z

338 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Judea knew nothing, but they were striking features of
the folk-festivals of the old Germanic worship. Their
appearance in the passion-plays is but another sign of
the victory of the Western folk-spirit over the invading
but alien religion of the East. As we have seen in the
previous essay, at an early stage of development the sex-
festival is associated with the religious festival, and both
with the dance. A robust primitive people finds its
supreme bliss in rhythmic motion. For such heaven is
but a great dancing-green, and all the gods are nimble
of foot. Long after Christianity had established itself
in Germany, the old heathen religious dances continued ;
even after the folk had forgotten the very names of ‘its
ancient gods it danced on high festivals round the cock,
the horse’s head, or the sacred tree.’ On the one hand
we have the people, who regarded the dance as a symbol
of the highest religious ecstasy ; on the other hand we
have the missionaries and monks, who, branding it as
devilish, allowed their fancy to master their curiosity ;
so that the old corybantic rites which occasionally took
place at midnight in sequestered spots appeared to
medizeval superstition as the wildest of bacchanals, in
which only devils, hobgoblins, and hags took any part.
Thus when the folk-spirit made the religious drama its
own we need not be surprised to find the dance on the

1 See Mannhardt, Der Bawmkultus, under heading Tanz; J. Grimm, Deutsche
Mythologie, Hexenfahrt, pp. 877 et seg. Herodias and her daughter—types of the
sinful dancer—are in the plays (e.g. C, p. 34) carried off to hell by a wild chorus
of devils. They it is who in medieval superstition lead the midnight revels of
devil and witch ; see the Malleus maleficarum, ed. 1494, fol.1. Interesting con-
fessions bearing on the actual character of witch dances will be found in Birlinger,
Aus Schwaben, 1874, Bd. i. pp. 131 et seg.; and in Niehues, Zur Geschichte der
Hexenprocesse in Miinster.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY — 339

one hand symbolising the highest bliss of heaven, and on
the other the fiendish delight of hell. Heaven as a
dancing-hall and hell with the characteristics of a mid-
night witch-gathering find a common origin in the old
choral religious festival to which I have referred in
earlier essays.

In a play of the Day of Judgment published by
Mone,’ we have a highly sensuous description of heaven
as a place of laughing, kissing, song, and music. In a
fourteenth-century Himmelfahrt Marii, Christ, after
addressing the Virgin in the language of the Song of
Songs, bids all the angels stand up and dance with her.
The archangel Michael offers his hand to the Mother of
God, and leads off down the heavenly green :* et sic
omnes chorizant, angels cantant ad laudem dei.

In a Wethnachtsled from Upper Bavaria, which is
probably a fragment of an old Three Kings play, we
have again reference to this Dance of Angels, for we

read :*#—
D’Engai miiassent ndrisch sei~:

Sie toant so lustig umatanzen.

Of greater interest for the history of culture than the
heavenly dancing is the hellish dancing. I have already
noted that the devils dance round Lucifer’s tub in hell.
But the characteristic Dance of Devils is that which
leads to earth and back again in wild procession with
the souls of men. It is thus that the devils carry off
the foolish virgins in the Ludus de decem Virginibus.°
We must thus imagine them in the plays of the Day of

1 See Essays IX. and XI. 2 B, vol. i. p. 287. 3 A, p. 87.
4 BR, No. 55, p. 75. 5 Bechstein, Wartburg Bibliothek, Bd. i. p. 25.

340 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Judgment, decked in all the horrible forms of medizval
fancy, dancing, singing, and dragging by the chain passed
round it the crowd of the damned back to hell.* In the
medizeval believer there must have been an intensity of
hysterical emotion raised by this Dance of Devils, which
it was almost imperative to relieve by some comic by-
play. Still more effective than the damned in mass
must have been the dance in which each devil brought
an individual soul, and narrated the sin which condemned
it to hell.” In many plays we have a long procession
of such souls. The robber, the baker, the false coiner,
the rake, the tanner, the lawyer, the old woman with
her evil tongue, follow each other in rapid succession ;
such soul-lists cast much light on the state of popular feel-
ing in the Middle Ages. In one case Satan brings a priest
who has been thinking of temporal matters while reading
mass, but this “regular old-run-round-the-altar,” as
Satan terms him, makes hell too hot for Lucifer, and he
accordingly is allowed to escape.®

1 Compare Meister Stephan’s Last Judgment (Cologne Gallery, No. 121 ; repro-
duced in the frontispiece); a tympanum on the Niirnberg Sebaldskirche, and
another over the south-east porch of the Minster at Ulm, with B, vol. i. pp. 274,
280, 295 ; I, No. iv. pp. 98, 306; H, vol. i. p. 143; and Piderit, loc. cit. line 768
(‘das se kumen an vns seile””). We may further note the woodcuts in Diirer’s
Small Passion (last cut), and in the Heidelberg block-book reproduced by
Geficken, Bildercatechismus, Beilage, col. 13. Besides Stephan Lochner, the Ars
Moriendi, Diirer, etc., we may draw attention to Martin Schongauer’s engray-
ing of the Temptation of St. Antony, and Gerhard David’s Battle of St. Michael
with Heil, as capital representations of what the passion-play devils were like.

? See B, vol. ii. p. 81 and footnote. The novas choreas therein referred to stands,
I hold, for the new forms of dancing introduced about 1400, in which the partners
instead of dancing in figures began to clasp each other by the arms or even the
waist. This much scandalised both town-councils and ecclesiastics, as will be
seen from an examination of the Frankfurt and Niirnberg Police Regulations or
a study of medieval sermons. See further I, p. 99, and H, vol. ii. pp. 37, 281,
U, pp. 85 et seg. In Kriiger’s play the Dance of Devils is accompanied by witches.

3 See B, vol. ii. pp. 74, 82, 96, etc.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY 341

The only other souls which Lucifer will not receive
into hell are those of the strolling scholars, and this
because he fears they might corrupt the morals of his
mother. The recurrence of such strolling-scholar inci-
dents in the passion-plays is fairly strong evidence of
those scholars’ handiwork in their construction.'

One of the most interesting lists of souls is that
which occurs in a fourteenth-century Resurrection Play,
wherein Lucifer sends out Satan to fetch in succession
the Pope, the Cardinal, the Patriarch, the Legate, the
Emperor, the King, the Prince, the Count, the Knight,
the Squire, the Justice, the Counsellor, the Priest, the
Monk, the Innkeeper,’ the Miller, the Shipman, the
Fiddler, with many other traders and handicraftsmen.?
The resemblance to the later Dance of Death lists is
undeniable, and the relation becomes all the more signi-
ficant when we remember that in the medieval plays
Death was placed with the devils in hell or appears as
an associate of Lucifer on earth.*

1 See I, pp. 102, 103; F, p. 288. For the brilliant immorality of these
scholars see, besides the references in the footnote on p. 304, S, pp. 203-208.

* The innkeeper or ‘taverner,’ male or female, met with small mercy at
the hands of the medieval playwright. Besides the unfriendly innkeepers of
Bethlehem, and of the ‘‘soul-lists,” we find in the Chester Plays (p. 81) at the
harrowing of hell a mudier or ‘ taverner’ left behind, who, when on earth, had
mixed wines and adulterated beer. She remains to burn

With all mashers, minglers of wyne in the nighte.

This may be taken as a derivation—at least ben trovato—of a modern word.

3 See A, p. 118. In the Townley Mysteries, pp. 312, 314, will be found a long
and interesting list of persons whom the devils mean to have in hell. Samples
of the highest ecclesiastics are always to be found in hell, e.g. Chester Plays, p.
183 ; Herrad von Landsberg’s Hortus Deliciarwm, 1180; Meister Stephan’s Last
Judgment, circa 1450 (see the frontispiece), and the cuts of Quentel’s Kélner
Bibel, 1480.

4 Cf. H, vol. ii. pp. 68 et seg.; C, pp. 67, 68, with direct reference to the
Dance of Death; K, p. 90; B, vol. ii. p. 419; T, p. 400. The reader may also
compare Diirer’s Ritter, Tod and Teufel, and the Gospel of Nicodemus, xvii. 1.

342 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

In Schedel’s Buch der Croniken, 1493, p. 261, a
grimly powerful dance of three deaths with their musician
is brought into relation with the Day of Judgment.
Thus we have another link connecting the Dance of
Devils with the Dance of Death. It seems probable that
the pictorial Dances of Death took their origin in the
spectacular Dance of Devils which occurred in the hell
scenes of the religious dramas.’ Nor does it appear far-
_ fetched to hold that the wood-cutters took their concep-
tion of the Knaveries—sets of pictures representing the
scamps and sinners of the world—from the same source.
Indeed the plays here, as elsewhere, presented the richest
material ready to the artist’s hand.

Other symbolic dances to which we may briefly
refer are those of the Aztter appointed to guard the
sepulchre, and of Mary Magdalen in gaudio. The
fitter, or Knights, represent the Roman soldiers who
receive instructions from Pilate to keep watch and ward

In the earliest Germanic times, Death was undoubtedly thought of as a woman
(a Valkyrie like Homer’s é6do) Kip): see p. 175. Perhaps the earliest known
representation of Death is that in the Leofric Missal (Warren, p. 45), where he is
drawn as a devil, not as a skeleton. Death appeared till quite recently among the
dramatis personae of a travelling Obersteiern company. In their Spiel vom guten
Hirten he dances off with a shepherdess, and thoroughly medieval Dance of
Death verses are put into the mouths of both. In this case also Death is associated
with the Devil: see Q, pp. 329, 331, 355, 359.

1 Woltmann (Holbein, chap. xi., Todesbilder und Todtentdnze, p. 249)
holds that the Dances of Death were first acted, and that, as in the case of the
passion-incidents, the painter followed the actor. Wackernagel, Geschichte der
deutschen Literatur, p. 396, places the Dances of Death under Geistliche Spiele.
At the same time it must be noted that while the first ‘soul-list’ occurs in a
play of which the manuscript dates from the second half of the fourteenth
century, the Klingenthaler Todtentanz (see vol, i. Essay I.) datesfrom 1312. Cf.
Massmann, Die Baseler Todtentdinze, p. 36. The typical knaves in the block-
book, Die acht Schalkheiten, from the middle of the fifteenth century, nearly all
occur in the ‘soul-lists’ of the various plays. For the study of the question
Pfister’s edition of Rechtstreit des Menschen mit dem Tode (circa 1460) contains
woodcuts of primary historical importance.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY —§ 343

over the sepulchre.' They dance to the sepulchre, and
then dance round it singing. The idea which the
dancing is intended to convey appears to be that of
contempt. In much the same manner, in a Dispute
between Mary and the Cross, the Jews are represented
as dancing round the Virgin by tens and twelves in order
to mock her as she weeps at the foot of the cross.” Mary
Magdalen expresses her wantonness by dancing; in the
Digby Mysteries the dance with a dandy leads to her
seduction; in the Alsfelder Play she heads a regular
Devils’ Dance, being assisted by Lucifer cum alis
demonibus ; in another play, the Ludus Mariae Magda-
lene in gaudio, we have a very effective choral dance of
the Magdalen and Procus, one of her lovers.’ Of a
similar character is the dance of a shepherdess with
a hunter, and with devils in an Obersteiern play per-
formed till a quite recent date.* The foolish virgins
in the Ludus de decem Virginibus also express their
folly by feasting and dancing as the following stage-
° Tune omnes fatuae habeant
convivium, deponant seque dormant, and Tune
fatuae corizando et cum magno gaudio vadunt ad
alvum locum.

directions indicate:

It will be seen from the above—by no means exhaus-
tive—list of instances how widely dancing was used

in the passion-play as a symbol of character.”

1 L, vol. ii. p. 302.

2 Legends of the Holy Rood, E.E.T.S., p. 142. In the Coventry Mysteries
(p. 319) the Jews dance round the cross before it is raised.

3 See C, p. 55; I, p. 112; and B, vol. i. p. 80. 4 See Q, p. 348.

5 Bechstein, Wartburg Bibliothek, vol. i. p. 18.

6 In a Weihnachtsspiel from the fifteenth century (ed. Piderit, 1869), Mary
employs Joseph to rock the cradle. He gets a knave to help him et sic servus et
Joseph corisant per cunabulum cantando ‘In dulci jubilo.’ There is afterwards

344 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Another phase of symbolism in the medizval drama
has already been briefly referred to (p. 262), namely,
the extravagant brutality displayed by the Jewish per-
secutors of Jesus. The character thus thrust on the
whole Jewish nation was but slightly a result of reli-
gious feeling—it was*more, perhaps, the outcome of
racial antipathy—but, in the chief place, its origin must
undoubtedly be sought, like that of the modern German
Judenhetze, in economic conditions. The Jew of the
Middle Ages was the successful middleman and the
economically necessary but widely hated money-lender.
He was known only to be feared by both townsman
and peasant." Thus to exaggerate the Jewish cruelty

a dance of the nursemaids employed by Joseph with Arnold and Gulrich the inn-
keepers. In the Digby Mysteries (ed. Furnival, p. 164) we find Will and Under-
standing getting up a dance with Indignation, Malice, Discord, etc., and Mind
says this is the ‘‘develys daunce.”

1 Perhaps the best expression of the bitter unreasoning hatred of the medi-
eval German for the Jew will be found in Luther’s Von den Jiiden und jren
Liigen, Wittemberg, 1543. Luther, after attributing to the Jews every evil
quality and all possible vices, comes to the kernel of the matter when he touches
the economic side. He writes :—

Ja wohl, sie halten uns Christen in unserm eigen Lande gefangen ; sie lassen uns
arbeiten im Nasenschweiss, Geld und Gut gewinnen, sitzen dieweil hinter dem Ofen,
faulenzen, pompen und braten Birn, fressen, saufen, leben sanft und wohl von
unserm erarbeiteten Gut; haben uns und unser Giiter gefangen durch ihren ver-
fluchten Wucher, spotten dazu und speien uns an, dass wir arbeiten, und sie faule
Jiinker lassen sein von dem Unserm und in dem Unserm ; sind also unsere Herrn,

wir ihre Knechte mit unserm eigen Gut, Schweiss und Arbeit, fluchen darnach
unserm Herrn, und uns zu Lohn und zu Dank.

As remedy, Luther suggests to the princes—(i.) To set fire to their syna-
gogues and schools, and cover with earth what will not burn ; (ii.) to break into
and destroy their houses ; (iii.) to deprive them of prayer-books and Talmuds ;
(iv.) to prohibit their Rabbis teaching ; (v.) the abolition of all safe-conduct for
Jews upon the highways ; (vi.) to forbid usury and deprive the Jews of all their
money, gold and silver ornaments ; (vii.) to put into the hands of strong young
Jews the spade and of Jewesses the spinning-wheel, and let them earn their
bread in the sweat of their brow. ‘‘ But, swmma, my lords and princes who
have Jewish subjects, if you do not follow my counsel, take a better, that you
and we may be freed of all the unsufferable, devilish burden of the Jews.”
Such is hardly even an average sample of Luther’s abuse, yet it will suffice to
illustrate the feeling manifested in the passion-plays under a different form.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY — 345

to Jesus was a means of carrying away the sympathies
of his audience which even the religious playwright
did not despise. Historically, we have no reason for
supposing that the masses in Jerusalem were singularly
hostile to either the person or teaching of the car-
penter’s son. The opposition largely arose from the
privileged classes, the priests, the educated, the wealthy
members of the community; they were closely touched
by his contempt for the study of the law and by his
undoubtedly communistic teaching. To some extent
the priests may have rewon the popular ear, but it is
scarcely credible that the whole population were eager
to scoff and torture the very man whom shortly before
they had accompanied in a veritable triumph into the
city. The scarlet robe and the crown of thorns were
‘due, not to the Jews, but to the Roman soldiers; the
scourging seems to have been inflicted to excite pity,
while the wine mingled with myrrh was given as a
soporific." In the passion-plays, however, there is no
brutality so great that it cannot be placed to the credit
of the Jewish mob; the tortures of the gospel narrative
are increased a hundredfold, in order not so much to
excite pity for the victim as to fan the popular hatred
of the Jewish race. Thus Barabbas is no sooner
released from the ‘stocks’ than he hastens to insult
Christ.” Malchus, showing no gratitude for the recovery
of his ear, is foremost among the tormentors. The
Jews are represented as gathering round Jesus full of
the most venomous hate, and as taking pleasure in the

1 Compare Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, under Crucifixion, and Strauss,
Leben Jesu, pp. 574, 578. 2 B, vol. ii. pp. 297, 298.
3 B, vol. ii. pp. 298, 299; Jubinal, Mystéres inédits, vol. ii. p. 190, etc.

346 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

discovery of excruciating tortures. The nails used at
the crucifixion must be blunt, the holes drilled in the
cross must be too far apart, so that a rope is needed to
stretch the sufferer’s frame.’

Nor were the artists one whit behind the play-
wrights. The faces of the torturers in a medieval
woodcut or painting are such as we associate with the
vilest dregs of society. In the pictures we have no
difficulty in recognising the murderer Barabbas and the
ingrate Malchus of the passion-plays. Even the passion
scenes of Diirer, Holbein, and Cranach are studies in
criminal physiognomy.’ As I have already pointed out,
what the medizval man thought ill of, that he painted
in the blackest colours. Thus Judas must have com-
mitted parricide as well as incest in the ‘kingdom of
Scharyot,’ while Pilate’s crimes from his youth upwards
were of the most abominable character.’ Once or twice
the real source of the feeling in the plays and pictures
comes more nearly to expression, as when the Conclusor,
at the end of the second day of the Egerer Sprel, calls
upon princes and nobles to remember that the Jews,
whom they now favour, belong to the race who tortured

! D, p.63; F, p. 211; K, p. 53; Townley Mysteries, pp. 219, 220, and gener-
ally the Coliphizacio and Flagellacio, Coventry Mysteries, p. 319; Chester
Mysteries, pp. 36, 58.

2 See, for example, Diirer’s two woodcut passions ; Cranach’s Passional Christi
et Antichristi (Cut 3), and his illustrations to Luther’s Bible; Woltmann’s
Holbein, pp. 53, 182, 133 ; and compare these with F, pp. 168, 176, 198, 199 ; E, p.
181; B, vol. ii. p. 275, etc. ; K, pp. 41, 42; D, pp. 33, 62. Perhaps the most
curious exhibition of the feeling I have come across was in the Paznauner Thal
twelve years ago, where I found a torture-scene by the wayside with the Christ a
diminutive man and the Jewish torturers horrible giants of the Gog and Magog
type. The design at least appeared very antique.

3 Compare inter alia as to Judas, K, p. 69; Zownley Mysteries, Suspensio
Judae, p. 328; and as to Pilate, Massmann, Deutsche Gedichte des 12%" Jahrh.,
p-. 145.

LIS
VN ve

~

JEWISH BRUTALITY.

s@%

CONCEPTION OF
from Albrecht

VAL

4.—MEDIE

Fia.

reater Passion.

J

Diirer

The Scourging

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION?PLAY 349

Christ, and are therefore worthy of the bitterest
hatred.

With such character sketching in mass, as I have
indicated above, it will be evident to the reader that
all the finer individualisation which we now understand
by the term must perforce be absent. It will not, how-
ever, be out of place to describe briefly the medizeval con-
ceptions of the chief personages of the plays; for, with
one exception, the notions then current of these per-
sonages differed widely from what are held to-day. This
one exception is the central figure of the drama. While
the Saxons of the ninth century had a Christ of their
own, while the German mystics had a Christ of their
own, while even pictorial art after Diirer had an indi-
vidual Christ, it is still almost impossible to speak of a
Christ of the passion-plays. All the individuality this
Christ possessed was that of the not entirely consistent
sketch presented by the gospel originals. We lack almost
completely the warmth and unity which medieval art
gave to other personages of its drama. The Christ was
possibly too sacred to be touched; he remained Eastern
among the medizeval versions of his contemporaries,
and his character was never thoroughly remodelled, like
his features, on Western lines. The utterances of the
passion-play Jesus are merely rhymed paraphrases of
the words used by the Evangelists, and if they are
occasionally effective, it arises from their original beauty
and simplicity, which is not wholly incongruous even in
its new Western setting.

It is quite otherwise with the character of the
Virgin. Here we find much more originality, even
after we have set on one side all that was drawn from

350 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAV

the apocryphal gospels." The reader, who has examined
the earlier studies in this volume, can- hardly fail to
have been impressed with the important part played
among the primitive Germans by the mother-goddess.
She is the goddess of fertility in man, in beast, and in
the soil. She is the goddess of birth and of death.
Her symbols are the spindle and the pitchfork, the ripe
fruit and the protecting mantle. All the rich wealth
of ideas which the primitive German associated with
his ancient goddesses, he ultimately distributed over
the Christian pantheon; many fell to the lot of local
saints, others went to enrich his demonology, but not a
few attached themselves to the person of the Virgin ;
and, under Western influence, she remains no longer the
mere gospel outline of the mother of Christ, she attains
all the richness of colour which is characteristic of a
primitive mother-goddess. She becomes a centre of sex-
emotion, and a symbol of archaic race feeling. She
becomes a goddess of childbirth ; with the ears of corn
in her hand she stands as the deity of agriculture,’
springs and meadows are consecrated to her, the
flowers receive her name, and mankind flies for refuge
under her mantle.* She is the goddess of life and death.
Her gifts are the loaf which never comes to an end, or
her own breast whence the divine wisdom may be

1 Particularly the Pseudo-Mathew and Protevangelion of James.

2 She fills all the barns with wheat ; her three ears of corn sprout miracu-

lously through the snow; her image can be found in every ear of wheat. She
and her child are seen in the corn-field, or her image is found to have been de-
posited where the corn grows luxuriantly.

3 On a misericord on the north side of Gayton Church, Northamptonshire,
will be found a fifteenth-century carving of the Virgin with her mantle of grace
round a number of nude figures representing souls. The protecting mantle will
be found with many saints having in part heathen attributes, e.g. St. Ursula, St.
Felicitas, St. Symphorosa, ete.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY — 351

sucked. The medieval Virgin is, in short, the folk-vindi-
cation of its right to a goddess of its own ethnic type.
It is true that devotional and catechetical works
drew a line—albeit occasionally somewhat faint—be-
tween the power of the Trinity and the power of the
Virgin.” Yet for the great mass of the folk medizval
Christianity presented all the good and all the bad
qualities of a polytheism. The Virgin was to the common
folk, who were ignorant of scholastic subtleties, a divine
being, and no amount of citation from doctrinal treatises
can invalidate this conclusion. Nor should we, as
students of comparative religion, seek forced reasons for
denying it. Mariolatry has, on the whole, been a bene-
ficial factor in European civilisation. It appealed to
one of the noblest emotions in man; and it may well
be doubted whether the women of to-day would have
advanced so far as they have done, had not the worship
of a goddess, prepotent in religious feeling, in art, and
in the drama, come to help them, however little
realised, in their struggle. When the folk heard the
Virgin addressed as ‘Queen of Heaven’ and ‘ Mother
of all Mercy, * when they saw her in woodcut and

' In this respect the Virgin closely resembles the Indian Maya. She will be
found represented as squeezing her breasts in several editions of the Hortulus
Animae, or as offering them to Bernard of Clairvaux, Dominic, and other saints in
pictures and prints.

2 What can be said on this point—and it is not convincing—has been said
_by J. Janssen (An meine Kritiker, 1882, pp. 36-41).

3 Cf. ‘*Heuene quene and hell Emperesse” (Legends of Holy Rood, E.E.T.S.,
pp. 147, 211, ete.) We find some very strong expressions used of the Virgin even
as early as the Xpicrds mdcxwv, e.g. mdyKduTe, waryKadNlora Kotpn mapbéve
(1. 598), 8 wérva Kovpn, ceuvordra mapbéve (1. 646), Aéorowa mrayKolpave, ufrep
Tod Aéyov (1. 998). The @eordxos in the same play emphasises strongly her own
purity, while in the epilogue of the author there is a strong element of Mario-
latry (e.g. ll. 2572 et seq., ll. 2597 et seg.) even to the regina celorum=mavrdvacca.
See also Lehner, Die Marienverehrwng in den ersten Jahrhunderten, 1881.

352 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

picture placed on a level with the Son, or crowned by |
the Trinity (eg. Diirer’s Marii Himmelfahrt), they
did not stay to inquire into fine dogmatic distinctions.
The folk-literature teems with proof of this. What
might possibly have been highly imaginative allegory
in the Minnesingers’ verbose adoration, became an ex-
pression of unqualified folk-belief in the mouths of
the Mastersingers. Such divine attributes as eternal
existence, creative power, dispensation of mercy, sove-
reignty over hell, and the divine title to the worship
of animate and inanimate nature are all associated with
the Virgin. A few extracts from a fourteenth-century
Meistersong will help to emphasise her real position in
folk-belief. ‘She is with them (z.e. the three persons
of the Trinity) one Godhead bright.” King David saw
her ‘“‘ standing by God in golden robes and passing in
and out of the Godhead, even before she was born as
the Virgins Who can be mispleased that she is so
gloriously united with God?” Later the Virgin herself
is introduced saying: “I helped him to make all things

1 In Ostendorfer’s woodcut the Virgin carries the keys of heaven and hell ; she
is appealed to as goddess of life and death (p. 175) to stop the plague, and receives
votive offerings representing healed limbs. To her the peasants appeal with milk-
pail, sickle, and hay-fork in hand, with offerings of fruit and fish. In this respect,
as goddess of fertility, she receives votive presents of seed-basket, fodder-pannier,
pitchfork, and scythe ; while cooking-ladle and pot, spindle and firefork, show her
relation to the old domestic goddesses of heathen times. In short, it is she who
bears the halo, crown, and sceptre, and the child but completes the notion of the
primitive mother-goddess. The reader will be able by the aid of a magnifying
glass to recognise most of the things referred to in this description. In addition
there would certainly be inside the building little wax images of babies, thank-
offerings for fertility. In the unique copy of an unknown master’s Die Wunder
von Maria Zell in woodcuts from circa 1503, which is in the possession of Herr
A. Coppenrath of Regensburg, we find the Virgin as goddess of fertility granting
children to barren parents, helping women after childbirth, and curing all
diseases, especially those of young children,

ft
ey s >
%
ay
tf .
53 “2 vy r
bn
ilk =
: } 1
f
a 3 4
a ee 5 U
== a.
=>
= 2. we- Zr
i C-~ — Remm .
no oe . —
a » 1) o
=> SS, q ; “=> ns
= = os >»
oy bend =
=o y %
=~ Ae t
< ’ © ¢
q a = TD hat ms
=> Es, es. = : pik 7 re
™ - +. “ees — =

VOL.

Fic. 5.—THE VircIn Mary as Locat MorHer-Goppess.!

After Ostendorfer.

II QA

a * ai oa,
vy AY
eyes

+

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY — 355

glorious with my wisdom, heaven, earth, and the be-
ginnings of life.” ‘Ere God created hill, dale, or sea,
I was conceived of him.” The Virgin can help all men
and save them from eternal pain; she is the Noah’s ark
which carries them over hell-flood. She is one with the
Trinity ; for since God is indivisible, the whole triune
deity has dwelt within her, and she has partaken of its
nature.’ It is she who breaks the bolts and bonds of
hell, who binds the enemy with all his powers, who
blunts the sharpness of death.* The Apostles are the
stars in her crown, and all things that God has created
—sun, moon, and stars—fall down and worship her.’
The notion of the Virgin we have thus endeavoured
to give the reader is to a great extent embodied in the
medizeval religious drama. In the Kgerer play it is the
Virgin who dispenses salvation to the three Magi.* In
Gundelfinger’s Hntombment John comforts Mary by
telling her that she will soon sit on the highest throne

1 We even find the whole Trinity represented in the womb of the Virgin
(Didron, Iconographie chrétienne, p. 558). Compare also the following expressions
drawn from Latin Church hymns : fotius trinitatis nobile tricliniwm, cella trinitatis,
mater tut patris, genetrix genitoris, patris mater, templum sanctae trinitatis (see
Mone, Hymni, Nos. 389, 472, 522, 10, 507). Again Heil tabernacle of pe trynyte
occurs in an English Ave Maria (Hymns to the Virgin, E.E.T.S., 1. 49, p. 5). In
the Coventry Mysteries (p. 115) the whole Trinity enters Mary’s bosom. Gabriel
addresses her as ‘Goddys dowtere,’ ‘Goddys modyr,’ ‘Goddys sustyr,’ ‘Goddys
chawmere and his bowre,’ ‘Throne of the Trinyté,’ ‘Quen of hefne, Lady of
erthe, and Empress of helle.’ ‘‘ All hefne and herthe wurchepp jou now,” says
St, Elisabeth to the Virgin (p. 128).

2 We find similar ideas in many Latin hymns and sequences, ¢.g. Ave praec-
clara maris stella (v. 7): ‘‘ Tuque furentem Leviathan, serpentem tortuosumque
et vectem collidens, damnoso crimine mundum exemisti” (Daniel, Zhesawrus,
Sequence xxxvi.) In a Tyrolese Ludus de ascensione Domini, Christ formally
hands over the kingdom of mercy to the Virgin (ed. Pichler, p. 11).

3 See Meisterlieder aus der Kolmarer Handschrift, Stutg. Lit. Verein, Bd,
Ixviii. pp. 206 et seg. The song is probably due to an immediate follower of
Frauenlob, Woodcuts with similar conceptions are innumerable.

4 F, pp. 76, 78,

356 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

of heaven by the side of her Son.’ Still stronger are
the fourteenth-century plays in their language of de-
votion. The Himmelfahrt Maridé adopts the speech of
the Song of Songs, and as God raises the Virgin from
her grave their words are those of earthly lovers and
not of spiritual beings. All the erotic expressions which
the fourteenth-century female ascetic applied to her
bridegroom Christ are used in this play by the Virgin
to her Son.” Christ declares that his daughter and
bride shall rule the kingdom of heaven, while the angels
proclaim that, as empress, her will shall be eternally
fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven.’ Christ then gives
her crown and sceptre, with full power over the Devil,
whereon the Virgin informs all mortals that she has
taken upon herself the attributes of godhead.* In
another play of the Day of Judgment we find the
Virgin seated at the right hand of Christ helping to
judge the world, while her claim to save any sinner
who has appealed to her before his death is at once
admitted. Elsewhere she asserts for herself control of
all the elements and of all living things.’

1 B, vol. ii. p. 148.

2 A, pp. 78-80. Compare Arnsteiner Marientleich (circa 1140), ‘ Godes driden,’
and the English hymn Surga mea sponsa in Hymns to the Virgin and Christ,
E.E.T.S., p. 1. Also see the Latin hymn Ave stella matutina, line 19, O sponsa
det electa (Mone, No. 533), and compare such phrases as swmmi sponsa creatoris,
soror dei et filia, parens patris, nata prolis—amica, sponsa socia dei patris et filia
—sponsa Christi—mater et filia, etc. (Ibid. Nos. 355, 462, 547, 548, ete.), for
the Virgin. The St. Trudperter Hohenlied distinguishes three brdtloufte in the
Song of Songs, one of which is the marriage of God to Maria. <A twelfth-century
Gedicht von der Hochzeit (ed. Karajan) describes this marriage at length.

3 See A, pp. 61, 82.

+ Ibid. pp. 84-86. In P the Virgin has absolute control over the devils, and
threatens to lay them in bonds (Part I. pp. 31-35). See also M, p. 112.

5 B, vol. i. pp. 288, 298. In the sixteenth-century folk-book, Thal Josaphat
(Simrock, Bd. xii.), which is almost identical with this play, these parts are
carefully omitted! See also Old English Miscellany, E.E.T.S., Doomsday, p.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY — 357

So much for the divine side of the Virgin’s character,
she appears as the all-powerful divine mother of the
primitive German faith. The human side, as we have
already remarked (p. 272), is stamped by the well-known
lamentations with considerable beauty and tenderness.

A third important part which must now occupy our
attention is that of the Devil. In the Gospel of Nico-
_demus we already find a considerable cohort of demons.
Beelzebub is prince of hell and Satan his right-hand
man ; there are “ legions of devils,” and ‘impious Death
and her cruel officers” are of the company. At what
time Lucifer began to usurp the place of Beelzebub,
owing to the strange interpretation of Isaiah xiv. 12, is
not very clear. It must suffice to say that in the
medieval plays Lucifer is the chief devil, Satan his
‘antient,’ and Beelzebub, if he appears at all, only one
of the numerous crowd.* The medieval Lucifer was

165. In the fifteenth-century Weihnachtsspiel, published by Piderit, the Virgin,
after identifying herself with the stel/a maris and stating that she is fed miracu-
lously by the Holy Ghost, continues (1. 189) :—

Min ist auch alles vnderdan,

Son, sterne vnd auch der mone,

Vnd alles das in der werlt lebet,

Vnd in des meres grunde strebet,

Vnd die cleynen fogellin.

Dar vmb mogen, mir, wol frolich sin,

Das mir alle die dienen gar

Mit der vier elementin schar

Erden, lofft, fier vnd wasser tzwar.

1 See chaps. xvii. 1, 9; xviii. 1.

2 See, however, Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 823, where it is snegenien that
Eusebius originated Lucifer.

3 In the plays the Devil in paradise was usually represented by a woman, or
a figure with a woman’s head, ¢.g. M, p. 30, in specie virginis. The stage-
direction in one of the Weihnachtspiele given by Weinhold is that the serpent
is to be acted by a girl. . ‘‘ A werm with an aungelys face,” Coventry Mysteries, p.
29; ‘‘manner of an edder . . . a medens face,” Chester Mysteries, p. 26. This
conception is frequent in the engravings. In the Spiegel menschlicher Behidltniss
(Zainer, Augsburg, circa 1470) there is a woodcut of the serpent as a clothed,
winged, and crowned woman ; her body terminates, however, in a dragon’s tail.

358 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

no proud prince of hell, but a thoroughly contemptible
craven, who fears even to be left alone; he is treated
with contempt by his subordinates, although at the
same time they recognise his authority. Medieval
legend blessed him with a grand-dam, mother, or wife, to
whom reference is occasionally made in the plays.’ The
dramatists seem to have been imbued with Luther’s’
idea that the best method of treating the Devil was to
pour scorn upon him; and, accordingly, a more pitiable,
ludicrous being than the Lucifer of the plays can hardly
be conceived. It is only in the opening scene of the
Egerer Play that we reach the least trace of a higher
artistic conception.

Satan is, on the whole, a better worked out character ;
he is the most enterprising and ambitious of the devils,
although his cunning invariably overreaches itself, and
he meets discomfiture at the hands of both God and man.’
It is Satan who organises the hunt for souls; he pre-
pares hell chains for the false prophet Christ (Coventry
Mysteries, p. 309); he alone offers physical resistance to
the triumphant Redeemer; and he is the devil who
suggests plans for the restocking of hell after the with-
drawal of the patriarchs. The passion-play conception of
Satan is much like that of the negro revivalists, at once
cunning and stupid, the fear and the jest of mankind. He

1 For the characters of Lucifer and Satan see B, vol. ii. pp. 41-104; L, vol.
ii. p. 305; D, p. 153; F, p. 292; C, pp. 4 et seg. ; H, vol. ii. p. 70; I, pp. 96 e¢
seq., p. 144; Theophilus, Part I. ll. 778 et seg., Part II. ll. 440 et seqg., ete.
As to the Devil’s female relatives see I, pp. 55, 102, 104; C, p. 13; Grimm,
Deutsche Mythologie, 842, Mirchen, Nos. 29, 119, 125. All were extremely
frequent proverbially and colloquially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
(see earlier essays, pp. 27, 202).

2 See the Zischreden, iv. 73, 75, but often elsewhere.

3 See, for example, Grimm’s Marchen, Nos. 81, 125, 189.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY — 359

boasts to Lucifer that he has brought about the death of
Christ, but the next moment the same Christ is thunder-
ing at hell-gates. He runs off with a priest who is
saying mass, but the priest exorcises him and drives
him into a wild ravine, where even Lucifer is glad to
be free of him for a time.’ He brings a lawsuit against
humanity, but mercy is stronger than justice, and he
is dismissed with costs.2 On all occasions the devil of
medizval drama is a part which verges on broad farce.
There is only the one glimpse, which is lost almost at
once, of a Prometheus or Loki type. And yet, if the
reader would understand the Middle Ages, he must realise
that the folk, like Luther, believed in and feared the
Devil, even while they strove to laugh at him.

Of the minor characters, Judas fills the familiar part
of the melodramatic stage-villain, even to a black nimbus.
No attempt whatever is made to analyse the motives
which may have led to his supposed treachery. The
passion-play Judas is simply the incarnation of evil,
and, beyond delight in ill-doing, without a reason for

1 See B, vol. ii. p. 100. The Gospel of Nicodemus, chap. xv., is, of course,
the source of some of the medizval conceptions.

2 The lawsuit, Satan versus Humanity, was a frequent allegory. Thus we
have Peter Mechel’s play, Hin schin Gespreche, darinnen der Sathan Anklager des
gantzen menschlichen Geschlechts ist, etc. The basis of Mechel’s play, as of several
others of like character, was Jakob von Teramo’s Belial, Processus Lucifert contra
Jesum Christum. This was written about 1400, but first printed by Zainer in 1472.
See also Coventry Mysteries, xi. In a still-acted peasant play, Das Paradiesspiel
(Weinhold, Wethnachtspiele), when Mercy has won the lawsuit, Christ beats the
Devil about the shoulders with his cross back to hell. This might appear to the
reader as a modern innovation in the worst taste, but it has really great antiquity.
The conception is, in England at least, as old as the fourteenthcentury. Thus in
the Disputacio inter Mariam et Crucem (Legends of the Holy Rood, E.E.T.S., p.
131), we find :—

' Til pe crosses dunt zaf him a daunt.—l. 428.
Cristes Cros hap craked his crown.—l. 287.

e Cros I calle pe heerdes zerde,
erwip pe deuel a dunt he zaf.—l. 295.

360 _ THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

his action. Justice is ‘amply satisfied when he is formally
executed by Beelzebub, when Lucifer announces that he
intends to ride him round hell, or declares that '—

Er muss sein mein spilhundt ;

Tieff in der helle grundt

Da muess er prinnen und pratten ;

Es wirt sein nimer ratten.

Ich wil in tieff versencken,

Mit schwevel, pech wil ich in Genienn
Und wil ein feur geben zu essen

Und sein mit keiner pein vergessen.

Judas not only despatches himself with much realism,
but is afterwards roasted and eaten by the devils for
morgensuppe.

Pilate” possesses more individuality than Judas.
Occasionally he is represented as the bitter foe of Christ
who takes council with the Jews on how the false
Messiah may be destroyed.* Generally, however, we
have the Pilate of Christian tradition—a judge who
is fully convinced of the innocence and, after the
resurrection, of the divinity of the man he has con-

1 See F, pp. 188, 189. The Devil sits on Judas in a picture of the Last Judg-
ment by Meister Stephan; see the frontispiece. Alongside are the fatal pence.
Dante represents Judas champed between Lucifer’s teeth (L’ Inferno, c. xxxiv. ll.
51-59). The general medieval conception is well expressed in the fourteenth-
century song :—

O du armer Judas was has tu gethan,

Das du deinem Herrn also verrathen hast !
Darumb mustu leiden in der Helle pein,

Lucifers Geselle mustu ewig sein. Kyrie eleison !

3 Pilate, like Judas, had, according to tradition, led a disreputable life,
references to which occur in the plays. He was the son of King Atus, his
mother being the miller’s daughter Pila (‘‘ Kyng Athus gate me of Pila,” Town-
ley Mysteries, p. 233. For the reputation of the mill in medieval times see
p. 150). The same etymological explanation of Pilate’s name will be found in
a twelfth-century German fragment, Pilatus, in Massmann, Deutsche Gedichte d. 12.
Jahrh, pp. 145-152. For Pilate’s life and crimes the reader may consult this
fragment, and Das alte Passional, pp. 85 et seq.

3 For example, the Vienna Easter-play, L, vol. ii. p. 299.

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY 361

-demned. ‘To appease the Jews he orders the crucifixion,
but at the same time he very formally washes his hands
on the stage and strongly expresses his private views
as to the innocence of the prisoner. Sometimes we find
an element of realistic indifferentism; it is not his
business to set watchers at the grave, but he will give
his consent provided the Jews pay for the soldiers; as
for the resurrection—well, the priests must themselves
make the best they can of the disappearance of the
body—it does not concern Pilate. The character is,
however, rarely worked out with any consistency, not
to say skill. Pilate will in the same play on one
occasion term Jesus a swindler, and on another testify
to his innocence.’

Lastly, we may, passing by the characters of the
chief disciples, whose parts are slight, refer to Mary
Magdalen, concerning whom the gospels left free scope
for the mass of legend which soon gathered round this
most poetic figure among medieval favourites. Mary,
according to legend, was the sister of Martha and
Lazarus of Bethany. One version makes the family of
noble, even royal birth; besides property in Jerusalem,
they owned two castles, one at Bethany and the other
at Magdala. When the children came of age Lazarus
took the property in the city, desiring to be a soldier,
while of the two castles Bethany fell to Martha and
Magdala to Mary. Lazarus and Martha were prosperous

1 See A, pp. 114 e¢ seg. ; I, pp. 129 et seg. ; B, vol. i. p. 109, and vol. ii. pp. 301
et seg. ; F, pp. 191 e¢ seg. For the character and motives of Pilate, compare La
Résurrection du Sauvewr, Jubinal, Paris, 1834: ‘‘ Jol’ consenti par veisdie, Que
ne perdisse ma baillie”; and Townley Mysteries, p. 203: ‘‘I am fulle of sotelty,
falsehood, gylt, and trechery.”

362 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

and respected, but Mary devoted herself and her wealth
to a life of wantonness.* This legendary view of Mary
is fairly in accordance with the playwright’s conception.
In the Donaueschingen Play we are introduced to the
Magdalen playing chess with her lover in the garden
while attendants execute music—a scene which will be
familiar to students of medizeval manuscript miniatures.
Simon’s servant passes the fence, and being questioned
as to his errand, announces that he is preparing a meal
for Jesus. Mary, struck with fear, sits regardless of the
game. At this instant Jesus himself goes by ; the game
is thrust aside, a new light has dawned on the Magdalen,
and she hastens off to the apothecary’s shop.” It is im-
possible to deny either the grace or the dramatic power
of the incident thus treated. Unfortunately other plays
are more artificial. As we have noted earlier (p. 343),
the Magdalen is usually introduced dancing in the
company of devils. In the Erlauer Play we find her
throwing ball* with the Devil; in the Alsfelder Play,
after a dance of devils, the demon Natyr holds up a
mirror to Mary; she then dances with one of Herod’s
soldiers, and her maid with the demon. In the Egerer
Play we have a more realistic touch ; Mary slinks away
to avoid a meeting with Christ ; the devil Belial is her
comrade, and as a pair of lovers they wander into the

1 Compare inter alia, Das alte Passional, pp. 368, 369.

2 See B, pp. 189 e¢ seg. The Digby Mysteries deserve special notice for their
treatment of Mary Magdalen (pp. 56-83). The introduction of the good and bad
angels, of the taverner, and of Mary sitting in her arbour thinking of her ‘ valen-
tynes’ may be noted. There is a wonderfully fine engraving by Lukas van
Leyden (Bartsch, 122) of the Magdalen in gaudio. It represents a garden with
music and amorous couples ; in the background Martha and Lazarus in grief.

® Ball was a favourite game for women in the Middle Ages ; see Schultz, Das
hofische Leben zwr Zeit der Minnesinger, Bd. i. p. 422.

‘z9e ‘d anf oF ‘NHGAVT NVA SVNOT AQ ‘OITGAVY NI NWIVGDVI FHL—'9 “OT

uw 3 "ew 5%

’

es >"

* 4 *

ame ‘ A anal =:
x J

a ; La
a os
: %
‘s +
. Site
‘ :
= a *~ «
‘
ofa :
%
*
- -
i
‘ {
.
‘
‘“
-
7

me .
7 +
ST wtp
> é
tix
:
.
+
f -
«
‘ *
¢
y

CHARACTERISATION IN THE PASSION-PLAY 363

meadows to weave garlands of flowers. Here it is that
remorse seizes her.’ Mary’s remorse is generally symbol-
ised in the plays by tearing off her fine clothes, jewels,
or flowers, and this is always followed by the flight of
the devil. In one play she curses her fine clothes, her
roses, her white hands, the hair that has led to her
perdition, her eyes, her cheeks, her unholy mouth, and
even her pointed shoes.” In some cases Mary’s conver-
sion is brought about by seeing Christ, or hearing him
teaching ; generally, however, Martha is the immediate
cause. Martha’s sermons are not at first received
cordially, and Mary even suggests that if her sister
were not so old and scraggy she would take a different
view of life,—as the case is, she does well to stick to her
spinning-wheel. In one play Mary declares that she
will repent later and turn nun(!) like Martha; at the
same time she hints that even nuns are no better than
they ought to be.® The St. Gallen Leben Jesu intro-
duces with considerable skill the scene between Christ
and the woman taken in adultery ; between Mary’s rejec-
tion of Martha’s advice and her remorse, the spectators
are left to draw their own conclusions.* The anointing
of the Master’s feet in Simon’s house, although closely
following the gospel story, is as a rule fairly spirited ;
while the part which the Magdalen plays at the cruci-
fixion and resurrection has the special merits which we
have already seen (p. 272) are peculiar to the typical
Marienklage.

1 For details see I, p. 107; C, pp. 58 et seg.; F, p. 103.
2 See J, p. 98; E, p. 24; I, p. 117; C, p. 62.
3 See I, pp. 110-112 ; B, vol. i. p. 81. 4 See B, vol. i. pp. 81-83.

364 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

VIL—On the Performers in the great Folk
-Passion-Plays

Of the essence of the modern drama are the profes-
sional actor and the professional playwright. In the
Middle Ages, so soon as the folk had withdrawn the
passion-play from sacerdotal influence, there was not a
trace of the professional element. The man of the folk
writes, and the people act, to amuse the people. The
drama is the central feature of a municipal holiday-
making; there is no rigid line between the amusers and
the amused. The actors act for the pleasure of it, and
the trained and salaried professional actor is unknown.
Thus, whatever opportunities may have existed for the
display of dramatic power in the passion-play characters
we have just described—for individual interpretation
as apart from symbolic significance—they were almost
entirely thrown away by the untrained actors of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These actors were
homely burghers and simple craftsmen, who were prob-
ably only called upon to act once or twice in the
course of the year,’ and who had no conception that
acting requires either genius or a lengthy education.

The religious drama, when it passed from the Church
to the market-place, fell into the hands of honest but
illiterate citizens, who generally took part in it by

1 It might be imagined that the numerous Fustnachtspiele provided a
dramatic school. But apart from the question of whether broad farce can be a
training for religious tragedy, it may be doubted whether the great open-air
spectacles would draw any dramatic profit from the characterless buffooneries
of the wine-shop. It must be remembered, however, that the very street boys
played at passion-plays, besides performing religious dramas at school: see
Thomas Platter’s Awtobiographie (ed. Fechter), 1840, pp. 122-124.

THE PERFORMERS IN THE PASSION-PLA Y 365

reason of their corporate capacity as Mastersingers, or
members of guilds and brotherhoods. Thus Sebastian
Wild, tailor and mastersinger of Augsburg, wrote and
published in 1566 a passion-play which was afterwards
one of the chief components of the earliest Oberam-
mergau text.‘ We hear also in the same century of the
Mastersingers of Augsburg giving performances of the
Stoning of Stephen, the Resurrection, and the Birth of
Christ. The brotherhoods and guilds of Freiburg in the
Breisgau appear to have been as active as the Master-
singers of Augsburg. Freiburg had at one time what
we may fairly term a processional passion-play, every
scene of which was undertaken by a distinct guild or
brotherhood.? Each set of actors in costume, perhaps
forming a tableau, either marched or were drawn on a
car, accompanied by the members of their guild, through
the streets of the town to the market-place, where on
arrival they recited the portion of the passion allotted
to them. It is probable even in Germany that in
some processional plays the same scene was occasionally
repeated at several points. At Freiburg the guild of
painters acted the Fall, in which the Devil carried the
tree of knowledge; the brotherhood of journeymen-
coopers, the Sacrifice of Isaac; the guild of bakers, the
Annunciation ; the tailors, the Magi and Our Lady in

1 See D, pp. 190-197, 229, 230 ; and compare H, pp. 208 et seq.

2 In England religious plays were constantly given by the guilds. At Chester
the tanners performed Lucifer’s Fall, and the clothmakers the Creation, etc.
There was a special guild for the play of the Lord’s Prayer at York, where the
trade guilds performed the Corpus Christi play, and there were pageant guilds at
Beverley (see Toulmin Smith, Hnglish Guilds, E.E.T.S., p. 34, and the text of
the statutes). The guilds of Coventry and those of Newcastle-on-Tyne had also
elaborate Corpus Christi plays. A processional play undertaken by the guilds of
Lébau is noticed in Flégel, Geschichte der Grotesk-Komischen, p. 264.

366 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

the Sun;' the shoemakers, the Massacre of the Inno- .
cents; the journeymen-tailors, the Triumphal Entry ;
the brotherhood of burnishers, the Last Supper; the
bricklayers and carpenters, the Mount of Olives; the
journeyman-shoemakers, the Scourging; the guild of
coopers, the Ecce Homo; the butchers, the Bearing of
the Cross; the goldsmiths, the Crucifixion; and the
clothmakers, the Resurrection. Meanwhile the guild of
pedlars performed Saint George; that of the barbers,
Saint Ursula; the smiths, the Virgin with the children
under her mantle,’ and afterwards the Day of Judg-
ment.’ Somewhat later we find the tanners giving
Twelve Angels bearing the Arms of Christ.* In a
somewhat similar processional play which was given at
Loébau at the beginning of the sixteenth century, we
find the members of the monastery still taking part
with the guilds, a remnant of the rapidly disappearing
influence of the Church over the religious drama.
Clearly the method of folk-representation indicated
in the processional play could not even preserve con-
tinuity in the acting of any single part which appeared

1 We have already referred, in dealing with the Star in the East (p. 325), to this
medizval interpretation of the apocalyptic woman with the moon beneath her
feet. The Greeks had a similar interpretation (see Mount Atlas in Manuel
a’Iconographie chrétienne, p. 249). ‘There are pictures in the Cologne Gallery
(Nos. 95, 375): special prayers were used before such pictures,—see for example
Hortulus Animae (Dillingen(?), 1560, fol. 208). The imprisoned Cellini, praying
to see the sun, saw Our Lady in the sun, Vita, ed. Colonia, p. 173.

* On the wide-spreading mantle of grace, sheltering many sinners, we have
remarked above (p. 350). Compare also Holbein’s Solothurn and his Meyer
Madonnas (Woltmann, pp. 181,313). It was a favourite bit of symbolism with
the Cologne School, and used for Saint Ursula as well as the Virgin (compare
the Cologne Gallery pictures, for Virgin, Nos. 186, 230; for Saint Ursula, Nos.
124, 307). Benvenuto Cellini even adopted a like notion for a figure of God
(see Vita, ed. Colonia, p. 61). 3 See K, p. 194.

* The symbols of the passion arranged as a coat-of-arms,—a representation
which will be familiar to students of medieval miniatures and engravings.

THE PERFORMERS IN THE PASSION-PLAY 367

in more than one scene. In the Frankfurt Play of 1498,
Christ was played by no less than five different actors.
Perhaps on this account, perhaps because each guild liked
to emphasise the size and magnificence of its pageant, we
find the number of actors immensely increased. The
sixteenth-century stage-direction, “as many angels as
possible,” was amply fulfilled. In Kriiger’s passion-play
we find 46 needful parts; the Alsfelder play requires
more than 100 actors; the Frankfurter play of 1498
some 265, while a Luzern play of 1597 demands upwards
of 300 actors.2, With such numbers it is clear that, if
the play was not processional, the stage must be very
large; the more so as the actors having taken up
their proper positions upon it, in most cases never
left it during the day’s performance.* The Virgin Mary,
having gone through her lamentations at the foot of
the cross, must return to her allotted place and cease
to lament. Pilate, having given his judgment, must
sit still in his house while the cross was borne to the
Calvary.

The expenses in the case of such a multitude of actors
must have been considerable. But it may be doubted
whether the actors in Germany received any other pay
than a good meal. On the other hand, in England we
find pretty full records of the payments to the actors in
the Coventry Mysteries (see Marriott, English Miracle-
Plays, 1838) about 1500. Thus we note Jmprimis to

1 See H, vol. ii. p. 9.

2 See S, vol. iii. p. 133 ; H, vol. ii. p. 9; L, vol. ii. p. 244; and compare
Jubinal, Mysteres inédits, vol. i. p. 48 (200 actors).

3 E, p. 1 (opening stage-directions). This arrangement is very obvious in
the Frankfurter Spiel (S, p. 188); thus we read: Jhesus surgat a loco suo, and
again (p. 141), Jhesus quoque recipiat se in loco donec ordo eum iterum tangat.

368 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY .

God, ijs, Item to the devyll and to Judas, xviiij", Jtm
to Pilatt is wyffe, iis, etc. Herod was paid 3s. 4d.,
Pilate 4s., the Holy Ghost 1s. 4d., Peter and Malchus
1s. 4d., the knights 2s., and the minstrel 1s. 2d.

Even when the play was not processional in the
sense in which we have used that word, the actors usually
marched to the stage in procession. Thus the first
eroup of the Luzern procession consisted of a shield-
bearer, an ensign, the Proclamator, St. Gregory, God the
Father, Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and the angel Uriel.
On the second day another group consisted of the
executioner Achas, Amalech, Jesmas and Dismas (the
two thieves'), God the Father, Longinus, Dionysius
Areopagita, and the archangel Raphael. In the Alsfelder
Processio Ludi we find included, Satan with a tree,’ the
devil Natyr with a mirror (see p. 362), the Cock, the
Synagogue, two Jews carrying a Talmud, the Kcclesia,
and, concluding a very long list, four damned souls with.
Death.* f.

After the day’s performance the Proclamator would
not unusually dismiss the assembly either to church or

to supper :—
Nun mag wol fraue und auch man
frolich von dem marck heim gan
und miigen essen mosanczen und fladen
und sich erhollen ires schaden.*

1 Jesmas and Dismas were highwaymen who attacked the Holy Family on
the flight into Egypt. At Mary’s entreaties, Dismas spared their lives, which
much angered Jesmas. Mary gave Dismas her girdle as a token of his ultimate
redemption (see T, p. 385).

2 In the peasant-plays of Adam and Eve a decorated tree, representing the
tree of knowledge, was carried about (see R, p. 112).

3 See the processional lists in B, vol. ii. pp. 121, 125; C, p. 257. .

4 See F, p. 325; C, p. 91; B, vol. ii. p. 252. In the latter we read:

‘Gat man . . . in der ordnung bis in die cappel.”

THE PERFORMERS IN THE PASSION-PLA VY 369

Such, then, are the history, the characterisation, the
stage, and the actors of the fully developed medizval
passion-play—the religious drama written by the |
mastersingers and acted by the craftsmen of the guilds.
The change from the scenic ritual of the early Christian
priests to the complex pageant of the market-place, with
its hundreds of actors, its colour, its music, its folk-
_ tongue, and its dancing, marks a change in the spirit of
medizeval Christianity—its final appropriation by the folk
as a folk-religion. Protestantism was again to wrest this
religion from the hands of the people, and mark all these
symbols, legends, and folk-beliefs as superstitious, where
it did not, indeed, brand them as devilish. And with
what result? That folk-symbolism and folk-art, muni-
cipal féte and the old religious socialism would be
destroyed; that the withering grasp of a dogmatic
religion of the schools—without symbolism, without art,
without pageantry—would again be laid on the Teutonic
folk-spirit. But that folk-spirit cannot be permanently
shut out from moulding its religion and its art. Ina
lower or higher form it is sure, sooner or later, to drag
them out from the cloister and the museum, and make
them a factor of the streets and the market-place.
Nor are traces wanting of the beginnings of such a
revival of folk-influence in our life to-day. Those
who seek will find both the healthy and the diseased
germs.

VOL. II yn}

370 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

* VIIL—The Contents of a Sixteenth-Century
Passion-Play

In order to bring more vividly before the reader
the course of a fully developed religious folk-drama, I
purpose in this, the last section of my essay, to briefly
sketch the leading incidents of such a play, without
slavishly following any particular version.

As soon as the procession had arrived at the stage,
the chorus of angels would sing Silete,’ and the
Precursor or Proclamator would open the play.
Usually he would call upon young and old, poor and
rich, to attend to him, give them a short sermon on.
the meaning of the leading incidents in the Christian
world-drama, suggest the need of penitence, recite
the principal events of the first day’s play, and bid the
people make no disturbance, but listen attentively to
all that shall follow. Sometimes the Precursor would
adopt a more humorous folk-tone, of which the follow-
ing—although taken from a fifteenth-century carnival
play—is a very fair specimen :*—

Silence, now for a while to-day,

Come and hear what we’ve got to say,
You in the corners here and there !
Yonder old women will talk away

Why in the world their hens won’t lay !
Other old gammers their gaffers are rating,
Can’t they see that we all are waiting ?

1 For example, in the Ludus de decem Virginibus (Wartburg Bibliothek, i. p. 15)

Angeli cantant :—
Nu swigit liben lute
lazzit u bedute.
Swigit, lazt uch kunt tin, etc.
2 ‘Ain spil von mayster Aristotles’ (Keller, No. 128, Fastnachtspiele aus

dem 15ten Jahrhundert, Stuttg. Lit. Verein).

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 371

After the Precursor’s speech would follow, according
to circumstances, a variety of ‘ prefigurations’ or scenes
from the Old Testament, usually commencing with the
Creation of the Angels and accompanied by the Fall of
Lucifer. In the Egerer and Luzerner Plays these scenes
occupied the morning of the first day,—in the latter case
from six o'clock till two o’clock. Passing them by as
already sufficiently dealt with (p. 264), we may note
the Council of Lucifer and the Devils in hell, sum-
moned to devise a means of counteracting the work
of salvation. The devils determined to take active
steps to seduce the Jews from the path of virtue. The
devil’s mother Hellekrugk assists at this conference,
which not improbably ends in blows.’ The gospel story
now commences with the birth of the Virgin. The
sacrifice of Joachim is refused in the Temple, and he
leaves his wife Anna. The archangel Michael recalls
him, and he meets and embraces Anna at the golden
gate. She retires for a few moments and then returns
with a child, the Virgin. Thereupon the sacrifice of the
parents is received by the priest Isachar. To realise
these passion-play scenes—the story of the Immaculate
Conception—the reader has only to turn to Diirer’s
illustrations of the Life of the Virgin.” We may
next have an incident or two from the Virgin’s child-
hood, her life in the Temple, Isachar’s determination

1 C, pp. 5-18. See also Jubinal, Mystéres inédits, vol. ii. p. 38.

2 See Cuts 2-6. These and several later incidents in the Virgin’s life are taken
from the Protevangelion. Independent plays dealing with the Virgin were
popular, e.g. ‘‘dramatische voorstelling op Marialichtmis in de Lebuinus-kerk,
waarbii de kanunniken hem de rol van Maria met het kindele lieten vervullen”

(A.D. 1378-1411). See Acquoy, Het Klooster te Windesheim, Utrecht, 1875, i.
p. 273.

372 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

that the consecrated Mary should marry, the summons
to all men of David's lineage, and the bursting into bud
of the aged Joseph’s rod. Joseph immediately after the
marriage goes off to work and Mary retires to her
‘oratory, where Gabriel, followed by the columba de
throno, announces in florid language the conception.?
Then follows the journey to Bethlehem with a comic
interlude. Joseph speaks of his wife as ‘the Virgin,’
a statement not confirmed by appearances ; and, partly
on this account and partly because he has no money to
pay, all the innkeepers refuse to put them up.* Refuge
is at last found in a tumble-down outhouse, where the
child is born.* Then we have the shepherds keeping

1 See F, pp. 46-49. The incidents are in Pseudo-Mathew, chap. v., and the
Protevangelion, chap. viii.

2 Exactly as in Diirer’s Cut 8, where a water-pot is introduced to reconcile
Pseudo-Mathew, chap. vii., with Protevangelion, chap. ix. In Wernher’s Driwu liet
von der Maget (1. 2115) the former account is followed, but Das alte Passional
(p. 14) slurs over the discrepancy. In an Advent song from Unterwessen, Gabriel
comes to the Virgin by night in her bedchamber, not in the oratory, but I have
found no other instance of this (see R, No. 7, p. 62). The Annunciation seems,
as I have already noted (see p. 290), at some places to have formed part of
the scenic ritual. Thus in a thirteenth-century Besancon ritual cited by
Martene (Liber iv. cap. 10. § 30) we read: ‘‘In Biscentina vero B. Magdalenae
parochiali Ecclesia dum idem Evangelium (Missus est angelus) in missa
cantatur, puella quaedam eleganter composita, et prius diligenter edocta, B.
Virginis personam gerens, respondeat diacono legenti, iisdem verbis quibus
Gabrieli Archangelo redemptionis nostrae mysterium annuntianti Beatissima
Virgo Maria respondit.” Martene refers in the same section to other less note-
worthy rituals.

3 See Q, pp. 146, 203, but often elsewhere in the greater passion - plays.
It was a peculiarly popular incident in the peasant-plays, and in them has
survived to the present day: see R, pp. 48, 64, 65, 92, 101-104, but especially the
Rosenheimer Dreikinigspiel, p. 169; also the fifteenth-century Weihnachtsspiel,
edited by Piderit, p. 97; Coventry Mysteries, pp. 145 et seg. ; and, with a variety
of comic incident, the Chester Plays, pp. 119 et seg. In the latter one of the
shepherds gives a pair of his wife’s old hose, while in the German Wethnachtsspiel
it is Joseph’s old hose which are used to wrap the child in. These hose appear
to be traditional, for we find Luther referring to them in a Christmas sermon on
Luke ii. 1-14.

4 See F, p. 59, for ‘das zerprochen haus,’ exactly as in Diirer’s Cut 10.

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 373

watch by night, and the adoration of the shepherds.’
Close upon their heels come the three Magi, who have
seen the star from Mons Victorialis, and who narrate
the wonders that have brought them to Judea.” A
messenger announces their arrival and purpose to Herod,
who curses the messenger, but entertains the Magi, while
his wise men and astrologers are consulted. The three
kings then depart for Bethlehem, where, before the
Adoration, a curious incident is generally given. The
youngest king desires eagerly to be the first to salute
Jesus, and accordingly he becomes grey and aged,—God
has listened to his prayer and transformed him into the
eldest.* In the Erlauer Play the eldest, Caspar, naively
takes off his grey beard and gives it to the youngest.
The angel Uriel warns the Magi that, to avoid the plots
of Herod and his wise men, who desire to know where
Christ is, they should go back ‘ by another way’ to their
places,—an incident which occurs in the Church ritual.
We have then the Flight into Egypt, followed by the
Massacre of the Innocents. Comic or folk-elements are
introduced in Herod’s messenger or fool, and again in

! We have already seen that the shepherds formed the subject of an Advent
scenic ritual ; we have noted the ‘solemnis ad praesepe retro altare praeparatum
processio ’ at Rouen (see pp. 290 et seq.) ; and other rituals will be found in Martene,
Liber iv. cap. 10. to cap. 12. (De adventu Domini, De vigilia natalis Domini and
De festo natalis Domini).

2 To the Three Kings plays I have already mentioned may be added the
Oblacio Magorum, Townley Mysteries, p. 120, and Le Jeu des trois Roys, Jubinal,
Mystéres inédits, vol. ii. p. 84. In the Egerer Play the three kings mount three
hills to see the wonderful star which contains the mother and'child (ll. 1738,
1779, 1819, 1905). Hans Memling, in his Seven Joys of the Virgin (Munich,
Pinakothek, No. 655), has painted the three kings kneeling on three mountain-
tops and looking for the miraculous star. See also Wright, Chester Plays, pp.
276, 284.

3 This ancient legendary feature has been preserved in the modern peasant-
plays (see R, p. 183 footnote and text).

374 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

the conduct of the soldiers who, amid the lamentations
of Rachael and the women of Bethlehem, destroy the
infants, not without a taste of the women’s distaves. In
one play at least Herod dies terribly, and is carried off by
rejoicing devils." Other additional incidents frequently
introduced into the first day’s performance are the
Banquet of Herod, the Dancing of Herodias’s daughter,
the Beheading of John the Baptist, and the Dance of the
Devils with Herodias and her daughter to hell.2 Some
plays went as far in the first day as the Banquet in
Simon’s house, but the usual and more fitting beginning
of the second day’s performance was the commencement
of Christ’s public ministry.®
On the second day there would be the Calling of the
Disciples, the Temptation, and several of the more note-
worthy miracles,‘ but the incident for which the audience
looked with the greatest expectancy was that of the |
Magdalen and her lovers. Of the general method of
treating this incident enough has been said (p. 362).
Mary’s repentance is followed by Simon’s banquet,
which, in the Donaueschingen play, consists of bread
and fish. This takes place much in the gospel fashion,
the actual anointing, however, being occasionally a
1 See J, p. 91; I, pp. 15 et seg., especially p. 23; F, pp. 73-89; B, vol. ii.
pp. 161, 172, etc. ; Rosenheimer Dreikinigspiel, R, p. 187; Chester Plays,
< * Moe legend describes an illicit passion of Herodias for John. At last,
when she has his head on the charger, she can kiss the lips ; but the head springs
upright on the charger and blows her into space. A head onacharger frequently

appears in medieval legend, and the folklore of the subject deserves critical
examination (see C, p. 35).

* Compare the Egerer Play (F) with the Alsfelder (C) and Luzerner (B,
vol. ii. pp. 125-127),

* The Frankfurt Play works off the miracles in a batch ; a blind, a lame, a
dumb, a leprous, a sick man are cured in rapid succession (see 8, p. 140).

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 375

choral interlude in almost the words of the Latin ritual.
The Magdalen starts with the hymn :—

Jesu Christi auctor vitae.!

Upon which the disciples chant :—

Accessit ad pedes Jesu peccatrix,

an antiphone of the Roman Breviary, while the washing
of Christ’s feet is accompanied by descriptive chants.
The whole is concluded by the chorus or the Magdalen
singing the wonderful hymn :’*—

Jhesu nostra redemptio,
amor et desiderium,
deus creator omnium,
homo in fine temporum.

Then follows a scene in which the devils give vent to
their rage at the loss of the Magdalen’s soul, but Belial
finally comforts Satan with the prospect of seducing
Judas.®

Sometimes before, sometimes after the repentance
of Mary we have the resurrection of Lazarus. It is
preceded by his illness. Death, personified, gives him
the ‘ todes strigk,’ and preaches a dance-of-death sermon
on the transitory life of all flesh. The resuscita-
tion scarcely needs comment, except for the emphasis
which, in order to magnify the miracle, the sisters lay

1 See F, p. 106; C, p. 86; I, p. 118; and compare Mone, Lateinische
Hymnen, No. 1057.

2 It is needless to point to the influence of the Church ritual. The reader
may compare Anglo-Saxon Hymnariwm, Surtees Society, 1851, p. 83 (beginning
of eleventh century).

3 See F, p. 107; C, p. 90.

376 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

on the state of the dead. This miracle is usually made
the basis of the hostility of the Jewish priesthood.
Several scenes often follow in which the Jewish leaders
take counsel as to how they may destroy Jesus.

Here we may note that besides Annas, Caiaphas, and
a multitude of Jews given by name, we have a personified
Synagoga, who is not only the chief enemy of Christ,
but often the representative of Judaism, in somewhat
wearisome discussions with a personified Lcclesia, or
champion of Christianity. These discussions appear at
least as early as the twelfth century, and in the fifteenth
were made the subject of separate plays. The effect
which these mock discussions must have had in increas-
ing racial hatred—since the most villainous opinions
are put into the mouths of the Jews, and all sorts of
persecution are commended—can scarcely be overrated
by the student of medieval Jewish history.” To the
assistance of Synagoga in her desire to destroy Jesus

1 ‘Er stincktt sere, ich weys es woll’ (E, p. 109, and C, p. 71, pointing toa
common source). Compare B, vol. ii. p. 95; Chester Plays, p. 229. In Hilarius’s
Suscitatio Lazari (circa 1130) we have the same notion: ‘‘ Fetorem non poteris
sustinere mortui, namque ferens graviter fumus est quatridui” (p. 32). In the
same play the ‘Jewish’ comforters of the two sisters are naively bald in their
sympathy: ‘‘ Talis lamentacio, Talis ejulacio, non est necessaria.”

2 A striking example is the carnival-play of the Niirnberg barber and
mastersinger Hans Folz, entitled Die alt und new ee (see Keller’s Fastnachtspiele,
No.1). A long Disputacio Ecclesiae cwm Sinagoga occurs at the end of the
second day’s performance in the Alsfelder Spiel (C, p. 143). There is another in
the Kiinzelsauer Fronleichnamsspiel (see Bartsch’s Germania, Bd. iv.) The
Frankfurter Spiel ends also with such a dispute, and with the baptism of Jews by
St. Augustine. A certain ‘Christiana,’ with a red banner and gold cross, and a
‘Judea,’ with a banner and black idol, abuse each other in the Donaueschingen
Spiel (B, ii. pp. 828, 829). Mone’s note as to the French origin of the dispute
(ibid. p. 164) is, I believe, hardly justified ; compare the German-Latin play in
the Carmina Burana (J, p. 94). The Church is often personified as a female
figure crowned and with a nimbus; she holds a chalice in one hand and a cross
in the other (see Didron, Christian Iconography, p. 85). For the dress of
Ecclesia see the twelfth-century drama De adventu Christi (N, p. 220). There

-

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 377

comes Satan; he goes to Judas and promises him good
pay if he will betray Christ. He then brings Judas to
the conclave at the ‘Jewish School.’ It will be obvious
to the reader that the conduct of the devils is hopelessly
stupid and without any motive; they fear Christ has
come from heaven to die for men, and their object
should be to hinder the crucifixion ; they are represented
as assisting it, apparently with the sole object of winning
Judas’ soul in exchange for the Magdalen’s. At the
same time their language shows that they are acquainted
with Christ’s purpose, and hate him accordingly.

About this time in most of the plays we have the
counting out to Judas by Caiaphas of the thirty pence.
Judas objects first to one penny as rusty, to a second as
not ringing well, to a third as broken, to a fourth as
having a hole through it, to a fifth as having a wrong
impress, and so on. Caiaphas does not take these
objections in good part, but the bargain is finally
struck. In the Heidelberg Play Judas goes directly
from the banquet of Simon to Caiaphas, and the motive
for the betrayal is the reproof he has there received.
This at least indicates how perplexed the medieval play-
wrights were to find a reason for Judas’ conduct.*
appears to be a very early Altercatio Simonis Judaei et Theophili Christiani, but
I have not been able to see a copy. A ninth-century painting at Aquileia
contains both Ecclesia and Synagoga ; so also the thirteenth-century porch of
the Freiburg Minster, which (p. 322) we have already seen is of interest in
relation to the religious plays. Compare, too, Jubinal, Mystéres inédits, vol. ii.
pp. 258-260, who cites an Altercatio from the twelfth century, p. 404. The
arguments of Christian and Jew are opposed to each other with much prolixity
in Der sele Wurtzgartt, Ulm, 1483. In the Tyrolese Ludus de ascensione Domini,
the Archasinagogus mimics Christ with a mock prayer and creed (ed. Pichler,
p- 12). Even as late as this century an altercation between a Pastor and a Jew

formed a ‘‘ Nachspiel” to a peasant-play (see R, p. 142).
1 See E, p. 140; C, p. 100; D, p. 10.

378 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

In the next place we have the entry into Jerusalem ;
this formed a choral procession, which with the medizval
power of pageantry must have been extremely effective.
Choruses of the disciples, of youths, of the people, greet
the Messiah in the ringing lines of the old Latin proces-
sional hymns, such as the Jesus redemptor omnium and
the Gloria laus ; or they intone verses from the Vulgate,
as Hic est salus noster et redemptor Israhel. All is
gladness, song, and dancing. The Church influence in
this scene has still remained predominant, and we find a
close relationship with the Palm Sunday ritual.’

From this incident onwards the passion scenes
proper follow each other in rapid succession. Jesus
announces his intention of going up to Jerusalem for the
Passover, and speaks of his approaching death. Mary,
his mother, begs him to find another method of
redeeming mankind, for how shall she find comfort ?
Mary the Magdalen, who has means of ascertaining all
that is going forward in Jerusalem, warns Jesus of
imminent danger. Can he not eat the paschal lamb with
them in Bethany? Mary, his mother, shows him the
breasts he has sucked, and entreats him for her sake to

1 See F, p. 120; S, p. 144; C, p. 80, and B, vol. ii. p. 246. We find the
same choruses in the tenth-century Leofric Missal (ed. Warren, p. 256) and the
sixteenth - century plays, ¢.g. the Gloria laus et honor and the Ingrediente
Domino. Compare also the following ritual from Martene, De antiquis Ecclesiae
Ritibus, Liber iv. cap. 20. § 12: ‘*Tune scholastici e regione Crucis lento gradu
veniant ad eam et cum omni reverentia casulos et cappas in terram jactantes
proni adorent crucifixum clero interim cantante antiphonam Puert Haebreorwm,
etc. His recedentibus continuo veniant ex latere pueri laici Kyrie eleison cantantes,
et sequendo vexillum quod ante eos portatur, veniant ante crucem, et annuente
aedituo jactent ramos palmarum in terram, proni adorando crucifixum, et clerus
interim canat antiphonam Pueri Haebreorum, etc.” Gerardus in his Life of St.
Udalric describes a somewhat similar ritual, but with a procession cum effgie
sedentis Domini super asinum (ibid. § xiv.)

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 379

avoid the bitterness of the cross." She reminds him of
the commandment he has himself ordained: ‘‘ Honour
thy father and thy mother.” But all is in vain, the final
sacrifice must be offered. Mary, the Mother, turns to
Judas and begs him to keep watch and ward over her
son, and the traitor promises to die in his defence.* The
whole of this scene has much dramatic power, and is a
little oasis in the arid routine of much of the more
solemn parts of the passion-plays. The disciples Peter
and John are now sent to find ‘the man with the
pitcher.’ This host is ready to receive them, and
points out his dishes and his cloths.* The last supper
follows, with but few embellishments, on the lines of the
gospel story: we find the statement of the new law of
love; the washing of the disciples’ feet, during which
each disciple sometimes recites an article of the Apostles’
Creed ;* the distribution of the bread and wine (in some
plays entirely operatic); the announcement of Judas’
betrayal, and the prophecy of Peter’s denial.

The scene in the Garden of Gethsemane retains
something of the power of a real spiritual contest.
Jesus comes alone to the Mount of Olives—perhaps
an inverted tub—upon which is placed a cup; occa-
sionally the stage-directions tell us that an angel is to

1 A somewhat similar notion is treated in a picture by the Elder Holbein at
Augsburg.

2 See F, pp. 133-135, 137, 140; D, p.11.

3 See E, p. 148; C, p. 95; B, vol. ii. p. 254.

4 This recitation by paragraphs of the Apostles’ Creed occurs also in the
Himmelfahrt Marié (A, p. 24). See also F, p. 147. The foot-washing was
carried out in this manner in the recent Brixlegg passion-play. The reader may
also consult Cuts 46 and 47 of the Schatzbehalter. The incident seems based on
an apocryphal sermon of Saint Augustine. Compare the footnote (p. 396) to
the Day of Judgment.

380 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

appear bearing a cup or cross,’ sometimes a series of
angels pass by bearing the symbols of the passion.*
The actor who performs the Salvator is to remain
stretched on the ground crosswise, ‘‘a good paternoster
”8 On the arrival of Judas, we have the kiss of
betrayal, to distinguish Jesus from the disciple James,
who is very like him in figure* Then follows the
thrice-repeated question of Jesus, and the thrice-repeated
falling upon their backs of the soldiers; this is to illus-
trate the voluntary character of the sacrifice. We have
next the valiant deed of Peter; Malchus on recovering
his ear only bids the crowd look at the magician, the
juggler who has restored it to him, and then, as we have
before noticed, becomes the leader of the gang of ruffians
who are represented with the utmost extravagance as
striking, hustling, and scoffing the bound prophet of
Galilee. In such fashion ‘the Jews’ corizando et
cantando canticum aliquod (as ‘Jesus the deceiver’)
lead off their Christ to Annas.’

While a considerable amount of horse-play is being
practised on the prisoner, the denial of Peter takes
place. The medizeval conception of Peter—the heavenly
gate-keeper—was not very complimentary, and he is
occasionally treated in folk-tale and Mdrchen with the

long.

1 Always in the pictures and woodcuts. See F, p. 157; B, vol. ii. p. 263;
K, p. 36 ; and D, p. 23. Further note La Passion de nostre Seigneur in Jubinal,
Mystéres inédits, p. 183 ; Townley Mysteries, p. 184, where the Trinity (sic /)
comforts Jesus ; and Coventry Mysteries, p. 282.

2 This conception was revived in the Brixlegg play. In a woodcut of the
Hortulus Animae (High German version, Dillingen, 1560) the angel bears a cross
(folio 198 reverso), while in the Schatzbehalter (Figure 52) a cross placed in a cup
appears on the top of the rock. 3 See B, vol. ii. p. 265.

4 Compare Ludus de ascensione Donvini (ed. Pichler, p. 9) with C, p. 102.

5 See C, p. 109.

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 381

familiarity which borders on contempt. In the passion-
plays two maids address this disciple in no very flatter-
ing terms: ‘“‘ You old bald-pate,” “‘ you old traitor,” etc.,
“were you not with him?” After each denial the cock
on the post, a great feature of the stage apparatus,

calls out :'—
Gueze gu gu gu ga!
Peter lug lug lug nu da!

This scene usually contains the puczpirn, or the game
with the blindfolded Christ. It appears to have been
a very common children’s game in the Middle Ages.
One blindfolded child being placed in the centre, the
others gather pears from different parts of his body:
“The pears are sweet, here by the feet”; “ At the top
of the tree are ripe pears, see,” and so forth; each
jingle is accompanied by a pull, until the blindfolded
child guesses the pear-plucker’s name.” ‘This game,
with every, conceivable insult and violence, was played
on the blindfolded Christ, and to judge by its frequent
occurrence in the plays must have met with much
popular approval. Next the interview with Caiaphas
follows, which only serves to throw into still greater
prominence the supposed brutal passions of the hated
Jews. This leads up to the first interview with Pilate.

On the character and motives of the Roman com-

1 See C, p. 109. The denial scene varies a good deal; compare F, p. 169;
K, p. 123, ete.

2 A jingle possibly for this game will be found in Wolff’s Zectschrift, iv. p.
351. As to butz, see Schmeller’s Bayerisches Worterbuch, vol. i. p. 316; compare
Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 418, and Wunderhorn (ed. Reclam), p. 823.
References to pictures of the incident have been given (p. 262). The game is
one form of Blindekuh or blindman’s-buff. It is introduced onto the stage also
in a farce of Herzog Heinrich Julius (ed. Tittmann, p. 106).

382 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

mander I have already commented (p. 360). Conscious
of the innocence of the ‘accused, Pilate sends him to
Herod, who is delighted at seeing the famous juggler
(gougelman) of whose doings he has heard so much.
As Jesus refuses to exhibit his magical powers Herod
holds him for a perfect fool (evn rechter thore), and
sends him back in fool’s garb to Pilate with profuse
expressions of friendship for the latter.’

Probably about this stage of the play Judas is over-
come by remorse, and, casting his thirty pence at
Caiaphas’ feet,” takes a rope and proceeds to hang
himself. Beelzebub and other devils run to offer him
assistance, or sit on the gallows and mock him.
According to the stage-directions a black bird shall fly
away from him,’ and Beelzebub shall tear open his
bosom and let fall ‘etwas tiirmen.” Meanwhile the
chorus sing O du armer loser Judas!* and the devils
with fire-forks dance round him and off with him to
hell, where Lucifer receives him in the highest glee.°

The second audience with Pilate is marked by the
Barabbas incident and the scourging. In the former,
Barabbas, released from the stocks, runs at once to
fetch a scourge and a rope in order to assist. The
scourging is of an extravagantly brutal character in

1 See C, p. 129; F, p. 182; D, p. 44; K, pp. 146 e¢ seg. ; and J, p. 103,
where we read, ‘‘ Tunc conveniant Pilatus et Herodes et osculentur invicem.”

2 These pence were coined by Abraham’s father, and belonged successively to
Potiphar (as Joseph’s purchase-money), the Queen of Sheba (given to Solomon),
the Magi, the Virgin Mary, the High Priest, and Judas! They may be
found alongside Judas in hell: see the frontispiece. Note the fourteenth-century
Drei Kénige (Simrock, Volksbiicher, iv. p. 459), and Chester Plays, p. 291.

3 On the souls of sinners as crows compare Grimm’s Marchen, No. 107, Die
beiden Wanderer. See also p. 331.

+ This is the old hymn, afterwards ‘ christlich verandert’ by Luther.

5 See C, p. 115; F, p. 188; B, vol. ii. pp. 281 et seq., etc.

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 383

both action and language; the bullies strike till they
break their rods, they fall to the ground in sheer
exhaustion, and refresh themselves from Barabbas’s wine-
flask. The crown of thorns, precisely as in the wood-
cuts, is forced into the flesh by long rods pulled
downwards at either end by the Jewish persecutors.’
In the condition due to such torture—a condition repre-
sented with painful realism by some modern as well as
medieval passion-plays—Pilate leads Jesus to a window,
and shows him to the people to excite sympathy, Ecce
homo! The Jews will listen neither to Pilate’s words,
nor to his sighs. Even the intercession of his wife
Pilatessa (occasionally called Portula, queen of Hana-
laps) to whom Belial or Satan has appeared in a
threatening dream with the view of hindering the work
of redemption—cannot stay the judgment. The Jews
lay stress on the Emperor’s displeasure. Pilate breaks
his staff,? with much ceremony washes his hands, and

1 Besides the pictures to which I have referred on p. 263, I may notice that
the earliest engraving of these stakes which I have come across occurs in a
unique Leiden Christi at Munich from about 1460. Some account will be found
in Stoeger, Zwei der dltesten deutschen Druckdenkmdler, Munich, 1833. See
also Coventry Mysteries, p. 316.

2 In Holbein’s Todtentanz the staff of the judge is broken by Death. The
staff was in northern mythology the symbol in the hands of the gods of their
power over living and dead (see Simrock, Deutsche Mythologie, 1878, p.178). The
judge in nearly all medieval woodcuts is represented with a staff, and the staff
was raised when an oath was taken ; its modern equivalent is the judge’s mace.
In most of the cuts of the Layenspiegel (1544), the judge is represented as
holding the staff vertically in his hand. The same conception will be found in
the cuts of the Bambergische Halsgerichts Ordnung, 1531 (even the fool as
judge has a staff!), and of Karl V.’s Peinlich Halsgericht, Frankfurt, 1577,
and indeed of all old German law-books. See also the second cut of Zainer’s
Schachzabelbuch of 1477, and a cut from 1442 in Holtrop: Monwments typo-
graphiques des Pays-Bas, p. 40. Nearly all the great series of Passion cuts
represent Pilate with the staff. In a peasant Three Kings play taken from oral
tradition (in 1875), ‘Conscience’ tells Herod he cannot hope for grace: ‘ Der
stab ist gebrochen,’ 7.e. he is condemned (see Rosenheimer Dreikénigspiel in R).

384 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

with a flourish of trumpets condemns Christ." Thus very
usually and fitly ends the second day’s performance. _
The third and last day’s performance was the
richest in incident, the most varied in character, and
probably the one best calculated to excite the strong if
not very refined emotions of a medizeval audience.
Throughout all its scenes run the choral lamentations
of the mother and of the woman to whom Christ had
brought new life. These, as we have already noted,
bear traces of the inspiration of the great lyric poets of
an earlier age, and still in their rough folk-versification
are not without beauty. On the way to Calvary,
under the Cross, at the Entombment, we have a picture
of the Virgin as mother which contrasts oddly with the
divinity elsewhere so lavishly bestowed upon her. I
shall not refer more minutely to these Marienklagen,’

1 For the above account, see C, pp. 1385-143; F, pp. 198-203; B, vol. ii.
pp. 298-305; D, pp. 55,58; K, p. 155; 8, p. 150. In a féte held in 1813,
mentioned by Geoffrey of Paris, we read :—

Les tisserands représenter -
. . » Adam et Rve,
Et Pilate qui ses mains léve.

See Jubinal, Mystéres inédits, vol. i. p. 22. In La Passion de nostre Seigneur
(ibid. vol. ii. pp. 223-226), Pilate’s wife, accompanied by her son and daughter,
goes to entreat Pilate (see Schatzbehalter, Fig. 74). Pilatessa and her maids
offer much of interest in relation to medieval social life and its conceptions
(see F, p. 207).

2 Marienklagen, as independent plays, are to be found in B, vol. i. pp. 31,
198, with interesting introductions ; I, p. 150, Latin and German; L, vol. ii.
p. 259; Schonemann, Der Siindenfall, 1855 ; and Z. There is small doubt that
at a very early date Marienklagen formed part of the Church ritual, quite apart
from their relation to the later passion-plays. They were introduced into the
Good Friday service of the Adoratio crucis after the hymn Crua fidelis, and
before the cross was carried to the sepulchre ; see M, pp. 129, 188, 144 (Hic
portant crucem ad sepulchrum), and 146 (Maria cadit ad sepulchrum). But the
Freising rubric in particular should be noted: ‘‘ Hic incipit ludus. . . et debet
cantari post Crux fidelis, et sic finire usque ad vesperam lamentabiliter cum
ceteris sicut consuetum est fieri.”

_

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 385

only let the reader bear in mind that they are an all-

important feature in the latter portion of the typical

-passion-play.

The third day’s play opens with a considerable
amount of bustle, the ‘beadles’ and soldiers, foremost
among them Barabbas and Malchus, hurry about
seeking the necessary implements; one brings the
Cross,’ another the three blunt nails,? a third the
hammer and pincers, and so on. The two thieves,
Dismas and Jesmas, are taken from the stocks, and

* Occasionally reference is made to the well-known legend of the Holy
Rood as grown from a twig of the tree of life brought by Seth from the garden
of Eden. Separate mysteries of this legend were common, and it formed an
integral part of some of the longer plays (see Jubinal, Mystéres inédits, vol. ii.
pp- 17-20; B, vol. i. pp. 307, 318, vol. ii. pp. 28, 46). Generally, as to the
legend of the Holy Rood, consult Morris, Legends of the Holy Rood, E.E.T.S. ;
Keller’s Fastnachtspiele, Nachlese, Das heilig kreutz spil, No. 125; Niirnberger
Buch der Croniken ia’ ; Simrock, Volksbiicher, xiii. p. 445; Reinke de Vos, 1.
4886 ; Das alte Passional, p. 98; Geffcken, Bildercatechismus, p. 71; Schone-
mann, Der Siindenfall, p. 43; and, of course, the Gospel of Nicodemus, chap.
xiv. 4, etc.

2 As to the number of nails used for the crucifixion, we find, according to
Didron, that three or four were used indifferently up to the tenth century.
Gregory of Tours and Durandus were in favour of four. After the thirteenth
century the practice of using only three came definitely into the ascendant
(Christian Iconography, p. 271). Much interesting information, with copious
authorities, is given by Morris (Legends of the Holy Rood, p. 19). Knackfuss,
in a recent monograph on Velasquez, speaks of that artist in his Crucifixion (in
the Prado Museum at Madrid from about 1640) having reintroduced the
ancient four nails, therein following the advice of his father-in-law Francisco
Pacheco, who, in his book on painting, is very much opposed to the custom
which had arisen in the thirteenth century of crossing the legs and using only
three nails (p. 30). My own notes on German representations give the following
among other results :

Four Naiis.—Processional cross from Stift Essen about 980; ivory reliefs,
tenth-eleventh centuries (Berlin Musewm and elsewhere) ; cross of gilt bronze
(Berlin Museum) ; extremely early colossal crucifix at Munich (National Museum,
Saal I.) In short, reliefs and crucifixes before 1200 have usually four nails.

Three Nails.—Munich, National Musewm: Pohl altarpiece (Saal III.),
1380-1420 ; altarpiece from Franciscan church at Bamberg (Saal IV.), 1429;
Calcar altar (Saal X.), 1450-1500. Munich, Pinakothek: Wolgemuth (No. 27),
1450-1500 ; Wolgemuth, Hopfer altar ; Cologne master (No. 622), circa 1466.
Cologne Gallery: Master Wilhelm’s School (No. 44), circa 1380; Gothic

VOL. II 2C

386 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Caiaphas starts the procession to Golgotha.’ Jesus
being unable to bear the cross, simple Simon, a pilgrim,
is forced to assist. Then follow the prophetic words to
the women of Jerusalem, and the beautiful incident
with Veronica.” The nailing to the cross is performed
with extreme brutality, and the whole process of
hammer and gimlet painfully emphasised.* As the
cross is raised, we have again vestiges of the Church
ritual in the singing of the Latin hymns: O crux, ave
spes unica and Ecce lignum crucis of the old cere-
monial Adoratio crucis* (see p. 293). The Virgin
comes forward, and, heedless of the scoffing of the

Painting (No. 30), circa 1250; Master of Lyversborg Passion ; Anton Wonsam.
Augsburg Gallery: Wolgemuth (No. 48), 1450-1500; Altorfer (No. 47), 1517.
Berlin Musewm: Veit Stoss, circa 1496. Wiirzburg: Conrad von Thiingen’s
grave in the Cathedral, circa 1540. Weimar Church: Cranach altarpiece.
Nirnberg, Germanisches Museum: Wolgemuth, Christ stooping from the Cross
‘to St. Bernard, circa 1488. Ramersdorf: Fresco Crucifixion, early fourteenth
century. :

Four Nails.—Hans Burgkmair at Augsburg (No. 44), circa 1518 ; drawing
by Hans Baldung Grien in the Albertina, 1533 ; and quite modern pictures,
like Dietrich’s Crucifixion at Dresden.

These few examples seem to show that the four nails were peculiar to
carving, where the crossing of the knees is by no means easy technically.
The three nails came in with painting (yet were used by Adam Krafft and Veit
Stoss) ; they are more graceful than the four, and the foreshortening is fairly
easy on canvas. Finally, Burgkmair and Grien, not Velasquez, seem to have
reintroduced the four nails.

1 B, vol. ii. p. 306; F, p. 217, ete.

2 See C, p. 168 (‘simplex Symon’ ; compare Chester Plays, ii. p. 51, ‘Symon
of Surrye’); B, vol. ii. p. 309 (‘ein bilgem’); D, p. 61; K, p. 161; E, p. 231,
etc. Compare Fig. 81 of the Schatzbehalter. I have treated the Veronica
incident, artistically and liturgically, at a length I once hoped to treat the
whole Passion, in a separate work, Die Fronica, Lin Beitrag zur Geschichte des
Christsbildes im Mittelalter, Strasburg, 1887.

3 On the passion-play stage the holes for the hands were invariably made
too far apart, and a rope used to strain the arms of the sufferer. Compare also
Digby Plays, ii. 1. 1838 ; Chester Plays, ii. 58 ; Coventry Plays, p. 319. This is
represented with realistic hideousness in Fig. 85 of the Schatzbehalter. In these
typical passion-play woodcuts Wolgemuth renders the brutality of the Jews
as strongly as either Diirer or Cranach. See, for example, Fig. 81, where the
soldiers make mouths at the Virgin. * F, p. 285; E, p. 174,

P
4

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 387

soldiery, covers with her veil the nakedness of her son.’
The inscription of Pilate is placed above Christ, and
the Jews dance round the cross.” The garments are
now rent and divided, but the Jews throw dice for the
coat of Jesus. The dice are taken from the pocket of
one of the thieves, and a doubt is expressed whether
they may not be loaded.’

Meanwhile, in the midst of Mary’s lamentations,
John, in order to fulfil literally the prophecy of Simeon,
places the point of a drawn sword to her heart.* The
crucified Jesus speaks the ‘‘ Seven Words” °—z.e. pardon

1 E, p. 232; 8, p. 150. 2C, p. 181, 3.E, p. 240; F, p. 288, etc.

* Compare Luke chap. ii. 35; Gospel of Nicodemus, chap. xii. 5 ; Das alte
Passional, p. 75. See C, p. 203; I, p. 159 (John hands the Virgin a sword) ;
L, vol. ii. p. 264 (‘Simeonis grimmec swert’); F, p, 264; K, p. 60; B, vol. i.
pp. 175, 187, 199, 235, vol. ii. p. 3138. This sword is a favourite bit of
medieval symbolism. Among Scheifelin’s cuts to Schénsperger’s Via Felicitatis
of 1513 we have one of the Mater dolorosa with jive swords radiating halo-fashion
from her head. In the Konstanz Biblia Pauperwm the Virgin stands at
the foot of the Cross with a sword in her breast. In one of the E.E.T.S.
Legends of the Holy Rood (p, 142) the sword springs from the cross. The
Virgin with a sword in her breast occurs in a woodcut (fol. 204 reverse) of the
Hortulus Animae (German version, Dillingen, 1560?), On the title-page of a rare
book—Michaelis Francisci de Insulis Quodlibetica decisio . . . de septem dolo-
ribus . . . Virginis Mariae, Schratenthal, 1501—the Virgin is represented
with her heart pierced by seven swords—the ‘Seven Sorrows.’ The same
seven swords occur also in a picture in the Augsburg Gallery of about 1600
(No. 83), and often elsewhere. They are part of the medieval custom of repre-
senting by symbolism what the untrained actor or early artist could not render
‘by the expression of facial emotion. In John Parfre’s play of Candlemas-Day
we read. (Marriott, p. 218) :—

Of blissid Mary how she shall suffre peyn,
Whan hir swete sone shall on a rood deye, :
A sharpe swurde of sorrow shall cleve hir hert atweyn.

® “ And so men pat marken pe gospel seien pat Crist spake sevene wordis,
pe while he hyng on pe cros, to greet witt and mannis profit” (Select English
Works of Wyclif, Arnold, vol. ii. p. 128). There are special prayers for the
Seven Last Wordsin the Hortulus Animae (attributed to Bede), the Hertzmaner
(Casper Hochfeder, Niirnberg, circu 1480), and in a fifteenth-century manu-
script (Gebetsammlung) in the author’s possession, which has prayers also for
“de vii bespottungen.’ For a full appreciation of these words and their mean-
ing for medieval thought see the Schatzbehalter,. Niirnberg, 1491, fol. I. ii.
reverse et seq. , .

388 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

for his torturers, salvation for the penitent thief, pro-
vision for his mother, the Elz lama sabachthani, the
statement of thirst, the accomplishment, and the com-
mendation of his spirit. Hach word is followed by the
scofing of the bystanders (“Die 7 Spottreder’’), and
thus the brutality of the Jews is preserved to the last.
With the Seventh Word a white dove is to be set free,
and Satan, sent by Lucifer, comes to fetch Christ’s soul.
An angel meets him with a drawn sword, and Satan flies
back to hell in consternation. In one play Satan goes
with a net to fish for the soul, and Gabriel and he
‘ascend the ladder together,’ where, however, the Devil
is discomfited. Here again we see the same con-
fusion of motive in the conduct of the devils as I have
previously drawn attention to (see pp. 358, 377, 383).
Then the veil of the Temple—a curtain hanging from
two columns—is rent, four dead men arise from their
graves, the moon and stars speak to Christ,’ and guns -
are fired for thunder. . “ Verily,’ exclaims the cen-
turion, ‘‘this was the Christ.”* The fine incident
with the blind Longinus is now generally introduced.
Longinus had ridiculed the notion that Jesus could cure
the blind, and challenged him to attempt the cure in his
case. The old man comes, and—some plays say from
hate, others from pity and a desire to shorten Christ’s

1 For the talk of the four dead men see T, p. 433.

2 Probably the sun, moon, and stars were represented in the plays exactly
as in pictorial art. A Paris MS., in a miniature of the crucifixion, has a tall
white female figure with a crescent on her head for the moon, and a youth in
red with a radiated crown for the sun. Sometimes we find two angels carrying
stars, sometimes the stars are personified (see Didron, Christian Iconography,
pp. 86, 87, and Fig. 68).

3 See B, vol. ii. p. 824; C, pp. 197-199; F, p. 253; E, p. 247; K, p. 166;
D, p. 68.

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAYV 389

sufferings—orders his servant to place his spear upon
the prophet’s side. Longinus thrusts it in, and the
blood and water rushing out fall upon the blind eyes
and give them sight again. Longinus is afterwards
found assisting at the entombment.t Meanwhile the
limbs of the thieves are broken, and devils and angels
come to fetch their apportioned souls.’

The begging of Christ’s body from Pilate, the lower-
ing of it from the cross by Nicodemus, Longinus, Joseph
of Arimathzea, and their servants present nothing of
special note. The body is usually placed in the lap of
Mary seated at the foot of the cross, an incident often
dealt with in medieval painting.’ It is then carried
on a bier to the grave while the chorus chant the
response, Hece quomodo moritur justus.* Some plays
show even more strongly the influence of the old Church
ritual. Thus in Gundelfinger’s Hntombment we have

1 See B, vol. ii. pp. 224-226, 326-327, 331 ; F, p. 259 ; K, p. 65; D, p. 70; per-
verted in Kriiger’s play, H, vol. ii. p. 66. As to how the wound was represented
we may note the stage-direction, ‘‘ Vulnus autem lateris et alia vulnera simi-
liter sint prius depicta ut quasi vulnera videantur” (S, p. 151). A still more
painfully realistic method was adopted in the recent Brixlegg passion-play.
The question of the first appearance of Longinus’s blindness in medieval tradition
has been raised by G. Stephens (Studies on Northern Mythology, 1883, p. 326,
and Appendix, p. 43). I may note that Longinus is not blind in the fourth-
century Xpiords réoxwyv (ll. 1080 et seg., 1212), nor in the tenth-century Homily
of Ailfric (Legends of Holy Rood, p. 106). Not even in the thirteenth-century
Passion of our Lord (Old English Miscellany, E.E.T.S., p. 51) is the blindness
mentioned. This may serve to illustrate how continuous was the growth of
medieval tradition.

2 Compare two pictures by Altorfer (Augsburg Gallery, Nos. 48, 49), and
another from the early Cologne School (Cologne Gallery, No. 37).

3 The notion, the Pieta, is as old as the fourth-century Xpicrds rdoxwy (11.
1295-1309). See the copper engraving of Christ in the Virgin’s lap by the
master E. S. about 1467, and many woodcuts. It is as much a favourite with
miniaturists as painters, e.g. a fifteenth-century Metz MS. Horae B. Virginis,
once in my hands, Miniature vi., etc. In sculpture we have Michael Angelo’s
work in St. Peter’s, Rome. + See C, p. 214; E, p. 260.

390° THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

a procession consisting of the cross-bearer, four angels.
carrying the three nails and the crown of thorns, four
angels with candles, Joseph and Nicodemus with two.
servants bearing the body, four more angels with
candles, the Virgin with John, then the three Maries,
and lastly two servants with ointment.’ Such a proces-
sion approaches in content those of the Easter rituals.

From this epoch in the plays we have even a greater
fulness of incident and a wider range of material to
select from than before, since now the numerous Resur-
rection-dramas and Haster-plays come to our assistance.
with endless variety of detail. The main thread running
throughout them all, however, is the Church ritual as it
is developed in the Tours Mystery (p. 302).

The Jews obtain Pilate’s authority to set watchers
at the tomb, and the four “knights” set out on their.
mission dancing and singing. The grotesque-comic of
their valiant language is really not so inappropriate as
it at first appears. If this man Jesus comes to life again
may their hair turn golden; should the disciples come
near the grave they shall forfeit their lives ; the watchers
set no limit to their own prowess, they will stand up
against hundreds till they wade in a very sea of blood.
Even their names—Dietrich, Hildebrant, Isengrim, and
Laurein *—are those of invincible Teutonic heroes. And
what happens when they come to the grave? They fortify

1 See B, vol. ii. p. 141. Mater Maria is distinguished from Maria Jacobi,
Maria Salome, and Maria Magdalena. The Sepulto Domino of the old scenic
ritual is also frequently sung (see 8, p. 152, etc.) ©

2 See especially the Ludus Judeorwm circa Sepulchrum, I, p. 125; F, p. 280;

, p. 78; K, p. 183; B, vol. ii. pp. 36-41, 339; L, vol. ii. p. 801; and

pi Reodrreseiin du Kaitiur Jubinal, Paris, 1834 ; Vowniey sity p. 259;
also the Xpucrds rdcxwv, 1. 1900. .

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 391

themselves with wine, and either drop off to sleep one
after the other,’ or, Gabriel appearing, collapse in terror

at his chant :-—
Recedete, recidite

infideles, cedite !

Not infrequently the three archangels come to the tomb
—Michael with a drawn sword, Gabriel with a candle,
and Raphael with a banner.” Hxurge, quare obdormas,
domine! Adjuva nos et libera nos! they cry, and
Jesus, arising, takes the banner from Raphael and sings,
Ego dorm & Resurrex.® These chants are usually

+ Before the thirteenth century all the soldiers remained asleep during the
Resurrection ; then it appears to have been thought desirable that there should
be witnesses, and so some remained awake (see Didron, Manuel d’ Iconographie
chrétienne, p. 200). Compare, however, Hefner-Alteneck, T'rachten des Mittel-
alters, plates 12, 4, 5 (before 1220 all asleep), 3 (about 1250 all awake), 84,
88. In Pfalzgraf Otto Heinrich’s Bible at Gotha (fol. 48) two are asleep and two
are awake. Diirer in his Greater Passion has some asleep and some awake. In
Cranach’s Passion (Schuchardt, p. 205, No. 14), all five are asleep. In the
Coventry Mysteries (p. 343) all fall asleep. Note, however, Jack Snacker of
Wytney (p. 417) who kept awake.

2 Otherwise Raphael appears as a priest, Gabriel as a herald with a wand,
and Michael as a warrior (see Didron, p. 282). Among the list of relics given
by King Athelstan to the monastery of Exeter we read De candela quam Angelus
domini in sepulchro Christi irradiavit (see Warren, Leofric Missal, p. 4). The
Resurrection was usually acted with great solemnity. Thus in the Frankfurt
Play (S, p. 152) we read that in order ‘‘ut resurrectio Domini gloriosius cele-
braretur” it may be deferred to the beginning of the second day’s play—the
Frankfurt was at that time a two days’ play—that then the ‘ Dominica persona’
shall be clothed in “‘vestibus triumphalibus, videlicet subtili et dalmatico
casulaque rubea circumdatus, habens coronam cum dyademate in capite et
crucem cum vexilla in manu sua.” In this play, as in the Oberammergauer
(D, pp. 81-91), the Descent into Hell precedes the Resurrection, an unusual
order, although that of the Apostles’ Creed.

3 Besides my earlier references to representations of Christ with the resur-
rection-banner (see p. 310), I may also cite the Schatzbehalter, Fig. 77; Hans
Holbein’s title-page to Coverdale’s Bible, 1535 ; and a Resurrection by the Elder
Holbein (Munich, Pinakothek, No. 20). A distinction must always be made
between the cross of the Passion and the banner-cross of the Resurrection (see
Didron, Christian Iconography, p. 385). The cross of the Resurrection was and
is usually carried in religious processions ; that of the Passion is suspended
over altars, etc. In Gerard David’s Fight of St. Michael with Hell it is Michael
who bears the cross of the resurrection.

392 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

followed in the greater passion-plays by German trans-
lations and expansions, but their presence suffices to
indicate that the ultimate source of the scene is to be
found in Church ritual.’ |
The Descent into Hell follows instead of precedes
the Resurrection, probably to avoid the difficulty of the
return to the sepulchre. This hell-scene usually opens
with growing excitement among the patriarchs and pro-
phets. They feel sure something is going to happen but
do not know what.’ Lucifer is much alarmed at their
restlessness, and by the failure of Satan to bring back
Christ’s soul (p. 388). Happa or Puck* announces the
approach of a ‘ Wildenaeré,’ who ‘looks as if the world
belonged to him.’ Satan demands who this man in a
red coat* may be. Lucifer screams with fear. The
bolts of hell-gate are drawn; the devils hasten to fetch
their fire-forks, and on every side diabolic rage and con-
sternation is depicted mingled with the broadest farce.
As in the Church ritual’ (see p. 296), the angels sing
Tollite portas, etc., and Lucifer replies with the cor-
responding Quis est iste rex gloriae? The gate of hell
is burst open, and the utmost confusion prevails as the

1 Compare the rituals of the Elevatio crucis given (G, pp. 123, 185) with I,
p. 1389; A, p. 114; and F, p. 282.

2 Gospel of Nicodemus, chap. xiv. et seg. Compare The Devil’s Parliament,
Furnival, Hymns to Virgin and Christ, E.E.T.S., p. 49.

«3 In the Townley Mysteries, Extractio Animarum, this demon is called
Rybald.

* The robe of the resurrection was always red (e.g. S$, p. 152). Compare for
example the thirteenth-century Descent into Hell in the Cologne Gallery (No.
38), and the painted woodcuts of the Schatzbehalter, 1491, Fig. 78.

> There are traces of this ritual in the resurrection-play printed by Jubinal,
Mystéres inédits, vol. ii. pp. 832 et seq. Here, instead of the Jesu nostra re-
demptio, the Veni Creator spiritus is sung by the departing patriarchs. See also
Townley Mysteries, p. 246, for the Attolite portas, etc.

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 393

devils run screaming hither and thither. Christ lays
chains upon Lucifer. Adam and Eve greet their
Saviour with joy, and the procession of patriarchs and
prophets being formed, it departs singing Jesu, nostra
redemptio.? Several comic incidents are introduced. A
poor scholar, who instead of going to mass had lain
about on the school-benches, expresses his joy at deliver-
ance. Several damned souls appeal in vain for mercy ;
they are pitchforked back into hell by the devils. Satan
tries to retain one of the saved souls,—generally John
the Baptist, because no one could desire to save so
meanly clad a man,—but he meets, as usual, with discom-
fiture. When Christ has departed, and the devils have
recovered their presence of mind, they take counsel as to
the restocking of hell, and then follow the soul-lists and
the dance of devils to which I have referred above
(p. 340). On a par with the defeat of the devils is

1 Besides the passion-play references to the chaining of Lucifer, we may note
the miniatures of the Cadmon Codex, reproduced with much other information
by G. Stephens in his Northern Mythology, 1883, pp. 333 et seq., 838, 384, etc.
See also Legends of the Holy Rood, E.E.T.S., p. 5; Old English Miscellany,
E.E.T.S., p. 67; Jubinal, Mystéres inédits, vol. ii. p. 294; Townley Mysteries,
pp. 251, 252 (‘‘ Nay, tratur, thou shall won in wo, And tille a stake I shall the
‘bynde”). St. Michael’s chaining and locking up the Devil will be found in
Albrecht Diirer’s Apocalypse ; in Scheifelin’s cuts to Schonsperger’s reproduc-

- tion in 1523 of Luther’s New Testament, etc. The binding of the Devil and

his supposed loosing after a thousand years are, slight as they may seem, the
keys to much of medieval thought. The solutio diaboli occurred about the
twelfth century, and was notably the basis of Wyclif’s attack on Rome. ‘‘ Bifore
the fend was losid” all went well ; post solutionem Sathanae all heresies had
arisen (see T’rialogus, ed. Lechler, pp. 153, 249; Select Works, ed. Arnold,
vol. i. p. 153, and vol. iii. p. 502). The notion was of course adopted by Hus.
** Post millenarium soluto Satana,” he writes in his De Ecclesia, cap. xxiii. p.
221, ed. 1520.

? There is a characteristic representation of this procession in the Schatz-
behalter, Fig. 79. All the redeemed are nude, as appears to have been the case
on the passion-play stage: see p. 330.

® See B, vol. ii. pp. 42-57 ; H, vol. ii. p. 68; A, p. 116; F, pp. 286-293; C,
pp. 222-230 ; L, vol. ii. p. 303; D, pp. 81-91: I, p. 141.

304 . THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

the confusion of the ‘knights’ at the sepulchre. They
awake to find the tomb open, and, accusing each other
of having fallen asleep, come to blows. Running to
announce the news to Caiaphas, they are mocked by his
wife, or cudgelled by the indignant Jews. Sometimes,
having been witnesses of the resurrection, they declare
themselves believers in Christ. Ultimately, however,
they are bribed to hold their tongues, or to swear that
the disciples stole the body.’

We have now reached the portion of the play which
corresponds to the Haster ritual of the three Maries
(p. 299), but the germs of the humorous, which we noted
even in the Church plays, have now developed into the
broadest farce. The medicine-man comes proclaiming
his own merits and his want of a servant. Rubin, a
scamp of the same stamp, obtains the post, but he hires
in his turn the devil ‘ Lasterbalk’ as an understrapper
to carry the quack’s pack. The action proceeds with —
the coarsest folk-humour, mingled with cudgelling and
love-making, for the medicine-man has a wife and she
has a maid. Rubin alternately cries the merits of his
master’s goods and the knavery of his master. The
three Maries are attracted -by his cries and come to buy
spices. The medicine-man determines to swindle them ;
his wife thinks he has not charged them enough (or has
charged them too much), and this leads to blows and a
drubbing for the lady. She declares she will be revenged,
and after the departure of the Maries, while the medicine-
man is dozing, she elopes with his knave Rubin. The

1 See B, vol. ii. p. 346; A, p. 116; D, p. 156; L, vol. ii. p. 312, ete. ;
Jubinal, La Résurrection du Sauveur, Paris, 1834, pp. 16-18 ; Xpuords rdoxwv 11.
2270 et seq.

THE CONTENTS OF THE PASSION-PLAY 395

coarseness of both language and action can frequently
only be paralleled from the unrestrained license of the
fifteenth-century carnival-plays. In striking incon-
eruity with it all are the Latin verses of the Church
ritual still retained for the three Maries’ parts." The
key to this mixture of the grotesque and sacred must
not only be sought in a reaction following on the strain
of the crucifixion scenes, but also in the influence of the
strolling scholars to which we have referred above (p.
304). Their brilliant, but often ribald, songs did not
hesitate to parody the events and language of Scripture.”
When once the scholars had inserted the thin end of the
wedge, the folk were but too delighted to drive it home.

The visit of the three Maries to the sepulchre follows
closely the old Church ritual, the Latin responses being
translated and expanded.* ‘The scene with the gardener
has, however, been developed in a curious direction.
The Hortulanus reproaches the women with being out
at such an early hour in the garden, it is not proper for
them to be out alone; besides which, they are treading
down his grass and flowers! The recognition takes
place as in the Haster ritual.* Then Mary the Magdalen

1 See L, vol. ii. p. 313 ; C, p. 236; I, p. 39; A, p. 123; 8, pp. 153-155.

2 It is not only a parody of ecclesiastics and their doings, but also of matters
very sacred in those days ; see, for example, the Oficiwm Lusorum, which, with
many other ribald verses, occurs in the Carmina Burana alongside religious
dramas and poems.

3 Thus in La Passion de nostre Seigneur (Mystéres inédits, vol. ii. pp. 296-303)
the Magdalen sings the Jesu redemptor omnium, and the Beata nobis gaudia
(Mone, Lateinische Hymnen, No. 183). There are also traces of the Dic nobis
Maria of the ritual (p. 309). The mercator (l’espicier) is in this French play
very polite, and the only touch of humour is a somewhat lengthy list which he
gives of his drugs (pp. 300, 301). The medieval treatment of the visit to the
sepulchre may be profitably compared with that of the Xpiords mdoxwy (Il.
1941-2125).

4 See F, p. 309; I, p. 76; A, p. 140; C, p. 244.

396 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

meets John and Peter and we have, if not the whole, at.
least the last strophe of the Easter sequence Victimae
paschalr.' The two disciples are not to be convinced,
and wax derisive. They determine, however, to in-
vestigate the matter for themselves. John bets a pair
of new shoes, Peter a sword, that he will arrive first at
the sepulchre; or it may be that the wager is a horse
against a cow. Peter trips up on the way, grows angry,
quarrels with John, and curses the manner in which he
has been created, which prevents him from running like
an ordinary mortal. If he has to limp after John, at
least he can drink better, and he takes a pull at the
flask, which John noticing cries out :—

Ach Petri das stet nit wol
Du weist wol das ich auch trincken sol.?

Arrived at the tomb, they return exhibiting the burial
linen. Then follow the appearances of Christ to his
disciples,’ the incident of the unbelieving Thomas, and

1 The Dic nobis Maria, quid vidisti in via (Kehrein, Lateinische Sequenzen,
No. 83). Compare Jubinal, Mystéres inédits, vol. ii. p. 364.

2 F, pp. 317-319; I, p. 87; L, vol. ii. p. 334; S, p. 156. In Stubbes’ Ana-
tomie, cited by Furnival (Digby Plays, p. x.), we read :—

In some place solemne sights and showes, and pageants fayre are played,

As where the Maries three do meete the sepulchre to see,
And John with Peter swiftly runnes, before him there to bee.

3 See C, p. 246, etc., and compare Xpicrds mdoxwv, 1. 2504. Sometimes the
apostles at this stage compose the Creed, each a sentence (see F, p. 149;
A, p. 25; and compare King’s History of the Apostles’ Creed, p. 26). As I
have before noted (p. 379), the subject was a favourite one. The twelve
apostles are sculptured, each with his portion of the Creed, in the Liebfrauen-
kirche at Trier (fourteenth century). There is a block-book representation,
the words in French at Paris, and another at Munich with the words in
German. In the latter each apostle is accompanied by a prophet, and both have
a scene representing the particular item of belief associated with the apostle
placed above them. The whole block-book bears considerable resemblance to a
Biblia Pauperum (see p. 265). <A different mode of exhibiting the matter is

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 397

possibly the Ascension,’ the sending of the Holy Ghost,
the Death and the Assumption of the Virgin, and the
Day of Judgment.’ Finally the Conclusor would point
the moral of the whole play, and draw attention to the
complete triumph of Christ. Then, with the hymn of
the Resurrection, Christ ist erstanden! in which all
the spectators joined, the three days’ drama would
be brought to its conclusion. Such is the great folk
passion-play of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

1X.—Summary and Conclusion

The reader who has followed the author through at
least a portion of the mass of detail with which the
Middle Ages enriched the gospel story, will be, even if
he has made no further studies, in a position to appre-
ciate fairly medizeval life and feeling. He will realise
that more may be gained from the religious dramas
than amusement at their naiveté. As we do not merely
smile at the stories of the Greek gods, but study their

adopted in the Schatzbehalter (fol. viii.) The twelve apostles are each given
a joint of the fingers of a left hand, while Christ and the Virgin occupy the
thumb. Down the side of the woodcut the Creed is divided among the apostles.
Compare also fol. 8. vi. In the Coventry Mysteries (Descent of the Holy Ghost)
there is a curious identification of each apostle with a different character or virtue.

1 A curious stage-direction for the Ascension occurs in the Frankfurt play
(S, p. 157): ‘‘dominica persona precedat discipulos et veniens ad paradysum
accepto vexillo sumat animas et dirigat viam versus locum ubi volet ascendere.
Animae vero indutis vestibus albis sequantur Dominum cantantes: Swmmi
triumphi re, usque veniant ad gradus ubi debent ascendere. Sit autem thronus
ubi Majestas sedeat excellens et altus satis et tantae latitudinis ut animas
comode possit capere, Habens etiam gradus quibus comode talis altitudo
scandatur.”

2 See C, pp. 248-253; H, vol. ii. pp. 106-115. Often as separate plays, see
B, vol. i, pp. 254, 273.

398 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

evolution and their legends in order to appreciate a
great literature, a greater philosophy, and the highest
development of plastic art, so we must study the
medieval gods even in their smallest details, if we would
master the spirit of another great literature, another
great philosophy, and the highest development of
pictorial art the world has known. Nay, if the Hellenist
smiles at you, reader, say boldly that you will set your
Dante against his Homer, that St. Thomas was not more
arid than his Aristotle, that your Zeitblom and Diirer
were as great creative artists as his Praxiteles and
Pheidias ; nay, that he who built the Parthenon would
have stood speechless and as a little child before the
minster at Strasburg, or the cathedral at Cologne.
Take that Hellenist through the streets and courtyards
of Niirnberg or Augsburg, and give back to them the
colour and incident of the folk-life of 500 years ago,—
and if he be an artist by nature, he will hesitate to give |
the palm to Periclean Athens, even if the sigh of her.
slaves has not caught his ear. He will find the same
religious folk-festivals, the processions, the music, the
song, and the dance. He will find art in the service of
the people, at the street corners, in the religious build-
ings, at the altars of the gods, in the civic buildings, the
assembly halls, the market, the meeting and dance-
places of the guilds. He will mark joyous marriage-
feasts, and the bride led with torches through the
streets ; there will be maidens with fine raiment, and
youths in brightly-woven doublets with daggers hang-
ing from their girdles, wrought in wondrous bert by
never-surpassed metal-workers ;

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 399

évOa pev 7iGeot kat Tapbevor dAperiBovar
@pxedvT, GAAjAWV Ei KapTY XElpas EXoVTES.
There, too, he will see priests in gorgeous apparel leading
with choral song the procession, which bears marvellously-
wrought caskets and delicately-woven pictures worth a
king’s ransom. He will observe that the Hcclesia and
the Agora have new meanings, but are none the less
centres of as intense and picturesque a folk-life as they
ever were in Athens. He may hear the clash of arms,
and see the men, ‘goodly and great in their armour,’
standing on the city walls to defend wife and child and
home. Or he may be jostled by the crowd as it hastens
in holiday garb and humour to see its great drama
performed on the wooden scaffolding, such as Aischylus
himself had used; and he will note that the gods are
there on the stage as they were among the Greeks, and
that neither folk will hesitate to laugh at the expense
of its deities. Nay, if the Hellenist stays to examine
further, he will find the same minute traditions concern-
ing each religious and social custom; he will find each
action of civic, of economic, and of religious life re-
culated with the same surprising detail that he has
already marvelled at and gloried in when he studied
the art and social life of Greece. Then he will begin
to realise that he is watching the development of two
closely-allied races, with somewhat different environ-
ments, it is true, but none the less with the same
fundamental folk-instincts, namely, to make religion
and art go hand-in-hand, and both of them heritages of
the people. It matters not whether the art be Doric
or Gothic, be sculpture or painting, be passion-play or

400 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

Dionysian tragedy ; it is not of significance whether the
religion be that of Olympia and Hades, or of the
medizval Heaven and Hell. The outward forms have
indeed changed, but the inner spirit is the same. In
both cases an immortal art was evolved by the inspira-
tion of a great popular religion ; and those who term the
Middle Ages ‘dark ages,’ only demonstrate that in
their ignorance they are neglecting as great a factor of
culture as Hellenism itself. They are thrusting aside
in blind prejudice a large portion of the birthright which
man of the centuries past has won for man of the
centuries to come. That the Renascence should have
taught men to understand Greek thought was wholly
gain, that it should have caused them to depise the
Middle Ages was wholly loss. We, to-day, have surely
confidence enough in our emancipation from superstition
to strive to appreciate both." We are no more likely
to worship again the gods of the Middle Ages, than to -
worship the gods of Greece.

The science of comparative religion has a task
beyond that of comparing the various religious institu-
tions which have arisen among different races subject
to different environments. It has to deal with the
changing characters of the same religion as the people
who profess it develop; it has to deal with the same
religion as it is differently moulded by different races.
This is not merely a study of churches, of councils, and

1 Why should the schoolboy of to-day know the terms for all parts of the
Homeric ship, but be ignorant of those for the parts of a Gothic cathedral ?
Why should a statue of Athene be enriched by his knowledge of the details of
her worship, but a picture of the Virgin be unhallowed by a knowledge of the
poetry of her processions, offices, and hymns ?

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 401

of theological dogmas. For the student of comparative
religion there is more useful material in the Zeitglocklin,
or in Geiler von Kaisersberg’s sermons, than in all
the protocols and confessions of Worms, Speyer, and
Augsburg taken together. The main problems which
need investigation are: What was the view of religion
held at any time by the great masses of the people?
and: How did the religious conceptions of the people
influence their social and civic life? The Christianity of
the ninth-century Saxon, as represented in the Heliand,
is wholly different in spirit from the Christianity of the
medizeval burgher, as represented in a great folk passion-
play, and their religions influenced their lives in a wholly
different way. The passage from the one to the other
marks the spiritual growth of the Germanic race, and
no small light is thrown on the history of that growth
by the genesis and evolution of the religious drama.

The missionaries brought their religion and sought
to force it on the German people; they branded as
devilish all the old heathen festivals, the religious dances
and the ancient marriage rites, thus unwittingly creat-
ing all the deep medizeval feeling as to witchcraft. But
the folk-spirit was not to be thus repressed; it danced
into the churches ; it took Christianity out of the hands
of the priests; it moulded it to its own ideas, and
shaped it to that wonderful artistic polytheism of which
the nominal founder never dreamed, and which would
have been sternly repudiated by the early Christian
teachers." The passion-plays would be singularly

+ Some few Buddhist ascetics in Ceylon may still hold the faith of their great

teacher, but Gautama would not recognise his own child in the folk- eit a of
Siam and Burmah.

VOL. II yl dae 8

402 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y

instructive if their study taught us this one fact
only, namely, that the evolution of religion depends
on the tendencies of the great masses of the people;
their aspirations, their needs, their education ceter-
mine its course, which is only in a very slight degree
guided or checked by the influence of a sacerdotal
caste.

There is another striking lesson, however, to be
learnt from a study of Medizevalism, a lesson which it
shares with Hellenism. If religion is to give birth to a
ereat art and to be a centre of social and civic enthusiasm,
it must be a religion of festival, of great folk-gatherings,
of ceremonial ritual, of the drama, and if possible of
song and dance.t. The religious festival brings all
classes of the community together on a common ground ;
it unites for a time high and low in the same pleasure ;
and the feelings of fellowship and of identity of pursuits,
so necessary for the permanency of any social group,
are thereby materially strengthened. The religious
drama of the Middle Ages was an outcome of medieval
religious and civic socialism, and with the growth of
theological and economic individualism it necessarily
decayed. When the passion-plays were employed as
instruments of controversial theology ; when the monk
appeared on the stage in order to be dragged off to hell,
and little children came to Christ prattling of the true
gospel of Wittenberg and of the Antichrist at Rome, then
these plays became sources of social discord, and not the

1 Herein at once lies the justification and the futility of the great festivals of
humanity proposed by Comte. They are justified, because every religion needs
folk-festivals ; they are futile, because they are the artifice of a priest, and not a
natural product of an individual people.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 403

occasion of true folk-holidays.* Then it was time for
good and evil to be swept away together, and the people
ceased to have any genuine religious festivals.

But there is something more to be learnt from these
plays than sympathy with one of the world’s great art-
epochs, or than the social value of a communal holiday.
I refer to their educative influence on the craftsman.
If a man has once realised that he is not working solely
for bread and butter, but that he is an essential part of
the social machine, which would stand still without him,
then he has received not only the best education in'self-
respect, but also in the dignity of his own labour. I[
cannot now enter upon the consideration of what a vast
influence for good the system of guilds exercised so long
as the old religious socialistic spirit was the chief factor
in its organisation,—until, indeed, the growth of religious
and economic individualism converted what remained
of them after the Reformation into craft monopolies
under the control of a limited number of families. Was
a fire to be put out, the wall of the town to be defended,

1 Besides the mass of anti-Roman Catholic sixteenth-century plays in Germany
of which those of Bartholomiius Kriiger, and Nicholas Manuel may be taken as a
type, I may refer to John Bale’s Brefe Comedy or Enterlude of Johan Baptystes
preachynge in the wyldernesse, openynge the craftye asswultes of the hypocrytes, with
the gloryouse Baptysme of the Lorde Jesus Christ, 1538. The hypocrites are of
course popish priests, the Pharisees and Sadducees represent papists, and the
whole epilogue is directed against the Catholics. John Bale’s A Tragedy...
manyfesting the chefe promyses of God unto man . . ., 1538, exhibits the same
polemic in the epilogue. Even Edward VI. is reputed to have written a comedy
entitled The Whore of Babylon. As a sample of polemic from the other side I
may mention the Seebrucker Play Der lustige Jud von Amsteldam. Here the Jew
bids the Pastor march to Munich and pay for the sausages Martin Luther and
his Katie have devoured in hell (R, p. 142). There is a story that Luther once
forgot at Munich to pay the ‘Koch in der Héll’ for a sausage he had eaten
there. Hone (Ancient Mysteries, pp. 225-227) gives the names of a number of
English controversial religious plays.

404 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

a church to be restored: or a side-chapel built, was a
pageant to be held or a passion-play acted, then the
eraft-guilds and the journeymen brotherhoods were
always to the fore. In many cases the craftsmen and
journeymen were members of the civic body in virtue of
their craft—because ‘they belonged ‘to craft-guild or
brotherhood. The artisan of those days could spend his
holiday not only in amusing himself, but in giving
pleasure to the community at large. The passion-play
may seem to some modern tastes a very crude drama, but
in those days rich and poor, literate and illiterate, great
and small, man, woman and child flocked to the market-
place to enjoy the representation of the great world-
drama which the craftsmen put before them. The
members of the guilds realised that they were needful
parts of the social system; the artisan was conscious of
his position and proud of it. Are there any labour

organisations nowadays which are equally rich in

result for the workman, and equally profitable to the
community? When do our craftsmen spend their leisure
in providing amusement for a whole town? Where is
the folk-festival, religious or social, which brings all
sorts and conditions of men together in the pursuit
of a common pleasure? I fear our modern life knows
nothing of these things.

Individualism, economic and intellectual, has greatly
assisted the mental and possibly the material progress of
Europe, but it has widened immensely the gulf between
the various social grades. They no longer have the same
pleasures ; they have hardly a common religion ; they
have no understanding for the same art, and are scarcely

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 405

able to read the same books. The thought and the
education of the medizeval craftsmen were not widely
diverse from those of other social groups. Albrecht
Diirer was a craftsman, and his wife sold his woodcuts on
the market-place. Ambrose Holbein and probably his
greater brother were members of the “ Zunft zum
Himmel,” a guild containing the painters, glaziers,
saddlers, and barbers of Basel.’ Luther and his opponent
Kick were both peasants’ sons. Yet these men were able
to grasp the thought and feeling of their day, while they
remained essentially of their own class. None of their
contemporaries thought of referring to them as exceptions
who had ‘risen from the ranks’ to be leaders of men.
If the old socialistic medizeval system with its guilds of
craftsmen made social life more homogeneous, we may
perhaps hesitate to approve of the spirit of the Reformers,
who, finding them centres of Catholic superstition, did
much to weaken or destroy what they should rather
have reformed.” As in the case of the monasteries, the
guild funds too often dropped into the private purse of
prince or noble. With the actors went the drama, of
which it has been well written that—

Such an age as ours will not understand the good which in a
moral and social point of view was bestowed upon this country by
the religious pageants, and pious plays and interludes of a bygone
epoch. Through such means, however, not only were the working-
classes furnished with a needful relaxation, but their very merry-
makings instructed while they diverted them.?

1 That the greatest painters of the Middle Ages were looked upon as craftsmen
is well shown by the letters of Erasmus (see Woltmann’s Holbein, p. 317).

2 Toulmin Smith, English Gilds, Introduction, p. xc.

® Rock, Church of our Fathers, vol. ii. p. 418.

406 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLAY

These lines are even truer of Germany than of
England, and at least in Germany the religious pageants
and plays ‘instructed’ an unsurpassed school of
painters and engravers.

Is the moral of this Essay, then, a Restoration—a
resuscitation of the guilds and a return to the religious
- faith of the Middle Ages? Assuredly not. The people
in each age must work out its own salvation. No
preachers nor teachers can renew the vitality of a dead
art, a dead religion, or a dead economic system. The
folk must create anew for itself, and the best that the
cultured men of each age can do is to lighten the throes
of birth. They may put the dumb folk-thought into
words, and give artistic expression to the new folk-
ideals. They may help to guide new labour organisa-
tions to a sense of their social responsibility ; they may
assist in converting trades-processions into civic pageants
and mass-meetings into folk-festivals. They may aid
the tendencies of the time to level down in wealth and
to level up in knowledge. But after all it is the folk
which must rise to self-consciousness. Then perhaps it
may come about that those social instincts, which are in
truth more intense to-day than in Athens, Jerusalem, or
Niirnberg of old, will cease to be so diverse and confused
in expression as they are now ; they will find one watch-
word to arouse all classes of the community; then and
not till then will anything worthy of the name of a folk-
religion be possible, then and not till then can a great
religious festival be again a reality.

APPENDIX I

THE ‘MAILEHN’ AND ‘KILTGANG’

I HAVE pointed out (p. 24) the importance of the Mailehn as a fossil
of the old sex-customs. An extremely interesting phase of it
appears in a visitation of the diocese Speyer of the year 1683,
cited by Mone, Schauspiele des Mittelalters, Bd. ii, p. 373. We
read that a village called Rheinsheim had an |

abusus in juventute mit dem Lehntgen-rufen, quod fit hoc modo. Con-
venit juventus utraque una cum civibus et quotquot possunt domo
abesse ad ingressum in silvam, ubi duo designati duas ascendunt arbores,
sibi invicem respondentes, aliis sub illis haerentibus. Fitque hoc loci
pridie sancti Georgii, quando horum unus altissima voce incipit in hune
modum :

Horet ihr burger iiberall

was gebeutet euch des Konigs hochwiirdiger Marschall :

was er gebeut und das soll seyn ;

Hanss Clausen soll Margrethen Lols Buhler seyn

drey Schritt ins Korn und drey wieder heraus
iiber ein Jahr gehet es ein Braut ins Haus.

Hac ratione omnibus solutis, tam viduis quam aliis suum assignant procum,
et saepe non absque gravi laesione famae et causi gravium dissidiorum,
immo turpitudinum, cum procus teneatur illam curare in symposiis saltu,
etc., illa suo proco offerre flores, etc.

We have clearly here a fossil of the old sex-festival—the evening
gathering in the woods for the choice of temporary mates. St.George’s
Day is 23rd April, but the Mailehn in many parts occurred on Ist
May. The reference to the Kénigs Marschall is hardly an original
feature ; it probably refers to the custom by which, in the early

408 APPENDIX I

Middle Ages, the Kaiser sent a herald to announce to the daughter
of a burgher of one of the imperial towns that he proposed to give
her in marriage to one of his retinue.

Very frequently the Mailehn took the form of an auction of the
girls of the village, the money obtained being spent on their enter-
tainment with food and on dance-music. It is noteworthy that at
St. Goar the money itself went into the town-chest, and the auction
took place in the Rathhaus (Kriegk, Deutsches Biirgerthum im Mittel-
alter, p. 420); it is thus clear that we are dealing with a fossil of
what was once a communal sex-festival.

The use of the term buhler in the Muailehn verses cited above is
also very suggestive. Buhli, fastenbiihli, or their equivalents are
used almost throughout Germany either for the May-brides or for
partners chosen for the year, or at least for the great spring-festivals
and for Kirmes. It is precisely this word, however, which we have
noted as used for the old sexual group of lovers (p. 222). It is
still a widely: current term for a pair of dancers, and Grimm cites a
most valuable bit of folklore from Holland, which brings together
the primitive significance of the Mailehn with the old sexual group
weight of both buhl and fri (see pp. 167, 222). It runs :—

menich vroukin sprekt in schimpe
tot enen jonghen gheckelin,

**vrient, du moets min boelkin sin

desen mei ende langher niet.”
Worterbuch, ii. 506.

The gheck, or sommergheck, is equivalent to the heelghesel or secret
lover.

As if to complete the picture of the May-brides with their tem-
porary lovers, their common feast and dancing, the Vergaderung in
the woods, we have also the selection of the May queen, a fossil of
the old worship of the goddess of fertility. A thirteenth-century
work of Aegidius (cited in Grimm’s Mythologie, ii. p. 657) describes
the custom of the May queen in the Netherlands in the twelfth
century :—

Sacerdotes ceteraeque ecclesiasticae personae cum universo populo in
solemnitatibus paschae et pentecostes aliquam ex sacerdotum concubinis pur-
puratam ac diadematerenitentem in eminentiori solioconstitutam et cortinis
velatam reginam creabant, et coram ea assistentes in choreis tympanis et
aliis musicalibus instrumentis tota die psallebant, et quasi idolatrae effecti
ipsam tanquam idolum colebant.

THE ‘MAILEHN’ AND ‘ KILTGANG’ 409

Here we see the May queen no longer as a chaste maiden, but
as the “‘woman in scarlet seated on a high place.” As representa-
tive of a Myletta—a goddess of fertility—she is worshipped by the
whole populace, and her cantica diabolica, the winnasonge, for a time
carry the very priests of the new faith along in the spirit of the old
heathen sex-festivals.

Closely allied to the summer Mailehn is the Kiligang. ‘This
meeting at night of the young folk of both sexes is again singularly
suggestive of the old group habits. On the one side it has de-
generated into the slipping of the Bua or Bursch secretly to his
sweetheart’s window—whence the Swiss proverb that “one does
not go in wooden shoes to kilt”; on the other, we find the word
denoting a series of festive winter gatherings in the Spinnstube.
The Bursch might be received at the window favourably or un-
favourably. The maid might not reply to his song or entreaties at
all; she might abuse him; she might hand him bread or wine from
the window, or she might admit him into her chamber. The
Fenstern, giisslein gén, 2 chilt g4, Swabian fugen, was certainly not such
an innocent pastime as some writers have tried to persuade us. It
was a visit not only to the window, but inside the chamber, and
numerous medieval police regulations and sermons show us that
it was strongly disapproved of by both the civil and religious
authorities. Now it is singular that the name for this night-visit
should also be used for village winter meetings of maids and youths
in the Spinnstube (Kunkelstube, Karz, etc.) These meetings, owing
to the license which accompanied or followed them, were also looked
upon with suspicion, and even subject to police supervision.!
Thus, “welche auch ohn erlaubnis ein kérz oder gunkelstuben
halten bei nachtlicher weile, soll des biiszen mit eim mittelfrevel ”
(Schmid, Schwabisches Idioticon, p. 220). The Kilt or Kelte is essen-
tially a night-gathering for games, talk, and possibly work. The

1 In Blaubeuren the Lichtstuben for both sexes were forbidden ; the watch-
man or constable had to report them, and fines of three to four florins were im-
posed on all found present at one. Elsewhere the housewife was made responsible
for the good behaviour of the assembly. In 1642 we find a Swabian regulation
that only women shall be present, and that the meetings shall be held in
respectable houses, for they had in the past been associated with places and
hostesses of bad fame. In 1652 we have another ducal order forbidding the
abuses known as the Kunkelhiuser and Rockenstuben altogether. Clearly their

frequenters were little better than the compulsory inmates of the old university
spinning-houses in England.

410 APPENDIX I

kilten for the season always ends with a feast, the Kiltbraten, and a
special feature of the Kilt is the propounding of riddles,! which
reminds us of the part riddles play in the fenstern and at marriage
and sex-festivals. Very often food is brought to the Kunkelstube,
and the young men then pay for the beer; each maid has her
Kunkelheber, who, like the Mai or Kirmes lover, is specially attached
to her for the season. At the Kiltbraten, or Letze, as it is called in
the Rottenberg district, there is, besides the feast provided by a
general contribution and the beer provided by the lads, a dance
which lasts late into the night. It is clear that in the A7/¢ or Kun-
kelstube we have all the elements of the old hirat or mahal, the
common feast, the dance, and the sex-freedom. Were these merely
an outcome of coarse peasant natures, or survivals of older social
customs? I do not think there can be a'doubt that we have fossils
of the old endogamous group institutions. In Swabia, especially
in the Ulm district, the Kilt was termed Haierloss. This word is
identified with fenstern and giisslein gén, but also with the Kiltgang
as Kunkelstube. The sixteenth and seventeenth century preachers
were very strong against it, classing it with shameful songs, music
and other devilish pastimes. Now in M.H.G. /eierleis, heierles is a
choral dance. It appears as heigertanz in Geiler von Kaisersberg’s
sermons, where we find that the performers take hands as in a
country dance. Now I have no hesitation in connecting this word
with the root i or hig (p. 127). It certainly did not arise, as
Lexer (Worterbuch, 1. 1210) supposes, from the cries of heia/ How,
in that case, explain the form heig? No, we have here simply the old
choral dance of the sex-festival, the hileih (pp. 132, 133) over again,
the Jos or leis being only the Jats form of leich.

If we once grasp this relationship of the Kuwnkelstuben to the
old hileih, the numerous police regulations against them become
intelligible ;? we then understand why the Pfarrer of Depshofen
reported in 1625 the great immorality among the young people at
the Gungelhiuser held at night; why the Pfarrer Gaisser in his

1 One Kiltfrage runs: ‘‘ What is the difference between a dear soul and a
poor soul (Liebenseele and Armenscele) ¢” i.e. between a sweetheart and the soul
of the dead. ‘‘ With the former one puts the candles out, for the latter one
lights them.”

® For very full information on this and other points, see Birlinger, Volk-—
thiimliches aus Schwaben, 1862, Bd. ii. pp. 431 et seg., and Aus Schwaben, Neue
Sammlung, 1874, Bd. ii. pp..356 et seq.

THE ‘MAILEHN’ AND ‘KILTGANG’ 4II

Noah’s Ark of 1693 speaks of the ‘“Tanzen und andern Kunkel-
stuben” destroying all Christian integrity, and condemns their
improper tales, songs and ribald actions; why indeed an old
devotional book of about 1750 tells us that no maids of good
character frequent them, for the talk is unkeusch, the dancing frech,
and the singing consists of Buhilieder—a reminiscence, indeed, of
the winileod, which had troubled the Christian teachers nearly a
thousand years before! The same book tells us that many Kunkel-
stuben can hardly be distinguished from Hexenzusammenkunfften,
and that in judicial proceedings women and maids have frequently
confessed that it was in the Kunkelstuben that they were made witches.
We have, in fact, the full identification of the old hileth, the Hexen-
mahl and the Kili,—one and all are fossils of the old sex-festival.
The ribald dances of the Kwnkelstube are not merely an outburst
of coarse peasant natures, they are a fossil of the worship of the
old goddess of fertility.

As.if to complete the round of feast, choral-dance, sex-festival,
judicial assembly, we find the Kunkelstube identified in the devo-
tional work just referred to with the Heimgarten. The Heimgarten
- gehen is exactly equivalent to the Kiligang in its double sense of the
private rendezvous and the gathering of maids and youths in the
Kunkelstube or Hochstube.! In a confessional book of 1693, quoted by
Birlinger, the penitent says, “Ich habe gebult, ich hab gehéstubet,
ich hab gehaimgartet, ich bin zu einem Migdlein gangen.” We find,
in 1618, Haimgarten glossed conventiculum amicorum seu vicinorum,
and in police orders it is identified with Kunkelstube. The priests
describe going to dances and Heimgarten as snares of the devil.

Now in a gloss to Prudentius given by Graff (Diutiska, Bd. ii.
p. 347), we find foro, heimgart, and there can be little doubt that the
original sense of the word is hedged-in or fenced place, the hag (p.
128). It is just such a fenced-in place that we have seen was the
scene of the primitive judicial assembly, and the origin of forum, agora
and mahal. But just as in the latter cases we have seen a relation
to the sex-gathering, so we find gart glossed both chorus and leno-
cinium, while Hayngarten is dance, conventicle, Kunkelstube, and also
the site of the judicial gathering. The Haingarten was the fenced
place of the imperial tribunal at Rotweil, and the last Hofgericht was

1 See inter alia the Kundl Dorfordnung in Die tirolischen Weisthiimer, Bd.
il. pp. 361, 362.

412 APPENDIX I

held in the Haingarten in 1784. The court, according to the Zim-
mersche Chronik (ed. Barack, Bd. ii. p. 306), was held under a linden
tree, and the Lindengart, wherein the Hofgericht was always opened
and ended, was termed the Haimgarten. The reader who remembers
the dance of the Landvogt under the linden tree (p. 155 ftn.), the
peasant dances under the linden, the betrothal kiss under the linden
(p. 84), the gart as chorus and lenociniwm, will be prepared to see
in the Haingarten the site of the old sex-festival, developing on the
one hand into peasant customs, and on the other into judicial cere-
monies. The Kiligang and Haingarten are but other phases of the
same ideas as we have found associated with hileih, mahal, and
Hexensabbath.

The philological connection of Kilé with A.S. eveld, O.N. kveld,

Danish kveld, evening, seems to me by no means so definite and
clear as some writers hold. The references in which Kilé can be
taken as simply denoting eveningtide are very hard to find; they
can equally well be referred to the Spinnstube or the night-visit.
The evening gathering may itself have introduced the notion of
evening into Kilt. The one strong point on the other side is the
appearance of the word chwiltiwerch in a document of 817. It runs :—

Ut servi et ancillae conjugati et in mansis manentes tributa et vehenda ~

et opera vel texturas seu functiones quaslibet dimidia faciunt, excepto
aratura ; puellae vero infra salam manentes tres opus ad vestrum et tres
sibi faciant dies, et hoc, quod alamanni chwiltiwerch dicunt, non faciant.

This might well denote an early prohibition of night spinning, which
we have seen associated with the Kilt meetings—even the witch
takes her distaff to the bacchanalian Hexenmahl—it does not seem
to me to necessarily connect Kilt with cveld. Remembering the
probable sense of womb in wif and of gathering in ping, we may
possibly identify the Kiltgang with the wifping, and both ultimately
with the Hexen, or wood-women, going with their distaves and

spindles to the Hexenmahl. In this case the primitive value of Kilt

must be sought in Gothic kilbei, the womb, Swedish dialect kilta,
Icelandic kelta, the lap, and Lithuanian Kiltis, kin, race (kunni). The
Kiligang would thus, in philology as well as in folklore, be the
Vergaderung. .

te el ee ee 1 oe

\ f

yen
-

a

ee ug

tial}

we

ca

APPENDIX II

ENGLISH SIXTEENTH-CENTURY CHURCH-PLAYS

THERE is probably much still to be gleaned concerning the religious
drama in England even as late as the sixteenth century. The chief
sources of information will be the churchwardens’ accounts in rural
parishes. As illustration of this, I print in this appendix most in-
teresting entries from the accounts for two small Essex towns, copies
of which I owe to the courtesy of Mrs. Sydney Courtauld, of Bocking
Place, Braintree, and Mr. Fred. Chancellor, Mayor of Chelmsford.

A. Extracts from a copy of the Accounts of the Church of
St. Michael, Braintree.

Anno 1523. A Play of S‘ Swythyn, acted in the Church on a Wednes-
day, for which was gathered 6:14:114; P* at the said Play, 3:1:4;
due to the Church, 3:13 : 74.

Anno 1525. There was a Play of S* Andrew acted in the Church the
Sunday before Relique Sunday ; Rc’, 8:9:6; P*,4:9:9; Due to the
Church, 3:19 :8.

Anno 1529. A Play in Halstead Church.

Ann. 23 H viti. JIn° Payne, Ld. of Misrule, and his company. A
guile of S* John.

Anno 1534.1 A play of Placy Dacy alias St Ewe Stacy. R’*,
14:17:64; P*4, 6:13:73; due, 8:2:84.

Anno 1567. R* of the Play money, 5:0: 0.

Anno 1570. Rec* of the Play money, 9:7:7,; and for letting the
Playing garments, 0:1 : 8.

Anno 1571. Rec* for a Playbook, 20°; and for lending the Play gere,
8:7°. This year the Plague in Braintree.

Anno 1579. Sold 3 curtains for 6:4; and for the Players Apparel,
50*.

These extracts show us that plays were given in the Essex
churches up to 1525, and in connection with them, and most

1 From 1533 to 1537 the well-known Nicholas Udall, author of the play
of Roister Doister, was vicar of Braintree.

414 APPENDIX JI

probably inside them, up to 1570. The players’ apparel was sold
off in 1579, very near the time it was sold at Chelmsford.

B. Extracts from the Accounts of the Churchwardens of Chelmsford.

The old accounts of the Churchwardens of Chelmsford commence
in 1557, *

The first Inventory of ‘Church goods is dated 21st July 1560,
and are arranged under the following heads :—Coopes, Vestements,
Clothes belongynge to the high aulter and the frunte of redd
velvet, Latten, Lynnen, Bookes, Pewter belonging to y*® Church,
Plate sold by y* Churchwardens,—but it is difficult to say which of
the various items enumerated were used in the services of the
Church and which for other purposes.

On the 27th February 1563 another Inventory was made, and
in this a distinction was apparently drawn between items used for
the Church and for other purposes, as, after enumerating the former,
there follows under the head of “ Garments ” the following (remarks
in brackets being additions probably of later date) :—

Item fyrst iiij gwones of red velvet.
» a longe gowne of blew velvet.
», a short gowne of blew velvet.
,, a gowne of blacke velvet (very much worne).
> ij gownes of red satten, one much shorter than the other.
5, a gowne of borders,
5, a gowne of clothe of Tyshew.
5 a jerkyn of blew velvet with sleves.
» ajerkyn of borders w‘out sleves.
,. viii jerkyns w‘out sleves (one wanted).
»» ij vyces coates, and ij scalpes, ij daggers (1 dagger wanted).
5 V prophets cappes (one wantinge).
5, vi capes of furre, and one of velvet (one of these on the gownes).
,, lij jeyrkyns, iij flappes for devils, ij payer gloves.
,» liij shepehoks, iiij whyppes (but one gone).
55 a red gowne of saye (Iron axxe . . . new).
»» Xxiii berdes(.. . wanted), xxi hares.
5, a jernet of blewe velvet w* border.
5, & mantell of red Bawdkyn.
», iij jerkes of red bawdkyn with sleves.
», a ffawken of brasse.

ENGLISH CHURCH-PLAYS

415

In the list of Payments up to 22nd March 1563 are the follow-

ing :—

Inprms paid unto the Mynstrolls for the Show day and

for the play day

Itm paid unto Burtenwood for ther meat and drink

99

9?

99

9

Item paide
”

99

29

unto the trumpetur for his paynnes .

unto Burtenwood for meat and drink for the
drumme player, the flute ety and the
trumpeter .

unto the flute player for his paynes . .

unto M* Beadilles man for playeing on the
drom : ; :

unto M* Brice for his paynes, in part of
paymente ‘ :

unto Bollybrook for hym sha v men for six
daies é ;

unto — the sawyer, for ix daies work
at xxi’ the daye ;

for bordinge of Boollibrook and his men

for bordinge Mattrace and his man

unto one Johnson a tailler for makynge of
garments . ‘

to one Smith a tailler

unto Robarde Lee the paynter :

unto Willm Hewet for makinge the vices
coote, a fornet of borders, and a Jerken
of borders

the Cowper for xiiij hoopes .

to John Lockyer for making iiij ass hoke
and for iron work that Burle occupied for
the hell . ‘

to Rob* Mathews for a paier of wombes

to Burles for suing the play . ‘

to Lawrence for watching in the Churche when
the temple was a-dryenge .

for carrying of plonk for the stages ij cee a
a half at ij viij the day

for the mynstrells soper a Saturday ne ae

for ther breakfast on Sonday mornynge

for ther dynners on Sonday .

XX

ij

xx
Xxil
xii
xliij
vii
xiij
iiij
Vili

ij

ij

XViii
ilij

vi
iiij
ilij

ij

i

Xvi
iiij

iiij

iiij

416 APPENDIX IT

Item paide for ther soper on Sonday : : ij

fe for ther breakfaste on Mondaye : ee ij
= for ther dynners on Mondaye ‘ ij
ys for ther dynners that kepte the scaffold on

Sondaye . illj iilj
- for ther sowppers that st on the scaffold

at Sondaye at nyght xv]
5 for drink brought to the scaffold ; : ilij
os for breade and drink among the plaers ; iij
ss for drink on the scaffold on Mondaye . xii
5 unto the Mynstrells for twoo daies_ . , xx
x" to the same men for goynge to Branktree ; x
a8 for the breakfast on Tewsday morne . ; ij
3 laide out for my parte for the plaiers dynners

at Branktree at the showe ther. ; vii viij
= to the trumpetter ther ; ‘ XX
- for a horsse hyer to Branktre ; ; xij
“ for horssemeat at Branktre . : : xij
ss for Jennyns and Coks expenses at Branktre . vi’ a
i geven to Bullybrooks men besyddes ther wages xii
‘ unto M”* Scotte for pasturynge the mynstrells

horsse at the furst playe . ; : ij
», unto him more for pasturynge the said horsses

for ii) dayes and one nyght at the last playe iij
f to Jenyns for his paynes at Brancktre and at

this towne ‘ ; Vv
for drink brought to fs Aes P Vili
us for Coks and Jennyns breakfaste on Seadage xij
zs for ther dynners on Sondaye . ; : xij
7a for the mynstrells dynners at Brancktre ; ij

Mony recyved at the seconde play by Water Baker, Thomas Jeffrey,
and Thomas Hunwick, churchwardens, xvij. xi. iij, and paid as
folowith :—

8.
Inprims unto William Withers for quarters borde and

for wages leide out to his men as appereth by hys

bill lij ix

Item paid to M" Daynila atid Willm Wiatearorth
that they lende out for ther dynners at Maldon . Xliij

ENGLISH CHURCH-PLAYS

417
S.
Item paid unto M* Browne that he laid out at Maldon
at our show ther . 4 A iij iiij
unto M* Knote that he layde out at Maldon : v
> to M* Dowe for meate and drink brought to
the scaffold the furste play daye : iiij *
* to M* Browne for the waightes of Bristowe
and for ther meate drink and_horse-
meat iiij = -viij
zg to M* Bridges for eeltees iiij
5 to W™ Brownynge for cloth as ‘sceeht =
his Bill ; XXXVi vi
is unto Burles for suinge the last she and for
makyng the conysants : xlij
4 unto him for flower and rede nailles . iiij
si to Cales for vi daies worke fynding hymself
meate and drink . ; vi
re unto William Richards for nnkete of ive
gownnes and iiij Jerkens . vi —-Viij
5s unto father Stroode for iiij disshes iijj
of to John ffust for v daies work iij iiij
s unto him for sice and cullers XVjj
* to Edmond Strether for bording of Burles kaa
his boy iij weekes. XV]
sf unto hym for wood . XX
pe 9» 10F candill . iij
ss »» >, for bording John Fust v etca Xx
2 for the carriage home of M* Barber’s apparell . lilj
- unto John Stucke for meate and drink for M’*
Brice’s borde & for his horse meat . xiii ij
‘i unto Andrew for heres and beardes borrowed
of hym ; iilj
a more paid unto Nicholas Eve for necessaries
againste the playe xiii iiiiij
” to M* Mildmay for ij loodes of sates for the
stages aio
oe forty Mynstrells eA and ake st the eat
play xij
Re for a colderkin and a enken ouat tats ihe
scaffold : ; vi
ms for breade and meate at the same tyme vi Vij
VOL. II 25

418 APPENDIX II

S.
1562. Receivede at the ij last plaies by Thomas Jeffery
and Thomas Hunwick, Wardens ik Se
More received of the men of Sabsforde for the hier
of the garments, An. 1562 XXix
More received of the same men for the hyer of the
same garments in 1563 ; XXX
More received for hyer of the same garments of M*
William Peter, Knyght Xvi
Imprimo Paid unto William Wyglesworth of old debt for
tymber bought of hym at the firste playe xxxiij
Fe unto the goodman Browne of the Cocke, for
old debt he lente at the furste playe xl
i unto Edmond Sabryght for olde debte Xxiij
3 more to Edmond Whyght for olde debt Vij
Paid to John Stucke for old debte xiij.iiij, and for other
charges syns (vi. viii in all) : XX
» unto the mynstrells for the showe day and for the’
playe daye XXxliJ
,, for board for the players ij
» for bearing the payments for drink for hin ij
, Richard Parker and William Wythers for suinge the
play and fyndinge themselves xl
» to Brocke for helpinge them vi
» to William Withers for making the fare for the
heaven stage, and tymber for the same x
», more unto him for nailles and gluowe
», to Christopher for writtinge iiij
», to Henry Gaynner for cullers : ij
5, to Thomas Whale, tailler, for xxi'* of gonpowder xiiij
» to Thomas Jeffrey for divers wares sett of him for
the play lvii
» to Richard Parker for suing ay. last plang: ana
fynding hymself ; :
» in rewarde to John Turner -for Hiss paynes taking x
», to George Martindale for divers wares sett of hym
for the plaies . : xvi
» to Matthew Sonnes for suinge the same (last playe) . %
,», to Richard Burd for two daies payntenge ij
, to John Fuste in like manner ij
», to William Withers for makynge the last densiptl
the waies, and his paynnes xilij

liij

iiij

ilij

viij

XX.

ilij

vij

Viij

ilij

ENGLISH CHURCH-PLAYS 419
Paid to the Cowper for one greate hope and xv smale hopes xix
,, to Thomas Logge for hoopes sett of hym by Burles
at the furst playe vii
», to John Wryght for makyinge a Sita of Jather for
Christ . xvi
Itm paid to Solomon of Hatfild for Saree ij
» to the Widdow Pamplen for lyne and spekitieved ij ij
» at Brancktre when the play was showed ther
paid by Thos. Hunnock vij Vij
, fordrink for the players when the play was iahastes Xviil
» to Mother Dale and her company for reaping
flagges for the scaffold xij
,, to Polter and Rosse for watching in the pightell 2
on the play show ‘ iV). my
», for ij’ of assendewe for the ‘hard playe Vie cy
» for one doss Spanyshe whight . vi
» for vi dos gold foile ij vl
», for vi paper bordes xij
» for hopes xij
» for fyftie fadam of vie for the shonden: xii
» for one dos. grene foile xii
» for ij lb. reade leade vi
» for ij lb. Brassoll vi
» for iij paper bordes viii
», for iiij* Synop papers . ; viii
» for tenn men to beare the pagiante : ij vj
» to Browne for keapinge the cornehill on the
showe daye . ; ii]
» to Roistone for payntenge Ft J ote the
pagiante, and writing the plaiers names Vij
» to Henry Gaynners for cullers . ij vj
» for paper to wright the Bookes j
» to Richard Burde for ij daies payntenge id
making the liveries . : ‘ : iij ij
» for read wyne, vineg" and ressett ilij
» fora black plate ? vi
,, to Mother Dale for reaping fagges xii
» ‘for half a thousand of ij’ nailes and half 2 a
thousand of iij* nailes ij vi

1 Pightell =inclosure.
2 Was this Judas’ black nimbus? See p. 359.

420 APPENDIX II

Item Paide for half a lb. Asshenders for the last play . xliij
=. for 1 lb. bottome pakthrede . ; ; vi
i for 1 dos gold foile . : ; ; vi
q for 1 lb. Spanish browne. . ij
an for five matches ‘ ; ; : ij
‘ for Bowstringes ; ; : ; j
te to Mother Dale for flagges_ . ibe xij
‘4 for one bundell lathe ; xij

~ to Thomas Jeffrey for dyvers panila btt of
hym for the plaies as appereth by hys
booke . ‘ : ‘ li 9 vij xj

The acompte made by Nycolas Eve, Robert Wood, and George
Martendale, wardens of the goodes of the Pishe Churche of Chelmsforde
aforesayd, from the xxvii of Feb’ 1563 unto the third day of March
1565, in the ayght yere of the Raigne of our Sovraigne Lady Elizabeth, by
the grace of God, of England, France, and Ireland Quene, defender of
the faith, etc.

The following are extracted from the account as relating to the
plays :—

Ss.
Recayved of Coulchester men for our garments for the use

of there playe . : . . xliii iij
,, of men of Waldyne for the here of iij gounes_ . x
», Of Beleryca men for the here of our garments . xxvii Viij
i of men of Coulchester for the here of our garments
for ij tymes f : : xiil iiij
s of Belyrica men for the here of our garments . XX
ns of men of Starford for the here of our
garments . et" -lij vi viij
Ns of children of Badow for the fies of our
garments . : vis Vij
3 of Lytell Badow men for the ny of our
garments . , ‘ : - XXvVl Wij
Payments to William Rychards for mending of our
garments and j scayne of sylke : ; ilij ij
55 to John Lockear for mendynge of the Cloke iij
tymes : : ; ; : vi

Receipts, 3rd June 1566—
of Sabsforde men for the hyer of the players
garments . - ; : : ; xl

ENGLISH CHURCH-PLAYS 421
Ss.
Receipts, 3rd June 1566—
of Casse of Boreham for the hier of the players
garments . , : : xlij ilij
of Somers of Lanchire for the hier of the siavers
garments . XXV1__—- Vij
of Barnaby Riche of Witham for the vee of the
players garments XXVl__—-Vilij
of Will” Monnteyne of Colchester for the ee of thé
players garments . xiii liij
of M* Johnston of Brentwonde for ‘the yer of the
players garments the 10 Dec. x
of Richard More of Nayland for players iat iiij viii
of Frauncis Medcalfe the iiij of June 1568 for two
players gownes ij
of W™ Crayford of Burnam the ij of June 1568 for
players apparell : Vv
Receites by me John Bridges from the Xvi oveniban
1570 unto the xx™ January 1571 as followell :—
of High Ester men for cartine players eer for
ther playe xiii iliij
of Parker of Writtell for the aia of ilij ean
garments . iiij
of M™ Higham of Micha Walter for motion
players apperyle for ther play ‘ x
Resayved by me John Bridges 1572 as follows :—
of Parker of Writtell for players Aprill iij
more of the Earle of Sussex ee for the heare of
the players garments Xxvl__—iViij
of John Walker of Hanfild for dhe! heier of shupers
garments . v

After the election of Churchwardens on 4th October 1573 an
Inventory appears to have been taken, and under the head of

garments as follows :—

Fower gownes of redd velvett.

one longe gowne of blew velvett.

one short gowne of blew velvett.

one gowne of black velvett very much worne.

two gownes of redd Satten, the one much shorter than the other.

one gowne of borders.

422 APPENDIX II

one gowne of clothe of tyssewe.

one jerken of blew velvett w™ sleves.

one jerkyn of blew velvett wthout sleves.
seven jerkens without sleves.

two vyce cots, two scalpes, and one dagger.
foure prophitts cappes.

sixe capes of furre and one of velvett.

one shepe hook, iiij whippes.

a wn6 cappe.

tenne bards, xvii hares.

one jernette of blew velvett with borders.
one Mantell of red Bawdekyn.

three jerkens of red Bawdkyn with sleves.
a ffawkyn of brasse.

Receipts the iiij Oct. 1573— 8.
of Thomas Wallinger for one parcel of red velvett
in length about 1 yard by consent of sundry of the

Parishioners 3 vi Vijj
of Casse of Boreham the ool of in une for the ee
of sundry players garments until Michaelmas night . x

Churchwardens’ account, 28 Nov. 1574—
Item in hand the playe books remaining witt the jp,
said George Martendale witt the rest ji ; Hii)

1574. Receyved of the players of Boreham for the hire
of the players garments till the mondaye
after twelfe day next after . : v

Item soulde unto George Studlye and others all the

' ropes, vestaments, subdeacons, players coats,

jerkens, gownes, heares, cappes, berds,

jornetts, mantells, and capes mentioned in

the Inventorye of the last Churchwardens

by the consent of diverse of the parishioners

as by a byll under their hands apereth

to the use of the mayentenance of the
Church for ; , ; - Vi xij “ny

1575. Paide to M* Knott for the makinge of two

oblijacyons for the assurance of the players
garments belonginge to the Pyshe . viij

We have in these accounts a very vivid picture of the bustle of
the play-days. It is not clear whether the ‘ scaffold’ was inside or

ENGLISH CHURCH-PLAYS 423

~

outside the church, probably the latter. But a portion of the play,
that relating to the ‘temple,’ was apparently given inside the
church. We see that the religious drama was still a source of great
profit to the Church; especially is this apparent when we regard
the relative value of money then and now; and, further, we note
the profit that could be made by letting out the theatrical wardrobe
at a period when the whole countryside was clamorous for the
players. About 1575 we find the connection between Church and
stage comes to an end, and then within a couple of decades the stage
as a lay institution had reached almost the zenith of its power.

APPENDIX III

ON THE SEX-SIGNIFICANCE OF ‘TILTH’

THIS matter is of special interest when we consider the Aryan
identification of goddesses of fertility and of agriculture. It has
already been noticed on pp. 27, 42, 44, 106, 123, 124 ftn., 169,
207. The widespread use of the tilth ‘kenning’ among the
Greeks is illustrated by the following passages, to which I have
been referred by my colleague, Professor Hausman: Aeschylus,
Septem contra Thebas 754; Sophocles, Oedipus Rex 1211, 1257,
1485, 1497, Antigone 569; Theognis, 525; Plato, Laws 839 A,
Cratylus 4068; Euripides, Troades 135, Medea 1281, Orestes _
553, Phoenissae 18. Further, in the Attic law, zaidwy dporos
yvnciwy was the regular phase for ‘the begetting of legitimate
children.’ In Latin I may note the sex-significance of vomer, the
ploughshare, the use of the phrase arare fundum alienum for adultery,
and that of sulcus, furrow, for the female pudenda. To the same
idea in Sanskrit reference has already been made on p. 199.
Turning to the Germanic dialects, we note the lines of Hofmanns-
waldau :

im paradiesz da gieng man nackt und blosz,
und durfte frei die liebesacker pfliigen.

In the Erzihlungen and Fastnachtspiele of the Middle Ages plough-

ing is used in the same sense, while furche is used much as sulcus.
Thus—

etlich die dick der wend abmessen,
visiren des nachts die maide dar durch
und ackern mer, dann einerlei furch.
Ein spil von der Vasnacht, Keller, p. 386.

SEX-SIGNIFICANCE OF ‘TILTF’ 425

In the light of this, Frigg, the goddess of fertility, with her plough
and the whole series of Germanic folk-customs, which involve the
yoking of the unmarried women, or rather women who decline to
marry, to the plough of the goddess, become more or less intelligible.
But of these customs I hope to treat on another occasion. _ Lastly,
besides the reference to tilth on p. 207, an examination of Shake-
speare’s Pericles, Act iv. scene 6, and his Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii.
scene 2, will show that the sex-significance of plough was as
familiar in medizval England as in the lands which used bauer and
cultus in the sense of wantonness.

APPENDIX IV

THE ‘GERICHT’ AND ‘GENOSSENSCHAFT’
A. On ‘§ Gericht.’

THE basis of gericht itself is Teutonic rak, Aryan rag, rez, and this
may, with some slight boldness, be connected with the series of ideas
we have found in the mahal and the kin-group. All the notions
of regal, rich, right, righten, reach, rig, are associated with the root.
The primitive notion in many. Aryan tongues is stretch out,
straighten, erect. Thus Greek épéyw is to stretch out, grasp, dpyvia,
for dpéyuia, is span. I think the idea of setting up a mark, fence,
or similar erection is also primitive. Thus we have Icelandic ré¢t,

to pen, O.N. ret, an inclosure for cattle,! and the Latin erigo, with —

the notion of build, erect. The term regere fines, to mark the
boundaries, is also very suggestive. The root does not seem free
from the notion of the hag or fence placed round the site of the old
mahal. The Gothic reks, as in bireks, signifies the inclosed or shut
in. Just as the fenced land of the kin led us from cyneland to the
kingdom, so we find in Gothic reiki, O.N. riki, O.H.G. rihhi, AS.
rice, Danish rige, Modern German reich, the lordship. The kin-
alderman becomes the Gothic recks, chief, lord; Sanskrit rdjan,
Gaelic rig, Latin rex, chief or king. But just as the kin-chief does
not always get further than the master or parent, so we find that
while Irish ri is king, Welsh rhi is dominus and nobilis (p. 135),
while rhiant is parent. Further, while Irish régan is queen, Welsh

1 In Landsmaal rett is a straight flat markstrackning, and langrett is used
in the same sense. But rett is also used for teig in the sense of a fenced piece of
land, whether meadow or tilth. I would venture to compare it with dpyds for
dépeyds, which, exactly like rett, may include meadow, tilth, and even wood.

The rett, like the édpyds, may very probably have originally been sacred to a
mother-goddess, 7.¢. a hayngarten.

Se

THE ‘GERICHT’ 427

rhiain is virgo, puella ; in other words, while in Irish the kone has
developed into queen, in Welsh she remained the quean. It is
difficult to appreciate how a primitive notion of ruling could de-
generate into virgo, but the ascent to queen we have followed in
kone (p. 116). That, on the other hand, the pen or fence notion
can lead to all the ideas of rea, king, and gericht, judicial court, we
have already seen. Take hegen with the original sense of hedging,
and we find heger for a defender, protector, prince. To be the
heger seines volkes is often described as the mission of a ruler.
Hegerding and hegergericht are the judicial courts of a group of
peasants who are holders, so-called hegermanni or hiigeri, of a hag or
hagen. In the Grafschaft Schaumberg seven villages are termed die
sieben freien hagen, and the hegerding was the court held in the hag,
the gehegtes gericht, by the hegerminner. Here the correspondence to
the ret and the gericht are very striking. Even the O.H.G. kastalt,
which we have come across in the gestalt of the hag, modern
hagestolz, will be found glossed judex, as well as famulus and
mercenarius. Lastly, we may compare hag, the fitting, the
orderly, the skilful, the wise (pp. 130, 131) with the notions
of order and security involved in the refé and right series of words.
To further justify our position, we ought to see the notion of the
meal and the dance, or combined the hexenmahl, arising out of the
rak, reg root. In the first place, we notice the use of gericht for a
portion of food ; the idea at first might be that it is simply what is
handed or reached. But the significant thing is that this sense is
common to nearly all the Germanic tongues, and must therefore be
primitive. O.N. rétr is either a judicial court or a meal, a mil,
either as mahal or mahl. M.H.G. rihte, riht is either a judicium or
prepared food, while Swedish rdtt, Danish ret, have the like senses
of food. The meal notion is thus not wanting. Turning to the
_ dance notion we have, in the first place, the German reige, reihe,
which is essentially a choral dance. Fick seeks the origin of this
word in Sanskrit rej, spring, tremble, and compares Gothic reiran,
tremble, as giving the base of the word. The old forms are reyge,
rey, reye, M.L.G. rege, rei, reige, and I would ultimately connect
with the reg, rak series. ‘The reige is a choral dance, for the minne-
singer speaks of singing a rez ; it was peculiarly a peasant dance in
the open air in summer or springtime; it was a violent dance; it
was, as Grimm points out, gesprungen, and not getreten. For the

428 APPENDIX IV

Middle Ages the dancing of the Virgin and saints in heaven,! of the
devils in hell, and the soul- and death-dances (see pp. 337-342), are
all reigen. The reigen were often conducted under the linden-tree,
the spot later of the gericht and of betrothal, earlier of the sex-festival
(p. 412). From this aspect the Low German reien, réen, which is
used of loitering about in the streets in the evening, especially of
maids who run after men, is peculiarly significant. A Liibeck Zunft
order forbids the journeymen tailors, when holding their reyen on .
Walpurgistag, to have women and maidens present. Further we
find that it was the custom in Liibeck for the bridegroom to come
into the bride’s house with a sammelinge to dantzende edder to reyende.
The sense of reige, I think, is preserved in English rig, a frolic, rig,
a wanton, and rigge, to be wanton, corresponding with German
reien just cited. The above sexual sense of the rag root might be
thought to be limited to the Germanic branch of the Aryan tongues,
but I venture to think we can trace it also in the Greek. I have
already pointed to the dpyds as the fenced meadow. Now the
épyds between Athens and Megara was a tract sacred to the god-
desses of fertility, Demeter and Persephoné.? Young marriageable
women were termed dpydées, possibly from the tilth analogy, but at
least comparable with Welsh rhiain for virgo. In Greek épy% (for
épey7)) we have the conception of passion, doubtless in the earliest
period sexual passion ; dpydéw (for épeydéw) is to swell with lust, to
wax wanton, and corresponds to the sense in English rig and Low
German reien, and less closely to the sense of excite in Latin erigo,
Modern German eregen, and more grossly to the use of vragen in the
Fastnachtspiele. But the dpyds, as the haingarten of the goddess of
fertility, is the seat of the dpyia (for dpey.a), the sexual festival to
the goddess of fertility, whose priest and priestess are the dpyedy and
dpyewvy.® Thus we have made the whole round from the root rag,
the judicial court, the meal, the sex-festival with its worship of a
goddess of fertility, the choral dance in the inclosure, and the tribe
leader developing into parent, king, and priest. We have the hag
1 (Maria speaks)
min briutgom viiert den reigen da
die heilegen tanzent alle na.
Marienleben, cited in Grimms’ Wérterbuch.
2 See references in Index II.

5 The Norse use of regin for the gods, and the verb ragna, to call down the
gods’ anger on any one, may possibly be compared.

THE ‘GENOSSENSCHAFT’ 429

and gat notion of primitive Aryan life again repeated, if it be ina
less definite form.

B. The ‘ Genossenschaft.’

The root of the word here is one of the most interesting in
the whole range of specially Teutonic developments. The sense of
the word is to be found in genieszen, to enjoy, but with the under-
lying and antique sense of enjoying in common. Hildebrand, in
Grimms’ Worterbuch,' takes the original sense to have been acquiring
in common by the hunt or by war, and the later to be that of
common enjoyment. He bases his interpretation on the use of the
strengthened forms— Anglo-Saxon beneotan for rob, and Gothic
ganiutan in the sense of capture. I venture to think this notion is
rather a development of the original sense of the word, especially
among warlike Teutonic stems, the chief occupation of whom was
the acquirement of booty incommon. 0O.H.G. niozan is uti, frui, usu
capere, capere cibum ; ganiuzan is consumere, but the idea of rob does
not occur. Accordingly the uses of the Gothic ganiutan in the
sense of take fish (Luke v. 9), and catch (Mark xii. 13), besides
nuta for fisherman, seem to me quite easy derivative notions.
The Gothic niutan, A.S. niotan, O. Fries. nieta, O.N. ‘niota, all
retain the simple notion of use, enjoy, without that of rob.
Lithuanian panist is lust after, and naudd profit. The ultimate
root appears to be nu, or with a guttural nu-d- (possibly Sanskrit
nand, enjoy, rejoice may be connected). The sense is to use, to
profit by, to enjoy, and therefore, in early times, with special applica-
tion to food and sex. But I have already traced the community
of primitive society in bed and board. Hence the fundamental
application of the root is to what is enjoyed in common. The use
notion is very widespread. In Scandinavian we have nautna, neyta,
nyde, to enjoy, to eat, njota nytte, to use, eat, benytie, and the nouns
denoting help, utility, corresponding to Danish nytte, O.N. nyt. In
German we have all the notions of use, enjoyment in niitzen and
niitze ;* English dialect gives us nate, etc. In Landsmaal naut, in

1 See under genieszen and genosz. I have freely used Hildebrand’s citations.

2 0.H.G. nutz has the sense of profit, produce of the land ; Friesian not is
the word for agricultural produce of all sorts, O.N. nyt is specially used of dairy
products, in other words, we are carried back to the most primitive sense of the
useful or profitable as food. A cognate series is O.H.G. niot, O.F. niod, A.S.

430 APPENDIX IV

O.N. nautr, is a comrade, one who enjoys in common. The German
has not retained this simple form, but has put all the ancient ideas
of common life into the strengthened form genieszen. This word
denotes essentially the idea of common enjoyment; it is not only
eating and drinking, but pleasure in so doing. The noun geniesze, or
in its more usual form genusz, is essentially the pleasurable satis-
faction of appetite in contradistinction to the mere desire, the
begierde. Like niezen it is used of the satisfaction of sexual appetite :
er niz ir jungen siiezen lip, biz daz diu maget wart eim wip (Daz
heselin, Gesammtabenteuer, li. p. 9). Genieze in M.H.G. is used of a
female comrade, the later genossin. While genieze in M.H.G. is used
of food and love, its O.H.G. sense was undoubtedly gemegeniesze,
the nutznieszung in gemeinschaft. Kven Luther in his Bible transla-
tion gives the mittheilung of the older German versions, the participatio
of the Vulgate, by geniess: “ What fellowship—ageniess—hath right-
eousness with unrighteousness ?” (2 Cor. 6,14). The typical word
is O.H.G. ganéz, kindz, equivalent to O.N. nautr, and glossed socius,
contubernalis, sodalis, aequalis, commilito—in other words, we find the
ganz is exactly like the gataling (p. 154) and the gamahcho (p. 143).
We have the group of vriunte with common living, common house,
and equal privileges, degenerating as the glosses huskinozi, domestici,

and ganéz, cliens, show into the same senses as the hiwa terms (p._.

126) degenerated. It is noteworthy, however, that ganéz stands
for either male or female comrade; it is glossed like ganézinna by
collega. Similarly genieze in M.H.G. is used of either sex, the
genosse or the genossin, the simple mitgenieszer. M.H.G. gendzinne, or
simply genéze, is used for socia, consors, wife.1 Turning back to
O.H.G. we note kinézsam, facundus, in the sense of social ; ganédzsami,
collegia ; gandzsamon, ganézon, both glossed consociare ; ganézscaf,
consortium, contubernium, collegium, sodalitas ; wngendz is one who is
not of the ganédzscaf ; wngendzami is used in the Weisthiimer of a
wife, not one of the genoszschaft ; while the terms mitgendssig and

ungenissig are rendered by consors and exsors. Like senses may be

followed in a more scattered manner in M.L.G. genédt, A.S. genéat,

and Dutch genoot, etc. Hidgenoss is like the etdam (p. 223), the

neod, desire, lust, joy, with the verb niotén, A.S. giniedén, to enjoy to the full,
to rejoice in, and O.H.G. adjective niotsam, desirabilis, ete.

1 Genieszwng is used for genosz, and the two words may be compared with gata-
lung and gatte. It also stands, of course, for enjoyment.

= ~~). ae

THE ‘GENOSSENSCHAFT’ 431

man whose genoszschaft arises from an oath and not from blood.
Suggestive for the common life is the term brétgenossen as equivalent
to éhalten (see p. 126). Weidgenossen, alpgenossen, markgenossen all
indicate the primitive community with its common rights in wood,
pasture, and land.

Thus we see, as in the vriunte, that the genossen were a com-
munity arising from a common satisfaction of appetite, a common
profit. It only remains to show that the genoszschaft was originally
an endogamous group.

It is impossible here to enter on the picture of primitive com-
munal life that the Weisthiimer provide, but one or two points regard-
ing the earliest genoszschaft may be emphasised. In the first place, it
was a group having rights of inheritance, intermarriage, and inter-
change of products. The head of the community had to take care
that the genossen neither wiben noch mannen uszer der gnoszschaft. If
they do, and a child results, that child has no inheritance within the
genoszschaft.1 As the 1320 Ebersheimmiinster Weisthwm puts it,
when a man “usser siner gendssinne grifet, unde gewinnet die ein kint,”
that child is not his heir.2 This custom of marrying within the
genoszschaft will be found in the Weisthiimer right away from Elsass
to Tyrol, and explains the strong feeling against exogamy which
still exists in many an out-of-the-way valley (p. 140). In several

cases we find different lesser or sub-communities claim the right to
give and to take each other’s children in marriage ; and a noteworthy
paragraph in the Schwabenspiegel tells us that if a man dies leaving
two daughters, one of whom has married her genéz and the other
her wngendz, only the former inherits genoszschaft property. The
obvious basis of all this is that group-property was not to pass
out of the old endogamous kin-group. The group is repeatedly
described as consisting of persons e¢nandern genosz und geerb, who may
zu eimanndern varnn vand von einanndern, 1.e. may intermarry.*? Thus it
comes about that a genész may only sell his land and rights within
the genoszschaft, or at least not until he has sought a purchaser
within the geerbe or gendsze. But this restriction stretched a good
deal farther than the land, we find it applied not only to all stand-
ing crops, but to garden produce, to all the produce, in fact, of what

1 J. Grimm’s Weisthiimer, Bd. v. p. 64 (Koelikon, circa 1400).
2 Ibid. Bd. i. p. 669.
3 See the Ofnung von Briitten, Grimm’s Weisthiimer, i. p. 144.

432 APPENDIX IV

in older days had been the common kin-group land. Even fish and
crayfish are in some cases not to be exported. Manufactured
articles, bread, bricks, tiles, ploughs, pots, tubs, etc., must either not
be sold at all outside the genoszschaft, or first offered for sale to the
gendsze. Even tailors, shoemakers, and smiths must work only for
the genésze, or for them in the first place and at a cheaper rate.*
The primitive community is not only endogamous, we see also the
fossils of an older self-sufficing communism. Even in the medizval
gendszschaft, overlaid as it was with developed feudalism, we find
the strongest traces of the old internal self-government. The
alderman or kin-chief may have become an hereditary lord, but the
heimal, fryggeding, or gehegtes gericht of the gendszschaft, held under the
gerichtsbaum, show us clearly enough the old group-habits of the gata-
lunge and the vriunte. Their genieszen is an enjoyment in common
of food, and of the product of the land and chase ; their genuss
(Tyrolese gnuss) is a gemeinnutzwng of woods and pasture; their
geneten, a rechtes geneten, the legal advantage in the mahal. But at
the same time the sex-weight never leaves the words, and the
liebesgenuss it refers to is the endogamous union of a localised
kindred group. The modern genossenschaft is one of the pillars of
our present commercial system, but its origin in the old kindred
group-marriage—the human herd—is hardly more realised than are _
those of right (p. 427) and of love (p. 175). 3

1 See von Maurer, Geschichte der Markeverfassung, 1856, pp. 179-184.

INDEX I.—WORDS AND ROOTS

CITED IN

ESSAY ON KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE?

Non-ARYAN

ARABIAN

batn 117
rehem 117
hayy 124
hawwa 124

FINNISH
aiti 131
isd 131

ARYAN

anth, ath 131

gam 235

gan, gen 113, 117, 132, 134,
135

gelta 194

gelvo 194

ghad 153

ghar 178

ghreudo 149

ka, kar 177, 178

kam 177

jam, gam 225, 235

tak 187, 242

tégo 187

daiai 236

daivér 236

dar, dhar 178

dharg 183

pa 204, 206, 208, 218

pasos 206

pri 168

pu 222

bar 120, 122
bhero 121

lib, lub’ 175, 176, 177
m4 101, 196, 200.
mad 200

mal 200

vedhd 227

vic 190

vid 238

si 162

snu 226

spherag 159
sphoragos 159
star 122

stri 122

si 122, 162
sitar 122

sitri 122

sva 122

svasr 122
svedhd 118, 232

SANSKRIT

amb& 201
udara 132
ulva 199
urvara 199
ga 113
gad 153

gimi 224, 225
gamatri 225
gand’as 153
gara 227
garami 189
g’dras 189
ena 114, 117
gnata 118
gnati 118
cakamana 177
kam 177
kama 177
kamra 177
ksa 123

k’si 123
k’sis 123
k’sitis 123
jam 224
jarta 194
yatar 234
taksh 187
tatas 208
toka 187
dampati 190
d’avas 101, 237
dayate 236
devar 236
dhar 179
dhri 178
dhridha 178
ddgd’rt 223
déhas 223
dug 101, 222

1 The spelling and grouping adopted is that of the sources from which the words have been
taken, and is therefore not always consistent. The index is solely for purposes of reference,
and lays no claim to being a scientific classification. All the pages in this Index refer to

Vol, II.
VOL. II.

2F

434 INDEX I

duh 222 gvacrfis 229 déro. 235
dug’a 223 sabbya 162 "AOjvn 131
duhita 222 sabha 162 ddéw 149
dru, daru 179 savam 221 &NjPovea 149
nafsu 218 si 134 Go 124
napat 218 siv 162 avewids 218
naptjam 218 snushé 226 av0éw 131
pasas 206 sOmas 222 dvOos 131
patar 205 su 221 avvis 229
patra 208 sfinas 221 dporos 124
pitrvjas 208 sfinus 221 dpovpa 124
putra 222 suta 221 dpdw 124
pra-av 170 situ 221 Bptw 119
pramatha 112 sva 229 yada 234
praudha 118 svatu 118 yarws 234

pravah 118

pri 166, 170
prija 166

prijaja 166
prijas 166

prita 172

priti 172

Pritis 166, 168
bhar, bhr 120
bhartar 122
bhartri 121
bhavana 185
bhratar 120, 121
bhratarau 122
bhu, bu 184, 185
bhiiti 185

b’rud 101, 113
buli 185

lubh, lob 175
lubdha 175
manmatha 112
manth, math 112
mataputrau 199
matar 199
mitaréu 198
matr 196
matrikaé 197, 202, 204
matrka 140
matrkas 202
vaduja 227
vadhtii 227

vama 134

vanas 134
vapanam 193
vapra 193

veca 190

vicpati 190

vi, vip, 192, 193
vidh 237
vidhava 101, 237
vidhii 237

céva 125

ci 128

curas 229
evacura 229, 234

svesrino 235
svagura : see cvacura
svakurjas 230

syalas 235

HINDUSTANEE

sis 232
susra 232

ZEND—PERSIAN

ghena 114

zami 225

zamatar 225
dokhter (Pers.) 222
napat (Pers.) 218
bratuirya 216
vadhemn6 227
viepaiti 190

vip (Bact.) 198
vipta (Bact.) 193
sapah (Pers.) 162
sipa (Pers.) 162
sipah (Pers.) 162
sipahi (Pers.) 162

ARMENIAN

ordz 189
tagr 236
hayr 206

ALBANIAN

vovoeja 226
vovoepla 226, 227

GREEK
ayabes 155
dvyelpw 156

dyopd 156, 157, 158, 242

ayopala. 157

ddeAgds 120

yauBpds 225
yauety 235
yauew 138, 225
yduos 138
yaornp 115
yevérwp 113
yéevos 115
yevrep 115
yévw 113
yryveokw 118
yrwrds 118
ypatay 189
yuns 124

yuvy 114, 115
danp 236

dals 236

dalw 236

déATa 194

dps 179

Edvov 227

é6vos 118

éos 118
elvdrepes 234, 235
éxupd 229
éxupds 228, 229, 230
ériOardutos 133
evvy 134

Fé@os 232

F.0- 238

Fotkos 190
MNLOEn 238 -
nlOeos 238
Opévos 179
Ovyarnp 222
Kddos 152
Ketwat 128, 136
kelw 136
Koiudw 136
Kowal 126
Kowvol 126
Kowvds 126
kowdw 126
Kowwvew 126
Kolywua 126
Kowwvia 126

WORDS AND ROOTS 435

kolry 136

Képn 115

Kpddns 189

kdpos 229

Kwun 136, 178
Kk@uos 186, 158
Kkwpwdia 178
révyw 188

Aexw 188

pata 197, 202, 204
pads 197
porevoua 197
parptrn 197
enrnp 196
arpa 197
puANds 150
puddbs 150
pido 150
véetrodes 219

vuds 225

vin 201
oixetos 134
oixetdrns 134, 190
oixkelwua 134, 190
oixta 190

oixos 134, 190
oixodecrérns 190
bpxis 189
map0évos 130
maréouae 204
marnp 205
wdatpws 209
mevOepd 228, 229
mevOepds 229
méos 206

anos, wads 206
Tmoetv tratda 138
moots 206
wérvia 206
coaxés 231

onkos 231
oKiptdw 132
cupmdciov 136
ovvvupos 235
ouvrerpippevous 149
cvvTpiBw 149
ovs 221
ovociriov 122
Tara 208

Téxvov 187
Téxtwy 187
rétra 208
Tevxew 187
téxvn 187
tixrew 187
Tpdvyos 136
Tparywota 137
TplBw 149
Tptwar 149

tims 222

vids 221

bunv 138, 222
pep- 120

gtru 184

gtrus 184

guriw 184
ppdrpa 120, 122
gparpla 165

gu- 184

pvdy 184

gvors 184
guretw 184
gurév 184
pirwp 184, 206, 207, 208
gtw 184, 206
xad- 152, 153
xXapvvyn 193
xavddve 152
xavdds 152
xdpires 178

. xaréw 152

xopés 132, 157, 158, 178
xopratw 157
xdopros 157, 178

LATIN

admater 214
adpater 214
amica 178

amicus 178

amita 216

amo 178
avunculus 215
avus 215

camera 178
caritas 177, 241
caritia 177
carmen 178

carus 177

cauda 188

chorus 178

civis 123

civitas 123
coemptio 138
coelebs 130
cognati 135
cogniti 135
cognosco 118
comis 177
commater 210, 235 .
compater 210
compaternitas 213
concio 151
confarreatio 138, 147, 148
congregatio 156
congressio 156
congressus 156
conjugium 138, 198
conjunctio 151

connubium 198
consobrinus 235
consors 140
consortium 138
consponsae 235
consponsus 235
consuesco 122, 232
consuetio 122
contritos 149
contubernium 138
conversatio 146
convivium 143
convivor 143
cosinus 235
cunnus 113
di-vido 237
dominus 190
domus 190
familia 126
fasciatorium 213
fe- 127, 184
fecundus 127, 185
feles 185

felix 185
femina 185
fenum 127, 185
fer- 120
feretrum 120
fertor 121

fetus 127, 185
filiola 214
filiolus 214
firmus 179
fodrus 207
fovea 120
fovere 120
frater 120
fratria 241
fretus 179
friare 121
frutex 119
geminus 225
gen- 118, 134, 185
gener 225
generosus 135
genialis 135
genialitas 135
genitor 113
genius 135
genu 117

genus 115, 135
gigno 113

glos 234

gnosco 135
grex 156

haga 128, 164
haia 128, 164
haistaldi 129
hortus 158, 178
hymen 138

436 INDEX I

janitrices 234 uterus 132 suth (Old Irish) 221
ju-, jug- 224 vagina 195 tad (Welsh) 208
levir 228, 236 vagus 195

liber 174 venter 115

Liber 175 Venus 114
Libitina 175 veretrum 120 ANGLE eae
lubere 175 vibrare 192 adum 223

lubido 175 vicus 190 bearnum 209

mater 196 vidua 237 braedan 120
materia 199, 200, 201 viduus 237 brid 119

maternitas 198 viere 192 brid 120

maternus 214 virgo 180 brittan 120
matertera 202 voluptas 174 brod 119

Matrae 199
Matralia 201
matricula 203
matrimonium 198

matrix 118, 197, 200, 203

modus 200
molentes 149
nepos 219
nepotes 202
neptis 219
nitor 117
nobilis 135
nubere 101, 118, 192
nura 226
nurus 225, 226
pabulum 204, 207
panis 204
paricida 206
pasco 204, 205
pastor 205
pater 205
paternus 214
patrinus 212
patruelis 209
penis 206
plebs 127
potens 206
progenies 203
prosapia 163
puer 222
pusus 222
putus 222
sobrinus 219, 230, 235
soca 231

socer 228
socrus 228, 229, 230
soga 231
sponsor 214
spurcalia 159
suavaum 232
sueo 122

supa 164
supanos 164
suppar 164

sus 162, 221
trudere 123
uterinus 230

volva 188, 194
volvere 195
vulva 194

ROMANCE

ama (Span.) 204
ama (Languedoc) 204
amo (Span.) 204
beaupére (F’r.) 230
carail (Span.) 189
carajo (Span.) 189
commére (F7.) 211
compére (F7r.) 212
druda (Jtal.) 180, 182
drudo (Ztal.) 180
fodero (Jtal.) 207
gale (O. Fr.) 197
moudre (F7.) 150
nuora (Jtal.) 225
parrain (Fr.) 212
queue (F7.) 188
suocero (Jtal.) 228

CELTIC

am (Gaelic) 204
arwedd (Welsh) 227
brith (Old Irish) 121
cara (Irish) 177
caraim (Irish) 177
caur (Old Irish) 229
chwegr ( Welsh) 230

chwegrwn ( Welsh) 229, 230

driith (Gaelic) 180
dyweddio ( Welsh) 227
fedb (Irish) 237

fick (Old Irish) 190
fine (Old Irish) 134
gadal (Old Irish) 158
guic (Cornish) 190
gwaddol ( Welsh) 227
gwamm (Breton) 194
gwaudd ( Welsh) 227
guedeu (Cornish) 237
gweddwi ( Welsh) 237
gubit (Cornish) 227
hwegr (Cornish) 230

brodrum 209
brydbir 186
brydleod 133
brydsang 133
bir 185
carleatt 189
catel 152
ceorlian 189
cernen 189
ened 117

eneos 116
evithe 115

cyn 116
cynehlaford 116, 117, 163
cynelond 116
cynerice 116
cynepeod 116
cynraeden 160, 161
cyrran 189
deorfrid 173
dohtor 222
Drida 181

dry 181

dryas 181
dryht 183
dryhten 183
dryhtguma 184
eim 215
éowend 188
fade 208, 217
fadu 217

feeder 205
federa 209
feederencyn 142
feederingmag 142
faselt 206
fodder 207
frigjan 166
fridd 166
frundeling 167
gaed 154
gaedeling 154
gamah 144

gal 197

gat 115, 153
geat 152
gecynd 116

WORDS AND ROOTS

437

gecyndelim 116
gefaedera 209
gefer 159

gefera 159

gefere 159
geferraeden 159
gemaca 144
gemaecnes 142
gemagas 139
geswirja 232

gift 138

giftung 138
godfaeder 214
godsib 214
godsunu 214
gossibraede 161
grytt 149
haeman 127
haemed 127
haemedceorl 127
haemedding 127
haemedgemana 127
haemdo 127
haemedrif 114, 127
haemend 127
haege 129
haegesse 130
hiigsteald 129
hiigtesse 130
hiigtis 130

haga 129
halsfang 209
heawan 127

heos 128

hig 127

higo 127

higum 127
hiredesealder 137
hiredesfaeder 137
hiredesmoder 137
hiva 126
hivraede 126, 161, 163
hivred 126
hivredgerifa 126
hivscipe 126
hivung 126

hiwa 126, 137, 139
hiwan 126
hiwiski 126
hiwunga 126

hdg 130, 131
horewen 114
knési 118

lac 133

lagu 128
leofman 233
liegan 128

liof 175

maca 140

maga 138, 193

maeg 139, 140
maege 139
maegelagu 105
maegd 139, 163
maeged 139, 140, 193
maegedman 193
maeggemot 148
maeghaemed 140
maeglag 148
mael 148
modraneht 158
mddrige 203
néfa, 219

rif 114, 188

rift 188

riven 188

sib 160, 162
sibling 161, 162
sibsum 161

sife 162

sinhiv 126
snora 226
suhterja 232
suhtorfaedera 232
sunu 221
sweger 231
sweor 231

tacor 236

team 115

teman 115, 127
Thryat 181
treowscipe 179
treop 179
treopian 179
tymen 115, 127, 156
ungesibsum 161
vaifjan 192, 194
vaefan 192, 194
vifian 189
wedlac 227
wick 190

wifgal 197
wiflag 195
wifung 195
wifping 195
wifpegn 125
wefan 192

OLD Saxon

buida 186
drohting 184
druht 183
druhting 184
fadar 205
fodian 206, 207
fraho 174
fuddan 206, 208
gat 152, 153

gigado 154
gitrost 179
liku 133

maal 148
triuwiston 179
suiri 231
swasman 122

OLD FRIESIAN

adum 223
bas 217

ben 140
benenaburch 140
bern 140
berninghe 140
boaste 216
bodel 186
boesen 216
boostgjan 216
boste 216
bostigia 216
budel 186
dracht 183, 184
drusta 183
em 215
fadera 209
fatherum 210
feder 205
federia 209
fedria 210
feté 217
fetha 210
friond 167
friuene 167
frudelf 167
gaméch 139
ham 128
heia 126
heive 126
hem 128
hine 126
hionen 126
hyneghe 126
hyske 126
ketil 152

liaf 175
liodgarda 128
mach 139
mec 140
mecbref 140
méch 139
medder 203
meker 140
metrika 140
moye 203
quik 194
swager 231
swesbedde 122
tam 115

438 “INDEX I
triuwa 179 goodfather (Scot.) 230 quake 194
widwe 237 goodman 161 quéan 173

winnasonge 133

ENGLISH

bachelor 130
bairn (Scot.) 139
beget 153

believe 176

bird 120

birth 121

boss 217

bower 185

breed 119

bride 118, 119, 121
brood 119
brother 120, 121
byre 186

caress 178
chamber 178
charity 178

churl 189

churn 189
conversation (0.Z.) 146
cousin 235

cover 192
coverturé 198
dad 208

daughter 222
drag 183

dug 223

fare 159

feeder 205, 207
fertile 120

fill 207

fodder 204

free 171, 172, 174
freedom 171
freeman 172
freethinker 173
friend 167
friendship 241
fry 166, 174
garth 158

gat 115

gate 152

gather 153, 156
generation 113
generosity 135
generous 135
genius 135
giving away 138
goat 115

god (0.#.) 161, 214
godeman (0.Z.) 161
godfather 214
godmother 214
godsib (0.2.) 161
good 155

goodmother (Scot.) 230
gossip 161, 211, 214
grace 178

gratitude 178

grits 149

hag 130

hagasted (Scot.) 129
ham 128, 136

haugh (Scot.) 129

haw 129

hind 126

hive 125, 126, 127, 241
home 128, 136

hure-queyn (Shet. 7.) 114

husband 163, 190
intercourse (O.Z.) 146
kendle (Scot.) 113
kettle 152

kid 115

kin 115, 154, 160, 163
kine 114, 127

kind 134, 1385, 144, 168,

172
kindle 135
kindliness 135
kindred 160
king 116
kith 115, 134
kittie (Scot.) 115
knee 117
knight 115
know, known 118, 135
kyte (Scot.) 115
law 128
lay 128, 183
leman 233
libertine 173
lie 128
love 175, 241
lust 175
maid 139, 140
make 138, 139
mamma 202, 203
man 190
mate 140
matter 199
may 197
meal 146
mother 196, 198, 199
mould 200
moulder 200
mud 199
mudder 199
neighbour 241
nobility 135
outspanning 173
parent 206
pasture 205

quean (Scot.) 114

quenie (Scot.) 114

queyn (Scot.) 114

queen 113, 114, 116, 117

quick 194

ram 123

sect 161

sepoy 162

sept 161

sieve 162

sip 162

sister 121, 122

son 162, 221

sow 221

spinster 130

spoon 148

spousals 138

sup 162

swine 162

swing 194

team 115, 127, 156

teem 115

throne 179

tide 236

tread 182

tree 178

Trot, Dame 181

troth 179, 182

trow 179

true 178, 182

truth 179, 182

unkind 134, 135, 144, 168,
172

wave, 194

weave 194

wedding 138

wedlock 227

whore 178, 227

wide 237

widow 237

widower 237

wife 190, 192

win 134

winsome 134, 172

woman 192, 193

yard 158

SCANDINAVIAN

O..N. = Old Norse
IV. = Norse
I. = Landsmaal
D.= Danish
S. = Swedish
barn (V.) 140
bas (V.) 217
besvogre sig (D.) 162
brfidsiing (S.) 133

WORDS AND ROOTS

4

9

brur (Z.) 119, 120, 121
bu (WV.), 186

‘bu, bua (Z.) 186
bua (V.) 186

bui (V.) 186

bygd (N.) 187
bygderet (V.) 187
bygdeting (V.) 187
bygge (V.) 187
bylag (W.) 187

bgr (D.) 140

bgrn (D.) 140
daegge (D.) 222
diiggja (S.) 222
déttir (O.V.) 222
dronning (D.) 183
drost (D.) 183

drétt (0...) 183
dréttinn (O.NV.) 183
dréttning (O.V.) 183
drottning (S.) 183
fadder (D.) 210
faster (JV.) 216
Fensal (0...) 198
foda (S.) 207

foeda (O.N.) 207
féde (D.) 207
fraendi (O.N.) 167
frinka (S.) 168 ©
fraeundkona (S.) 168
Frauj6é (0.N.) 168
Freyja (O.NV.) 168, 174
Freyr (0.N.) 174

fri (O.V.) 166

fria (O.V.) 166
friantr (O.N.) 167
Frigg (0...) 168
fridvill (O.N.) 166
fridla (Z.) 166

frie (D.) 166

frille (D.) 166

fré (S.) 166

Frowa (0.N.) 168, 170
fri (V.) 174

Fri (O.W.) 168

fud (V.) 208

fud (O.N.) 208

gad (O.N.) 152
gamahalus (0.8.) 146
giinta (S.) 225

gat (Z.) 152

gate (Z.) 152

gato (Z.) 152

gatu (Z.) 152

geit (O.N.) 115
genta (O.N.) 225
gift (D.) 138

giftung (D.) 138
gjenta (Z.) 225

godi (O..N.) 214 |

golf (O.V.) 212
grautr (O.N.) 149
hag (0.NV.) 130, 131
hag (Z.) 131

hi, hij (V.) 123
hjon (Z.) 127
hjuna (Z.) 127
husman (N.) 163
héra (0...) 227
hyra (Z.) 134

hyrr (O.N.) 134
jente (V.) 225
kallbjorn (Z.) 189
karl (0...) 189
karlfugl (O.N.) 189
katil (V.) 152

kone (¥.) 116
kongr (¥.) 116
konr (O..NV.) 116
konungr (1V.) 116
kvarnkall (W.), 189
kund (0.N.) 116
kundr (0.4.) 116
leik, leike (Z.) 133
leikestova (Z.) 133
leikfugl (Z.) 133
leikvoll (Z.) 133
leikr (O.N.) 133
lov (D.) 128

magr (0...) 139
magr (S.) 139, 225
maka, make (S.) 140
maki (0...) 140
mal (O.N.) 148
miila (0.S.) 146
moed’gin (0...) 199
moed’gna (O.NV.) 199
mégr (O.N.) 139
mor (WV.) 189

mor (Z.) 199

nefi (0...) 219
nepi (0.V.) 219
nift (O.V.) 219
qvan (O.N.) 118, 116
qvidr (O.N.) 115
qvon (O.N.) 116
rjupekall (Z.) 189
seppi (0. V.) 162
sif (0. NV.) 162

sifi (O..V.) 160
sifjar (O.NV.) 160
sift (O..V.) 160

sift (V.) 161
sifjungr (O.V.) 161
sivjung (Z.) 161
sive (D.) 162

sonr (0...) 221
svaer (S.) 231

svira (S.) 228
svaradotter (S.) 224

svarafader (S.) 224
svaramoder (S.) 224
sver (0...) 228, 231
sviru (0.1V.) 228
svoger (D.) 231
svoger (S.) 224

syr (O.N.) 221
systkin (D.) 122
syvja seg (Z.) 162
s@skende (Z.) 122
Thrfidr (0.N.) 180
-thrudr (0.N.) 180
trae (D.) 179

traust (O.¥.) 179
trottsit (S.) 183
tri (O..) 179

triia (O.W.) 179
trileikr (0...) 179
pegn (0...) 187
veddjan (WV.) 102, 138
ven (V.) 167

vinna (0...) 134
veifa (O.NV.) 193

TEUTONIC Roots

bau-, bu- 184 242
ei- 224

fri- 160, 166, 171, 174,

175
gad- 155

hag- 127, 128, 129, 130,
134, 148, 155, 156, 164

har- 227

heg-, h$g- 123, 124, 127,

132

hi-, hij-, hiw- 101, 123,
124, 128, 132, 134, 149,

166

kan-, kfn-, kin-, kei- 113,
115, 117, 118, 132, 185,

139
lob- 176
lus- 175
ma- 146
mal- 157, 236
mah-, mag- 138, 160
sib- 160, 161, 162, 163
svas- 232
svekr- 229, 232, 233
swang- 194
trew- 178
win- 134

GoTHIC

aipei 131
atta 131
ava 215
bauains 185

440

~LNDEX I

bruthfaths 218
- bruths 119
brunsts 113
daddjan 222
dauhtar 222
fadreins 210
fatan 204}
-faths 218
fodeins 204
fodjan 204
fodjan 206
fodr 207
frauja 174
fraiv 166
frijon 166
frijondia 166
frijonds 167
frijéns 166, 167
frijapva 166
gabauan 185
gabaur 185
gabaurjaba 185
gabaurjopus 185
gadiliggs 154
gadrauhts 183
gaits 115
galubs 175
gamalvidans 149
gasibjon 161
gudja 214
haims 128
haw- 124
heivan 124
heivafrauja 124
hérs 178, 227
katilo 152
kilpei 194
kunsps 118
laikan 132
laikirs 132
magaps 139
magus 139
malandeins, 149
malvjan 149
mat 200

mavi 139

mégs 189, 225
nippjis 219
nipjo 219
‘qipuhafts 115
qipus 115
qveins 113
sibja 160

sidus 232

sifan 160
siponeis 163
snivan 226
sunus 221
svaihra 228
svaihro 228

sves 232
trauan 179
triu 179
ufbauljan 185
unhultho 182
unsibis 161
us-priutan 182
veihs 190
viduvé 237

_OLD HicH GERMAN

amme 204

ana 204

ano 204

basa 216
bigatten 153
bigitan 153
bésam 216
brio 121
bruoder 120
bruotan 119, 120
prat 119
prutigomo 196.
briitisang
brutsamana 159
braitsunu 119
briten 119
bfiari 186

ptr 185

crioz 149

cutti 115

for ch, see k
for d, see t
einkunne 113, 115, 117
enenkel 220
Erdfréwa 170
fadar 205

fara 160

fasel 188

fasel 206
fataro 209
feldbiiari 187
fotar 204, 207
foten 204
fotjan 206
Frea 168

Fria 168 -
Frija 168
friantscafida 167
frawi 172, 174
frawida 174
fridu 172
friduding 174
friedel 174
friedela 174
friedila 166
friheit 172
fréwA 174
friudalin 166
friudil 166

_ vriunt 167

friunte 168
vriunte 171
friuntin 168
friuntscaf 167
fré6 174, 241
fuoten 204
vuoter 207, 208
viiten 204
viter 204
cadum 152
gabur 186
gabura 186
gagat 154

gaiz 115
gamahaljan 149

gamahhida 142, 143, 154,
156, 160, 182, 219,241

gamahho 143
gamahhida 241
gasamani 159
gasibba 161
gasibbo 161
gaswio 231
gatalinga 153, 154
gataro 156

kataro 156

gate 154

katilinga 153, 154, 156,

182
gatilinge 241
katriuuete 179, 183
gatulina 154
gavatera 210
gavatero 210
gawona 134
geburo 186
gebusamen 216
gegate 154
ze gehienne 125
kehigenden 125
kehiginnis 125
kehiten 125
gehiton 125
gemageda 139
gemahlih 143, 144
gesemene 159
kesemene 159
gesemine 159
geswéster 121
getelos 154
giella 197
gimacha 144
gimachide 143
gimacho 143
gimageda 142
gimah 134
gimmahhida, 143
gimahi 143
gimahide 143

WORDS AND ROOTS 44!

gimahido 143 charala 189 sippa 160
giri 178 charalon 189 sippia 160
giridi 178 karl 189 sipzal 161
gisibbe 160 katero 152 siptzal 161
givatarum 211 keili 197 ~ situ 118
gomo 195 chena: see chone snur 226
gota 214 keran 189 sporkelmaand 159
gotkunni 135 chéran 189 stiuffater 230
gotele 214 chezil 152 su- 221
goting 214 kida 115 sunu 221
goto 214 chinan 113 swangar 194
gotta 214 chizi 115 swiaseline 233
hag 173, 178 chone, kone 113,114, 116, swasenede 233
hagastalt 129, 130, 156 117, 139, 164 swisman 233
hagazusa 130, 131 kunni 115, 116, 117, 241 swéher 228
hagetissa 156 kuninck, chunning116, 117, sweiga 231
hagespraka 137 205 swengen 194
hagezissa 130, 131 kunniling 116 swestarkarl 189
hagjan 128 kunnischaft 116 swigar 228
hazusa 130, 131 kunnizala 116 swio 231
haien 128 lantbiari 187 tohtar 222 :
haigen 128 laz 174 treuwa 179, 223
hefhanna 204 lazza 174 trewa 241
hi 169 lehtar 188 triuuva 179, 182
hibar 125 ligan 188 triuwen 179
hibarig 125 Liutfro6wa 170 trost 179, 182
hiberg 125, 148 liutgasameni 159 trostjan 180
hien 125 mac, mach 138, 139, 140, truhsaze 183
hifuoga 125 142, 168 truht 183
hig 169 miaescaf 139, 241 truthigomo 184
hige 169 mag 138, 139, 140, 142, truhtin 183
higot 125 151, 167 truhtine 184
hihun 125, 156 magidi 139 trust 179
hijan 124 magiu 139 trustis 179, 182
hileih 132, 136, 137, 138, magon 139 drat, trit 180
158, 159, 177, 178 mah: see mac -trut 180
himachari 125 mahal 148, 151, 155, 157, Trut- 180
hirat 132, 137, 138, 148, 158, 172, 187, 242 triitin 180
158, 172 mahaljan 145, 149 trutinna 180
hisaz 125 mahalén 149 triitliet 180
histat 148 mak: see mic dritman 180
hitat 125 mal 146: see mahal tritscapht 180
hiunka 125 malan 149 trutz 182
hiuri 134 malén 149 unfriuntscaf 167
hiwa 125, 163, 166, 168 §mome 202 ungamahlih 143
hiwe 169 multra 200 ungehite 125
hiwelich 125 mumbling 203 ungehiwat 125
hiwen 125, 127 muomunsuni 203 unsibja 161
hiwo 125, 166, 167 muotar 196 unsipbi wip 163
hiwunga 160 muoterj& 203 unwini 134
Hornung 158 nefo 219 vip 192: see also f
hornunge 158 nift 219 wanbrit 119
href 188 Oheim 215 weban 194
huora 178, 227 quiti, quid 115 weibén 192, 193
hfiswirt 195 quena, qvina: see chona wifman 192, 193
idis 131 sib 162, 224, 241 windesprit 119
inburro 186 sibba, sibbu 161 wini 134
itis 131 sibbo 160 winia 134
char 189 sibja 165, 182 winileod 133, 136, 158,

charal 195 sip 160 178

442

INDEX I

winiscaf 134
wipheit 193
wirt 195
witaw& 237
wan 134
zeihhur 236
zeman 115, 156
zoum 115

MippLeE HIGH GERMAN

briezen 119
briute 119, 120
bréz 119

pruoter 120
brfit 119, 120
eide 132

eidam 224

degen 187
feteron 209
fleischgadem 153
Frauentanz 133
friunde 167 : see also v
gadem 152
gademer 153
gadengericht 155
gadenrichter 155
gat 152, 153
gater, getter 156
gattlich 154
gehiure 134
germac 142
getelich 154
getelos 154
geswester 122
geswie. 231
geswige 231

gott 214

gottin 214
gottlein 214
hagetisse 133 (see 0. H.G.)
haglig 134
hayngarten 128, 411
hegemal 148

hileih 133, 136 (see O.H.G.)

hiwe, hie 125, 139 (see
O. H.G.)

Kaisergaden 155: see Ap-
pendix I,

kinen 113

kon, kone 116

konemae 116

koneman 195

koning 116

kiinig, chonig 116

kueniginne 142

kunne 114, 117

kunkelmae 142

liep 175

magad 139
magan, 139
magat 139

mage 141

mahal 145 (see 0. H.G.)
mahalberg 145
mahalbrunnen 145
mahalscaz 145
mahalstat 145
mahaltag 145
mal 148, 151
malgeld 146
milchvriedel 166
mulde 200
muotermac 142
nagelmac 168
nagelvriunt 168
néve 219
néveschaft 219
niftelin 219
dheim 215
pfaffenbrit 119
pfaffenkiihe 114

. pfaffenkunnen 114, 117

quéc 194

sibbe 163 (see O0.H.G.)
sibsam 172

sip 162
spindelmae 142
swager 231
swéher 228

swer 228
swertmiaec 142
triuten 180
truhten 183
truhtsaeze 183
trut, trute 180
trfiten 180
tritfriunt 180
triitgespielin 180
triitgemahele 180
trutschel 180
unsippe 161
vasel 188, 206
vatermac 142
vergaterung, 155, 242, 243
vetero 209

vri 172

vrien 166
vriunde 168
vriunge 173
vriunt 167
vriuntschaft 168
vrum 172
vuotarwanne 208
vut 208

viiten 206 (see also f)
wif 192, 193
witewe 237

GERMAN

ahn 204

ahne 220

amme 203, 204
bann 173
birmutter 198
base 216, 217
biiseln 217
baserei 217
bauen 186

bauer (i) 185
bauer (ii) 186
baum 184
bedecken 198
befriedigung 172
begatten 153, 154
behaglich 134, 144, 168
braut 101, 118,-119 120
brautkauf 138
brautschatz 145
brei 121

bruder 101, 121
brunst 113

brutbiene 120

bruthenne 120
bube 222

buhler 222
buhlgabe 222
buhlgesang 222
burg 164

drude 181
drudenfuss 181
druder 181

ehe 102, 138, 198
ehemann 196, 224
eidam 223, 224
einfriedigung 173
eltern 219

enkeln 219

fotze 208

frau 170, 174, 190
freck 170

frei 170, 171, 174
freiding 172, 174
freien 165, 171, 172
freier 173

freierei 173
freierin 173
freifrau 172
freigeist 173
freigericht 172
freihart 172

* freiherr 172

freihof 173
freimann 173
freiort 173
freite 165
freiung 173
freiweib 172

a et

.
Tee) aS:

WORDS AND: ROOTS

443

freude 171, 172, 174, 241
freudenhaus 174
freudenkind 174
freudenmidchen 174
freudenmahl 174
freudenspiel 174
freudentanz 174
freuen 160

friede 173, 174, 241
friedhof 173
friedigung 173

froh 170, 174

fud 208

futteral 207

gadem 156

gitlich 172

gatte 154, 156
gatter 156
gattergeld 156
gatterhenne 156
gatterherr 156
gattin 154
gebairmutter 198
gehag 128

gehegtes gericht 148
geheuer 134

geil 197

geilhart 197
geloben 175
gelobnis 176
gelubde 176
gemach, 144, 158, 178, 185
gemachlich 144, 168, 172
gemichte 142
gemachzaun 156
gemahl 145
gemahlin 145
gericht 148, 173
gevatter 210
gevatterin 210
gewinnen 134

gitter 156

glauben 176
Géding 214

golliard 197
Gottingen 214
griitze 149

gut 155

hag 185

hagegeld 156
hagehenne 156
hagen 128

hagestolz 129
-haglich 134

hain 128

heerfiihrer 163
hegen 128, 173
hegung 173

heim 101, 126, 128
heimlich 122

heirath: see O.H.G. hirat

heirath 101, 137, 140, 149,
160

herzog 163

hexe 130, 131

kaffeebase 217

kaufen 102

keimen 113

kennen 135

kerl 189

kind 135

klatschbase 217

knabe 115, 1385

knecht 115

Kornmuhme 202

Kornmutter 199

konig 116, 117, 174

konigin 117, 142

kunst 118, 135

lager 173

leich, 132

lieb 175

liebchen 175

liegen 128

loben 175, 176

léffeln 148

lofte 176

machen 138, 200

miadchen 139

maege, 151

magen 138, 139, 154

magenschaft 143

mahl 146

mahlen 148, 150

mihlen 148

mahlzeit 146

mal 148

mann 110, 190, 191, 195

mark 148

melken 222

milchen 222

mitgift 138

mode 199

mott 199

mudde 199

muhme 201, 202, 216, 217,
219

muhmenhaus 203

mutter 101

mutterbeschwer 199

mutterland 199

muttersprache 199

mutterwitz, 199

oheim 215

dhmchen 220

pynte 188

Roggenmutter 199

ruthe 188

sau 221

schnur 226

schooskind 159
schdssling 159
schwager 224, 230
schwiaher 231
schwanger 194
schwingern 194
schwanz 188
schweher 228
schwester 101, 121
schwieger 231
schwiegersohn 224
schwiegertochter, 224
schwiger 228

sibbe 161

sippeln 162

sitte 118, 232, 241
sohn 221

spannen 173
stippen 162

tochter 101, 222
tragen 183

trauen 179

trauung 177

treue 179

truchsess 183
trutenbaum 181
trutenberg 181
tritennacht 181
Trutte, Frau 181
trutz 182
ungehener 134
unholde 182

vater 101
vergaderung 155, 157
vergatten 153
vergatterung 155
verloben 176
verlobung 175, 176, 177
vermihlen 145, 154
vermihlung 101, 145
vetter 209

walzen 194

weib 101, 192, 193, 194
Weibermonat 158
weit 237

welle 194

wittwe 101
wohnung 134

zagel 188

zaun 115

zeit 236

zers 188

zisel 188

ziss 131

DraLEcts (SWABIAN, BAv-
ARIAN, TYROLESE, SwIss,
ETC.)
basele 216

basl 216

444 “ANDEX I

bua 222 sodhnerin 226 vadderkols 211
biihli 222 schwager 231, 234 vaddersche 211
bil 222 schwaig 231 vadderspel 211
drud 181 schwaiger 231 vedder 209

fél 208 schwaigerin 231 viehmome 202
fenstern 146 schwega 228 vorgaddem 154
fodel 208 schwer 228 vorgaden 154
frid 173. tatte 208 vorgaderung 155, 195, 242
fridbann 173 tattl 208 vriundin 168
fridhag 173 teite 208 vrunt 167
fridgatter 173 trud 181 vruntelink 167
fridzaun 173 triittl 181 wasa 216

friund 167

frunt 168

fud 113

gefride 173
gefiidach 208
gehai 128
gelobtanz 176
gemachmiihl 144
gemach’l 144
gemachzaun 144
gemaht 142
gemahti 142
geschwie 231
geschwein 231
geswagerlich 231
geswistrige 141
god 214

godl 214
gottheit 214
gottenloffel 214
gsweyen 231
haaggeld 137
haghenne 137
hagsch 130

hai 128

heierlos 410
heimgarten 411
hijgaten 124
kar 189
kiltgang 407-412
kindermachen 138
kund, kunt 118
kundeln 118
kunta 118
lobetanz 176

lés 113

machen 142
migdeheyer 124
maelen 146
maellen 149
mahlleute 148
mahlmann 146, 148, 172
malpfenning 146
millet 146
modgen 142
miigen 142
obmann 147, 164
rammeln 123

ungeheit 124
virgatum gehen 155

Low GERMAN—OLD AND
: MoDERN

ackermome 202
beswas 122
bruen 120
briiden 120
briihen 120
briimen 119
briatloft 176
bir 187
bfirmal 187
btirmester 187
bfirrichte 187 .
bfirschap 187
birsprake 187
eselmome 202
fedethom 218
fedriethom 218
frijte 166
gaden 153
gadder 156
gaderheren 155
gat 152, 153, 155
gedelik 154
gevatere 211
grotemome 202
heie 126, 129
hie 126, 129
hienman 126, 129
hige 126, 129
higeman 126, 129
hundemome 202
lovebbér 176
moder 199
molt 200
mome 202-3
mum 202

neve 219
nichte 219
nichteke 219
ohm 215
sibbert 161
vade 217
vadder 211

weidegat 152
wisemome 202

DvuTCcH

baas 217
huwbaer 125
huwen 125
maet 140
neef 219
swager 231
swaseline 122
swasenede 122
trowen 179
vade 218
vriend 167
vrijen 166
widewe 237

SLAVONIC

anfta (Lith.) 229
brati (0.8.) 121
bratsvo (0.8S.) 164
déveris (Lith.) 236
draudse (Zett.) 183
draudsiba (Lett.) 183
drafigalka (Lith.) 183
drafigé (Lith.) 183
draugs (Le¢t.) 183
drevo (0.8.) 178
driutas (Lith.) 182
druginja (Russ.) 183
drugu (Russ.) 183
drugu (0.8.) 183
druh (Czech) 183
druha (Czech) 183
druzba (Pol.) 183
druzny (Czech) 183
gente (Lith.) 225, 234
geseppe (Czech) 162
gesippe (Pruss.) 162
gesoppe (Czech) 161
gesuppe (Czech) 162
grada (0.S.) 164
grauds (Leét.) 149
iatrew (Pol.) 235
jatrev (Czech) 235
jetry (0.S.) 234

WORDS AND ROOTS 445

jetrva (Serb.) 235
karot (Lett.) 177

kars (Lett.) 177

knez (0.S.) 164
kochati (0.S8.) 177
kralj (0.8.) 189

krol (0.8.) 189

ljub (0.8.) 175

ljuba (0.8.) 175
maczernica (Ober/.) 197
matka ( Russ.) 197
mété (Lith.) 201
po-sivu (0.S8.) 134
Prije (Czech) 168
pritel (Czech) 166
prove ( Wend.) 171
sd-logu (0.S.) 130
saltiba (O. Pruss.) 177

sébras (Lith.) 162
sebru (0.8.) 162
seserynai (Lith.) 235
séwa (Lett.) 125
snacha (Czech) 226
suptini (0. Pruss.) 163 vozdi (0.8.) 227

svatu (0.S8.) 238 wad6ti (Lith.) 227
svékoru (Russ.) 228, 232 wedekle (Lith.) 227
svekovi (Russ.) 232 zelva (Czech) 234

svekru (0.S.) 228 zentas (Lith.) 225

svoja (0.S8.) 233 zluva (O.S.) 234

svojack (Russ.) 232 zupa (0.S8.) 163

svotai (Lith.) 233 Zupan (0.8.) 163, 164, 172,
swiekier (Pol.) 228 205

synocha (0.S.) 226 zupanus (0.S.) 164
synowa (Pol.) 226 zupnik (0.S.) 163
szesziuras (Lith.) 228 zupone (Lith.) 163

tata (Czech) 208 zuppa (0.S.) 164

vedt (Lith.) 227
vészpatis (Zith.) 190
vidova (0.8.) 237
visi (O.S.) 190
voditi (O.S.) 227

WORDS IN APPENDICES I, III, AND IV.

ARYAN rhiant (Welsh) 426 SCANDINAVIAN
nu-, nud- 429 E iaaer. ate benytte (D.) 429
Tag-, rez- 426 rig (Gaelic) 427 kelta (Icel. ) 412
ri . kilta (S.) 412
gan (Irish) 426
2 caer kveld (O.W.) 412
naut (Z.) 429
nand 429 ANGLO-SAXON nautna (0...) 429
rajan 426 beneotan 429 nautr (O.N.) 430
rej 427 eveld 412 neyta (Icel.) 429
ee 430 . niota (O.V.) 429
giniedén 43 njota (Icel.) 429
aa nedd 480 nyde (8.) 429
épyades 428 niotan 429 nyt (O.N.) 429
dpyas 426, 428 rice 426 nytte (D.) 429
épydw 428 wifping 412 ragna (O.N.) 428
épyewv 428 ratt (S.) 427
dpyewvn 428 FRIESIAN regin (O.V.) 428
épyn 428 : ret (D.) 427
bpéy 426 ao rett (0...) 427
not 429 rett (Z.) 427
LATIN rettr (0...) 427
Pras rige (D.) 426
cultus 425 riki (O.V.) 426
erigo 426, 428 Seep =
regere 426 reach 4
ins 426 regal 427 Teutonic Roor
sulcus 424 rich 427 rak-, rag- 426
vomer 424 rig ag
; rigge 4
CELTIO right 427 oe
righten 427 ganiutan 429
rhi (Welsh) 426 tilth 425 kilthei 412

446 WORDS IN APPENDICES I., [1l., AND IV.

reiki 426
reiks 426
reiran 427
reks 426
niutan 429
nuta 429

OLp HiacH GERMAN

chwiltiwerch 412
gandéz 430
gandzinna 430
ganézon 430
gandzsami 430
gandzsamon 430
gandézscaf 430, 431
gart 411
hayngart 411, 426
hileih 410
huskinézi 430
kastalt 427
kinéz 430
kindzsam 430
niot 429

niotsam 430
niozan 429

nutz 429

rihhi 426
unganéz 430
ungandzami 430

MIDDLE HicH GERMAN

brétgenossen 431
genieze 430
gendze 430
gendzinne 430
higeri 427
hegerding 427

hegermanni 427
heigertanz 410
niezen 429

rey 427

reye 427

_ reyge 427

ungenéz 430

GERMAN

buhllieder 411
eidgenossen 430
furche 424
genieszen 429, 430
genieszung 430
genossenschaft 430, 431
genusz 430, 432
gericht 427

hag 427

hagestolz 427
heger 427

mailehn 407-409
markgenossen 431
niitzen 429
pfliigen 424

reich 426

reige 427

reihe 427

GERMAN DIALECTS

alpgenossen 431
biihli 408
fastenbiihli 408
fenstern 409, 410
fryggeding 432

fugen 409

gisslein gén 409, 410
gnuss 432

gungelstube 409
heierleis 410
heimal 432
heimgarten 411
hochstube 411
karz 409

kilt 409, 412
kiltbraten 410
kiltgang 407, 412
Kirmes 408
kunkelstube 409
lehntgen-rufen 407
letze 410
lichtstube 409
mitgendssig 430
rockenstube 409
spinnstube 409
ungenbssig 430
weidgenossen 431

Low GERMAN

geneten 432
gendt 430
réen 428
rege 427
reien 428
reige 427

DvutToH

boelkin 408
genoot 430
gheck 408
heelghesel 408

LITHUANIAN

kiltis 412
nauda 429

_ panusti 429

INDEX II.—NAMES AND SUBJECTS

ABYSSINIANS, fertility of i. 85

Acquoy, “ Het Klooster te Windesheim ”
ii. 371 ftn.

Adam, legend of ii. 201

Addison, ‘The Bills of Mortality” i. 19

Adoratio Crucis ti. 293-295

Advantage of the bank (Monte Carlo
roulette) i. 47

Agamemnon ii. 58, 107

dyope ii, 157-158, 242, 411

Agriculture ; see Goddess of

Ainos, mean and standard deviation, of
cephalic index i, 290 ; of long bones i.
303 ; of skull capacity i. 340

Alabastor, “Wheel of the Law” ii. 323
ftn

Alaskans, fertility of i. 85

Aleutians, fertility of i. 85

Alteneck, “Trachten des Mittelalters”’ ii.
264 ftn., 391 ftn.

Altorfer ii. 386 ftn., 389 ftn.

Amalungs, the ii. 107 ftn.

Americans, children, mean and standard
deviation, of stature i. 296; of body
weight i. 307 ; of chest girth i. 310 ; of
height sitting, of squeeze of hands i.
314 ; of head index i. 359

Ammon, O., “Die natiirliche Auslese
beim Menschen” i. 132 ftn., 288 ftn.

Amphimiazis, Weismann’s theory of i.
104

Amtmannspiel ii. 146

Anuaitis ii. 150, 170

Andamanese, mean and standard devia-
tion, of cephalic index i. 290, 370; of
skull capacity i. 343

Angels, dance of ii. 337-339, 428 ftn.

Angle, alveolar, mean and standard
deviation of i. 324, 325

Angle, profile, mean and
deviation of i. 323

standard

Anglo-Saxons, mean and standard devia-
tion, of cephalic index i. 290 ; of skull
capacity i. 335

Anstell, C., ‘*Rate of Mortality” i.
92

Apaturia, the ii. 122

Arnsteiner Marienleich ii. 182 ftn., 356
ftn.

Ars Moriendi ii. 330, 332, 340 ftn.

Artemis ii. 122, 157

Aryans, primitive ii, 98, 101

Aschenputtel ii. 146: see Askelad

Ashiepattleii. 51-91, 107,236 : see Askelad

Askelad (or Dummling) ii. 76, 77, 87,
89

Astarte ii. 170

Athene ii. 131, 157

Atom i. 152

Atom, prime i. 154, 385

Aunt, words for ii. 201, 216

Australians, fertility of i. 85; mean
and standard deviation of cephalic in-
dex i. 290, 370

BACCHUS ii. 222

Bachelor ii. 130

Bachofen, ‘‘ Die Sage von Tanaquil”’ ii.
110 ftn., 131, 202

Badensians, Modern, mean and standard
deviation, of face index i. 326; of
cephalic index i, 356

Bairn ii. 140

Bale, John ii. 403 ftn.

Balfour, Arthur J., “ Foundations of
Belief,” criticism of i. 173-225, 382

Baptism, heathen ii. 213

Barton, H. R., measurements of White-
chapel skulls i. 351

Bartsch, K., “Germania ” ii. 376 ftn.

Base, aunt, idea associated with ii. 217

Bauer, its derivation ii. 184

448

INDEX II

Bavarians, mean and standard deviation,
of alveolar i. 324; ofbrain weight i. 322 ;
of cephalic index i. 290, 354; of eyes
i. 327 ; of roundness of forehead i. 326;
of skull capacity i. 333 ; of skull cir-
cumference i. 356 ; of stature i. 295

Bechstein, “Wartburg Bibliothek” ii.
339 ftn.

Bedouins, fertility of i. 85

Belgians, mean and standard deviation of
weights of new-born infants i. 307

Benedictus Levita, prohibition of dancing
in churches ii. 17

Bengal, Brahmans of, mean and standard

deviation of cephalic index i. 290

Mahomedans of Eastern, mean and
standard deviation, of cephalic
index i. 290 ; of head index i, 289
ftn.

Sonthals of Western, mean and
standard deviation of head index
i, 289 ftn.

Beowulf ii, 186

Berchta, goddess of fruition ii, 28, 29,
106

Bern, dance of death i. 7

Berthold, Brother ii, 213

Bertrand i. 62

Biblia Pauperum ii. 265, 266

Bu (tribal-mother of the Billings) ii.
107 ftn.

Birlinger, “* Aus Schwaben ”’ ii. 338 ftn.,
410 ftn.

Bischoff i. 285, 295 ftn., 306, 322

Blanc, M. i. 45, 57

Blow, swiftness of, mean and standard
deviation of i, 311

Bones, long, mean and standard devia-
tion of i. 299-305

Boniface ii. 213

Bonner, “ Life of Bradlaugh ” i. 380

Bopp ii. 118, 122, 229

Boyd (statistics of weight of hearts) i.
285 ftn., 320

Bradlaugh, C. i. 189

Breviarium Frisingense ii, 300 ftn.

Breviarius Havelbergensis ii. 297 ftn., 300
ftn.

Bride ii. 118, 148 ftn., 177

Brigit (Celtic tribal-mother) ii. 107 ftn.

British, ancient, mean and standard
deviation, of cephalic indexi. 290, 363;
of skull capacity i. 337

Broca (statistics) i, 285 ftn., 329, 330,
352

Brooms (as symbols of witch) ii. 23, 29,
30

Brooms, offerings of ii. 20
Brother, as the breeder ii. 120, 121
Brother-in-law ii. 230, 232, 236

Brother-sister marriage ii. 104, 121, 123,
169, 174, 219

Brueil (bones at) i, 298

Briiggermann, H. ii, 318 ftn.

Brunnenfege, feast of the ii. 41

Bucher ii. 181

Biichner i. 152, 188, 380

Burgkmair ii. 386 ftn.

Burial-service ii. 201

Bushmen, mean and standard deviation
of cephalic index i. 290

CANARIES, ancient inhabitants of the,
mean and standard deviation of femur
i, 301
Capacity, breathing, mean and standard
deviation of i. 311
Capacity, skull, mean and _ standard
deviation of i. 285 ftn., 328-349
Card-drawing, diagram of i. 18
Carmina Burana: see Schmeller
Carpenter, E., ‘* Woman” i. 258 ftn.
Cat, the attendant on mother-goddess
ii, 167
Celibates, words for ii. 129
Cellini, Benvenuto, vision of ii. 326, 366
Celts, early ii. 107
Cephalic Index: see Index
Cerealia ii. 171
Chalceia, the ii. 122
Champollion-Figeac : see Hilarius
Chance, association of death and i, 2
a »» dice and i, 2
Diagram of games of i. 13
General principles of theory of i. 11
Lord Salisbury’s appeal to i. 167,
168
Medizval conception of, as chaotic
i, 2 4
Modern conception of, as obedient to
law i. 2
Scientific conception of i. 43
Charity, evolution of ii. 178
Charles, R. Havelock, “ Craniometry of
the Outcaste Tribes of the Panjab” i.
341, 368
Chaucer ii. 150
Children-in-law, words for ii, 224
Chinese, mean and standard deviation, of
cephalic index i. 290, 350; of skull
capacity i. 342
Chorus, its association with feast,
religious ceremony, and staked in- —
closure ii. 136, 158, 411
Christ, as portrayed in the passion-plays
ii, 329, 330, 349
Chuhras, Lahore, mean and standard
deviation of head index i. 289 ftn.
Civilisation of Women, early ii. 97, 180,
170, 240

NAMES AND SUBJECTS

449

Clendinning (statistics) i. 316, 320, 321

Coin-tossing, diagram of i. 13

Collins, F. Howard (statistics) i. 69, 73,
76, 88, 92

Comedy, its origin ii. 136

Constants, variation of fertility i. 67

Correlation, as a measure of heredity i.
63, 65

Correlation between fertility and size of
an organ i. 65

' Co-sexual Community, words applied to
ii. 138 et seg.

Cosmic process, Huxley’s contrast with
ethical process i. 110, 122

Cotta, on good and bad witches ii. 11

Council, Group ii. 126, 137, 155, 158,
173

Counter-drawing, diagram of i. 13

Courtship, as fossil of sexual freedom ii.
165

Coussemaker, E. de, “ Drames Liturgiques”
ii. 302 ftn.

Couvade ii. 105

Cranach, ii. 262 ftn., 263, 331 ftn., 346
ftn., 386 ftn., 391 ftn.

Crania Britannica i, 335-338, 362-365
Germaniae i, 325, 355, 356, 361
Helvetica i, 291, 336, 360, 361

Criticism, Sectarian i. 379-388

Cruelty, element of, in mother -goddess
ii. 106

Curtius ii. 131

DAME TROT ii. 181

Dances and Jingles, children’s ii. 95,
115. .

Dances, bacchanalian, of women ii. 105,
133, 427, 428 ; St. Lawrence and Whit-
suntide ii, 176 ; symbolic, in passion-
plays ii. 339-343, 428

Dancing, choral ii. 105, 109, 133, 135,
136, 157, 165, 428

Dante, reference to dice i. 2

Darwin, “Animals and Plants under
Domestication ” i. 157 ftn. 258; ‘‘ De-

scent of Man” i. 128, 129; “Origin

of Species” i. 106, 107, 128

Daughter ii. 222

Daughter-in-law ii. 225; endogamous
and exogamous terms ii. 228

David, Gerard ii. 391 ftn.

Davies, “ Rites of the Cathedral of Dur-
ham” ii. 296 ftn.

Davis, Barnard, “Thesaurus Cranio-
rum” i, 328, 329, 335, 342, 350, 353

Davis, J. H. (statistics) i. 38

Death, Chances of i. 1-41; Dance of i.
Ty 2y4, 6; 11,°25, 39, 41, ii. 270 ftn. ;
goddess of ii. 168, 175, 200

VOL II.

Deecke ii. 100, 101, 102, 118, 148, 153,
155, 162, 192, 204

Demeter ii. 122, 150, 170, 171, 193, 199,
202

Denmark, mean and standard deviation
of cephalic index of Aborigines of Swe-
den and i. 365

Deviation, Standard, as concentration of

frequency about the mean i. 17, 18,
50, 262

standard deviation of standard i. 52

Devil, as represented in the passion-
plays ii. 357-359

Devil's mother ii. 27, 202, 371

Devils, dance of ii. 8337-339

De Whalley, L. Gi. (statistics) i. 45, 48,
49, 53, 55, 56

Dice i. 2, 11, 12; diagram i. 13

Didron, “Iconographie chrétienne”’ ii.
261, 329 ftn., 330 ftn., 332 fin., 376
ftn., 385 ftn., 388 ftn., 391 ftn.

Dietrich ii. 386 ftn.

Dionysian sex-festival ii. 159

Diphtheria, curve of i. 33

Distribution of frequency, law of i. 14,
15

Dén ii. 108

Drude ii, 181

Du _ Bois-Reymond,
225

Ducange ii. 164, 211, 212, 235

Duckworth, W. L. H. (statistics) i. 370

Du Méril, ‘‘ Origines latines du théatre
moderne ” ii. 288 ftn., 304 ftn.

Dummling : see Askelad

Durandus, “ Rationale divinorum Offi-
ciorum”’ ii. 295 ftn.

Diirer, A. ii. 260-263, 310 ftn., 321 ftn.,
326 ftn., 329 ftn.,°340 ftn., 341 ftn.,
346, 347, 352, 371, 372 ftn., 386 ftn.,
391 ftn., 393 ftn.

Dutch, mean and standard deviation of
cephalic index i. 354

Dyer, H. ‘‘Evolution of Industry” i.
226 ftn.

**Maupertuis” i.

ECKER, “‘ Crania Germaniae ”’ i, 325, 355,
356

Edda ii. 132, 142, 151, 160, 169

Egyptians, mean and standard deviation
of cephalic index i. 366

Eleusinia ii. 171

Elevatio Crucis ii. 295-299

Ellis, Havelock, “Man and Woman” i.
256-266

Elstsser, weights of German babies i.
308

Endogamy, primitive ii. 56, 140, 165,
188 ; modern ii. 140, 141, 431, 432

2G

450 INDEX II

English, mean and standard deviation
of cephalic index i. 350, 351 ; of body
weight i. 305; of breathing capacity
i, 311; of keenness of sight i. 311,
313 ; of left forearm i. 304; of skull
capacity 328-330; of span and stature
i, 294, 299; of strength of pull i. 311,
313; of strength of squeeze i. 311,
313; of swiftness of blow i. 311; of
weight of brain i. 320, 321; of weight
of heart i. 316

Epistemology, A. J. Balfour’s use of word
i. 180

Error, mean i. 59
probable i. 76

Ethics, relative ii. 93, 145, 247

Exogamy ii. 56, 215, 236, 244

Exposure of children ii. 212

Eyesight, mean and standard deviation of
i, 811, 313

FADDY-DANCE (in Cornwall) ii. 41
Fairy Tales
German—’*

Allerleirauh ii. 71 (princess a ser-
vant) 89, 90 (prince a kitchen
lad)

Aschenputtel ii. 83 (religious cere-
mony at marriage) 84, 85, 88-99
(mother-right)

Briiderchen und Schwesterchen ii.
63 ftn., 72 ftn. (closeness of feel-
ing between brothers and sisters)

Bruder Lustig ii. 73 (influence of
women)

Cinderella ii. 84, 85, 86, 89 (per-
verted version of ‘‘ Hans seeks his
Luck’’)

Das blaue Licht i. 60 (witch a cave-
dweller) 76 ftn. (soldier hero) 79

Das Eselein ii. 76 ftn. (hero a king’s
son) 79

Das Hirtenbiiblein ii. 71

Das Madchen ohne Hinde ii. 67 ftn.
(patriarchate) 73 (influence of
women)

Das Rathsel ii. 62, 63 (witch evil)
73 (influence of women) 76 (hero
a-king’s son)

Das singende springende Lowenec-
kerchen ii. 72 ftn. (wizard) 82
(kindred group-marriage)

Das tapfere Schneiderlein ii. 75 ftn.
(tailor hero) 79

Das Waldhaus ii. 69 (peasant bride)

Das Wasser des Lebens ii. 72 ftn.,
76 ftn. (hero a king’s son) 79

De beiden Kiinigeskinner ii. 65

De drei Viigelkens ii. 64, 68, 69

Der arme Miihlerbursch ii. 70 (pea-
sant bridegroom) 73 (influence of
women) 76 ftn. (low-born hero)

Der Hisenofen ii. 71, 76 ftn. (hero
a king’s son)

Der gelernte Jiger ii. 75 ftn. (hun-
ter hero) 79

Der Gevatter Tod ii. 75 fin, (pea-
sant hero) 79

Der gliserne Sarg ii. 75 ftn. (tailor
hero)

Der gute Handel ii. 73 (influence of
queen)

Der junge Riese ii. 85 ftn.

Der Koénigssohn der sich vor nichts
fiirchtet ii. 73 (influence of
women) 75 ftn. (hero a king’s
son) 83

Der Konig vom goldenen Berge ii.
71,.73 (influence of women) 75
(mother- right) 76 ftn. (hero
lowly) 82 (kindred group - mar-
riage)

Der Krautesel ii. 64 (white witch) 65

Der liebste Roland ii. 68 (witch
evil, patriarchate) 82 (kindred
group-marriage)

Der Ranzen, das Hiitlein, und das
Hornlein ii. 75 ftn. (peasant hero)

Der Riuber und seine Schne ii, 73
(influence of queen)

Der singende Knochen ii. 75 ftn.
(peasant hero)

Der Starke Hans ii. 75 ftn. (hero _
low-born)

Der siisse Brei ii. 64 (white witch)
Der Teufel mit den drei goldenen
Haaren ii. 75 ftn. (peasant hero)
Der treue Johannes ii. 67 ftn. (pat-
riarchate) 83 ieee ceremony

at marriage)

Der Trommler ii. 65, 73 (influence
of queen) ii. 76 ftn, (hero low
born) 83

Der Vogel Greif ii. 68 ftn., 73 ftn.
(influence of women) 75 ftn.
(low-born hero) 79

Des Teufels russiger Bruder ii. 76
ftn. (soldier hero) 79

Die beiden Wanderer ii. 75 ftn.
(tailor hero)

Die Bienenkénigin ii. 76 ftn. (hero
a king’s son) 79, 82 (kindred
group-marriage)

Die drei Federn ii. 69 (peasant bride)

Die drei Schlangenbliitter ii. 75 ftn.
(mother-right) 79 (peasant hero)

Die drei Spinnerinnen ii. 68 (dili-
gent bride) 73 (influence of
queen)

NAMES AND SUBJECTS 451

Die Erbsenprobe ii. 73 (influence of
queen) ,

Die Ginsehirtin am Brunnen ii. 61
(matriarchate) 70, 76 ftn. (hero
a count) —

Die Gansemagd ii. 65, 70, 71

Die goldene Gans ii. 76 ftn., 80

Die Goldkinder ii. 64

Die kluge Bauerntochter ii. 69
(peasant bride)

Die Nixe am Teich ii. 64 (white
witch)

Die Rabe ii. 64 (matriarchate) 76
ftn., 85

Die sechs Diener ii. 65 (queen a
witch) 67 (patriarchate, church)
71, 73, 76 ftn. (hero a king’s
son) 83 (religious ceremony at
marriage)

Die sechs Schwine ii. 63 (close-
ness of feeling between brothers
and sisters) 73 (influence of
women)

Die vier kunstreichen Briider ii. 75
ftn. (peasant hero) 79

Die wahre Braut ii. 64 (white
witch) 70, 83 (kindred group-
marriage)

Die weisse Schlange ii. 73 (influence
of women) 76 ftn. (servant hero)
79

Die weisse und die schwarze Braut
ii. 69 (peasant bride)

Die zertanzten Schuhe ii. 76 ftn.
(soldier hero) 79, 81 (kindred
group-marriage)

Die zwei Briider ii. 63, 64 (witch
evil, hunter) 76 ftn. (hero lowly)
79

Die zwoélf Briider ii. 62 (decay of
matriarchal system) 63 _ ftn.
(closeness of feeling between
brothers and sisters) 75 (mother-
right) 76 ftn. (hero a_ king’s
son)

' Die zwoélf Jager ii. 73 (influence of
women)

Dornréschen ii. 76 ftn. (hero a king’s
son)

Einduglein, Zweiiuglein und Dreiau-
glein ii. 64 (white witch) ‘

Fitchers Vogel ii. 72 ftn. (wizard)

Froschkonig ii. 60 (witch evil)

Hiinsel und Grethel ii. 62 (witch

_ evil)

Hans mein Igel ii. 75 ftn. (hero
lowly) 79

Jorinde und Joringel ii. 63 ftn. 83

K6énig Drosselbart ii. 67 ftn. (patri-
archate ; church)

Miarchen von einem der auszog Fiir-
chten zu lernen ii. 75 ftn. (peasant
hero) 79

Rapunzel ii. 60 (hostility of witch
to new form of marriage)

Rumpelstilzchen ii, 69 (diligent
bride)

Schneewittchen ii. 62, 63 (witch
evil, patriarchate) 65 (queen a
witch)

Sechse kommen durch die ganze
Welt ii. 76 ftn. (soldier hero)

Spindel, Weberschiffchen und Nadel
ii. 64 (white witch) 69 (diligent
bride)

Vom klugen Schneiderlein ii. 75 ftn.
(tailor hero) 83 (religious cere-
mony at marriage)

Lapp—

Alder-tree Boy ii. 77 ftn. (hero
lowly), 81 (woman heir) 85 ftn.

Family Strong ii. 85

The Boy and the Hare ii. 81
(woman heir)

The Giant- Bird ii, 82 (kindred
group-marriage)

The Humane Man and the Angel ii.
72 ftn.

The King and the Louse ii. 71 ftn.,
77 ftn. (hero lowly)

The Luck-Bird ii. 72 ftn.

The Silkweaver and her Husband ii.
70 ftn. (peasant bridegroom) 77
ftn. (hero lowly)

The Three Brothers ii. 77 ftn. (hero
lowly) 88

The Tschuds and Russleleaf ii. 82
(kindred group-marriage)

The Tschuds in Sundegjeld ii. 82
(kindred group-marriage)

Norse—

Askeladden, som fik Prindsessen til
at lggste sig ii. 71, 77 ftn., 80
(woman heir)

De syv Folerne ii. 77 ftn. (hero
Askelad) 78, 80 (woman heir)
De tolv Vildaender ii. 75 ftn. (prin-

cess the heir-apparent)

De tre Prindsesser i Hvidtenland ii.
77 ftn. (hero a fisher-lad)

Det blaa Baandet ii. 77 ftn. (hero
lowly)

Det har ingen Ngd med den, som
alle Kvindfolk er forlibt i, ii. 77
ftn. (hero Askelad) 81 (woman
heir)

Enkesgnnen ii. 77 ftn. (hero lowly)
80 (woman heir)

Fugl Dam ii. 71 ftn., 77 ftn. (hero
a king’s son) 80 (woman heir)

452

INDEX II

Grimsborken ii. 72 ftn., 77 ftn.
(peasant hero) 80 (woman heir)

Haaken Borkenskjaeg ii. 71

Herreper ii. 77 ftn. (hero lowly)
80 (woman heir)

Jomfruen paa Glasberget ii. 77 ftn.
(peasant hero) 80, 87 (woman heir)

Kari Traestak ii. 70

Lillekort ii. 77 ftn. (hero lowly) 80
(woman heir)

Om Askeladden som stjal Troldets
Sglvaender Sengeteppe og Guld-
harpe ii. 77 ftn., 80 (woman heir)

Om Risen, som ikke havde noget
Hjerte paa sig ii. 77 ftn. (hero a
king’s son)

Per og Paal og Esben Askelad ii.
70, 77 ftn., 80 (woman heir)

Rige Per Kraemmer ii. 72 ftn., 77
ftn. (hero a miller’s lad) 80
(woman heir)

Soria Moria Slot ii. 71 ftn., 77 ftn.
(hero Askelad)

Spurningen ii. 77 ftn. (hero Askelad)
80 (woman heir)

Trog og Utro ii. 70, 77 ftn. (hero
lowly) 80 (woman heir)

Vesle Aase Gaasepige ii. 69

Fasciculus Temporum ii. 260, 267 ftn.,
325 ftn.

Fastnacht ii. 137

Fastnachtspiele ii. 153, 208

Father, its derivation ii. 205

Father-age ii. 49: see Patriarchate

Father-in-law, names for ii, 228

Father’s brother, names for ii. 208

Father's sister, names for ii. 215

February, the month for sex-festivals ii.
158

Femur, mean and standard deviation of
i, 300-303

Fence ii. 128, 1387, 156, 158, 173, 178,

411
Fertility, artificial break in curve of i.

curve of i. 87
differential i. 67 ftn.
goddess of: see Goddess of
gross i. 70
inheritance of i. 81, 82
natural i. 67
net i. 70
Fever, enteric, distribution of i, 21, 22
Fever, scarlet, distribution of i. 33
Fick ii. 119, 184, 155, 178, 189, 208,
226, 227
Fijians, mean and standard deviation of
cephalic index i. 290
Fire-sticks ii. 112, 120, 123, 149, 190
Fischart ii. 176

Fison and Howitt *‘Kamilaroi and Ku-
mai” ii. 65

Fivelingoér Landregt ii. 17, 133

Flinders Petrie i. 280, 299, 339, 367

Flint, “Socialism ” i. 175 ftn.

Flégel, “Geschichte des Grotesk-Komis-
chen ” ii, 275 ftn., 282 ftn., 324 ftn.,
325 ftn., 365 ftn.

Folz, Hans ii, 376 ftn.

Forearm, mean and standard deviation
of i. 304

Forehead, mean and standard deviation
of roundness of i. 326

Fossils in language, folklore, custom,
ete. ii. 94, 147, 148, 151

Franck, 8., “‘ History Bible” ii. 260, 266,
267 ftn.

Fratria ii, 135

Free, its double sense ii. 171-174

French, sexual ratio of i. 285 ftn. ;
mean and standard deviation of brain
weight i. 322; of cephalic index i.
290, 352, 353; of femur i. 302; of
humerus i. 302; of radius i. 32; of
skull capacity i. 330 ; of span and of
stature i. 295; of tibia i. 302

Frequency, curve of i. 16, 272 et seq.

Frequency, range of i. 18, 275

Freya ii. 42, 122

Freyja ii. 168, 169, 170, 174, 175, 199

Freyr ii. 122, 167, 174, 175

Freytag, G., “De initiis scenicae poesis
apud Germanos”’ ii, 284 ftn.

Fricke ii. 42, 44

Friend, the root of ii. 167

Frigg ii. 198

Friesians, Ancient, mean and standard .
deviation of cephalic index i. 290;
of skull capacity, 335

Frua (see Fr@) ii. 115, 131, 168

Fra ii. 106, 168, 170

Fruti ii. 119

Fiiessener Todtentanz i. 2

Furnival ii, 392 ftn.

GAEA ii. 108

Galabin i. 37 ;

Galton, Francis i. 19, 76, 83, 104, 129,

134, 258 ftn., 294, 299, 310, 315

“ Natural Inheritance” i. 305, 311

Gaugenossen, ii, 139: see Index I.
genossen :

Gauls, Ancient, mean and _ standard
deviation of cephalic index i. 290
362

Gauss, “Law of Frequency” i.
ftn.

Geffcken, ‘‘Der Bildercatechismus des
fiinfzehnten Jahrhunderts” ii. 277 ftn.,
332 ftn., 340 ftn., 385 ftn.

274

NAMES AND SUBJECTS

453

Genealogies ending in female name ii. 107

Genossenschaft 429

Gerardus, “ Life of St. Udalric” ii. 378
ftn.

Gericht 426

Gerichtsmahl ii. 146, 147, 427

Gerichtspiel ii. 146

German, mean and standard deviation
of cephalic index i. 361; of body
weight i. 306 ; of brain weight i. 322 ;
of profile angle i. 323 ; of skull capa-
city i. 333, 334; of stature i. 295

Germ-plasm i. 104

Gervinus ii. 287 ftn.

Giantess ii. 85 ftn.

Giblin, tabulation of roulette returns i. 55

Giesebrecht, “‘ Vaganten oder Goliarden ”
ii. 304 ftn.

Girth, chest, mean and standard devia-
tion of i. 310

Goat, sacrificial ii. 136, 137

Goddess of agriculture ii. 106, 123, 160,
170

Goddess of fertility ii. 105, 110, 122,
123, 131, 145, 150, 157, 160, 168,
169, 170, 193, 200, 240

Gode, weather witch ii. 27, 42; goddess
of fruition ii. 106, 214

Godfather ii. 210-214

Godmother ii. 210-214

Gods, as lovers of goddesses ii. 108, 123

Goethe ii. 150

Golliards (strolling players) ii. 306

Graff, glosses of O.H.G. words ii. 100,
120, 192, 215

Grien, H. Baldung ii. 386 ftn.

Grimm, J. ii. 100, 196, 213, 220, 222,

224, 227, 304 ftn.
“Deutsche Mythologie” ii, 131, 321
ftn., 338 ftn., 357 ftn., 358 ftn., 381

‘“* Weisthiimer ” ii. 431
“ Worterbuch ” ii, 197, 429

Grimms’ Fairy Tales ii. 51-91, 146

Group-dwelling ii. 106, 136, 148, 173

Group-Meal : see Meal

“ Guldin Spiegel des Siinders”’ ii. 277

Gundeljinger’s “Entombment”’ ii. 389,
390

HAEOCREL i. 111, 112, 123, 383, 386;
“Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre”
i. 107

Hay (fenced inclosure) ii. 14, 130, 137

Hagestolz ii. 14, 129

Hahnenschlag ii. 40

Hain, ‘“Penitentionarins de
sione”’ ii, 336 ftn.

Handfasting ii. 25

Hans-in-Luck ii. 228

Hartmann, “* Oberammergauer Passions-

Confes-

spiel” ii. 286 ftn., 332 ; “ Weihnacht-
Lied u. Spiel” ii. 281 ftn.

Hasak, Vincenz, “ Der christliche Glaube
des deutschen Volkes”’ ii. 277 ftn.

Heart, mean and standard deviation of
i. 316, 317

Hebrew civilisation ii. 96

Heidelberg Block- Book i. 4, 7

Heimdall ii. 203

Heimdallar Galdr ii. 141

Heimgarten ii. 411, 412

Heirlooms, as protection against witches
ii. 35

Hel ii. 108

Heliand, the ii. 179, 186

Hera ii. 123, 240

Heredity, correlation as the measure of
i. 63

Herrad von Landsberg, “Hortus Delici-
arum ” ii. 260, 285, 286, 326 ftn.

Hexe, as champion of mother-right ii.
57, 130; as priestess of mother-god-
dess ii. 54 ; derivation of ii. 14, 130

Hexenmahil ii. 137, 151, 412

Hilarius ii. 305 ftn., 376 ftn., 395 ftn.

Hilde (goddess of fruition) ii. 104

Hildesheim, John of ii. 327

His and Rutemeyer, “ Crania Helvetica ”’
i. 291, 336, 360, 361

Hive, as a fossil ii. 126

Hochfeder, Caspar ii. 387 ftn.

Holbein i. 1, 8, 9, 403 ii. 263, 331 ftn.,
346 ftn., 366 ftn., 383 ftn., 391 ftn.

Holde ii. 182

Holle ii. 29, 37, 42, 44, 63, 169

Home ii. 128 :

Hortulus Animae ii. 351 ftn., 366 ftn.,
380 ftn., 387 ftn.

Hottentots, fertility of i. 85; mean and
standard deviation of cephalic index i,
290

Householder and housedweller ii. 190

Hroswitha ii, 288, 326 ftn.

Hubatsch, “Die lateinischen Vaganten-
lieder des Mittelalters” ii. 304 ftn.
Humerus, mean and standard deviation

of i. 300, 302, 303

Hunting or Giant Type ii. 104, 151

Hus, “De Ecclesia” ii. 393 ftn.

Husband ii. 195

Husband’ s brother, words for ii. 236

Husenbeth, “Emblems of Saints” ii. 266
ftn.

Huzley, *‘ Collected Essays” i. 156
“Evolution and Ethics” i, 110, 111,

112

ILIAD, the ii. 157
Index, Cephalic—
as a test of variability i. 286-293

454 INDEX II

Index, Cephalic—
definition of i. 269
mean and standard deviation of i.
349-372
table of i. 290
variation in i. 371
Index, Eye, mean and standard deviation
of i. 327
Forehead-breadth ditto i. 326
Kollmann’s ditto i. 325
Nose ditto i. 327, 328
Indians, American, fertility of i. 85 ;
use of the mill ii. 149
Tsis ii. 122, 150, 170
Italians, mean and standard deviation
of cephalic index i. 353; of skull
capacity i. 332

JACOB, J. , “Studies in Jewish Statistics”
i, 258 fin.
Janssen, J., “ An meine Kritiker ” ii. 351
ftn.
“Geschichte des deutschen Volkes”
ii. 277 ftn.
Jews, mean and standard deviation of
cephalic index i. 290, 349
Medieval exaggeration of brutality of
ii, 344-347
Joan of Arc, as white witch or folk-
leader ii. 12
Jord ii. 160
Jubinal, ““Mystéres inédits” ii. 276 ftn.,
306 ftn., 322 ftn., 325 ftn., 345 ftn.,
361 ftn., 371 ftn., 372 ftn., 377 ftn.,
380 ftn., 384 ftn., 385 ftn., 390-396
ftn.

Judas, as portrayed in passion-plays ii. °

346, 359, 360

KAISERSBERG, GEILER VON ii. 202, 277
ftn., 401

Kanakas, mean and standard deviation
of skull capacity i. 342

Kari the Great ii. 150; Cartulary of
ii. 211

Kehrein ii. 200

Keller, “ Bauriss des Klosters St. Gallen ”’
ii. 315 ftn.

Kelvin, Lord,

i. 157

“ Popular Lectures ”

Kidd, B.,
178

Kidney, mean and standard deviation of
i. 318

Ault and Kiltgang ii. 407-412

Kin, source of kindliness ii. 135, 144,
154, 160, 171, 172, 185

Kin-chief, ii. 138, 163, 205

“Geological Dynamics”

i. 156, 158
Social Evolution” i. 113-

Kindle, notion in ii. 112

Kindred group-marriage ii. 219
status of men in ii. 103, 201
supported by words for brother- and

sister-in-law ii. 236

Kin-group, as primitive social unit ii. 171

Kinship, the basis of civilisation ii. 145
through the woman ii. 188

King ii. 116 ; power derived from queen
ii, 117

King, ‘‘ History of the Apostles’ Creed”
ii. 396 ftn.

Kirmes ii. 19, 20, 44, 133, 146, 284

Kith and kin ii. 115

Klingenthal, Dance of Death in i. 7

Knackfuss, “ Monograph on Velasquez ”’
ii. 385 ftn.

Koganei (statistics) i. 340

Kraft, Adam ii. 386 ftn.

Krauss ii. 165

Kriiger ii. 258, 273, 340 ftn., 389 ftn.,
403 ftn.

Kummer ii. 313 ftn.

Kuning (kin-alderman) ii. 56

LAIB UND SCHWARZ, “‘ Biblia Paupe-
rum” ii, 267

Language, primitive ii. 97

Lapps, fertility of i. 85

Laws, Saxon ii, 214

Leges Presbyterorum Northumbriensum
ii, 235

Lehner, ‘‘ Die Marienverehrung’
ftn.

Leman, its derivation ii. 233

Lenaea, the ii. 158

Levirate, the ii. 236

Lex Canonica ii. 210

Lex Langobardorwm ii, 210, 211

Lexis, ‘* Theorie der Bevélkerungsstat-
istik” i. 27 ftn., 29

Leyden, Lukas van ii. 362 ftn.

Liber and Libitina ii. 179

Libyans, mean and standard deviation
of cephalic index i. 290, 367; of long
bones i. 300; of skull capacity i. 339

Life, duration of i. 104

Lille, Walther von ii. 304 ftn.

Liutprands Laws ii. 175

Liver, mean and standard deviation of
i. 317, 318

Lochner, S., “ Day of Judgment ” ii. 330,
340 ftn.

Longinus ii. 388, 389

Loserth, ‘‘ Hus und Wiclif” ii. 283 ftn.

Love, its derivation ii. 176

Lucifer, as portrayed in the passion-
plays ii. 357, 358

Lug ii. 236

LIugnassad ii. 151

’ ii, 851

NAMES AND SUBJECTS

455

Lupercalia ii. 158
Luther ii. 176, 203, 209
Luther, Hymns ii. 382 ftn.
“Von den Jiiden” ii. 344 ftn.
“Von Kauffshandlung und Wucher”
ii. 252 ftn.

MAEGELAGU ii. 105

Mahal (folk assembly) ii. 56, 101, 147,
149: see Index I.

Maid ii, 139

Mailehn (May-fee) 24, 25, 408, 409

' Mainz, council of ii. 211

Muaitland, “The Dark Ages” ii. 278 ftn.

Man, its derivation ii. 191

Mannhardt i. 118; “ Der Baumkultus”
ii. 321 ftn., 338 ftn.

Manowvrier i, 285 ftn., 298, 306, 340,

. 852

Manual, York ii. 297 ftn.

Manuel, N. ii. 403 ftn.

Mapes, Walter ii, 304 ftn.

Miirchen ii. 199, 202, 208, 211, 224

Marienklage ii. 272, 273, 384 ftn.

Mariolatry ii, 351

Mark ii. 106, 128, 137, 173

Markgenossen ii. 137, 431

Murkgenossenschaft ii. 144, 145, 159,
164, 431 :

Marriage, kindred-group ii. 92, 104,
121, 140-143, 152, 154, 171, 180,
195.

Marriage, patriarchal words for ii. 138

Marriage-rate, selective i. 84

Marriages, distribution of Italian i. 20, 21

Marriott, “Collection of English Mys-
teries”’ ii. 281 ftn., 333, 367

Marshall i. 276, 286 ftn., 322

Martene, “De Antiquis Ecclesiae Riti-
bus ” ii. 283 ftn., 290 ftn., 291, 295 ftn.,
297 ftn., 300, 310 ftn., 325 ftn., 372
ftn., 373 ftn., 378 ftn.

Martin-Leake, A. i. 270 ftn.

Mary Magdalen, as portrayed in pas-
sion-plays ii. 361-363

Mate ii. 140

Matralia ii. 201

Matriarchate ; see Mother-age

Matriculation, its derivation ii. 203

. Matrimony ii. 198

Matter i, 202, 380-383 ; ii. 199

May-Day ii. 19-24, 26, 36, 38-41, 47

May-Day dance ii. 133: see Dances

Meal, Growp- ii. 135, 138, 143, 146, 156,
158, 185 :

Mean, distinction between mode and
i. 16

Mechel, Peter ii. 359 ftn.

Medicvalism, a factor of modern culture
ii, 248, 249, 398-400

Median i. 16

Meier, E., ‘‘Sitten aus Schwaben’”’ ii.
275 ftn.

Meister, Karl, ‘‘ Das deutsche Kirchen-
lied”’ ii. 278 ftn.

Meister Stephan, “ Last Judgment” ii.
340 ftn., 341 ftn., 360 ftn.

Meister Withelm, “ Leben Jesu”’ ii. 263,
385 ftn.

Memling, Hans, ‘‘Seven Joys of the
Virgin ” ii. 373 ftn.

Michael Angelo ii. 389 ftn.

Midsummer Day ii. 25, 26, 36-41

Milchsack, **Oster- und Passionsspiele ”
ii. 283 ftn., 295 ftn., 297 ftn., 299,
310, 313

Mill, J. S., “Subjection of Women” i.
232

Mill, birthplace of celebrated bastards
ii, 150; primitive ii, 112, 123, 149,
190 ; connection with primitive sexual
license ii. 150

Milton ii. 207, 208

Minnesinger ii. 147

Missal, Canterbury ii. 295 ftn.; Leofric
ii, 295 ftn., 296, 378 ftn. ; Mainz ii.
295 ftn.; Sarum ii. 296 ftn.; York
ii. 296 ftn.

Mivart, St. George i. 879-388

Mode (occurrence of maximum fre-
quency) i. 11-16

Monaco, Le i. 45, 51, 53, 55

Mone, ‘* Lateinische Hymnen des Mittel-
alters” ii, 282 ftn., 288, 293, 294,
297, 339, 374 ftn.; plan of stage ii.
320

Monogamy, its influence on words ii.
190

Monte Carlo i. 43-62

Morality, genesis of ii. 93

Morris, “ Legend of the Holy Rood” ii.
262, 385 ftn., 393 ftn.

Mortality, childhood i. 33; infancy i. 34;
middle age i. 30; old age i. 29 ; youth
i, 32

Mother ii. 199

Mother-age ii. 2, 103, 108, 240 ; civilisa-
tion ii, 92, 108, 122; key to its
characteristics ii. 190

Mother Earth ii. 193, 198, 199, 201;
and her son ii. 103, 160

Mother-goddess ii. 106, 160, 169, 170,
171, 202

Mother-in-law, words for ii. 228

Mother-son deities ii. 199, 219

Mother-son theogonies ii. 104, 105

Mother’s brothers, words for ii. 215

Mother’s sisters, words for ii. 201

Mud ii. 199

Miller, Maz ii. 100

456

INDEX II

Mummies, Egyptian, mean and standard
deviation of cephalic index of i. 290,
366 ; of skull capacity i. 339

Miinzenberger, Confessional Books ii.
277 ftn.

Mylitta (Babylonian mother-goddess of
fertility) ii. 110

Mysteries—

Chester ii. 846 ftn., 357 ftn., 372
ftn., 373 ftn., 374 ftn., 376 ftn.,
386 ftn. ;

Coventry ii. 258, 262, 276 ftn., 306
ftn., 328 ftn., 331 ftn., 333, 334,
337 ftn., 343, 346 ftn., 357 ftn.,
358, 367,°372 ftn., 380 ftn., 383
ftn., 386 ftn., 397

Digby ii. 343, 344 ftn., 362 ftn., 386
ftn., 396

Tours ii. 302, 303, 329 ftn., 390

Townley ii. 258 ftn., 392 ftn., 393

NECK, mean and standard deviation of
sensitivity at i. 315

Negroes, fertility of i. 85; mean and
standard deviation of cephalic index
i, 290, 368; of skull capacity i.
340

Neolithic man, mean and standard devia-
tion of femur of i. 301 ; reconstruction
of stature of i. 298

Nephew, words for ii. 218

Nerthus (goddess of fruition) ii. 106

New-born child, manner of announcing
sex of ii. 220

Newsholme, *‘ Vital Statistics ”’

Nibelungenlied ii. 167, 215

Nicodemus, Gospel of ii. 298, 385, 387
ftn., 392 ftn.

Niece, words for ii. 219

Niehues, “ Zur Geschichte der Hexenpro-
cesse im Miinster”’ ii. 338 ftn.

Notker ii. 159

- Niirnberg, John of, “Vita Vagorum”’ ii

307

i. 38

ODYSSEUS ii. 149, 157

Officium Stellae ii, 291-293

Osiris ii, 122

Ostendorfer (Virgin as local mother-god-
dess) ii. 353

Ostiaks, fertility of i. 85

Otfrid ii. 180

Ovid ii, 225

PALATE, length of, mean and standard
deviation of i, 328

Paley, “Natural Theology” i. 161

Panjab, outcaste tribes of, mean and
standard deviation of cephalic index
i, 290, 368; of skull capacity i.
341

Panmixia, rate of regression as measure
of i. 63, 104, 114, 138-137

Panzer, “ Bayerische Gebriuche”’ ii. 60
ftn.

Papuans, fertility of i. 85

Parfre, John ii. 387 ftn.

Parisians, mean and standard deviation
of cephalic index i, 290, 352, 353 ; of
skull capacity i. 330-332

Parker, *“ Architectural Notes”
ftn., 293 ftn.

Passional, Das Alte ii. 812, 385, 887 ftn.

Passion-Play—

Characterisation in the ii. 334-363

Freiburg ii. 322

German, List of ii. 246-406

Greek ii. 272

Growth of the ii. 279-314

Heidelberg ii. 267

On the performers in the ii. 364-369

Plan of stage of, after Mone ii. 320

Spirit of the ii. 269-279

Stage, costumes, etc. ii. 315-334

Stage-accessories ii. 325-334

St. Gallen ii. 311 ftn.

Summary of the ii. 397-406

The contents of the ii. 370-397

Unity of the ii, 256-269

World drama as the keynote to the
ii, 257 7

Patriarchal-system, its origin ii. 188

Patriarchate ii. 5, 100, 102, 129, 135,
223

Patricians ii. 95

Peacock (statistics) i. 316-321

Pearson, K., “ Die Fronica”’ ii. 330 ftn.,
386 ftn.; “Grammar of Science” i,
152 ftn. 380-387 ; “Memoir on Re-
gression, Heredity and Panmixia”’ i.
66, 81, 259 ftn.

Peile, W. H., measurement of White-
chapel skulls i. 351

Persephone ii. 115, 175

Perwians, Ancient, mean and standard
deviation of cephalic index i. 290, 367;
of skull capacity i. 339, 340

Pervonto (Italian equivalent of Askelad)
ii. 51 ftn.

Pyister, ‘ Rechtstreit des Menschen mit
dem Tode” ii, 342 ftn.

Piderit, K. W., ‘ Weihnachtspiel” ii.
275 ftn., 289 ftn., 340 ftn., 357 ftn.,
372 ftn.

Pilate ii. 150 ; as portrayed in the pas-
sion-plays ii. 360, 361

Pipin, charter of ii. 212

ii, 264

NAMES AND SUBJECTS

457

Place names ii, 123, 144
Playing of the Stag ii. 19
Plays—

Alsfelder ii. 295 ftn., 323, 324 ftn.,
335 ftn., 343, 362, 368, 374 ftn.,
376 ftn.

Brixlegg ii. 262, 263, 379 ftn., 380
ftn., 389 ftn.

Chester ii. 265 ftn., 275, 327 ftn., 331
ftn., 341 ftn., 346 ftn.

De Decem Virginibus ii. 274, 317, 339
ftn., 343, 370 ftn.

Donaueschingen ii.
ftn.

Egerer ii. 257, 264, 267, 273, 295 ftn.,
323 ftn., 8326, 346, 355, 358, 371,
373 ftn., 374 ftn.

English in churches ii. 413-420

Evlauer ii. 362

Frankfurter ii. 324, 376 ftn.

In Cunabilis Christi ii. 275

Kunzlsauer ii. 376 ftn.

List of German medizval religious ii.
254, 255

Luzerner ii. 371

Oberufer ii. 261, 327 ftn.

York ii. 258

Plays, Magi—
Freising ii. 291
Orleans ii. 291
Ploss, “Das Weib” i. 85
# Plough, symbol of fertility ii. 124, 169,
424
Politics and science i. 140-172
Polynesians, fertility of i. 85; mean
and standard deviation of cephalic

index 369; of skull capacity i. 342,

344

Porter, “ Growth of St. Louis Children”
i, 295, 296, 299, 306, 309, 310, 314,
358, 359

Prefigurations ii. 265-269

Priestesses of mother-goddess ii. 106,
171

Priests (men dressed as women) ii. 106

Prije ii. 168

Primitive civilisation ii. 190

Primitive conduct, motives of ii. 99,
192, 193, 205, 208, 238

Pritis ii. 168

Prostitutes ii. 105

Prostitution, organised ii. 109

Pucazpirn ii. 381

Pull, strength of, mean and standard
deviation of i. 311, 313

331, 362, 374

QUEAN ii. 114

Queen ii. 113, 114

Queen bee ii. 197
Quental, Kolner Bibel” ii. 341 ftn.

Quetelet, “ Anthropométrie” i. 48, 285
ftn., 307, 312
Quick ii. 194

RADIUS, mean and standard deviation of
i. 300, 302, 303

Radius of gyration, or swing- i. 17

Rahon, J., “La taille préhistorique ” i.
301

Ramersdorf ii. 386 ftn.

Ranke, “ Anthropologie des Bayern” i.
323-327, 333, 334, 354

Ratios, table of sexual i. 374; table of
variation i. 374

Rawlings, J. D. (statistics) i. 309

Reaction i. 173-225

Regression i, 63

Reichersberg, Gerloh von ii. 286

Reid (statistics) i. 316, 321

Relationship, patriarchal words for ii.
142 ; special words for ii. 191

Relations-in-law, words for ii. 223

Reynard the Fox ii. 152, 211

Rhys, Professor, Hibbert Lectures ii. 65
ftn., 142, 151, 236

Right ii. 426

Risley (statistics) i. 289

Ritter-dance ii. 342, 343

Ritual, Church Scenic ii. 289-314;
Narbonne ii. 310; Rouen ii. 291,
292

Robertson Smith, “ Religion of the Sem-
ites” i, 118; “Kinship and Marriage
in Early Arabia” ii. 105 ftn.

Rochholz ii. 150

Rock, “ Church of our Fathers” ii. 405
ftn.

Rollet, ‘De la mensuration des os longs
des membres” i. 301

Romanes, G. i. 67 ftn.

Romans, Ancient, mean and standard
deviation of cephalic index i. 290,
345

Roquette, Otto, ** Geschichte der deutschen
Dichtung”’ ii. 318 ftn.

Rorbach ii. 329

Rosenheimer, “ DreikGnigsspiel” ii. 374
ftn., 383 ftn.

Roulette, Monte Carlo i. 42-62

Row-Graves, diagram of cephalic index i.
20

Rubin (statistics) i. 69, 85, 92, 97, 98,
100

SACRIFICES made by women ii. 102,
130

Saint John’s Eve ii. 105

Saints, female ii. 122

Sakées ii. 109

458

INDEX II

Salisbury Hours ii. 266 ftn.

Salisbury, Lord i. 144-187, 218, 383-
386

Samoiedes, fertility of i. 85

Sasse i. 335, 364

Satan, as portrayed in the passion-plays
ii, 357, 358

Scandinavians, Ancient, mean and stand-
ard deviation of cephalic index i. 290

Schade ii. 206, 226

Schedel, “Niirnberg Chronicle” sii. 259,
342

Scheifelin ii. 387 ftn. 393

Scherer, **Denkmiler deutscher Poesie
und Prosa”’ ii, 281 ftn., 326 ftn.

Schiltberger, ‘‘ Reisebuch ” ii. 105 ftn.

Schneller ii. 100, 146, 192, 208, 322 ftn.,

381 ftn.

“Carmina Burana”’ ii. 305 ftn.

Schinid, R. ii. 209 ftn.

Schmidt, J. ii. 182

Schmidt, Oscar i, 108, 109

Scholars, strolling ii. 304-308

Schinemann, * Der Siindenfall” ii. 384
ftn., 385 ftn.

Schingauer, ‘ Adoration of the Magi”? ii,
326 ftn., 340 ftn.

Schinsperger, “Via Felicitatis” ii. 387
ftn., 393 ftn.

Schrathenthal ii. 387 ftn.

Schrier, “ Deutsche Weihnachtspiele ”’ ii.
261

Seebrucker, “ Hirtenspiel ” ii, 274

Selection, natural i. 63, 94
periodic i. 72, 159 ftn.
reproductive i, 63-102; definition i.

65, 66

secular i. 159 ftn.

Sex-calls and food-calls of animals ii.
239

Sex-festivals ii. 104, 105, 122, 130, 132,

136, 158, 171; meeting-place for ii.
105, 125

Sex-function, meaning of words of rela-
tionship to be sought in ii. 97

Sex -velation between kindred ii. 108,
145

Sexual freedom of women ii. 208

Sexual group, as social unit ii. 182

Sexual relation of brother-sister ii. 102

Shakespeare ii. 200, 207

Ship of Fools ii. 270

Sif ii. 160, 161

Sight, keenness of, mean and standard
deviation of i. 311

Siminons, T. C. i. 58

Simrock ii. 151, 356 ftn., 383 ftn,
“Mythologie” ii, 321 ftn.
“‘ Volksbiicher ” ii. 326 ftn., 382 ftn.,

385 ftn.

Sims i. 320, 321
Sister ii. 122
Sister-in-law ii. 231
Skeat ii. 192, 196, 214, 223
Skewness, measured by difference between
mean and mode i. 16, 18
Skulls, Bavarian, mean and standard de-
viation of cephalic index of i. 278,
279: see also under each race
brachycephalic i. 288
dolichocephalic i. 288
Smith, ‘*Dictionary of the Bible” ii.
345
Smith, Toulmin, ‘English Guilds” ii.
365 ftn., 405 ftn.
Socialism and Natural Selection i, 108-
109
Son ii. 221
Son-in-law, words for ii. 223
exogamous and endogamous terms
ii, 228
Souls, list of ii. 341
Span, mean and standard deviation of i.
299, 311
Spencer, H. i. 111, 112, 113, 116, 121,
122, 184, 187, 193
Spinster ii. 130
Spoon, bridal, a fossil ii. 148
Spousals ii. 138
Spring or Brunnen, as meeting-place ii.
106
Spurcalia, the ii. 159, ftn.
Squeeze, strength of, mean and standard
deviation of i, 311, 313, 314
Star in the Hast, as stage accessory ii.
325-327
Statistics i, 28, 27, 44
Statwre, mean and standard deviation of
i. 285 ftn., 294-299, 311, 313

Stellafer or Sterntrager ii. 325

Stella Maris (Virgin Mary) ii. 326

Stephens, G. ii. 389 ftn., 393 ftn.

Stieda, “ Archiv fiir Anthropologie” i,
349.

Stoeger ii. 383 ftn.

Stokes, G. Gi. i. 214

Stokes, Whitley ii. 227, 230

Stoss, Veit ii. 386 ftn.

Strabo ii. 13

Strauss, *‘ Leben Jesu” ii. 345 ftn.

Stubbs, “ Anatomie” ii, 396 ftn.

Succession, right of, through marrying a
king’s daughter ii. 107: see Fairy
Tales

Swedes, Ancient, mean and standard de-
viation of cephalic index i, 290; of
skull capacity i. 365.

Swiss, Ancient, mean and standard de-
viation of cephalic index i. 290; of
skull capacity i. 386, 360, 361

NAMES AND SUBJECTS 459

_ TAIDINGE ii. 147

Tailltiu ii. 175

Tacitus ii. 182, 137, 143

Tarentzky ii. 368

Tatian ii. 161, 188

Tengler, “* Leyenspiegel ” ii. 317 ftn.

Tennyson i. 258 ftn.

Tertullian ii. 213, 214

Thane, G. D. i. 270 ftn., 330

Thesmophoria, the ii. 150, 170

Thomas von Kempen, ‘“Imitatio Christi”
ii, 277

Thompson, H, i. 339, 367

Thompson, R. EH. i. 266 ftn.

Thradhr ii. 180

Thurnam, “ Ancient British and Gaulish
Skulls” i. 337, 362, 365

Tibia, mean and standard deviation of
i. 300-303

Tilth, as symbol of sexual union ii. 199,
424

Tisa (Zisa) ii. 181

Tribal-Father ii. 106, 163

Tribal-Mother ii. 107, 188, 199

' Trimberg, Hugo von ii, 211

Troparion ii, 201

Trude ii. 34, 63

Truth and Troth, their origin ii. 182

Twelfth Night ii, 28, 36

UHLAND ii. 151

Uljilas ii. 132, 149, 182, 185

Uncle, words for ii. 208, 215

United States Recruits, variation in
stature i. 276, 277

Vote (tribal-mother of the Burgundians)
ii. 107 ftn., 131

Uranus ii. 108

VARIABILITY, of the sexes i. 293-377
scientific measure of i. 272-286

Variation, coefficient of i. 283
in man and woman i, 256-377
Table of ratio of i. 374 ©

Veghe, Johan ii. 277 ftn.

_ Velasquez ii. 386 ftn.

Venus ii. 107. 114, 119

Verena ii. 106, 150

Verlobung, mother-age fossil ii. 177

Viennese, mean and standard deviation

_ of cephalic index i. 357; of skull
capacity i, 333

_ Virchow, “Die Altnordischen Schidel
zu Kopenhagen ” i. 365

Virginity, a patriarchal virtue ii. 122, 130

Virgin goddess ii. 122, 131

Virgin Mary ii. 33, 36, 37, 42, 182;
as local mother-goddess ii. 353; as
portrayed in the passion - plays ii.
350-357

Virgin, the ii. 115
Visitatio Sepulchri ii, 299-301
Vola (or Sibyl) ii. 13

. WACKERNAGEL ii, 132, 192, 205, 281,

342 ftn.
Waischenfeld i. 325, 327, 354-356
Wadlber ii. 44
Wallace, A. R. i. 106
Walpurga ii. 10, 42, 48, 44, 45, 106,
150, 169
Walpurgisnacht ii. 21, 24, 27, 29-32,
39-44
Walpurgistag ii. 137, 158, 181
Walther von der Vogelweide ii, 167
Warren, A., “ Leofric Missal ” ii, 295
ftn., 342 ftn., 378 ftn.
Warren, E. i. 299
Webb, Sidney, “ Fabian Essays ” i, 246
Weber ii. 226
Wedding ii. 138
Wedding-dance ii. 133: see Dance
Wedding torches ii. 17, 82
Weiberdingete ii. 25
Weibermonat ii. 137, 158
Weigand ii. 1, 30
Weight, body, sexual ratio of i. 285
ftn. ; mean and standard deviation
of i. 305-309, 313
brain, sexual ratio of i, 285 ftn.;
mean and standard deviation of
i. 319-323: see Heart, Liver, etc.
Weihbrunnen, well of goddess of ferti-
lity ii. 37
Weinhold ii. 213; “Infancy Play” ii.
132, 275, 287
Weisbach i. 276, 322, 333, 357
Weismann i. 104, 114, 134-137, 165,
386
Weisthiimer ii. 56, 94, 147, 168, 431

Welcher, ‘“‘Wachsthum und Bau des

menschlichen Schidels” i, 333, 334

Weldon, W. F. R. i. 11, 19, 104, 134,
160

Wernher, “ Driu liet von der Maget”’ ii.
372 ftn.

Westergaard i. 48, 69, 85, 92, 97, 98, 100

Widow, derivation of ii. 101, 237

Wife, derivation of ii. 101, 192

Wild, Sebastian ii. 365

Wildefrauen ii. 38, 39

Wintleod, the ii. 17, 49, 133, 136, 158

Witch ii. 11

. Witch of Beutelsback ii. 12

Witch, White ii. 11, 62

Witch, woman as: see Woman

Witcheraft, evidences of mother-right
in customs of ii. 1-48

Witches’ Sabbath, relic of sex-festival ii,
83: see Hexenmahl

bc iota Sa

a ee Ge
SEO ES re
460 ates LIS
ANGIE

Wolff, “ Zeitschrift ” ii, 381 ftn.
Wolgemut, “Schatzbehalter” ii. 260.

261, 263, 265, 323 ftn., 329 ftn., 331 |

ftn., 379 ftn., 380 ftn., 384 ftn., 387
ftn., 391, 392 ftn., 393 ftn., 397 ftn,
Woltmann ii. 342 ftn., 346 ftn., 405 ftn.

— Woman and Labour i. 226-255

Woman as priestess ii. 188

Woman as witch ii. 1-50

Womb, the, as name for kin ii. 188, 193
Wonsam, Anton ii. 386

Worms, Council of ii. 212

Ey wie vré ich was,
do ich schreib Deo gratias.

Printed by R. & R. Cuark, Lure, Edinburgh. —

ie Wright, «Barly Mysteries" i

| Zerzerbrunnen ii. 38

myCars ii. 387 ftn., ied fin.
Yuneriwe ii. 36
Zeus ii. 123, 170, 222 .
Zingerle u. Egger ii. 147

Zisa: see Tisa
Zupan ii. 56, 163, 205

OLD SCRIBE,

March, 1897.

MR. EDWARD ARNOLD'S

Spring Announcements.

LONDON: 37 BEDFORD STREET.
NEW YORK: 70 FIFTH AVENUE.

Pee
7

THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES.

The First Expedition from Somaliland to Lake
‘ Rudolf and Lamu.

A Narrative of Scientific Exploration and Sporting Adventures.
By A. DONALDSON SMITH, M.D., F.R.G.S.

With nearly thirty full-page Plates and numerous smaller Illustrations by
A. D. McCoRMICK, CHARLES WHYMPER, etc., and detailed Maps
of the countries traversed.

Super royal 8vo., One Guinea net.

This important work of exploration will be valuable not only from the magnitude of the
expedition and the unknown character of the route, but for the scientific results obtained,
and the varied collections made and classified. Especially interesting is the account of the
hinteriand of Abyssinia, and the reception accorded to the explorer by Menelek and his
generals. An autograph letter from the Emperor Menelek himself is one of the curiosities
preserved by Dr. Smith and reproduced in facsimile.

SOLDIERING AND SURVEYING IN BRITISH EAST
AFRICA, 1891-1894.

An Account of the Survey for the Uganda Railway, and the various
‘ Campaigns in the British Protectorate during the last few years.

By Major J. R. MACDONALD, R.E.

Illustrated from Sketches and Photographs by the Author and numerous
Plans and a Map.

Demy 8vo., 16s.

CONTENTs : Chap. I. Start from Mombasa—Chap. II. To Machako’s—Chap. III.
Ukambani—Chap. IV. To Lake Naivasha—Chap. V. To Uganda—Chap. VI.
Lugard’s Christian War—Chap. VII. To Kibwezi—Chap. VIII. Fighting in Kukuyu
—Chap. IX. Account of Uganda—Chap. X. War with the Wavuma—Chap. XI. Sir
G. Portal’s Work—Chap. XII. First Mohammedan War—Chap. XIII. Second
Mohammedan War—Chap. XIV. Before the Third War—Chap. XV. Selim Bey’s
Intrigues—Chap. XVI. The Crisis—Chap. XVII. Fall of Selim Bey—Chap. XVIII.
Close of the Campaign—Chap. XIX. Preparations against Kabarega—Chap. XX.
Unyoro Expedition.

2 Myr. Edward Arnold’s

ON VELDT AND FARM:

In Cape Colony, Bechuanaland, Natal, and the Transvaal.

By FRANCES McNAB.
With Map. Crown 8vo., 300 pages, 3s. 6d.

This volume is written by a lady well fitted by her previous training to form a dis-
criminating estimate of South African affairs : she spent a considerable time in the Colonies
and received valuable facilities from influential residents while mquRiee into the condition
of the country and the prospect for intending settlers.

CONTENTS.—Markets—Land Purchase—Trekking—Political History—Viticulaee
Fruit-growing—J ohannesburg—Farming in the Transvaal—lIrrigation — Locusts
—Ostriches, Sheep, and Goats—Wheat—Forestry—Native Affairs—Natal—
Tea, Sugar, and Coffee.

FISH TAILS AND SOME TRUE ONES.
By BRADNOCK HALL, Author of ‘ Rough Mischance.’

With an original Etching by the Author, and twelve full-page
Illustrations by T. H. MCLACHLAN.

Crown 8vo., 6s.

The scene of most of these ‘ Fish-Tails’ (or Tales!) is laid in Norway, but of some in
England and Scotland. ‘They relate the author’s experiences, making due allowance for
the elasticity of a fisherman’s fancy.

THE BEGGARS OF PARIS.

Translated from the French of M. LOUIS PAULIAN.
By Lady HERSCHELL.

Crown 8vo., paper boards, 192 pages, Is.

’ The author of ‘‘ Paris qui mendie” speaks with the experience of one who has put the
question of mendicity to a personal test, and who has beaten the beggar in the various
branches of his own trade. No one therefore is a better authority on the subject.'—/vrom
the Preface.

WASTED RECORDS OF DISEASE.

By CHARLES E. PAGET, Lecturer on Public Health in Owens College,
Medical Officer of Health for Salford, etc.

Crown 8vo., 2s. 6d.

CONTENTS.
I. A Review of the attempts made to secure or establish permanent systems of
Disease Registration, and the causes of their failure.
II. Legislative recognition of the need for Disease Registration, and its shortcomings.

III. Views on the steps advisable to secure a permanent and useful system of
National Disease Registration.

Spring Announcements. 3

WILD NORWAY :

With Chapters on the Swedish Highlands, Jutland, and Spitzbergen.
By ABEL CHAPMAN, Author of ‘ Wild Spain,’ etc.

With seventeen full-page Illustrations and numerous smaller ones by the
Author and CHARLES WHYMPER.

Demy 8vo., 16s.

It is hoped that this book may become a standard work on Norwegian sport. It is the
result of many years’ personal experience of all kinds of sport—Stalking, Fishing, Shooting,
and Elk-hunting. The author is well known as a naturalist, and his interesting remarks on
the habits of birds and animals are those of a close and careful observer.

CONTENTS: Chap. I. Fjeld and Fjord—Chaps. II. and II]. Reindeer-Stalking—
Chaps. IV. and V. Salmon Fishing—Chap. VI. Memories of Monsters—Chap. VII.
Salmon in Surendal—Chap. VIII. Summer Rambles—Chap. IX. More Salmon
Rivers—Chaps. X. and XI. Trouting—Chap. XII. Autumn in Norway—Chap. XIII.
Hunting Camps in Hardanger—Chaps. X1V. and XV. Elk-Hunting— Chaps, XVI. and
XVII. Highlands of the Swedish Divide—Chap. XVIII. Wild Life in Forest and
Fjeld—Chap. XIX. Impressions of Denmark—Chap. XX. Lagoons and Marshes of
Jutland—Chap. XXI. The North Sea—Chap. XXII. Spitzbergen.

A MEMOIR OF MISS A. J. CLOUGH,

Late Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge. By her niece,
Miss B. A. CLOUGH.

With portrait, large crown 8vo., 12s. 6d.

THE CHANCES OF DEATH, AND OTHER STUDIES
IN EVOLUTION.

By KARL PEARSON, F.R.S., Author of ‘The Ethic of Free Thought,’ etc.

In two vols., demy 8vo., with Illustrations, 25s, net.

CONTENTS OF VOL, I.—The Chances of Death—The Scientific Aspect of Monte
Carlo Roulette—Reproductive Selection—Socialism and Natural Selection—Politics
and Science—Reaction—Woman and Labour-—Variation in Man and Woman.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.—Woman as Witch—Ashiepattle; or, Hans seeks his Luck
—Kindred Group Marriage—The German Passion Play—Index.

OLD ENGLISH GLASSES.

An Account of Glass Drinking-vessels in England from Early Times to the end of the
Eighteenth Century, with notices of Continental Glasses during the same period.

By ALBERT HARTSHORNE, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

With nearly 70 full-page Lithographic Plates and over 400 smaller Illustra-
tions. Super royal 4to., £3 3s. net.

This magnificent and unique work is dedicated by special permission to Her Majesty the
Queen. A full prospectus can be had on application.

4 Mr. Edward Arnold’s List.

NEW STORY BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘ DIANA TEMPEST,’
A DEVOTEE :
An Episode in the Life of a Butterfly.

By MARY CHOLMONDELEY, Author of ‘ Diana Tempest,’ ‘ The
Danvers Jewels,’ etc.

Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d.

NEW VOLUME OF ‘THE SPORTSMAN’S LIBRARY,

THE SPORTSMAN IN IRELAND.
By COSMOPOLITE.

With six Coloured Plates and numerous full-page and other Illustrations by
P. CHENEVIX FRENCH.

Edited by Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P., and forming the third
volume of ‘ The Sportsman’ s Library.’

Large 8vo., handsomely bound, 15s. A limited large-paper edition, £2 2s. net.

Note.—Previous volumes of ‘ The Sportsman's Library’ are

I.—THE LIFE OF A FOX. By THoMAs SMITH.
IIL.—COLONEL THORNTON’S SPORTING TOUR IN THE NORTH.

MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS.

Leaves from a Field Naturalist’s Note=book.

By Sir SR Bes MAXWELL, Bart., M.P., Author of ‘Dumfries and
Galloway,’ ‘etc.

Crown 8vo., with four Photogravure Illustrations, 6s.

Various topics of country life are discoursed upon, and separated under the months in
which they assume most prominence. Thus in January the author deals with—

Bird, Migration—Power of Birds to endure Cold—A Lake Sanctuary—
Canadian Pond-Weeds—The Scaup Duck—The Great Crested Grebe— Spring
Salmon—Winter Flowers—West Coast Meteorology—The Bottle-Tit—Feathered
Police— Revival of Primitive Flora.

And the other months are treated in a similar fashion.

EARLY ENGLISH FURNITURE.

An account of the famous English Cabinet-makers—Adams, Sheraton,
'.Chippendale, etc. With over Ioo fine Illustrations of their work.

By Mrs. WARREN CLOUSTON.

Demy 4to. Probable price, One Guinea net.

A’ GENERAL LIST OF

ade. Howard Frnold’s Publications.

i

TRAVEL, SPORT, AND EXPLORATION. |
Balfour—TWELVE HUNDRED MILES IN A WAGGON. A Nar-

rative of a Journey in Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Chartered Company’s
Territories. By ALICE BLANCHE BALFoUR. With nearly forty original Illustrations
from Sketches by the Author, anda Map. Second edition. Demy 8vo., cloth, 16s.

Beynon—WITH KELLY TO CHITRAL. By Lieutenant W. G. L.
Beynon, D.S.O., 3rd Goorkha Rifles, Staff Officer to Colonel Kelly with the Relief
Force. With Maps, Plans, and Illustrations. Second edition. Demy 8vo., 7s. 6d.

Bull—THE CRUISE OF THE ANTARCTIC. To the South Polar

Regions. By H. J. BULL, a member of the Expedition. Demy 8vo., 15s.

-Chapman—WILD NORWAY. (See page 3.)
Colvile—THE LAND OF THE NILE SPRINGS. By Col. Sir Henry

COLVILE, K.C.M.G., C.B., recently British Commissioner in Uganda. Demy 8vo., 16s.

Custance—RIDING RECOLLECTIONS AND TURF STORIES. By

HENRY CUSTANCE. One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.§ :

Freshfield—EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS. By Dovuctas

W. FRESHFIELD, lately President of the Alpine Club and Honorary Secretary of the
Royal Geographical Society. Illustrated by 3 Panoramas, 74 full-page Photogravures,
about 140 Illustrations in the text, and 4 Original Maps. In 2 vols., large 4to.,
600 pp., £3 35. net.

Gordon—PERSIA REVISITED. With Remarks on H.I.M. Mozuffer-

ed-Din Shah, and the Present Situation in Persia (1896). By General Sir T. E.
GoRDON, K.C.I.E., C.B., C.S.I. Demy 8vo., tos. 6d.

Hall—FISH TAILS. (See page 2.)
Hole—A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. By the Very Rev. S.

REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester, Author of ‘The Memories of Dean Hole,’
‘A Book about Roses,’ etc. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo., 16s.

Hole—A LITTLE TOUR IN IRELAND. By An Oxonian (the Very

Rev. S. R. HoLe). With nearly forty Illustrations by JOHN LEECH, including the
famous steel Frontispiece of the ‘Claddagh.’ One vol., large crown 8vo., 6s. ;

Macdonald—SOLDIERING AND SURVEYING. (See page 1.)
Maxwell—MEMORIES OF THE MONTH. (See page 4.)
McNab—ON FARM AND VELDT. (.See page 2.) |
Pike—THROUGH THE SUB-ARCTIC FOREST. A Record of

4,000 Miles Exploration in British Columbia and Alaska. By WARBURTON PIKE,
author of ‘ Barren Grounds of Canada.’ Fully Illustrated. Demy 8vo., 16s,

Pollok — FIFTY YEARS’ REMINISCENCES OF INDIA. By

Lieut.-Colonel POLLOK, author of ‘ Sportin Burmah.’ Demy 8vo., 16s.

6 Mr. Edward Arnold’s List.

Portal—THE BRITISH MISSION TO UGANDA. By the late Sir

GERALD PoRTAL, K.C.M.G. Edited by RENNELL RODD, C.M.G. Demy 8vo., 21s.

Portal—MY MISSION TO ABYSSINIA. — By the late Sir GrraLp

H. PorTAL, C.B. With Map and Illustrations. Demy 8vo., 15s.

Slatin—FIRE AND SWORD IN THE SUDAN. A Personal Narra-

tive of Fighting and Serving the Dervishes, 1879-18¢5. By SLATIN PASHA, C.B.
Translated by Lieut.-Colonel WINGATE, R.A., D.S.O., Chief of the Intelligence
Department, Egyptian Army. Fully Illustrated. Eighth Thousand. arts. net.

Smith—THE LIFE OF A FOX, AND THE DIARY OF A HUNTS-
MAN. By THOMAS SMITH, Master of the Hambledon and Pytchley Hounds. With
the original Illustrations by the Author, and Six Coloured Plates by G. H. JALLAND.
Large 8vo., handsomely bound, 15s. Also a limited Large-paper Edition, with Plates
on Japanese vellum, £2 2s. net. (See ‘Sportsman's Library.’)

“ene onl UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. (See
page I.
Stone—IN AND BEYOND THE HIMALAYAS: A Record of Sport

and Travel. ByS. J. STONE, late Deputy Inspector-General of the Punjab Police.
With 16 full-page Lllustrations by CHARLES WHYMPER. Demy 8vo., 16s.

Thornton—THORNTON’S SPORTING TOUR IN THE NORTH.

By Col. T. THORNTON, of Thornville Royal. With the Original Illustrations by
GARRARD, Coloured Plates by G. LODGE, and other Illustrations. Large $8vo.,
handsomely bound, 1ss. Also a limited Large-paper edition, £2 2s. net. (See
‘Sportsman's Library.’)

AMERICAN SPORT AND TRAVEL.
Aldrich—ARCTIC ALASKA AND SIBERIA; or, Eight Months

“«Mwith the Arctic Whalemen. By HERBERT L. ALDRICH. Crown 8vo., cloth, 4s. 6d.

AMERICAN GAME FISHES. Their Habits, Habitat, and Pecu-

liarities ; How, When, and Where to Angle for them. By various Writers. ros. 6d.

Higgins—NEW GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC COAST. Santa Fe

Route. By C. A. HIGGINS. Crown 8vo., cloth, 4s. 6d.

Leffingwell—THE ART OF WING-SHOOTING. By W. B.

LEFFINGWEL!. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, 4s. 6d.

Shields—CAMPING AND CAMP OUTFITS. By G. O. SHIELDs

(‘Coquina’). Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s.

Shields—THE AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DOG. By various
Writers. Edited by G. O. SHIELDs (‘Coquina’). Cloth, 15s.

Thomas—SWEDEN AND THE SWEDES. By WiLL1am WIDGERY

THOMAS, Jun., United States Minister to Sweden and Norway. Cloth, 16s.

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

Benson and Tatham—MEN OF MIGHT. Studies of Great Char-
acters. By A. C. BENSON, M.A., and H. F. W. TATHAM, M.A., Assistant Masters
at Eton College. Second Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d.

Boyle—THE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE DEAN OF SALISBURY.

By the Very Rev. G. D. BOYLE, Dean of Salisbury. With Photogravure Portrait.
1 vol., demy 8vo., cloth, 16s,

Mr. Edward Arnold’s List. 7

Cawston and Keane—THE EARLY CHARTERED COMPANIES.

A.D. 1296-1858. By GEORGE CAWSTON, barrister-at-law, and A. H. KEANE,
F.R.G.S. Large crown 8vo., with Frontispiece, ros. 6d.

Fowler—ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. By J. K. Fow er, of

Aylesbury. Second Edition, with numerous Illustrations, 8vo., tos. 6d. Also a Large-
paper edition, of 200 copies only, 21s. net.

Hare—MARIA EDGEWORTH: her Life and Letters. Edited by
AuGustTus J. C, HARE, Author of ‘ The Story of Two Noble Lives,’ etc. Two vols.,
crown 8vo., with Portraits, 16s. net.

Hole—THE MEMORIES OF DEAN HOLE. By the Very. Rev.

S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester. With the original Illustrations from
sketches by LEECH and THACKERAY. ‘Twelfth thousand, crown 8vo., 6s.

Hole—MORE MEMORIES: Being Thoughts about England Spoken

in America. By the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester. With
Frontispiece. Demy 8vo., 16s.

Hopkins—THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA. By Epwarp WasnHsBuRN

HOPKINS, Ph.D., Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology in Bryn Mawr
College, U.S.A. Demy 8vo., 8s. 6d. net.

Kay—OMARAH’S HISTORY OF YAMAN. The Arabic Text,

edited, with a translation, by HENRY CASSELS KAy, Member of the Royal Asiatic
Society. Demy 8vo., cloth, 17s. 6d. net.

Knight-Bruce—MEMORIES OF MASHONALAND. By the late

Right Rev. Bishop KNIGHT-BRUCE, formerly Bishop of Mashonaland. §8vo., ros. 6d.

Lecky—THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY. By W. E.
H. Lecxy, D.C.L., LL.D. An Address delivered at the Midland Institute, reprinted
with additions, Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

Le Fanu—SEVENTY YEARS OF IRISH LIFE. By the late W. R.

LE FANU. New and Popular Edition. Crown 8vo., 6s.

Macdonald—THE MEMOIRS OF THE LATE SIR JOHN A.
MACDONALD, G.C.B., First Prime Minister of Cariada. Edited by JOSEPH POPE,
his Private Secretary. With Portraits. Two vols., demy 8vo., 32s.

Milner—ENGLAND IN EGYPT. By Sir ALFrep MILNer, K.C.B.,

Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner to South Africa. Popular Edition,
with Map, and full details of the British position and responsibilities, 7s, 6d.

Milner—ARNOLD TOYNBEE. A Reminiscence. By Sir ALFRED
MILNER, K.C.B., Author of ‘ England in Egypt.’ Crown 8vo., paper, Is.

Oman—A HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Cuar es Oman, Fellow
_ of All Souls’ College, and Lecturer in History at New College, Oxford ; Author of
* Warwick the Kingmaker,’ ‘ A History of Greece,’ etc. Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s.
Also in two parts, 3s. each. Part I. to A.D. 1603; Part II. from 1603 to present time.

Pilkington—IN AN ETON PLAYING FIELD. The Adventures

of some old Public School Boys in East London. By E. M.§S. PILKINGTON, Fcap.
8vo., handsomely bound, 2s. 6d.

Pulitzer—THE ROMANCE OF PRINCE EUGENE. An Idyll under

Napoleon the First. By ALBERT PULITZER. With numerous Photogravure
Illustrations. Two vols., demy 8vo., 21s. ;

Raleigh—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By WatrTerR RALEicu,

Professor of English Literature at Liverpool University College. Second edition,
crown 8vo., cloth 2s, 6d.

8 Mr. Edward Arnold’s List.

Ransome—THE BATTLES OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. Ex-

tracted from Carlyle’s ‘History of Frederick the Great,’ and edited by CYRIL
RANSOME, M.A., Professor of History at the Yorkshire College, Leeds. With
numerous Illustrations by ADOLPH MENZEL, Square 8vo., 3s. 6d.

Rochefort—THE ADVENTURES OF MY LIFE. By Henri

ROCHEFORT. Second Edition. ‘Two vols., large crown 8vo., 25s.

Santley—STUDENT AND SINGER. The Reminiscences of

CHARLES SANTLEY. New Edition, crown 8vo., cloth, 6s.

Sherard—ALPHONSE DAUDET: a Biography and Critical Study.
By R. H, SHERARD, Editor of ‘The Memoirs of Baron Meneval,’etc. With Illustra-
tions. Demy 8vo., 15s.

Tollemache—BENJAMIN JOWETT, Master of Balliol. A
Personal Memoir. Bythe Hon, LIONEL TOLLEMACHE, Author of ‘ Safe Studies,’ etc,
Third Edition, with portrait, crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d.

Twining—RECOLLECTIONS OF LIFE AND WORK. Being

the Autobiography of LouISA TWINING. One vol., 8vo., cloth, 15s.

LITERATURE AND BELLES LETTRES.
Bell—DIANA’S LOOKING GLASS, and other Poems. By the

Rev. CANON BELL, D.D., Rector of Cheltenham, and Hon. Canon of Carlisle.
Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s. net.

Bell—POEMS OLD AND NEW. By the Rev. Canon Bett, D.D.
Cloth, 7s. 6d.

Bell—THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME, and other Sermons.
By the Rev, CANON BELL, D.D. Cloth, 5s.

Bell—KLEINES HAUSTHEATER. Fifteen Little Plays in German
for Children. By Mrs. HUGH BELL. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s.

Most of these little plays have been adapted from the author’s ‘ Petit Théatre,’ the
remainder from a little book of English plays by the same writer entitled ‘ Nursery

Comedies.’
Butler—SELECT ESSAYS OF SAINTE BEUVE. Chiefly bearing

on English Literature. Translated by A. J. BUTLER, Translator of ‘The Memoirs of
Baron Marbot.’ One vol., 8vo., cloth, ss. net.

Collingwood—THORSTEIN OF THE MERE: a Saga of the North-
men in Lakeland. By W. G. COLLINGWooD, Author of ‘ Life of John Ruskin,’ ete.
With Illustrations. Price 1os. 6d.

Collingwood—THE BONDWOMAN. A Story of the Northmen in
Lakeland. By W.G. COLLINGWoop. Cloth, 16mo., 3s. 6d.

Collins—A TREASURY OF MINOR BRITISH POETRY. Selected

and Arranged, with Notes, by J. CHURTON CoLLINS, M.A. Handsomely bound,
crown 8vo., 7s. 6d.

Cook—THE DEFENSE OF POESY, otherwise known as An
APOLOGY FOR POETRY. By Sir PuHiLip SIDNEY. Edited by A. S. CooK, Pro-
fessor of English Literature in Yale University. Crown 8vo., cloth, 4s. 6d.

Cook—A DEFENCE OF POETRY. By Percy ByssHe SHELLEY.

Edited, with notes and introduction, by Professor A. S. Cook. “Crown 8vo., cloth,
2s. 6d.

Davidson—A HANDBOOK TO DANTE. By Giovanni A. ScaR-

TAZZINI. Translated from the Italian, with notes and additions, by THOMAS DAVIDSON,
M.A. . Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s.

Mr. Edward Arnold’s List. 9

Ellacombe—THE PLANT-LORE AND GARDEN-CRAFT OF
SHAKESPEARE. By the Rev. Canon ELLACOMBE, author of ‘In a Gloucestershire
Garden.’ With 8o Illustrations, handsomely bound, tos. 6d.

Fleming—THE ART OF READING AND SPEAKING. By the

Rev. Canon FLEMING, Vicar of St. Michael’s, Chester Square. Third edition.
Cloth, 3s. 6d.

Garnett—SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH PROSE FROM ELIZABETH
TO VICTORIA. Chosen and arranged by JAMES M. GARNETT, M.A., LL.D. 700
pages, large crown 8vo., cloth, 7s. 6d.

Goschen— THE CULTIVATION AND USE OF IMAGINATION.

By the Right Hon. GEORGE JOACHIM GOSCHEN. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Eron — Harrow — WINCHESTER —

RUGBY — WESTMINSTER — MARLBOROUGH — CHELTENHAM — HAILEYBURY —
CLIFTON — CHARTERHOUSE. With nearly 1oo Illustrations by the best artists.
Cheaper edition. One vol., large imperial r6mo., handsomely bound, 3s. 6d.

Gummere—OLD ENGLISH BALLADS. Selected and Edited by

FRANCIS B. GUMMERE, Professor of English in Haverford College, U.S.A. Crown
8vo., cloth, 5s. 6d.

Harrison—STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN LITERATURE. By
FREDERIC HARRISON, M.A., Author of ‘The Choice of Books,’ etc. New and
Cheaper Edition, large crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d.

Hartshorne—OLD ENGLISH GLASSES. (See page 3.
Herschell—_THE BEGGARS OF PARIS (Paris qui Mendie). ‘Tran-

slated from the French of Louis Paulian by Lady HERSCHELL. Paper boards, Is.

Hole— ADDRESSES TO WORKING MEN FROM PULPIT AND
pi Soap ty ne : By the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester. One vol.,

-Hudson—THE LIFE, ART, AND CHARACTERS OF SHAKE-
SPEARE. By HENRY N. Hupson, LL.D., Editor of The Harvard Shakespeare,
etc. 969 pages, in two vols., large crown 8vo., cloth, 21s.

Hudson — THE HARVARD EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE’S
COMPLETE WORKS. A fine Library Edition. By HeNry N. Hupson,
LL.D., Author of ‘ The Life, Art, and Characters of Shakespeare.’ In twenty volumes,
large crown 8vo., cloth, £6. Also in ten volumes, £5.

Hunt—Leigh Hunt’s ‘WHAT IS POETRY? An Answer to the

Question, ‘ What is Poetry ?’ including Remarks on Versification. By LEIGH HUNT.
Edited, with notes, by Professor A. S. Cook. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

Lang—LAMB’S ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. With an _ Intro-

duction by ANDREW LANG. Square 8vo., cloth, 1s. 6d. Also the Prize Edition, gilt
edges, 2s.

Maud—WAGNER’S HEROES. | Parsifal—Tannhauser—Lohengrin—
Hans Sachs. By CONSTANCE MAUD. Illustrated by H. GRANVILLE FELL. Second
Edition, crown 8vo., 5s.

Maud—WAGNER’S HEROINES. Brunhilda—Senta—Isolda. By

CONSTANCE MAuD. Illustrated by T. W. MAubD. Crown 8vo., 5s.

Morrison—LIFE’S PRESCRIPTION, In Seven Doses. By D.

MACLAREN MORRISON. Crown 8vo., parchment, ts. 6d.

Pearson—THE CHANCES OF DEATH. (‘Sve page 3.)

Rodd—FEDA, and other Poems, chiefly Lyrical. By RENNELL
Ropp, C.M.G. With etched Frontispiece. Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s.

10 Mr. Edward Arnold’s List.

Rodd—THE UNKNOWN MADONNA, and other Poems. By

RENNELL RODD, C.M.G. With Frontispiece by RICHMOND. Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s.

Rodd—THE VIOLET CROWN, AND SONGS OF ENGLAND. By

RENNELL Ropp, C.M.G. With Photogravure Frontispiece. Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s.

Rodd—THE CUSTOMS AND LORE OF MODERN GREECE. By

RENNELL RODD, C.M.G. With 7 full-page Iilustrations,. 8vo., cloth, 8s. 6d.

Schelling—A BOOK OF ELIZABETHAN LYRICS. Selected and

Edited by F. E. SCHELLING, Professor of English Literature in the University of
Pennsylvania. Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s, 6d.

Schelling—BEN JONSON’S TIMBER. Edited by Professor F. E.

SCHELLING. Crown 8vo.,, cloth, 4s.

Sichel—THE STORY OF TWO SALONS. Madame de Beaumont
and the Suards. By EDITH SICHEL, Author of ‘Worthington Junior,’ With Illus-
trations. Large crown 8vo., cloth, ros. 6d.

Thayer—THE BEST ELIZABETHAN PLAYS. Edited, with an

Introduction, by WILLIAM R. THAYER. 612 pages, large crown 8vo., cloth, 7s. 6d.

WINCHESTER COLLEGE. [Illustrated by Herrpert MarsHALt.

With Contributions: in Prose and Verse by OLD WYKEHAMISTS. Demy 4to., cloth,
25s. net. <A few copies of the first edition, limited to 1,000 copies, are still to be had.

FICTION.
SIX SHILLING NOVELS.
A RELUCTANT EVANGELIST. By Atice Spinner, Author of
‘ Lucilla,’ ‘A Study in Colour,’ etc. Cloth, 6s.
INTERLUDES. By Maup OxENDEN. Cloth, 6s.

A MASK AND A MARTYR. By E. Livincston Prescort, Author
of ‘ The Apotheosis of Mr. Tyrawley.’ Cloth, 6s.

HADJIRA: A Turkish Love Story. By ‘ADALET.’ 1 vol., crown 8vo.,
cloth, 6s.

‘ One of the best stories of the season.’— Daily Chronicle.

TOMMY ATKINS. A Tale of the Ranks. By RopertT BLaTcHFoRD,

Author of ‘A Son of the Forge,’ ‘ Merrie England,’ etc. Second Edition. Crown
8vo., cloth, 6s.

ORMISDAL. A Novel. Bythe Eart or Dunmorg, F.R.G.S., Author

of ‘The Pamirs.’ One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 6s.

THE TUTOR’S SECRET. (Le Secret du Précepteur.) Translated

from the French of VICTOR CHERBULIEZ. One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 6s.

THREE SHILLING AND SIXPENNY NOVELS.
A DEVOTEE. By Mary CHoLMonDELEY. (See page 4.)
THE BAYONET THAT CAME HOME. A Greek Novel. By N.

WYNN WILLIAMS, Author of ‘ Tales of Modern Greece.’ Cloth, 3s. 6d.
ON THE THRESHOLD. By Isazetta O. Forp, Author of ‘ Miss

Blake of Monkshalton.’ One vol., crown 8vo., 3s. 6d.

THE MYSTERY OF THE RUE SOLY. Translated by “Lady

KNUTSFORD from the French of H. DE BALZAC. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s, 6d.

DAVE’S SWEETHEART... By Mary Gaunt. One vol., 8vo., cloth,
38. 6c.

Mr. Edward Arnold’s List. II

MISTHER O’RYAN. An Incident in the History of a Nation.
By EDWARD MCNULTy. Small 8vo., elegantly bound, 3s. 6d.

STEPHEN REMARX. The Story of a Venture in Ethics. By the

Hon. and Rev. JAMES ADDERLEY, formerly Head of the Oxford House and Christ
Church Mission, Bethnal Green. Twenty-Second Thousand. Small 8vo., elegantly
bound, 3s. 6d. ‘Also in paper cover, Is.

HALF-CROWN NOVELS.
WORTH WHILE. By F. F. Montrfsor, Author of ‘ Into the High-

ways and Hedges.” Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

LOVE-LETTERS OF A WORLDLY WOMAN. By Mrs. W. K.

CLIFFORD, Author of ‘Aunt Anne,’ ‘Mrs. Keith’s Crime,’ etc. One vol., crown
8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

THAT FIDDLER FELLOW: A Tale of St. Andrews. By Horace
G. HUTCHINSON, Author of ‘My Wife's Politics,’ ‘Golf,’ ‘Creatures of Circum-
stance,’ etc. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

TWO SHILLINGS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE.’

GEORGE’S MOTHER. By SterHen Crane. Cloth, 2s.

COUNTRY HOUSE—PASTIMES.
Ellacombe—IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN. By the Rev.

H. N. ELLACOMBE, Vicar of Bitton, and Honorary Canon of Bristol. Author of
‘Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare.’ With new illustrations by Major
E. B. RICKETTS. Second Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s.

Hole—A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN AND THE GARDENER.

By the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester. Second edition. Crown
8vo., 6s.

Hole—A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. By the Very Rev. S. REyNnotps

HO.LeE, Dean of Rochester. [Illustrated by G. S. ELGoop, R.I. Popular Edition,
3s. 6d. The Presentation Edition, with additional Coloured Plates by H. G. Moon,
handsomely bound, ros. 6d.

Brown—PLEASURABLE POULTRY-KEEPING. By E. Brown,
F.L.S. Fully illustrated. One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

‘Mr. Brown has established for himself a unique position in regard to this subject, and what he has
to say is not only sound counsel, but is presented in a very readable form.’—WNottingham Daily
Guardian.

Brown—POULTRY-KEEPING AS AN INDUSTRY FOR FARMERS
AND reas By EDWARD Brown. Fully illustrated. Second edition. Demy
4to.”, clo

Brown—INDUSTRIAL POULTRY-KEEPING. By Epwarp Brown.
Illustrated. Paper boards, 1s. A small handbook chiefly intended for cottagers and
allotment-holders.

Brown—POULTRY FATTENING. By E. Brown, F.L.S. Fully

illustrated. New Edition. Crown 8vo., 1s. 6d.

White—PLEASURABLE BEE-KEEPING. By C.N. Wuire, Lecturer
to the County Councils of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, etc. Fully illustrated.
One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

Gossip—THE CHESS POCKET MANUAL. By G. H. D. Gossip.

A Pocket Guide, with numerous Specimen Games and Illustrations. Small 8vo., 2s. 6d.

12 Mr. Edward Arnold’s List.

Cunningham—THE DRAUGHTS POCKET MANUAL. By J. G.

CUNNINGHAM. An Introduction to the Game in all its branches. Small 8vo., with
numerous diagrams, 2s. 6d.

Kenney - Herbert — COMMON-SENSE COOKERY: based on

Modern English and Continental Principles, Worked out in Detail. By Colonel
A. KENNEY-HERBERT (‘Wyvern’), Large crown 8vo., over 500 pp., 7s. 6d.

Kenney - Herbert — FIFTY BREAKFASTS: containing a great

variety of New and Simple Recipes for Breakfast Dishes. By Colonel KENNEY-
HERBERT (‘ Wyvern’). Small 8vo., 2s. 6d.

Kenney - Herbert — FIFTY DINNERS. By Colonel Kenney-

HERBERT. Small 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

Kenney - Herbert — FIFTY LUNCHES. . By Colonel KEnney-

HERBERT. Small 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

Shorland—CYCLING FOR HEALTH AND PLEASURE. By L.
H. Porter, Author of ‘ Wheels and Wheeling,’ etc. Revised and edited by F. W..
SHORLAND, Amateur Champion 1892-93-94. With numerous Illustrations, small
8vo., 2s. 6d.

Holt—FANCY DRESSES DESCRIBED. -By Arprern Horr. An.

Alphabetical Dictionary of Fancy Costumes. With full accounts of the Dresses.
About 60 Illustrations by LILLIAN YOUNG. Many of them coloured. One vol.,
demy 8vo.

WILD FLOWERS IN ART AND NATURE. By J.C. L. Sparkzs,
Principal of the National Art Training School, South Kensington, and F. W. Bur-
BIDGE, Curator of the University Botanical Gardens, Dublin. With 21 Full-page
Coloured Plates by H. G. Moon. Royal 4to., handsomely bound, gilt edges, 21s.

SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, ETe.
Bryan—THE MARK IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. A Review

of the Discussion on Early Land Tenure. By ENOCH A. BRYAN, A.M., vieyicens
of Vincennes University, Indiana. Crown 8vo., cloth, 4s. 6d.

Burgess—POLITICAL SCIENCE AND COMPARATIVE CONSTI-
TUTIONAL LAW. By JOHN W. Burcgss, Ph.D., LL.D., Dean of the University
Faculty of Political Science in Columbia College, U.S.A. In two volumes. Demy
8vo., cloth, 25s.

Fawcett—THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. Being an Attempt

to determine the First Principles of Metaphysics considered as an Inquiry into the
Conditions and Import of Consciousness. By EDWARD DOUGLAS FAWCETT. One
vol., demy 8vo., 14s. :

Hopkins—THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA. (See page 7.)
Ladd—LOTZE’S PHILOSOPHICAL OUTLINES. Dictated Portions

of the Latest Lectures (at G6ttingen and Berlin) of Hermann Lotze. Translated
and edited by GEORGE T. LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale College. About
180 pages in each volume. Crown 8vo., cloth, 4s. each. Vol. I. Metaphysics. Vol.
II. Philosophy of Religion. Vol. III. Practica! Philosophy. Vol. IV. Psychology.
Vol. V. Aésthetics. Vol. VI. Logic.

THE JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY. Edited by C. O. Wurman,

Professor of Biology in Clark University, U.S.A. Three numbers in a volume of
roo to 150 large 4to. pages, with numerous plates. Single numbers, 17s. 6d. ; sub-
scription to the volume of three numbers, 45s. Volumes I. to X. canenow be obtained,
and the first number of Volume XI. is ready.

Morgan— ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE. By Professor

LLoyD MorGAN, F.G.S., Principal of University College, Bristol. With 40

Yiadelous and a Photo-etched Frontispiece. Second Edition. Demy 8vo.,
cloth, 16s.

Mr. Edward Arnold’s List. ERK

Morgan—HABIT AND INSTINCT: A Study in Heredity. By

Professor C. LLoyp MorGAN, Author of ‘Animal Life and Intelligence.’ Based on
the Author's ‘ Lowell Lectures’ in 1895-96. Demy 8vo., 16s.

Morgan—THE SPRINGS OF CONDUCT. By Professor C. Lioyp
MorGAN, F.G.S. Cheaper Edition. Large crown 8vo., 3s. 6d.

Morgan—PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS. By Professor C. Ltoyp
MorGAN, F.G.S. With a Preface by Sir JosHUA Fitcu, LL.D., late one of H.M.
Chief Inspectors of Training Colleges, Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. net.

Pearson—Chances of Death. (See page 3.)
Paget—WASTED RECORDS OF DISEASE. By Cuartss E.

PAGET, Lecturer on Public Health in the Owens College, Medical Officer of Health
for the County Borough of Salford. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Edited by J. G. Scuurman,

Professor of Philosophy in Cornell University, U.S.A. Six Numbers a year. Single
Numbers, 3s. 6d. ; Annual Subscription, 14s. post free. The first number was issued
in January, 1892.

Shaw—A TEXT-BOOK OF NURSING FOR HOME AND HOSPITAL

USE. By C. WEEKS SHAW. Revised and largely rewritten by W. RADFORD,
House Surgeon at the Poplar Hospital, under the supervision of Sir Dyce Duck-
WORTH, M.D., F.R.C.P. Fully Illustrated, crown 8vo., 3s. 6d.

Young—A GENERAL ASTRONOMY. By Cuartes A. Youn,

Professor of Astronomy in the College of New Jersey, Associate of the Royal Astro-
nomical Society, Author of Zhe Sun, etc. In one vol., 550 pages, with 250 Illustra-
tions, and supplemented with the necessary tables. Royal 8vo., half morocco,
ras. 6d.

BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
FIVE SHILLINGS EACH.
SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES. By Kirk Munro. Fully illus-

trated. Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s.

RICK DALE. By Kirk Munroe. Fully illustrated. Crown 8vo.,
cloth, 5s.

ERIC THE ARCHER. By Maurice H. Hervey. With numerous

full-page Illustrations. Handsomely bound, crown 8vo., 5s.

THE FUR SEAL’S TOOTH. By Kirk Munroe. Fully illustrated.

Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s.

HOW DICK AND MOLLY WENT ROUND THE WORLD. By

M. H. CORNWALL LEGH. With numerous Illustrations. Feap. 4to., cloth, 5s.

HOW DICK AND MOLLY SAW ENGLAND. By M. H. Cornwatt

LEGH. With numerous Illustrations. Foolscap 4to., 5s.

DR. GILBERT'S DAUGHTERS. By Marcaret Harriet MATHEWS.

Illustrated by CHRIS. HAMMOND. Crown 8vo., cloth, 5s.

THE REEF OF GOLD. By Maurice H. Hervey. With numerous
full-page Illustrations, handsomely bound. Gilt edges, 5s.

BAREROCK ; or, The Island of Pearls. By Henry Nasu. With

numerous Illustrations by LANCELOT SPEED. Large crown 8vo., handsomely bound,
gilt edges, ss.

14 | Mr. Edward Arnold’s List.

THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACH.
TALES FROM HANS ANDERSEN. With nearly 40 Original Illus-

trations by E. A. LEMANN. Small 4to., handsomely bound in cloth, 3s. 6d.

THE SNOW QUEEN, and other Tales. By Hans CurisTIAN

ANDERSEN. Beautifully illustrated by Miss F. A. LEMANN. Small 4to., handsomely
bound, 3s. 6d.
HUNTERS THREE. By Tuomas W. Knox, Author of ‘The Boy

Travellers,’ etc. With numerous Illustrations, Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d.

THE SECRET OF THE DESERT. By E. D. Fawcert. With

numerous full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d.

JOEL: A BOY OF GALILEE. By Annie FELLOws JOHNSTON.

With ten full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d,

THE MUSHROOM CAVE. By Evetyn Raymonp. With Illustrations.
Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d.

THE DOUBLE EMPEROR. By W. Lairp Ciowss, Author of ‘The

Great Peril,’ etc. Illustrated. Crown 8vo., 3s. 6d.

SWALLOWED BY AN EARTHQUAKE. By E. D. Fawcerr. Iilus-

trated. Crown 8vo,, 3s. 6d.

HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST; or, The Doom of the Great

City. By E. DouGLAs FAWCETT. With sixteen full-page and numerous smaller
Illustrations by F. T. JANE. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d.

ANIMAL SKETCHES: a Popular Book of Natural History. By Pro-

fessor C. LLOYD MORGAN, F.G.S, Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d,

TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACH.

The Children’s hour Series,
All with Full-page Illustrations.
THE PALACE ON THE MOOR. By E. Davenport Apams, 2s. 6d.
TOBY’S PROMISE. By A. M. Hopkinson. 2s. 6d.
MASTER MAGNUS. By Mrs. E. M. Fietp. 2s. 6d.
MY DOG PLATO. By M. H. Cornwa tt Lecu, as. 6d.

FRIENDS OF THE OLDEN TIME. By Aticr GARDNER, Lecturer

in History at Newnham College, Cambridge. Second Edition. [Illustrated. Square
8vo., 2s. 6d.

TWO SHILLINGS EACH.
THE CHILDREN’S FAVOURITE SERIES. A Charming Series of

Juvenile Books, each plentifully Illustrated, and written in simple language to please
young readers. Handsomely bound, and designed to form an attractive and enter-
taining series of gift-books for presents and prizes. The utmost care has been taken
to maintain a thoroughly healthy tone throughout the Series, combined with enter-
taining and interesting reading, Price 2s. each; or gilt edges, 25. 6d.

My Book of Wonders. My Book of Perils.

My Book of Travel Stories. My Book of Fairy Tales.
My Book of Adventures. My Book of History Tales.
My Book of the Sea. My Story Book of Animals.
My Book of Fables. Rhymes for You and Me.
Deeds of Gold My Book of Inventions.

My Book of Heroism.

Mr. Edward Arnold’s List. 15
Fndexr to Authors.
PAGE PAGE
ADAMS.—The Palace on the Moor . 14 | DUNMORE.—Ormisdal . P : - 10
SODERLEY.——Stepnen agg ibe ELLACOMBE. — In a _ Gloucestershire
ALDRICH.—Arctic Alaska 6
AMERICAN GAME FISHES 6 agains ; : ve
ELLACOMBE.—The Plant tae of Shake-
BALFOUR.—Twelve Hundred Miles in a speare . ; F m ‘ , jn
Waggon : ’ 5 | Fawcerr.—Hartmann the Anarchist . 1
BELL, MRs. —Kleines Haustheater . 8 | Fawcert.— Riddle of the Universe i js
BELL (REV. Canon). —Sermons sd FAWCETT.—Secret of the Desert . . 14
Z Diana's Looking Glass ° ‘3 Swallowed by an Earthquake 14
ik Poems Old and New 8 | Fre_p.—Master Magnus. ; 7-34
BENSON. —Men of Might. he © | Freminc.—Art of Reading and Speaking 9
BEYNON.—With Kelly to Chitral S| Ronps_-On thé Thresholi the
BLATCHFORD. —Tommy Atkins “20 | Rownnit.—Echoes of Old County Life 2° 9
BovLE. —Recollections of the Dean of FRESHFIELD. een ae's of the Cau-
Salisbury 6 cane P
BrowNn.— Works on Poultry Keeping II : y 4
BRYAN.—Mark-in Europe 12 | GARDNER.—Friends of Olden Time . 14
BuLL.—The Cruise of the ‘ aeherctie:? 5 GARNETT.—Selections i in English Prose. 9
BURBIDGE.—Wild Flowers in Art 12 | GAUNT.—Dave's Sweetheart . + —- 10
BURGESS,—Political Science . 12 | GORDON,—Persia Revisited . 5
BUTLER.—Select Essays of Sainte SOG 8 GOSCHEN.—Cultivation and Use of the
Imagination . > * eg
Cawston.—The Early Chartered Com- Gossip.—Chess Pocket uakeat ; Bu § |
panies . , : - 7 | GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS : ; 26
CHAPMAN.— Wild abeas 3. | GUMMERE.—Old English Ballads . . 9
CHERBULIEZ.—The Tutor’s Secret . 10 | HApjIRA. ; , ; : ; cig
CHILDREN’S FAVOURITE SERIES 14 | HatL—Fish Tails . : ; ray
CHILDREN’S HOUR SERIES 14 | HANS ANDERSEN.—Snow Qué Nua y ae? ;
CHOLMONDELEY.—A Devotee 4 4 Tales from . 14
CLIFFORD. —Love-Letters . II | Hare.—Life and Letters of Maria Edge-
CLOUGH.--Memoir of Miss A, J. Cibigi 2 werth é , 7
CiousTon,—Early English Furniture 4 | HaRRIsON.—Early Victorian Literature . 9
Ciowes.—Double Emperor 14 | HARTSHORNE.—Old English Glasses 3
COLLINGWoOD.—Thorstein . , 8 | HerscHELL.—Parisian Beggars. 2,9
” The Bondwoman. . 8 | Hervey.—Ericthe Archer . . . 13
CoLuins.—A Treasury of Minor British < Reef of Gold . i 13
Poetry. 8 | Hiccins. —New Guide to the Pavifie
COLVILE.—Land of the Nile Springs 5 Peau <<! j .
Coox.—Sidney's Defense of Poesy 8 | HoLE.—Addresses to Worlds Men e 9
oe Shelley’s Defence of Poetry 8‘ tare Book aboubiiiesss ie
COSMOPOLITE. —Sportsman in Ireland 4 Biiele Ahnitetha: Garden ; ; ae
CRANE.—George’s Mother : II AE daa aCe ded An eaiiiea ponte P
CUNNINGHAM.—Draughts Manual . 12 dla Toak ie tréland ‘ P
CUSTANCE.— Riding Recollections . 5 i iexsheled 7 ; h >
DAVIDSON.—Handbook to Dante 8 . More Memories . 7

16 Mr. Edward Arnold’s List.

PAGE
HouLt.—Fancy Dresses Described . Pay
HOPKINSON. —Toby’s Promise : 7 ae
HopkKINS.—Religions of India. ; 7
Hupson.—Life, Art, and Characters of
Shakespeare. ee ee
= Harvard Shakespeare . «1 o
HuNtT.—What is Poetry ? ‘ - S
HUTCHINSON.—That Fiddler Fellow: . 11
JOHNSTON.— Joel ; a Boy of Galilee . 14
Kay.—Omarah’s Yaman. ; Tor.
KENNEY-HERBERT.—Fifty Breakfasts . 12
a és Fifty Dinners ne
~ “ Fifty Lunches Pa |
m Common-sense
Cookery : ; . 12
KNIGHT-BRUCE.—Memories Y Mashonk-
land. : ° . ‘ A
Knox.—Hunters Three ; ‘ ee
KNUTSFORD,—Mystery of the Rue Sir, ste)
LANG.—Lamb’s Adventures of Ulysses . 9
Lecky.—Political Value of History. 7
LE FANuU.—Seventy Years of Irish Life 7
LEFFINGWELL.—Art of Wing-Shooting . 6
LreGH.—How Dick and Molly went round
the World. ‘ ef
LEGH.—How Dick and Moly saw bo
land. ; : ioe
LEGH.—My Dox Plato ; » ‘ . 14
LotTzE.— Philosophical Outlines ; in
MACDONALD.—Soldiering and Surveying
in British East Africa i
MATHEwS.—Dr. Gilbert's Pmughies «33
Maup.—Wagner’s Heroes ° » 9
pe Wagner's Heroines . ; wd
MAXWELL.—The Sportsman’s Library 4
a Memories of the Months 4
McNaAs.—On Veldt and Farm «2
McNuLty.—Misther O’Ryan . , mee
MILNER.—England in Egypt . a aT
i Arnold Toynbee . : aa or
MONTRESOR.—Worth While . , a § |
MorGAN.—Animal Life . ; ; ee |
or: Animal Sketches . , , ne
a Habit and Instinct. ; . 13
m Psychology for Teachers » 3
ij Springs of Conduct ‘ ee
MORPHOLOGY, JOURNAL OF . x 6 32
MorrisONn.—Life's Prescription. . 6
MUNROE.—Fur Seal’s Tooth... + 33
e Rick Dale . < ce

hs Snow-shoes and Sledges Re

PAGE
NASH.—Barerock . ; : . - 13
OMAN. —History of England . E ee
OXENDEN.—Interludes . ‘ : . 10
PAGET.—Wasted Records of Disease 2, 13
PEARSON.—The Chances of Death . ‘fae
PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW ; A » 5a

PIKE.—Through the Sub-Arctic Forest . 5
PILKINGTON.—An Eton Playing-Field 7
POLLOK.—Fifty Years’ Reminiscences of
India 5
PopE.—Memoirs of Sir foha Macdowalast 7
PoRTAL.—British Mission to Uganda . 6
to My Mission to Abyssinia 6
PRESCOTT.—A Mask and a Martyr. 8
PULITZER.— Romance of Prince Eugene. 7

RALEIGH.— Robert Louis Stevenson «a
RANSOME.—Battles of Frederick the Great 8

RAYMOND.—Mushroom Cave . : . 14
ROCHEFORT. —The Adventures of My.Life 8
Ropp.—Works by Rennell Rodd . Me
SANTLEY.—Student and Singer é (ee
SCHELLING.—Elizabethan Lyrics . . To
i Ben Jonson’s Timber - Io
SHAW.—A Text Book of Nursing . - a

3
SHERARD.—Alphonse Daudet. 1 8
SHIELDS.—Camping and Camp Outfits . 6
SHIELDs.—American Book of the Dog 6
SHORLAND. — Cycling for Health and

Pleasure R =
SICHEL—The Story of Two Sloan .
SLATIN.—Fire and Sword in the Sudan . 6
SMITH.—The Life of a fox . ‘ae

5A Through Unknown ‘Ateican

Countries. ‘ + oa
SPINNER,—A Rehictant Ievaigeliat ; . Io
STONE.—In and Beyond the Himalayas . 5
TATHAM.—Men of Might Poe
THAYER.—Best Elizabethan Plays . . Io
THOMAS.—Sweden and the Swedes . ‘7
THORNTON. —A Sporting Tour |”
TOLLEMACHE.—Benjamin Jowett . ie

TWINING. — Recollections of Life and
Work . y : ‘ : Roee

WHITE.—Pleasurable Bee-Keeping. «/ EE
WILD FLOWERS IN ART AND NATURE 12
WILLIAMS. — The Bayonet that came

Home . A A x £0
WINCHESTER CoLtncs s P s . IO
YounG.—General Astronomy . ee

* i) Healey
Aa rosie

ee
A

ee
eee,

fae pas ade aq
so 5 ay

a

yess

yy
*
’
.
&
im
3
2
-
“
~s .

% 5 ia se) “og

--
ay

Fi
ae
Yay

i; ‘ .
rw ile
al D's

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY