Germany had no literature at this time. When Froissart was writing French history, and Joinville his delightful chronicles; when Chaucer and Wycliffe were gayly and gravely making play with the monks and priests, the only names known in Germany were those of the mystics, Eckhart and Tauler. When the time came, however, Germany was defiantly individualist in Luther, and Protestantism was thoroughly German. It was not from tales of the great, not from knighthood, chivalry, or their roving singer champions, that German literature came; but from the fables and satires of the people, from Hans Sachs and from the Luther translation of the Bible. This is roughly the setting of civilization, in which the first Hohenzollerns found themselves when they took over the Mark of Brandenburg, in the early years of the fifteenth century.
Here is a list of them, of no great interest in themselves, but showing the direct descent down to the present time; for from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the French Revolution the German states were without either men or measures, except Frederick the Great, that call for other than dreary comment:
Frederick I of Nuremberg, 1417 Frederick II, 1440 Albert III, 1470 Johann III, 1476 Joachim I, 1499 Joachim II, 1535 Johann George, 1571 Joachim Frederick, 1598 Johann Sigismund of Poland (first Duke of Prussia), 1608 George William, 1619 Frederick William (the Great Elector), 1640 Frederick III, Frederick I of Prussia (crowned first King of Prussia in 1701), 1657-1713 Frederick William I (son of Frederick I of Prussia), 1688-1740 Frederick II (the Great) (son of Frederick William I), 1712-1786 Frederick William II (son of Augustus William, brother of Frederick the Great), 1744-1787 Frederick William III (son of Frederick William II), 1770-1840 Frederick William IV (son of Frederick William III, 1795-1861), reigned, 1840-1861 William I (son of Frederick William III, brother of Frederick William IV, 1797-1888), reigned, 1861-1888 Frederick III (son of William I, 1831-1888), reigned from March 9 to June 15, 1888. William II (son of Frederick III and Princess Victoria of England), born Jan. 27, 1859, succeeded Frederick III in 1888.
These incidents, names, and dates are mere whisps of history. It is only necessary to indicate that to articulate this skeleton of history, clothe it with flesh, and give it its appropriate arms and costumes would entail the putting of all mediaeval European history upon a screen, to deliver oneself without apology from any such task. It may be for this reason that there is no history of Germany in the English tongue, that ranks above the elementary and the mediocre. There is a masterly and scholarly history of the Holy Roman Empire by an Englishman, which no student of Germany may neglect, but he who would trace the beginnings of Germany from 113 B. C. down to the time of the Great Elector, 1640, must be his own guide through the trackless deserts, of the formation into separate nations, of modern Europe. It is even with misgivings that the student picks his way from the time of the Great Elector to Bismarck, and to modern Germany.