CHAPTER X.
MODERN GERMAN CULTURE It is important to distinguish between the meaning of the German term "Kultur" and that commonly expressed in English by the word "culture." The word "Kultur" in modern German is simply equivalent to our word "civilization," whereas the word "culture" in English has a special meaning, to wit, that of intellectual attainments.

In this chapter we are chiefly concerned with the latter sense of the word.
Germany had a rich popular literature during the Middle Ages from the redaction of the _Nibelungenlied_ under Charles the Great onwards.
Prominent among this popular literature were the love-songs of the Minnesingers, the epics drawn from mediaeval traditionary versions of the legend of Troy, of the career of _Alexander the Great_, and, to come to more recent times, to legends of _Charles the Great and his Court_, of _Arthur and the Holy Grail_, the _Nibelungenlied_ in its present form, and _Gudrun_.

The "beast-epic," as it was called, was also a favourite theme, especially in the form of _Reynard the Fox_.
In another branch of literature we have collections of laws dating from the thirteenth century and known respectively from the country of their origin as the _Sachsenspiegel_ and the _Schwabenspiegel_.

Again, at a later date, followed the productions of the Meistersingers, and especially of Hans Sachs, of Nuernberg.

Then, again, we have the prose literature of the mystics, Eckhart, Tauler, and their followers.
Towards the close of the mediaeval period we find an immense number of national ballads, of chap-books, not to mention the Passion Plays or the polemical theological writings of the time leading up to the Reformation.