But what weakens old age strengthens youth.  That spiritualism had a healthy action on the too sound and strong races of the North; the too full-blooded barbarous bodies were spiritualized by Christianity, and European civilization began.  The Catholic Church has in this respect the strongest claims on our regard and admiration, for it succeeded by subduing with its great genial institutions the bestiality of Northern barbarians and by mastering brutal matter.

The Art-work of the Middle Ages manifests this mastery of mere material by mind, and it is very often its only mission.  The epic poems of this period may be easily classed according to the degree of this subjection or influence.  There can be no discussion here of lyrical and dramatic poems, for the latter did not exist, and the former are as like in every age as are the songs of nightingales in spring.

Although the epic poetry of the Middle Ages was divided into sacred and profane, both were altogether Christian according to their kind; for if sacred poesy sang of the Jewish race and its history, the only race which was regarded as holy, or of the heroes and legends of the Old and New Testaments, and, in brief, the Church—­still all the life of the time was reflected in profane poetry with its Christian views and action.  The flower of the religious poetic art in the German Middle Ages is perhaps Barlaam and Josaphat, in which the doctrine of abnegation, of abstinence, and the denial and contempt of all worldly glory, is set forth most consistently.  Next to this I would class the The Eulogium of St. Hanno (Lobgesang auf den heiligen Anno) as the best of the religious kind; but this is of a far more secular character, differing from the first as the portrait of a Byzantine saint differs from an old German one.  As in those Byzantine pictures, so we see in Barlaam and Josaphat the utmost simplicity; there is no perspective side-work, and the long, lean, statue-like forms and the idealistic serious faces come out strongly drawn, as if from a mellow gold ground.  On the other hand, in the song of praise of St. Hanno, the side-work or accessories are almost the subject, and, notwithstanding the grandeur of the plan, the details are treated in the minutest manner, so that we know not whether to admire in it the conception of a giant or the patience of a dwarf.  But the evangel-poem of Ottfried, which is generally praised as the masterpiece of sacred poetry, is far less admirable than the two which I have mentioned.

In profane poetry we find, as I have already signified, first the cycle of sagas of the Nibelungen and the Heldenbuch, or Book of Heroes.  In them prevails all the pre-Christian manner of thought and of feeling; in them rude strength has not as yet been softened by chivalry.  There the stern Kempe-warriors of the North stand like stone images, and the gentle gleam and the more refined breath of Christianity have