The Song of Henry: Grüssau Abbey

The correspondence between Adalbert Kehr and Konrad Joseph quickly revealed
Kehr to be the lonelier of the pair. More than a hundred years later, when
Roger McAllister read their letters, he could feel the emptiness of Grüssau
Abbey in every page, every long dense page that Kehr wrote.

The old Benedictine abbey had been secularized decades earlier, during the
Napoleonic wars, and had become, by the time Adalbert Kehr arrived, an outpost
of the Prussian bureaucracy. The church itself, under a dour pastor, served
the spiritual needs, such as they were, of the local farmers, while the other
buildings remained largely unoccupied, except for one office, where Kehr was
expected to monitor both the agricultural and the mineralogical production
of the region. The local lead mines having closed down some years before, Kehr’s
duties included the preparation of weekly reports filled with row after row
of zeroes, a task in which his predecessor had taken much pride, working late
into the evening nearly every night of the week. The study of philology has
many benefits, however, including a dramatic improvement in the speed of one’s
hand, and Kehr, armed with a new "reservoir pen" imported from England,
found that he was able to acquit himself of his official charge in an hour
or two each day, except for harvest season, when there was some actual work
to be done. Which left Adalbert Kehr, most days, with fourteen waking hours
of idleness, and no one to talk to, except the narrow-minded pastor, and the
parishioners, who regarded him as something between a cop and a spy.

Luckily, there was an abbey to explore. Kehr found room after room of old
books, boxes, papers, records of who knows what. Most were from the last thirty
years or so–in one room, Kehr found the carefully bound reports of his predecessor,
looking as if they had never been read, which was sad, in a way, but only to
be expected. In another room he found diplomatic dispatches, sent from various
embassies to Berlin apparently, all dated in the months leading up to the recent
war with the French–had they been moved here during the war for safekeeping?
And then forgotten?

And occasionally–always, it seemed,
behind a stack of the most dreary governmental reports imaginable–Kehr would
find something that seemed to be older, a book in Latin, or a vellum scroll,
or a sheet of music, that gave him hope that he might have found a fragment,
a trace, some palimpsest of the old library of the Benedictines.

Strangely energized upon his return from Gotha, Kehr set himself an ambitious
task: to sort and organize the contents of Grüssau Abbey. His first letters
to Konrad Joseph were filled with an almost heroic sense of mission–even to
the point of comparing his work, with only a hint of ironic self-deprecation,
to the fifth Labor of Hercules. Soon, unlike Hercules (who cleansed the Augean
stables in a single day) but much like his clerical predecessor, Kehr found
himself working late each night, moving, stacking, sorting, reading, and indexing
room after room of documents. In one overflowing room he put all the agricultural
and mineralogical production reports; another he filled with railroad switching
schedules, and a third with proposals for sewage systems. Soon there were rooms
devoted to forestry maps, overdue bridge maintenance notices, textile production
quotas, and complaints about the telegraph service. In a very large room, chosen
precisely for its leaky roof and moldy floor, Kehr put the innumerable files
of the all the young men who had emigrated to America to escape the Prussian
draft. He found a good dry room for the diplomatic dispatches (how he hoped
they would embarrass someone someday!), a better room for the sheets of handwritten
music that seemed to be scattered promiscuously among nearly every other kind
of document, and he saved the best location of all, a dry cool cellar under
what seemed like the old priory, for anything that seemed older than the First
Silesian War.

Even Roger McAllister, reading of these exertions more than a century later,
was touched by tenderness with which Adalbert Kehr described his reconstruction,
in that secret cellar, of the Benedictine library: in a typical letter, Kehr
would acknowledge, quickly, the reports of Konrad Joseph’s busy life as a radical
entrepreneur in Munich; decline, politely, the invitation to critique his friend’s
latest attempt to reconcile Marx and Proudhon; and then fill page after page
with reverential inventories of Latin bibles, illuminated manuscripts, annales,
and most exciting of all, the occasional fragment of Middle High German verse.

And then, in one letter, there was no small talk at all, no acknowledgment
of Konrad Joseph’s world, let alone his previous letter: Kehr simply announced
his discovery of the the Heinrichlied, a manuscript in exquisitely
balanced nibelungenstrophes, an epic poem that embodied a rare conjunction
of artist and subject–an anonymous poet of genius and a hero of equal rank:
Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

Henry Grows to Manhood

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In Rhineland grew to manhood | a noble Emperor’s son
Named Henry son of Henry | the proud Salians were his clan.
From Franconia did these warlike dukes | most justly seize the throne
Truly elected Roman Emperors¹ | the German princes all did vote.

The last Emperor from the Saxons² | to a childless grave had gone
The Saxon queen, her womb was dry | the Saxon bed was still
A holy purity did the Saxon seek | his Saxon member limp
His Saxon body bent from prayer | like a monk without a sword.

But the Salians, they were warlike | virile violent men were they
And fought and built the empire | cathedrals brick by brick
To Rome they marched in battle | false popes they did depose³
Their queens they proudly serviced | true sons of Charlemagne.

But Henry son of Henry | though his clan was strong and fierce
Was not raised to be a warrior | his father Henry, he had died
When Henry son of Henry | at the nurse’s tit still sucked
Warriors did not train the boy | monks and bishops held him close.⁴

Women and monks and bishops | did teach him flattery and lies
Cowardly diplomacy | the arts of compromise.
To a girl child they betrothed him | from Savoy did she come
A little sister she did seem | this pest was named Bertha.

The women and monks and bishops | the boy king they did flatter
With trinkets and toys and jewels | on his head they put the crown.
But their games and lies and idleness | in the soil of Henry’s heart
Put down no roots and did not grow | warlike always was his hand.

One day he killed a rabbit | but the rabbit would not die.
He told the monks and bishops | how the magic rabbit lived.⁵
The bishop told his mother⁶ | “Tell your son the little king
He must not lie to bishops | if the throne he wants to keep.”

Then Henry son of Henry | the age of fifteen did attain.
Manhood was his own now | all his kingdoms his to rule
Germany and Italy | and Burgundy as well.
No more diplomacy for Henry | right soon he went to war.

The bold young warlike Henry | his men to battle led.
The princes were rebellious | Henry’s member they did mock.
On the field his wrath they faced | their castles soon they lost
Henry and his Rabbit Warriors | did speed them to their shame.

In battle did the princes | learn the strength of Henry’s sword.
Soon all the rebels were subdued | they cowered at his rage.
Then did all the fair-eyed maidens | from all his realm they came
For Henry, he was handsome | tall and strong was he.

Their kotzes⁷ did they offer | these maidens of the realm
Without any thought of recompense |or even child support
Just the pleasure of his member | and the honor it was great
The bastard sons of Henry | to carry in their wombs.

In all of Henry’s kingdom | one maiden pleased him not
His betrothed princess from Savoy | to Henry she did seem
Like a sister most annoying | but the bishops and the monks
Still had plans for Henry | the marriage they would force.

Then Henry with a fever | in a castle he did lie
Near death he was from poison | a bishop’s work no doubt.⁸
The women and monks and bishops | this chance they quickly seized
And so Henry in his fever | Bertha he did wed.

Now Henry he was married | little mattered it to him.
His hours he did spend | chasing his deathless rabbit
Or drinking with his warriors | or between the legs
Of special maids most willing | kebsweiber they were called.⁹

But while Henry won fame and honor | on the battlefield
Against him there conspired | an enemy most vile.
In Rome a false and sniveling monk | St. Peter’s throne had taken
Hildebrand was his true name | Pope Gregory himself he called.

The false monk Hildebrand | hardly a man was he
On a woman he relied | to lead his troops in war
Matilda was this woman’s name | in her veins there flowed
The blood of Salian warriors | Henry’s cousin true was she.

Word then came to Henry | of the false pope’s plans.¹⁰
The just rule of the virile | Hildebrand would replace
With the writs of effete clerics | Henry knew such bishops well
Never could Henry permit | his empire so to fall.

And the parish priests of Germany | this Hildebrand would compel
Their wives to banish from their beds | all the priests to live alone
Spending their seed like monks | in furtive hollow dreams
Such waste of German manhood | Henry never would allow.

Source: Heinrichlied (Song of Henry), 11th century, author unknown. English translation by Roger McAllister, from the 19th century German translation of Adalbert Kehr.

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1Henry’s grandfather, Conrad II, was elected King of Germany in 1024 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1027, becoming the first Emperor of the Salian dynasty.

2Henry II, 973-1024, the fifth and last Emperor of the Ottonian, or Saxon, dynasty. Also known as Henry the Holy, or Henry the Saint, he remains to this day the only German monarch to be canonized by the Catholic Church.

3In 1046, three men claimed the title of Pope. Henry III went to Rome and deposed them all.

4In 1062, at the age of twelve, Henry IV was kidnapped by Archbishop Anno of Cologne, who proceeded to manage the young king’s education. It is interesting that the author of the Heinrichlied does not mention this event in particular, instead conflating it with the general maleficence of “women and monks and bishops.”

5There is no record of this magic rabbit in any other account of Henry’s life.

6Agnes of Poitou, Henry’s mother and the empress regent until the kidnapping by Anno in 1062. After the kidnapping, she gave up the duties of empress and joined a convent in Rome. She was a devout follower of St. Peter Damian and his ally Hildebrand, later to become Pope Gregory VII.

7The translator would have preferred the modern English version of this word, but the Canadian publisher, when faced with the prospect of being banned from school libraries in the U.S., suggested the Chaucerian “queyntes.” The translator countered with this spelling from Middle High German, which is a good as guess as any as to form used in the missing 11th century manuscript.

8Henry did marry Bertha, on July 13, 1066, after recovering from a bout of fever at Fritzlar. No other account of Henry’s life makes the shocking allegation that his fever was the result of poisoning.

9The translator debated hard and long with himself, and with his editor, whether to use the English word “concubines” or the German word “kebsweiber.” In the end, “concubines” was deemed too redolent of the Orient. The editor did not agree; hence this footnote. See kotzes, above..

10In general, these “plans” are what is now known as the Gregorian Reforms–the elimination of simony, or the practice of selling ecclesiastical offices, and the general imposition of priestly celibacy throughout the Western church.

The Song of Henry: the Gotha Conference

The beginning of the friendship between Adalbert Kehr and Joseph Konrad Josephson
is easy to understand: they were both young men full of fiery dreams, immersed
in dusty old books. Kehr, fresh from his studies in philology at the University
of Marburg, found himself in a lonely government post at an old abbey in Silesia,
a tedious clerkship which he enlivened by exploring the abbey’s old library;
Josephson, who was already beginning to introduce himself as Konrad Joseph,
had just taken over his father’s used book stall in Munich (he quickly moved
the Judaica to a back room), and had hopes of making his shop the center of
Munich’s revolutionary community.

They met in Gotha in 1875, at the conference where the ADAV of Ferdinand Lasalle
merged with the SDAP of Bebel and Liebknecht to become the the SAPD, Sozialistische
Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany,
the soon-to-be outlawed ancestor of today’s German Socialists.

The two young men had little to do with the actual business of the conference–Kehr
had simply traveled on his own to Gotha, and Konrad Joseph’s role was only
slightly more official–he was the self-appointed representative of the tiny
SDAP cell in Munich. Thrilled simply to be there, they watched the conference
from the margins, where their friendship blossomed. They listened respectfully
to the grizzled veterans of 1848, they argued about Stirner and Feuerbach,
and they recapitulated, over many beers, the debates between the Eisenachers
and the Lassaleans. One night, as the conference was drawing to a close, they
staged a impromptu skit they called "The Love Life and Death of Ferdinand
Lassale." Kehr, putting on a monocle and a debonair attitude, played
Lassale, while Konrad Joseph, wrapping himself in a series of scarves, played
several countesses and daughters of conservative diplomats, not to mention
their husbands and fathers. The skit, performed in a beer-hall basement, was
well-received by its audience, primarily a contingent of Marxist miners from
Cologne. Their fiction ended, unlike history, with Lassale winning all his
duels and deposing the aristocracy–only to die by the knife of a jealous mistress,
in bed–a climactic moment in several ways.

After the skit, Kehr heard one of the miners remark to another that there
was nothing he liked better than watching little Jews make fun of big Jews.
Kehr had no idea what the fellow was talking about.

The next morning they both left Gotha, laughing about their hangovers, and
promising to correspond.