Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/305

PROSE AND POPULAR READING 293 Germany, she saw no city where Divine worship was more devout, where the clergy were better educated, where more alms were given or stricter justice practised, than in Nuremberg.' After Meisterlin, the task of writing history in Nuremberg passed literally into the hands of the people. The chronicles written by the brewer and guardian of the poor, Heinrich Deichsler, as well as many other annals of current events, introduce the reader into the heart of the burgher life and the interests of the times. They lay bare with such dis- tinctness the manners and pastimes of high and low that we seem to walk the streets, aye, even to enter the very homes. It would be difficult to find popular annals of any age to compare in fulness with those written in Nuremberg in the last years of the fifteenth century. In the ' Cronica van der hilligen stat von Coellen,' written in the local dialect by an unknown author in 1499, a most interesting statistical history of the Middle Ages is preserved to us. It shows us also, by its pure and attractive style, how far superior the Low- German writing was to the Upper German. It is not confined to the history of the city of Cologne, but, after dealing with that city, takes up matters of universal interest. In the preface, after enlarging on the utility of historical studies, the author says that, " for the honour of God, His holy mother, and the three kings, I have taken courage, through the grace of God, to compile a history taken from the German and Latin Chronicles, which are so useful and interesting to read. I shall write this book in the local dialect because every man, according to his natural bent, is more