Hans Sachs is the typical, the universal, the noblest, and the purest Mastersinger; but he is only the first among hundreds of others who helped to preserve in Germany the sacred fire of poetry. The bourgeoisie womanhood of the school of humanism, of the circle where virtue was the ideal of life, ably seconded the efforts of men like Sachs. But no one lofty specimen of superior womanhood arose from the atmosphere of feud, brigandage, and drunken intemperance among the so-called higher classes. Banqueting, hunting, fighting, gambling, carousing, and sexual excesses are recorded in plenty. _The diary of the Silesian knight Hans Von Schweinichen_ introduces us, in the middle of the sixteenth century, into a "noble" society full of poverty, brutality, and ignorance. He relates the slight acquirements of his education, interrupted by the occupation of tending the geese, his service as a page at the court of the Duke of Liegnitz, his early interest in women, his presence at weddings, "where he ate and drank his fill for day and night just as they wanted to have it." Of his friendly expedition with the Duke of Liegnitz to Mecklenburg, he says: "I have made for myself a great reputation with drinking, as I could never get enough to drink myself full." Anna of Saxony, daughter of Elector Moritz, wife of William of Orange, who died of _delirium tremens_, proves, by the way, that drunkenness was by no means uncommon with princely ladies. Scherr also adduces many other such princely examples. A festival at the Mecklenburg court is thus described in naïve fashion by Schweinichen in his diary: "The native squires as well as the noble young ladies lost themselves little by little, until finally there remained with me but two ladies and one knight, who began a dance. I followed with the other lady. It did not last long; my good friend slipped with his dancer to the next chamber; I followed him. As we came to the chamber, two squires and ladies rested in a bed; the one who danced before me fell also with his lady in one bed. I asked my lady what we should do. She said in her Mecklenburg language: I should lie by her. I did not have her ask me a long time, but lay down with mantle and garments, so did the lady, and thus we chatted till the dawn of morning; however, in all honor. This they call there 'to lie by a maiden on truth and faith,' but I do not trust such a 'lying by' for such truth and faith might easily become roguish." Evidently, so far as the nobility were concerned, delicacy and propriety were quite unknown in sixteenth century society. CHAPTER VII WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION Woman, it has been said, always needs a background. She has one in early sixteenth century Germany a splendid background of material prosperity.