XIII
HEIDELBERG AND MANNHEIM
Heidelberg
As the ancient capital of the Lower Palatinate, Heidelberg early came into great prominence, though many of the details of its early history are lost in obscurity. The Romans have left traces of their passage, but the history of the early years of Christianity is but vaguely surmised.
Conrad of Hohenstaufen, brother of the red-bearded Frederick, came here, in 1148, as the first Count Palatine of the Rhine. The ruins of what is supposed to have been his once famous château are yet to be seen on the Geissberg.
In 1228 Heidelberg was declared the capital of the Palatinate under Otto of Wittelsbach, and became the residence of the Electors, who, for five hundred years, inhabited that other and more popularly famous château, which is known to all travellers on the Rhine as the "Castle of Heidelberg." In 1724, they chose Mannheim as their official residence.
Few cities of Europe have so frequently undergone such horrors of civilized warfare, if warfare ever is civilized, as has Heidelberg, though mostly it is associated in the popular mind of personally conducted tourists as a city of wine and beer drinking and general revelry and mirth.
The city has been five times bombarded, twice reduced to ashes, and three times taken by assault and pillaged.
To-day, it has recovered from all these disasters and takes its place as one of the most brilliant of the smaller commercial centres of the Rhine valley, though for that matter Heidelberg is situated some little distance from the river itself.
Of Heidelberg's population of perhaps twenty-five thousand souls, nearly one-third are Catholics, an exceedingly large proportion for a German town.
St. Peter's, the most ancient of Heidelberg's churches, contains many tombs of the Electors. In 1693 Mélac and his soldiers, after having thrown to the winds, at Speyer, the ashes of the emperors, rummaged about here in the church of St. Peter, and tore the bones of the nobles from their leaden caskets, throwing them broadcast in the streets. A Frenchman who remarked upon this sacrilege forgot that his own countrymen did the same at St. Denis's a hundred years later.
The principal church edifice of the city is St. Esprit's. Its architecture belongs to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though it cannot be described as belonging to any precise style. Its interior is divided into two parts, which, curiously enough, were devoted to two distinct sects, the choir being consecrated to the Catholics and the nave being occupied by the Protestants. Jerome of Prague, a disciple of John Huss, harangued his believers in this church in times contemporary with that of Huss himself.
In the midst of the market-place is a statue of the Virgin, and facing the north side of the church is a house dating from 1492, known to-day by the sign of the Chevalier zum Ritter. Among the numerous ornaments of this fine mediæval dwelling-house is to be noted the following inscription:
"Si Jehova non edificet domum, frustra laborant œdificantes eam V. S. CXXVII. – Soli Deo gloria et perstat invicta Venus."
The University of Heidelberg, as presumably all readers of guide-books know, is the most ancient and the most celebrated in Germany. It was founded by Robert I. in 1386. Luther gave his dissertation here in 1515, hence, so far as its connection with religious matters goes, it is of great importance.
Its library was one of the most precious in Europe, but Tilly, who headed the Bavarians who entered Heidelberg in 1622, presented the greater part of it to Pope Leo XI. The valuable books and manuscripts remained in the Vatican, where they formed the Palatine Library, until the taking of Rome by the French in 1795. The rarest of the works were sent to Paris, whence they were returned to Heidelberg in 1815.
The theatrical-looking château of Heidelberg, which dominates the city and all the river valley round about, was built, in its most ancient parts, by the Elector Robert I., in the fourteenth century, though, for the most part, the walls that one gazes upon to-day are much more modern, having been erected by Frederick IV. in the sixteenth century.
In 1622 the castle was ravaged by the Spaniards, and, under the reign of Louis XIV. of France, it was bombarded by Turenne and by Mélac. Rebuilt with still greater magnificence, it was all but destroyed by lightning in 1764, since which time it has been practically abandoned and has become one of the most romantically picturesque ruins in Europe.
That portion of the edifice built by Otto Henry, who reigned 1556-59, is quite the most beautiful of all the various parts. It is known as the Hall of the Knights, and its plan and ornamentation is supposedly that of Michael Angelo.
The famous Heidelberg Tun is in one of the great vaulted chambers of the castle. The first of these utilitarian curiosities – Rhine wine matures best in large bodies – was built in 1535, and held 158,800 bottles. This tun was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War, and was replaced by a second which held 245,176 bottles, built by one Meyer, the cooper of the court. This tun was repaired in 1728 and exists to-day, but its grandeur is eclipsed by another made in 1751, during the electorate of Charles Theodore, which has a capacity of 284,000 bottles.
Mannheim
The modern-looking city of Mannheim has little ecclesiastical treasure to interest the student, although it is a wealthy and important centre.
Its origin is very remote, and legend has it that it was the birthplace of a fabulous king of the Teutons called Mannus. Others have evolved its present nomenclature from a word taken from Norse mythology meaning the "dwelling-place of men." Either seems probable enough, and the reader must take his choice.
According to most authorities, the city first came into being in 765, but remained an insignificant hamlet up to the time of the Elector Frederick IV., who, in 1606, surrounded it with a city wall as a protection to the persecuted Protestants of the place. He also built the great château, the precursor of the present vast edifice, which contains, the guide-books say, fifteen hundred windows and five hundred rooms; as if that were its chief claim on one's attention.
The present structure was the former residence of the Electors of the Palatinate, and, though but a couple of hundred years old, is nevertheless an imposing and interesting edifice in more ways than one. To-day it is given over to collections of various sorts, Roman antiquities, old prints, and a gallery of paintings which contains some good work of Teniers and Wouvermans.
The Market and the Rathaus are the chief architectural attractions of this beautifully laid-out city, and its poor, mean little church of the Catholic religion is by no means an edifying expression of architectural art.
It is practically nothing more than what the French would call a pavillon, and is known as the Unterpfaar, the lower parish.
On the exterior wall one sees the pagan idea of caryatides carried out with Christian symbols, two figures of angels. There is also a mediocre statue representing "Faith," which it is difficult to accept as good art.
In the interior the short, narrow nave is separated from its aisles by four columns and two pillars on each side. The effect is somewhat that of a swimming bath. It is decidedly unchurchly.
There are a series of uninteresting tombs, and there is a high altar, gaudily rich with trappings, which would be a disgrace to a stage-carpenter.
There is little or no religious history connected with the city; but such devotional spirit as existed, and does exist to-day, ought to have left a better Christian memorial than that of the Unterpfaar.
XIV
WORMS
This most ancient city was the Vormatia of the Romans. It was devastated by Attila, and reëstablished by Clovis. At the beginning of the seventh century Brunhilda founded the bishopric, and Dagobert established his royal residence here in the years following. Afterward Charlemagne himself made it a resting-place many times, and held many Parliaments here.
In the tenth century Worms became a free city of the Empire, and in 1122 a Concordat was entered into between Pope Calixtus II. and the emperor, Henry V., concerning the ecclesiastical affairs of the city.
It was in the cathedral of Worms that the famous Diet of 1521 was held, when Charles V. declared Luther a heretic, and banished him from the Empire, for which indignity Luther is said to have remarked: "There are at Worms as many devils as there are tiles on the roof of its cathedral."
The city suffered much in the Thirty Years' War, and in 1689 was reduced to ashes by the armies of Louis XIV.
The cathedral of Worms was begun in 996 by Bishop Bouchard, and completed twenty years later by the Emperor Henry II. With its four fine towers and its two noble domes or cupolas, it ranks as one of the really great monuments of Christianity in Germany.
To-day, with its later additions, it is purely Romanesque, though built entirely after 1185, when Gothic was already making great strides elsewhere. Even here there is a decided ogival development to be noted in the vaulting of the nave.
Like the cathedrals at Mayence and Bonn, that at Worms offers the peculiarity of a double apside. The eastern termination is demi-round in the interior and square outside, while the westerly apse is polygonal both inside and out.
The cathedral was the only structure of note left standing in the city after the memorable siege of 1689.
The outline of this cathedral is most involved, with its high, narrow transepts, its two choirs crowned with cupolas and flanked with four lance-like towers. It is a suggestion, in a small way, of the more grandiose cathedral at Mayence, but it is by no means so picturesquely situated.
The portal of the façade shows some fine sculptures of the fourteenth century. One figure has given rise to much comment on the part of antiquaries and archeologists who have viewed it. It is a female figure mounted on a strange quadruped of most singular form, and like no manner of beast that ever walked the earth in the flesh.
It has been thought to be a symbolical allusion to the Queen Brunhilda, and again of the Church triumphant. It may be the former, but hardly the latter, at least such symbolism is not to be seen elsewhere.
The interior is of no special architectural value, if we except the contrast of the ogival vaulting with the Romanesque treatment otherwise to be observed.
There are numerous tombs and monuments, the chief being of three princesses of Burgundy who are buried here.
The church of St. Martin dates from the twelfth century, and Notre Dame from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They are in every way quite as interesting as the cathedral, though their walls and vaults have been built up anew since the sacking of the city by the French in the seventeenth century.
The synagogue, recently restored, dates, as to its foundation, from the eleventh century, and is one of the most ancient in all Germany.
According to tradition, a Jewish colony was established at Worms 550 years B.C. This may or may not be well authenticated, – the writer does not know, – but no city in Germany in the middle ages had a colony of Jews more numerous, more venerated, or more ancient.
The Jews of Germany had three grand Rabbis, one at Prague, one at Frankfort, and the other at Worms. By the privilege of the Emperor Ferdinand, the Rabbi of Worms had precedence over the two others. They believed, according to a traditionary legend, that Worms was a part of the promised land, and it was said that the Jews' cemetery at Worms was made of soil brought from Jerusalem.
The wine-growers of Worms have given the name Liebfraumilch to the wine of the neighbourhood, particularly that which is gathered on the hillside gardens of the Church of Our Lady, and within the grounds of the ancient convent.
Near Worms is the ancient abbey of Lorsch, known in the middle ages as Lauresham and Lorse. The abbey was founded and dedicated (767-74) in the presence of Charlemagne, his wife Hildegarde, and his two sons, Charles and Pepin.
The churches of Trèves, of Metz, and of Cologne have, as we know, existed from very early times, and Maternus, an early Bishop of Cologne, is said to have been summoned to Rome in 313 to give his aid in deciding the Donatist controversy.
The oldest of all these Rhenish church foundations is thought to be that of Lorsch, whose bishop, Maximilian, died a martyr's death in the year 285.
The abbey became very wealthy, as was but natural under the patronage of such celebrated benefactors; but it fell a prey to the flames in 1090, and, in spite of immediate restoration, Lorsch never recovered its ancient splendour.
In 1232 it was incorporated with the archbishopric of Mayence, and the former imperial abbey became first, a priory of the monks of the order of Citeaux, and later of the Premonstentrationists.
The fine old twelfth-century church, rebuilt from that of 1100, has to-day become a grange, though only the ancient choir can be really said to exist.
The valuable library of Lorsch was fortunately saved at the Thirty Years' War, and, when the church was devastated by the Spaniards, was transported to Heidelberg.
The monastery at Lorsch is important as marking the transition between the Romanesque and Gothic in a manner not usually associated with the Rhine. One observes it notably in the porch, where the lower range of round-headed arcades is surmounted by a colonnade of sloping angular arches, which are certainly not Romanesque or classical, though, truth to tell, they resemble the clearly defined Gothic of France but little.
To-day the church of Lorsch presents no remarkable architectural features, and is simply an attractive and picturesquely environed building containing a few monuments worthy of note.
In olden times the town was protected by a strong château, constructed in 1348 by the Archbishop of Mayence, but no traces of it are left to-day.
XV
FRANKFORT
There is a legend which connects the foundation of Frankfort with a saying of Charlemagne's when he was warring against the Saxons.
Having fortunately escaped an attack from a superior force, by crossing the river Main during a thick fog, Charlemagne thrust his lance into the sand of the river-bank and exclaimed: "It is here that I will erect a city, in memory of this fortunate event, and it shall be known as 'Franken Furth,' – 'the Ford of the Franks.'"
The city owes its ancient celebrity, in part, to the crowning of the emperors, which, before Frankfort became an opulent commercial city, always took place here according to the laws promulgated in 1152 and 1356. Later the ceremony was transferred to Aix-la-Chapelle.
The first historical mention of the city was in 794, when Charlemagne convoked a Diet and a council of the Church.
Frankfort suffered greatly during the Thirty Years' War, in the War of Succession, and in the Revolution in 1793. Napoleon made the city a grand duchy in favour of the Prince-Primate Charles of Dalberg.
Of the ancient gateways of the city, but one remains to-day, that of Eschenheim, a fine monument of characteristically German features of the middle ages. It dates from the fourteenth century.
One of the principal attractions of Frankfort for strangers has ever been the Juden Gasse, – the street of the Jews. It dates from 1662. As one enters, on the left, at No. 148, is the maison paternelle of the celebrated Rothschilds.
The cathedral at Frankfort is consecrated to St. Bartholomew. It was begun under the Carlovingians and was only completed in the fourteenth century.
At the extreme western end is a colossal tower which ranks as one of the latest and most notable pure Gothic works in Germany (1415-1509). Its architect was John of Ettingen, and it rises to a height of one hundred and sixty-three feet.
The façade of the cathedral is entirely lacking in a decorative sense, and the lateral portal, on the south, is much encumbered by surrounding structures, though one sees peeping out here and there evidences of a series of finely sculptured figures.
Above the entrance to the cloister is an equestrian statue of St. Bartholomew, a masterwork of sixteenth-century German sculpture. The skull of the apostle is preserved in the church proper.
The general plan of the church is that of a Greek cross, but the termination which holds the choir is of much narrower dimensions than the other three arms.
The grand nave offers nothing of remark, but the side aisle to the right contains a fine "Ecce Homo" in bas-relief, placed upon the tomb of the Consul Hirde, who died in 1518. Unfortunately the heads of many of the figures, including that of the Christ, are badly scarred and broken.
In the right transept are a series of very ancient German paintings and a number of escutcheons, coloured and in high relief, commemorating benefactors of the church.
The walls in the choir are covered with ancient frescoes of the frankly German school. They undoubtedly date back to the fifteenth century, at least.
At the right of the choir is the tomb of the Emperor Gunther of Schwarzburg, who died here in 1349.
Above the high altar is a fine tabernacle, – a feature frequently seen in German churches, – of silver-gilt. To the left is an ancient iron grille of remarkable workmanship.
At the head of the left aisle of the nave is a chapel containing a "Virgin at the Tomb," a coloured sculpture of the fifteenth century, surmounted by a very ornate Gothic baldaquin.
In the left transept is the tomb of a knight of Sachsenhausen bearing the date of 1371. Here, too, is a somewhat dismantled and fragmentary astronomical clock of the species best seen at Strasburg.
The Protestant church of St. Nicholas is a fine ogival edifice, which in more recent times was profaned by commercial uses. It has since been restored and its red sandstone fabric is surmounted by a fine spire.
The interior shows a remarkably fine ogival choir as its chief feature, an organ-buffet carried out in the same style, which is most unusual, and a charming wooden staircase with an iron railing leading to a tribune at the crossing. All of the accessories are modern, but the effect is unquestionably good.
The church of St. Leonard dates from the thirteenth century and possesses as its chief exterior features two rather diminutive spires. The Emperor Frederick II. ceded the site to the city, for the erection of a church, at the above mentioned period.
The church of St. Catherine is of the seventeenth century, and, like most religious erections of its age, is in no way remarkable. The exterior, however, shows a rather pleasing square tower, which is surmounted by an octagonal campanile. The interior has some fine modern paintings, well painted and equally well displayed.
The church of St. Paul was formerly a Carmelite foundation. It is strictly modern, and was only completed in 1833. Its form is rather more pagan than Christian, being simply a great oval, one hundred and thirty odd feet in length by one hundred and eight in width. The interior is surrounded by a fine Ionic colonnade.
In 1848 St. Paul's was appropriated to the sessions of the German parliament, to which purpose the structure was well suited.
The Liebfrauenkirche has a fine "Adoration" sculptured above its principal portal. It is a good example of German sculpture in stone. Within the walls is a painting attributed to Martin Schoen which merits consideration.
XVI
MAYENCE
Mayence has been variously called the city of Gutenberg, and of the Minnesingers. The Romans in Augustus's time had already fortified it and given it the name of Magontiacum.
Near Mayence is the cenotaph of Drusus, where his ashes were interred after the funeral oration by Augustus, who came expressly from Rome into Gaul for the purpose.
Mayence as a Roman colony was a military post of great importance, and the key to the fertile provinces watered by the Rhine.
An episcopal seat was established here in the third century, but Christianity had a hard struggle against wars and internal disorders of many kinds.
Many times the city has been devastated and rebuilt. In 718 Bishop Sigibert surrounded the city by a series of walls, and between 975 and 1011 Archbishop Willigis built the cathedral and the church of St. Stephen, at which time the real Christianizing of Mayence may be said to have begun.
The venerable old cathedral has many times been battered and bruised, and fire and bombardment have reduced its original form into somewhat of a hybrid thing, but it remains to-day the most stupendously imposing and bizarre cathedral of all the Rhine valley.
In general its architecture is decidedly not good, but it is interesting, and therein lies the chief charm of a great church.
During the siege of the French the cathedral at Mayence, in 1793, again took fire, and the western end of the roof of the choir, the nave, and the transept all succumbed.
For ten years it remained in this state, until the order for restoration came from the omnific Bonaparte, then first consul. In 1804 the edifice was consecrated anew.
In the year 636 there was held at Mayence an assembly of the bishops of the Frankish kingdom convoked by Dagobert, then king.
Among the bishops of Mayence none had a reputation so popular as that of St. Boniface, who had been sent out by Pope Gregory III. as a missioner to the Rhine country.
Boniface had given Pepin-le-Bref the sacrament at Soissons in 752, upon the fall of the Merovingian dynasty, and in return King Pepin gave the bishopric of Mayence to St. Boniface.
In 813 a numerous council met here, at the orders of Charlemagne, under the presidency of Hildebold, Archbishop of Cologne and chaplain of the holy palace at Rome.
In the tenth century the church at Mayence did not fall to the sad state that it did elsewhere. Ecclesiastical writers of France have always referred to this period as le siècle de plomb, but at Mayence it still steadily approached the golden age.
Mayence was still distinguished by the zeal of its archbishops, whose good influences were far-reaching.
Under the episcopate of St. Boniface and his immediate successors the cathedral of Mayence was probably a wooden structure, as were many of the earlier churches of the evangelizing period in Germany and Gaul.
The work on the mediæval cathedral was completed by 1037, under Archbishop Bardon, and its consecration took place in presence of the Emperor Conrad II.
Twelve years after this ceremony, Pope Leo IX. came to Mayence and held a famous council, at which the emperor was present, accompanied by the principal nobles of the empire.
The cathedral fell a prey to the flames in 1087, as well as three other neighbouring churches, say the older chronicles, and the ancient structure disappeared almost entirely, so far as its original outline was concerned.
Archbishop Conrad of Wittelsbach restored the nave inside of three years, and the monument again took on some of its ancient magnificence. In 1198 Emperor Philip of Suabia, son of Frederick Barbarossa, was solemnly crowned in this cathedral by the Archbishop of Tarentaise, the Archbishop of Mayence being at that time in the Holy Land.
The twelfth-century work doubtless was erected on the foundations of Archbishop Bardon's structure.
The restoration of the transept and the western choir followed, and the work went on more or less intermittently until the middle of the thirteenth century, when the fabric approached somewhat the appearance that it has to-day.
The completed structure was consecrated in 1239, and, save the chapels of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the body of the edifice has not greatly changed since that time.
During the Thirty Years' War it became practically a ruin, however, though its later rebuilding was on the original lines.
In 1793 the revolution which sprang up in France forced its way to the Rhine, and, when Mayence was besieged, the roof of the cathedral caught fire and the church itself was pillaged and profaned.
For a long time the old cathedral remained abandoned, as after an invasion of barbarians, which is about what the revolutionists proved themselves to be. In 1803 Napoleon saw fit to order it to be restored, and in the following year it was returned to its adherents.
The ancient metropolis, however, lost the distinction which had been given to it in Roman times, and the glory first brought upon it by St. Boniface lapsed when the arch-episcopal see was suppressed. Mayence is now merely a bishopric, a suffragan of Cologne.
In its general plan the cathedral at Mayence follows the outlines of a Latin cross, though its length is scarcely more than double its width.
It is most singular in outline and has two choirs, one at either end, as is a frequent German custom, and the sky-line is curiously broken by the six towers which pierce the air, no two at the same elevation.
There are three portals which give entrance from various directions. There is yet a fourth entrance from the market-place, which takes one through a sort of cellar which is not in the least churchly and is decidedly unpleasant.
The principal nave is supported by nine squared pillars, which are hardly beautiful in themselves, but which are doubtless necessary because of the great weight they have to bear.
In the Gothic choir is a heavy baldaquin in marble, bearing figures of the twelve apostles. The high altar is directly beneath the cupola, or lantern, of the principal tower. It is quite isolated, and has neither flanking columns nor a baldaquin. On feast-days it is brilliantly set forth with candelabra in a fashion which would be theatrical, if it were not churchly.
Behind this altar is the space reserved for the clergy, a somewhat unusual arrangement, but not a unique one. At the extreme end is the bishop's throne.
The general appearance of the interior constructive elements would seem to place the work as a whole well within the thirteenth century, though the extreme easterly portion is more ancient still.
There is very little of pure Gothic to be noted. Mostly the fabric is a reproduction of the Lombard style, though much undeniably Gothic ornament is used. The bays of the nave are singularly narrow and of great height, almost the reverse of the pure Italian manner of building which elsewhere made itself strongly felt along the Rhine. The height of these bays is more than two and a half times the width. The bays of German churches, in general, have a much greater length than those of Italy, and herein is a marked difference between the Italian and German styles in spite of other resemblances.
There are in the cathedral numerous paintings of questionable artistic worth and an abundance of coloured glass, which is condemned as comparatively modern and of no especial interest.
The altar of St. Martin, with statues of Sts. Martin and Boniface, is near the baptistery. There are eight lateral chapels, out of fifteen in all, which are bare and without altars, showing a poverty – whatever may have been the cause – which is deplorable.
In the Bassenheim chapel is a remarkable marble group taken from the church of Notre Dame, a Gothic edifice destroyed during the siege of 1793.
There are numerous and beautiful funeral monuments scattered about the church, the most celebrated being that which surmounts the tomb of Frastrada, the third wife of Charlemagne, who died in 794, and was originally interred in the church of St. Alban. The remains were removed to the cathedral when the former church was burned in 1552.
On the tomb of Frastrada one may read the following eighth-century inscription:
"Frastradana, pia Caroli conjux vocitata,
Christo dilecta, jacet hoc sub marmore tecta,
Anno septingentesimo nonagesimo quarto,
Quem numerum metro claudere musa negat
Rex pie, quem gessit Virgo, licet hic cinerescit,
Spiritus hœres sit patriæ quæ tristia nescit."
There are also the tombs of thirty-two archbishops, – a veritable valhalla of churchly fame. Mostly these tombs are ordinary enough, those of Archbishop Berthould of Hennéberg and of the doyen of the chapter being alone remarkable.
The chapel of St. Gothard, a dependency of the cathedral, was built by Archbishop Adelbert I. in 1135-36.
The ancient cloister at Mayence dates from the mid-thirteenth century. Archbishop Siegfried was responsible for the work which was consecrated in the year 1243 in the presence of the Emperor Conrad, on the occasion of a synod which was being held at Mayence at that time. The cloister, as it exists to-day, is made up in part of this ancient work and in part of a more modern construction, this latter being the portion which adjoins the church proper.
The chapter-house was built at the end of the twelfth century or at the beginning of the thirteenth. It is a square apartment covered with an ogival vaulting which springs from a range of pillars with delicately sculptured foliaged capitals. It is decidedly the architectural gem of this composite edifice.
To the north of the cathedral, in the Speise-Markt, is a remarkably fine fountain, restored, or perhaps rebuilt, in the sixteenth century by the Archbishop of Mayence. A baldaquin supported by three pillars rises above a well or spring, and on a stone slab one reads the following inscription in letters of gold:
"Divo Karolo V Cesare semp Augus. post victoria gallicam rege ipso ad Ticinum superato ac capto triumphante, fatalique rusticorū per Germnia (sic) cospiratione prostratâ, Alber. card. et archiep. Mog. fontē hanc vetustate dilapsa ad civiū suorum posteritatisque usum restitui curavit anno MDXXVI."
The Meistersingers of Mayence owed their origin to Henry Misnie, who, according to some authorities, was a canon of the Church, and, according to others, a doctor of theology. He was devoted, at any rate, to poetry, and was, in the fourteenth century, founder of the school of the Master-singers.
He dedicated a great part of his songs to the Virgin, his ideal of all that was pious and good. Later he widened the range of his dedications to include all of the female sex, and beautiful women in particular. He is known in the history of German poetry under the name of Henry von Frauenlob.