by another writing saying that there never had been a Hunibald except in Trithemius's imagination. This seems to have been true. When, after Trithemius's death, the Emperor sent Stabius to look for the Hunibald manuscript, he found among the abbot's papers the alleged extracts, altered and rewritten in several different forms.

Mennel now gave up both his old genealogies, but found a new one, landing Maximilian's ancestral line safely once more with Hector of Troy. In 1518 Maximilian and his council of scholars accepted this as correct.

But the history-loving Emperor was hot satisfied that he had gotten to the bottom of things, so during his stay in Augsburg he occupied his time with Mennel in historical researches to trace his line back to Noah. This was a little too much for Kunz von der Rosen, a nobleman in the imperial household-part friend and part jesterwho had earned great license by risking his life to save Maximilian from the hands of his rebellious Netherland subjects. He called from the streets two disreputable characters, a man and a woman, and took them into the room where Maximilian and Mennel were pursuing their studies. They begged pensions from Maximilian because they were his kins folk, being descendants of Abraham. He gave them a couple of coins, and when they persisted, ordered them out. Kunz commenced to laugh and then Maximilian began to see the meaning of the parable. "Dear Kaiser, and thou Mennel", said Kunz, aren't you a pair of fools? It isn't possible to trace out for the Emperor a long genealogy without finding for him a great many disreputable relatives "."

The Emperor's sense of humor always seems to have been in abeyance where his own person or his family were concerned, and he could not see the sense behind this folly. It is doubtful whether Mennel was so obtuse.

But being on Biblical ground with his family history the Emperor was afraid of blundering into heresy without intending it. He appealed therefore to the theological faculty of the University of Vienna he had done so much to raise to a commanding position. He asked them for an opinion on his line of descent from Noah to Sicamber, the grandson of Hector. The faculty appointed a com

This rests on tradition, but on good tradition. Maximilian's affection for Kunz and the great license he allowed him are established by other anecdotes besides the one here given.

2 Quoted in Deutscher Kunstblatt, Vol. V., by E. Harzen, from the manuscript of Fugger's Ehrenspiegel des Hauses Oesterreich. The printed copy of this work, more often quoted popularly than any other source on Maximilian, ought not to be used without great caution. Ranke has shown that it is largely interpolated

and untrustworthy.

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mittee to examine the question. Their report, which still exists, is a very discreeet document. On some steps of descent it makes no comment whatever. To other names it appends a list of passages from authors referring to them. To some it puts an interrogation mark (in ambiguo est). In regard to Sicamber, it appends a judicious note which is quite a model in the difficult art of steering between falsehood and offense. 'Quis autem fuit is Siccambrus quem Turnus genuerit nihil quod afferamus habemus certi." What the Emperor would have done with this report, we cannot say, for he died a month after he asked for it. But in the Weiss Kunig Noah appears as his direct ancestor, a fact, it goes on to say, which had been forgotten and the old writings neglected and lost until by sending learned men without regard to cost to search in all cloisters for books and to ask all scholars, the Weiss Kunig had proved it from one father to another (step by step)".

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The story of his patronage of genealogy is characteristic enough of his attitude toward history; and this in an age when Reuchlin and Erasmus, Machiavelli, Giucciardini and Thomas More were all living!

Under this head of books which Maximilian caused to be made should be included his Zeugbücher, or accounts of the contents of his arsenals, contained in some six hundred and seventy pages of three manuscript volumes. Maximilian took pains to revise and make suggestions about the preparation of these catalogues, which are provided with rhymed verses. The verses and the arrangement often point out the improvements in material of war, notably in cannon, made by Maximilian.

The third branch of his book-making activity was the oversight of illustrations and planning sets of wood-cuts. Every one of his books was illustrated, and the Emperor took the greatest pains about the wood-cuts, inspecting rough sketches, suggesting alterations, rejecting entire plates.

Every leaf of the Zeugbücher has a picture. The Fischereibuch, a list of his fishing preserves, has five pictures; the Jagdbuch, a catalogue of his hunting preserves, has eight. On every page of the Prayer-Book the genius of Albrecht Dürer has surrounded petitions breathing the spirit of the monk and the crusader with a wealth of marginal ornament filled with the joy of life and beauty as it woke again in the Renascence. Teucrdank has over a hundred illustrations. Weiss Kunig has about two hundred and fifty, the Saints of the House of Hapsburg more than a hundred, the genealogy, seventy odd.

But the activity of Maximilian in giving expression to his ideas.

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in pictures was not limited to these illustrations of a text. His object in pursuing literature and patronizing art was fame. He has given it words in the Weiss Kunig. A lord once blamed him because the money he spent for remembrance" was lost. The Weiss Kunig answered, "Who does not make for himself in his life remembrance, he has after his death no remembrance and is forgotten with the toll of the bell. And therefore the gold I spend for remembrance is not lost, but the gold I save in the matter of memorials is a lessening of my future remembrance. And what I do not finish for my remembrance in my lifetime will not be made up for, either by thee or anyone else".

The great tomb that he planned was one of his means to secure remembrance. His written works were another. But in the art of engraving on wood, then flourishing in Germany, he saw a means of keeping his "remembrance" vivid among those who could neither read his books nor visit his tomb. He planned, therefore, several series of wood-cuts to record his glory. Freydal was an introduction to Teuerdank. It described in allegorical form the wooing of Mary of Burgundy by the Knight Freydal (Maximilian), who, after the fashion of chivalry, takes a trip through sixty-four courts to hold tournament and gain honor. The text is very short and occupies less than one-tenth of the space of the two hundred and fiftyfive water-color illustrations made under the careful supervision of the Emperor as models for the wood-engraver. He fights three times at each court and honors its lady with a "mummerei," or masked dance. Of course, Maximilian took no such journey. The editor of the manuscript says that in the allegorical form Maximilian did not forget the historical content. This means only that when Maximilian dictated the short accounts of these games he seems to have had actual tournaments in mind, for usually the Emperor's adversary is named. Two-thirds of the tournaments come to no decisive results. In four-fifths of those that do lead to decisive results, Maximilian appears as victor.

Two similar series of wood-cuts were executed under Maximilian's direction. The one hundred and thirty-five plates of the Triumphal Procession show by symbolic figures his achievements as an athlete, sportsman and society leader; the provinces he ruled, his battles, treaties and marriages. The one hundred and ninety plates of the Triumphal Arch, when put together, form the largest wood-cut in existence, recording in symbolic form the glories of his family and his reign. And the genius of some of the men who held the pencil and burin for these thirteen hundred illustrations of his glory, has

thrown around the works of Maximilian a charm which is neither in his style nor in his ideas.

Popular tradition is sometimes very gentle to men. If there is anything in a ruler the people like, their memory adorns his figure as the evening light gives an unreal beauty. The courage, the vivacity, the tactful manners, the amiable personality of Maximilian made the Germans forget his faults. If he thought of Germany as anything but a background for the glory of the House of Hapsburg, it does not appear in what he did or wrote. Yet in tradition he is the typical Kaiser of the German folk. Foreign contemporaries all speak of him as lacking in ability, reckless in undertaking, slow in execution, overdaring in ideals, infirm of purpose. Yet the Germans took at its face value that most spurious of all literary coin, the praises of the humanists of the early sixteenth century. The student of his writings finds in every page traces of some fundamental qualities of the real man. He was intensely egoistic. Insatiable family pride possessed him. His dull and prosaic mind delighted in the exercise of a weak imagination that ignored instead. of mastering facts. He found great pleasure in grandiose planning. He shrank from the monotonous work of execution. These characteristics did not prevent him from being a most successful manager of the family interests of the Hapsburgs. They did prevent him from becoming a great statesman. And these characteristics which determined his career are written large in his literary work. PAUL VAN DYKE.

THE MANOR OF EAST GREENWICH IN THE COUNTY

OF KENT

STUDENTS of the American colonial charters will remember that in the three charters of Virginia granted by James I. successively in 1606, 1609 and 1612, in the New England charter of 1620, in the Massachusetts Bay charter granted by Charles I. in 1629, and that to Sir Ferdinando Gorges for Maine in 1639, and in the grants of Charles II. for the Carolinas in 1663 and 1665, for Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1663, and to the Duke of York for New York and New Jersey in 1664 and 1674, it is provided that the land is to be held of the king of England "as of the Manor of East Greenwich in the County of Kent, in free and common soccage and not in capite or by knight's service". The question naturally arises whether there is any particular significance in this often repeated expression, and if so, what. Why should the land granted in the New World be held from some manor and not from the crown direct? Why was free and common soccage preferred to knight's service? And why should East Greenwich be chosen rather than any other royal manor as the one from which the colonial lands were in so many cases to be held? For among all the colonial charters the only variations in this respect are those of Maryland in 1632 and Pennsylvania in 1681, where the castle of Windsor in the county of Berks is substituted for the Manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent, and that of Georgia in 1732, which refers to the honor of Hampton Court in the county of Surrey. The first two of the questions brought up are legal in their nature and have perhaps been sufficiently discussed by others. But the prominence of the Manor of East Greenwich in the formula still suggests the question whether there was anything peculiar about it that made it especially suited to serve the purposes of those who granted or those who received the colonial charters.

East Greenwich is the old name of the modern Greenwich, as distinguished from West Greenwich, the modern Deptford, and lies on the Thames four miles below London Bridge, extending back from the river far enough to include in its boundaries the waste. extent of Blackheath. An examination of the customs of the manor does not disclose anything very characteristic or unusual. A careful survey and inquiry was made in 1695. The jurors sworn for this