servatism to their ancient customs, than the great Saxon confederation, which stamped its character so often and so deeply upon the history of North ern Europe. Of all productions of the German mind within the domain of law, the Sachsenspicgel was the purest and the greatest." The period which gave birth to the Sachscnspiegel, the greatest German legal com pilation, is a memorable one in the world's history. All over Europe an intense intel lectual movement was felt. The tide of free thought had risen; the waves of intellectual liberty were dashing against the institutions of the Church of Rome, and slowly but surely they were sweeping away the fetters imposed by tyranny and superstition. The Sachsenspicgel is the child of the thirteenth century,— a century which saw the dying of the age of faith and the beginning of the age of reason. It was the century which witnessed the struggle between the worldly and spiritual powers; it was the age which beheld the bulwarks of law, order, and liberty emerge from the chaos of lawlessness, strife, and slavery; and when expiring the thirteenth century sank back into the grave of time, the first rays of the sun of reason had burst through the clouds of ignorance and superstition, shedding light upon the gloomy pathway of humanity. The Sachsenspicgel was written by Eicke von Repgow, a Saxon knight and judge (Schoffe), the period being between A. D. 1198 and A. D. 1235, probably about a. d. 1230. Of the author little is known beyond the name, only that he was a knight, a judge, and that he first wrote the Sachsenspicgel in . Latin, but at the request of Count Hoyer von Falkenstein translated the book into the German language. The Sachsenspicgel was only a private com pilation; but it soon obtained popular and judicial recognition. It is even alleged that Frederick II. gave his imperial sanction to the Saxon code. Many editions appeared, and so numerous were the manuscript copies that a mediaeval author states that five thousand of them were extant in his day.
The Mirror was also recognized as a source of law in many countries outside of Germany. One edition was in verse, — a not unusual fea ture in ancient law treatises : the Brehon law books, the various Hindu works, were in verse; and Ccesar informs us of the same fact having come to his notice in Gaul. In the " Praefatio rhythmica " the author accounts for the title of the book in the following words : — "... mirror of the Saxons This book is to be called, Since Saxon law herein is made kn(5wn As in a mirror the women Their faces do see." The name " mirror" is a very common one in the literature of the Middle Ages. Thus we meet with the " Schwabenspiegel," Tengler's " Laienspiegel," Sebastian Brandt's "Klagspiegel," and Andrew Home's " Mirrour of Justice." In the great conflict between the empire and the papacy, the Sachsenspicgel takes a decided stand. The Spieglcr says : — "Two swords gave God to protect Christendom : to the Pope the spiritual, to the Emperor the worldly." By these words the Sachsenspiegel defines the positions of Pope and Emperor. The Spieglcr also denies to the Church the right, by the introduction of the Canon Law, to supersede the law of the land. The Glos sator in annotating this passage must have lost his temper, for he indulges in the words : "The Pope shall strengthen the Emperor and his laws with all his might. No man is to say: I am a priest; what do I care for the Emperor's laws? Fool, all canoncs may be interpreted by leges." Of course such passages were sure to draw forth ecclesiastical fulminations, and in the year 1374 Pope Gregory XI. issued a bull against fourteen articles of the Sachs enspicgel. From the directions of the bull to the bishops of various cities we may form a conception of the wide-spread influence of
