of common human impulses; it bears the mark of the proletariate,
though adorned with flourishes betokening the neighbourhood of Church
and University.




III.


Much has recently been written upon the subject of an abortive
Renaissance within the Middle Ages. The centre of it was France, and its
period of brilliancy may be roughly defined as the middle and end of
the twelfth century. Much, again, has been said about the religious
movement in England, which spread to Eastern Europe, and anticipated the
Reformation by two centuries before the date of Luther. The songs of the
Wandering Students, composed for the most part in the twelfth century,
illustrate both of these early efforts after self-emancipation. Uttering
the unrestrained emotions of men attached by a slender tie to the
dominant clerical class and diffused over all countries, they bring us
face to face with a body of opinion which finds in studied chronicle or
laboured dissertation of the period no echo. On the one side, they
express that delight in life and physical enjoyment which was a main
characteristic of the Renaissance; on the other, they proclaim that
revolt against the corruption of Papal Rome which was the motive-force
of the Reformation.

Our knowledge of this poetry is derived from two chief sources. One is
a MS. of the thirteenth century, which was long preserved in the
monastery of Benedictbeuern in Upper Bavaria, and is now at Munich.