This aristocratic love of the forest, however, went hand in hand with
the forest-tyranny of the Middle Ages. The forest-trees and the game
were treated with more consideration than the corn-fields and the
peasants. When a cruel master wished to punish a peasant sorely he
chased the game into his fields, and the hunt which was to slay the game
trampled down what the latter had not devoured. The war about the forest
violently forced upon the peasant the question as to whether or not the
ancient privileges of the aristocracy could be justified before God and
man. We possess a poem by G.A. Buerger which contrasts the naked rights
of labor with the historic rights of rank in so sharp a fashion that, if
it should be published today, it would undoubtedly be confiscated as
communist literature. This ancient specimen of modern social-democratic
poetry, characteristically, for those times, takes its theme from the
"War about the Forest;" it bears the title: _The Peasant to His Most
Serene Tyrants_. Because the princely huntsman has driven the peasant
through the latter's own down-trodden corn-field, followed by the halloo
of the hunt, the peasant in the poem suddenly hits upon the dangerous
question, "Who are you, Prince?"
The horrible punishments with which poachers and trespassers against the
forest were threatened in the Middle Ages can be explained only when we
see in them an outlet to the bitterness of two parties at war about the
forest.
Pages:
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575