The barrenness of the time, in spite of a great and varied literary activity which, however, bears the stamp of mediocrity, appears also in the translations made by several highborn ladies: Elizabeth of Lorraine, and Eleanor of Scotland, consort of Duke Sigmund of Austria. Princess Mathilda, of the illustrious Wittelsbach-Palatine house, the "Lady of Austria," as she is called in the folk song, fostered the first advent of humanism into Suabia and Bavaria, and entertained sympathetic relations with all those who worked in the direction of humanism and literary reform. Niclas von Wyle, an early Humanist, had already in 1474, in opposition to the popular farces which contained offensive, coarse, and frequently obscene treatment of woman, composed an encomium or eulogy in her honor, in which he enumerated the manifold blessings which woman had brought to the world. Yet the ribald farces still abound, and are even stimulated by the incipient religious reform. _Joseph in Egypt_ is the typical subject for poems expressing the criminal and passionate love of woman; the monologue of Potiphar's wife expressing her sinful feelings for Joseph is nothing less than edifying. The play of _Fair Susanna_ presented wicked passion in aged men, and innocence persecuted, but finally saved; _Judith and Holofernes_ characterized the clash between conflicting religions. In South Germany, Nürnberg, Luther's "eye and ear of Germany," is the centre of the culture of the transition period, and is the mirror in which the life of the time is reflected. The aesthetic culture and the lack of it, the status of woman in society, appear nowhere more plainly than in the plays of Hans Sachs, the greatest exponent of the life of his time. He is not stimulated by the passions of a Hutten, of a Luther, or of the latter's bitter foe, Thomas Murner. His soul overflows with peace and equanimity even where he censures and chides. His censure is always amiable and gentle. He even describes passions meekly. He touchingly represents the driving from Paradise of Adam and Eve, who become more closely attached to each other in misfortune; he delicately depicts Eve's naive anxiety concerning God, whose visit she apparently fears. He writes decorously of the priest and his fair housekeeper who has not yet attained the canonic age of safety: of the old hag who acts as a procuress and panderer, who is quarrelsome and hideous, and of whom even the devil is afraid; the faithless, cunning, amorous wife who makes sport of her deceived, foolish husband; the jealous and the credulous husband, etc.