teenth century mystics, who, however, belong to the
annals of religion rather than of literature.

In its relation to the general history of European
civilisation the age of expiring chivalry is profoundly
interesting. During this period the monocracy of the
Roman Church was undermined, and the way gradually
prepared for the great Lutheran revolt. Commerce and
trade developed wonderfully, and walled cities arose that
were able to defend themselves against marauding knight
or oppressive prince, as the case might be. The citizen
class came to the front everywhere, took the fine arts into
its hands and gradually prevailed in strength and im-
portance over its competitors. The artistic sense of the
burghers found expression in the building of fine cathe-
drals, guild-halls, town-halls, and, as wealth increased,
of private dwellings. There arose that patrician or intel-
lectual bourgeoisie which was to be the hope of literature
and to furnish the literary public in ages to come. The
invention of fire-arms gradually reduced the heavy
armed knight to an impotent anachronism

All this is reflected to some extent in the writings of
the time, but it is reflected in a fragmentary and sporadic
way. No writer appeared who had the genius, the insight,
and the breadth of view which would have been needed
for a classic expression of what was going on. Indeed, so
heterogeneous are the literary phenomena of the time that
it is difficult to find in them anything like a common cha-
racter and tendency. Perhaps the best formula would be
to say that literature, which had first been clerical and
then courtly, now became more and more plebeian. It
is true that the ideals of chivalry continued, even down
to Luther's time, to find occasional champions who
pleaded for them and tried to turn them to account in a

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