Chapter 7 of 22 · 3802 words · ~19 min read

Part 7

GRUMBACH, WILHELM VON (1503-1567), German adventurer, chiefly known through his connexion with the so-called "Grumbach feuds" (_Grumbachsche Handel_), the last attempt of the German knights to destroy the power of the territorial princes. A member of an old Franconian family, he was born on the 1st of June 1503, and having passed some time at the court of Casimir, prince of Bayreuth (d. 1527), fought against the peasants during the rising in 1524 and 1525. About 1540 Grumbach became associated with Albert Alcibiades, the turbulent prince of Bayreuth, whom he served both in peace and war. After the conclusion of the peace of Passau in 1552, Grumbach assisted Albert in his career of plunder in Franconia and was thus able to take some revenge upon his enemy, Melchior von Zobel, bishop of Wurzburg. As a landholder Grumbach was a vassal of the bishops of Wurzburg, and had held office at the court of Conrad of Bibra, who was bishop from 1540 to 1544. When, however, Zobel was chosen to succeed Conrad the harmonious relations between lord and vassal were quickly disturbed. Unable to free himself and his associates from the suzerainty of the bishop by appealing to the imperial courts he decided to adopt more violent measures, and his friendship with Albert was very serviceable in this connexion. Albert's career, however, was checked by his defeat at Sievershausen in July 1553 and his subsequent flight into France, and the bishop took advantage of this state of affairs to seize Grumbach's lands. The knight obtained an order of restitution from the imperial court of justice (_Reichskammergericht_), but he was unable to carry this into effect; and in April 1558 some of his partisans seized and killed the bishop. Grumbach declared he was innocent of this crime, but his story was not believed, and he fled to France. Returning to Germany he pleaded his cause in person before the diet at Augsburg in 1559, but without success. Meanwhile he had found a new patron in John Frederick, duke of Saxony, whose father, John Frederick, had been obliged to surrender the electoral dignity to the Albertine branch of his family. Chafing under this deprivation the duke listened readily to Grumbach's plans for recovering the lost dignity, including a general rising of the German knights and the deposition of Frederick II., king of Denmark. Magical charms were employed against the duke's enemies, and communications from angels were invented which helped to stir up the zeal of the people. In 1563 Grumbach attacked Wurzburg, seized and plundered the city and compelled the chapter and the bishop to restore his lands. He was consequently placed under the imperial ban, but John Frederick refused to obey the order of the emperor Maximilian II. to withdraw his protection from him. Meanwhile Grumbach sought to compass the assassination of the Saxon elector, Augustus; proclamations were issued calling for assistance; and alliances both without and within Germany were concluded. In November 1566 John Frederick was placed under the ban, which had been renewed against Grumbach earlier in the year, and Augustus marched against Gotha. Assistance was not forthcoming, and a mutiny led to the capitulation of the town. Grumbach was delivered to his foes, and, after being tortured, was executed at Gotha on the 18th of April 1567.

See F. Ortloff, _Geschichte der Grumbachschen Handel_ (Jena, 1868-1870), and J. Voigt, _Wilhelm von Grumbach und seine Handel_ (Leipzig, 1846-1847).

GRUMENTUM, an ancient town in the centre of Lucania, 33 m. S. of Potentia by the direct road through Anxia, and 52 m. by the Via Herculia, at the point of divergence of a road eastward to Heraclea. It seems to have been a native Lucanian town, not a Greek settlement. In 215 B.C. the Carthaginian general Hanno was defeated under its walls, and in 207 B.C. Hannibal made it his headquarters. In the Social War it appears as a strong fortress, and seems to have been held by both sides at different times. It became a colony, perhaps in the time of Sulla, at latest under Augustus, and seems to have been of some importance. Its site, identified by Holste from the description of the martyrdom of St Laverius, is a ridge on the right bank of the Aciris (Agri) about 1960 ft. above sea-level, 1/2 m. below the modern Saponara, which lies much higher (2533 ft.). Its ruins (all of the Roman period) include those of a large amphitheatre (arena 205 by 197 ft.), the only one in Lucania, except that at Paestum. There are also remains of a theatre. Inscriptions record the repair of its town walls and the construction of _thermae_ (of which remains were found) in 57-51 B.C., the construction in 43 B.C., of a portico, remains of which may be seen along an ancient road, at right angles to the main road, which traversed Grumentum from S. to N.

See F. P. Caputi in _Notizie degli scavi_ (1877), 129, and G. Patroni, ibid. (1897) 180. (T. As.)

GRUN. HANS BALDUNG (c. 1470-1545), commonly called Grun, a German painter of the age of Durer, was born at Gmund in Swabia, and spent the greater part of his life at Strassburg and Freiburg in Breisgau. The earliest pictures assigned to him are altarpieces with the monogram H. B. interlaced, and the date of 1496, in the monastery chapel of Lichtenthal near Baden. Another early work is a portrait of the emperor Maximilian, drawn in 1501 on a leaf of a sketch-book now in the print-room at Carlsruhe. The "Martyrdom of St Sebastian" and the "Epiphany" (Berlin Museum), fruits of his labour in 1507, were painted for the market-church of Halle in Saxony. In 1509 Grun purchased the freedom of the city of Strassburg, and resided there till 1513, when he moved to Freiburg in Breisgau. There he began a series of large compositions, which he finished in 1516, and placed on the high altar of the Freiburg cathedral. He purchased anew the freedom of Strassburg in 1517, resided in that city as his domicile, and died a member of its great town council 1545.

Though nothing is known of Grun's youth and education, it may be inferred from his style that he was no stranger to the school of which Durer was the chief. Gmund is but 50 m. distant on either side from Augsburg and Nuremberg. Grun prints were often mistaken for those of Durer; and Durer himself was well acquainted with Grun's woodcuts and copper-plates in which he traded during his trip to the Netherlands (1520). But Grun's prints, though Dureresque, are far below Durer, and his paintings are below his prints. Without absolute correctness as a draughtsman, his conception of human form is often very unpleasant, whilst a questionable taste is shown in ornament equally profuse and "baroque." Nothing is more remarkable in his pictures than the pug-like shape of the faces, unless we except the coarseness of the extremities. No trace is apparent of any feeling for atmosphere or light and shade. Though Grun has been commonly called the Correggio of the north, his compositions are a curious medley of glaring and heterogeneous colours, in which pure black is contrasted with pale yellow, dirty grey, impure red and glowing green. Flesh is a mere glaze under which the features are indicated by lines. His works are mainly interesting because of the wild and fantastic strength which some of them display. We may pass lightly over the "Epiphany" of 1507, the "Crucifixion" of 1512, or the "Stoning of Stephen" of 1522, in the Berlin Museum. There is some force in the "Dance of Death" of 1517, in the museum of Basel, or the "Madonna" of 1530, in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna. Grun's best effort is the altarpiece of Freiburg, where the "Coronation of the Virgin," and the "Twelve Apostles," the "Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity and Flight into Egypt," and the "Crucifixion," with portraits of donors, are executed with some of that fanciful power which Martin Schon bequeathed to the Swabian school. As a portrait painter he is well known. He drew the likeness of Charles V., as well as that of Maximilian; and his bust of Margrave Philip in the Munich Gallery tells us that he was connected with the reigning family of Baden as early as 1514. At a later period he had sittings from Margrave Christopher of Baden, Ottilia his wife, and all their children, and the picture containing these portraits is still in the grand-ducal gallery at Carlsruhe. Like Durer and Cranach, Grun became a hearty supporter of the Reformation. He was present at the diet of Augsburg in 1518, and one of his woodcuts represents Luther under the protection of the Holy Ghost, which hovers over him in the shape of a dove.

GRUNBERG, a town of Germany, in Prussian Silesia, beautifully situated between two hills on an affluent of the Oder, and on the railway from Breslau to Stettin via Kustrin, 36 m. N.N.W. of Glogau. Pop. (1905) 20,987. It has a Roman Catholic and two Evangelical churches, a modern school and a technical (textiles) school. There are manufactures of cloth, paper, machinery, straw hats, leather and tobacco. The prosperity of the town depends chiefly on the vine culture in the neighbourhood, from which, besides the exportation of a large quantity of grapes, about 700,000 gallons of wine are manufactured annually.

GRUNDTVIG, NIKOLAI FREDERIK SEVERIN (1783-1872), Danish poet, statesman and divine, was born at the parsonage of Udby in Zealand on the 8th of September 1783. In 1791 he was sent to live at the house of a priest in Jutland, and studied at the free school of Aarhuus until he went up to the university of Copenhagen in 1800. At the close of his university life he made Icelandic his special study, until in 1805 he took the position of tutor in a house on the island of Langeland. The next three years were spent in the study of Shakespeare, Schiller and Fichte. His cousin, the philosopher Henrik Steffens, had returned to Copenhagen in 1802 full of the teaching of Schelling and his lectures and the early poetry of Ohlenschlager opened the eyes of Grundtvig to the new era in literature. His first work, _On the Songs in the Edda_, attracted no attention. Returning to Copenhagen in 1808 he achieved greater success with his _Northern Mythology_, and again in 1809-1811 with a long epic poem, the _Decline of the Heroic Life in the North_. The boldness of the theological views expressed in his first sermon in 1810 offended the ecclesiastical authorities, and he retired to a country parish as his father's assistant for a while. From 1812 to 1817 he published five or six works, of which the _Rhyme of Roskilde_ is the most remarkable. From 1816 to 1819 he was editor of a polemical journal entitled _Dannevirke_, and in 1818 to 1822 appeared his Danish paraphrases (6 vols.) of Saxo Grammaticus and Snorri. During these years he was preaching against rationalism to an enthusiastic congregation in Copenhagen, but he accepted in 1821 the country living of Praesto, only to return to the metropolis the year after. In 1825 he published a pamphlet, _The Church's Reply_, against H. N. Clausen, who was professor of theology in the university of Copenhagen. Grundtvig was publicly prosecuted and fined, and for seven years he was forbidden to preach, years which he spent in publishing a collection of his theological works, in paying two visits to England, and in studying Anglo-Saxon. In 1832 he obtained permission to preach again, and in 1839 he became priest of the workhouse church of Vartov hospital, Copenhagen, a post he continued to hold until his death. In 1837-1841 he published _Songs for the Danish Church_, a rich collection of sacred poetry; in 1838 he brought out a selection of early Scandinavian verse; in 1840 he edited the Anglo-Saxon poem of the _Phoenix_, with a Danish translation. He visited England a third time in 1843. From 1844 until after the first German war Grundtvig took a very prominent part in politics. In 1861 he received the titular rank of bishop, but without a see. He went on writing occasional poems till 1866, and preached in the Vartov every Sunday until a month before his death. His preaching attracted large congregations, and he soon had a following. His hymn-book effected a great change in Danish church services, substituting the hymns of the national poets for the slow measures of the orthodox Lutherans. The chief characteristic of his theology was the substitution of the authority of the "living word" for the apostolic commentaries, and he desired to see each congregation a practically independent community. His patriotism was almost a part of his religion, and he established popular schools where the national poetry and history should form an essential part of the instruction. His followers are known as Grundtvigians. He was married three times, the last time in his seventy-sixth year. He died on the 2nd of September 1872. Grundtvig holds a unique position in the literature of his country; he has been styled the Danish Carlyle. He was above all things a man of action, not an artist; and the formless vehemence of his writings, which have had a great influence over his own countrymen, is hardly agreeable or intelligible to a foreigner. The best of his poetical works were published in a selection (7 vols., 1880-1889) by his eldest son, Svend Hersleb Grundtvig (1824-1883), who was an authority on Scandinavian antiquities, and made an admirable collection of old Danish poetry (_Danmarks gamle Folkeviser_, 1853-1883, 5 vols.; completed in 1891 by A. Olrik).

His correspondence with Ingemann was edited by S. Grundtvig (1882); his correspondence with Christian Molbech by L. Schroder (1888); see also F. Winkel Horn, _Grundtvigs Liv og Gjerning_ (1883); and an article by F. Nielsen in Bricka's _Dansk Biografisk Lexikon_.

GRUNDY, SYDNEY (1848- ), English dramatist, was born at Manchester on the 23rd of March 1848, son of Alderman Charles Sydney Grundy. He was educated at Owens College, Manchester, and was called to the bar in 1869, practising in Manchester until 1876. His farce, _A Little Change_, was produced at the Haymarket Theatre in 1872. He became well known as an adapter of plays, among his early successes in this direction being _The Snowball_ (Strand Theatre, 1879) from _Oscar, ou le mari qui trompe sa femme_ by MM. Scribe and Duvergne, and _In Honour Bound_ (1880) from Scribe's _Une Chaine_. In 1887 he made a popular success with _The Bells of Haslemere_, written with Mr H. Pettitt and produced at the Adelphi. In 1889-1890 he produced two ingenious original comedies, _A White Lie_ (Court Theatre) and _A Fool's Paradise_ (Gaiety Theatre), which had been played two years earlier at Greenwich as _The Mouse-Trap_. These were followed by _Sowing the Wind_ (Comedy, 1893), _An Old Jew_ (Garrick, 1894), and by an adaptation of Octave Feuillet's _Montjoye as A Bunch of Violets_ (Haymarket, 1894). In 1894 he produced _The New Woman_ and _The Slaves of the Ring_; in 1895, _The Greatest of These_, played by Mr and Mrs Kendal at the Garrick Theatre; _The Degenerates_ (Haymarket, 1899), and _A Debt of Honour_ (St James's 1900). Among Mr Grundy's most successful adaptations were the charming _Pair of Spectacles_ (Garrick, 1890) from _Les Petits Oiseaux_ of MM. Labiche and Delacour. Others were _A Village Priest_ (Haymarket, 1890) from _Le Secret de la terreuse_, a melodrama by MM. Busnach and Cauvin; _A Marriage of Convenience_ (Haymarket, 1897) from _Un Mariage de Louis XV_, by Alex. Dumas, pere, _The Silver Key_ (Her Majesty's, 1897) from his _Mlle de Belle-isle_, and _The Musqueteers_ (1899) from the same author's novel; _Frocks and Frills_ (Haymarket, 1902) from the _Doigts de fees_ of MM. Scribe and Legouve; _The Garden of Lies_ (St James's Theatre, 1904) from Mr Justus Miles Forman's novel; _Business is Business_ (His Majesty's Theatre, 1905), a rather free adaptation from Octave Mirbeau's _Les Affaires sont les affaires_; and _The Diplomatists_ (Royalty Theatre, 1905) from _La Poudre aux yeux_, by Labiche.

GRUNDY, MRS, the name of an imaginary English character, who typifies the disciplinary control of the conventional "proprieties" of society over conduct, the tyrannical pressure of the opinion of neighbours on the acts of others. The name appears in a play of Thomas Morton, _Speed the Plough_ (1798), in which one of the characters, Dame Ashfield, continually refers to what her neighbour Mrs Grundy will say as the criterion of respectability. Mrs Grundy is not a character in the play, but is a kind of "Mrs Harris" to Dame Ashfield.

GRUNER, GOTTLIEB SIGMUND (1717-1778), the author of the first connected attempt to describe in detail the snowy mountains of Switzerland. His father, Johann Rudolf Gruner (1680-1761), was pastor of Trachselwald, in the Bernese Emmenthal (1705), and later (1725) of Burgdorf, and a great collector of information relating to historical and scientific matters; his great _Thesaurus topographico-historicus totius ditionis Bernensis_ (4 vols. folio, 1729-1730) still remains in MS., but in 1732 he published a small work entitled _Deliciae urbis Bernae_, while he possessed an extensive cabinet of natural history objects. Naturally such tastes had a great influence on the mind of his son, who was born at Trachselwald, and educated by his father and at the Latin school at Burgdorf, not going to Berne much before 1736, when he published a dissertation on the use of fire by the heathen. In 1739 he qualified as a notary, in 1741 became the archivist of Hesse-Homburg, and in 1743 accompanied Prince Christian of Anhalt-Schaumburg to Silesia and the university of Halle. He returned to his native land before 1749, when he obtained a post at Thorberg, being transferred in 1764 to Landshut and Fraubrunnen. It was in 1760 that he published in 3 vols. at Berne his chief work, _Die Eisgebirge des Schweizerlandes_ (bad French translation by M. de Keralio, Paris, 1770). The first two volumes are filled by a detailed description of the snowy Swiss mountains, based not so much on personal experience as on older works, and a very large number of communications received by Gruner from numerous friends; the third volume deals with glaciers in general, and their various properties. Though in many respects imperfect, Gruner's book sums up all that was known on the subject in his day, and forms the starting-point for later writers. The illustrations are very curious and interesting. In 1778 he republished (nominally in London, really at Berne) much of the information contained in his larger work, but thrown into the form of letters, supposed to be written in 1776 from various spots, under the title of _Reisen durch die merkwurdigsten Gegenden Helvetiens_ (2 vols.). (W. A. B. C.)

GRUNEWALD, MATHIAS. The accounts which are given of this German painter, a native of Aschaffenburg, are curiously contradictory. Between 1518 and 1530, according to statements adopted by Waagen and Passavant, he was commissioned by Albert of Brandenburg, elector and archbishop of Mainz, to produce an altarpiece for the collegiate church of St Maurice and Mary Magdalen at Halle on the Saale; and he acquitted himself of this duty with such cleverness that the prelate in after years caused the picture to be rescued from the Reformers and brought back to Aschaffenburg. From one of the churches of that city it was taken to the Pinakothek of Munich in 1836. It represents St Maurice and Mary Magdalen between four saints, and displays a style so markedly characteristic, and so like that of Lucas Cranach, that Waagen was induced to call Grunewald Cranach's master. He also traced the same hand and technical execution in the great altarpieces of Annaberg and Heilbronn, and in various panels exhibited in the museums of Mainz, Darmstadt, Aschaffenburg, Vienna and Berlin. A later race of critics, declining to accept the statements of Waagen and Passavant, affirm that there is no documentary evidence to connect Grunewald with the pictures of Halle and Annaberg, and they quote Sandrart and Bernhard Jobin of Strassburg to show that Grunewald is the painter of pictures of a different class. They prove that he finished before 1516 the large altarpiece of Issenheim, at present in the museum of Colmar, and starting from these premises they connect the artist with Altdorfer and Durer to the exclusion of Cranach. That a native of the Palatinate should have been asked to execute pictures for a church in Saxony can scarcely be accounted strange, since we observe that Hans Baldung (Grun) was entrusted with a commission of this kind. But that a painter of Aschaffenburg should display the style of Cranach is strange and indeed incredible, unless vouched for by first-class evidence. In this case documents are altogether wanting, whilst on the other hand it is beyond the possibility of doubt, even according to Waagen, that the altarpiece of Issenheim is the creation of a man whose teaching was altogether different from that of the painter of the pictures of Halle and Annaberg. The altarpiece of Issenheim is a fine and powerful work, completed as local records show before 1516 by a Swabian, whose distinguishing mark is that he followed the traditions of Martin Schongauer, and came under the influence of Altdorfer and Durer. As a work of art the altarpiece is important, being a poliptych of eleven panels, a carved central shrine covered with a double set of wings, and two side pieces containing the Temptation of St Anthony, the hermits Anthony and Paul in converse, the Virgin adored by Angels, the Resurrection, the Annunciation, the Crucifixion, St Sebastian, St Anthony, and the Marys wailing over the dead body of Christ. The author of these compositions is also the painter of a series of monochromes described by Sandrart in the Dominican convent, and now in part in the Saalhof at Frankfort, and a Resurrection in the museum of Basel, registered in Amerbach's inventory as the work of Grunewald.

GRUTER (or GRUYTERE), JAN (1560-1627), a critic and scholar of Dutch parentage by his father's side and English by his mother's, was born at Antwerp on the 3rd of December 1560. To avoid religious persecution his parents while he was still young came to England; and for some years he prosecuted his studies at Cambridge, after which he went to Leiden, where he graduated M. A. In 1586 he was appointed professor of history at Wittenberg, but as he refused to subscribe the _formula concordiae_ he was unable to retain his office. From 1589 to 1592 he taught at Rostock, after which he went to Heidelberg, where in 1602 he was appointed librarian to the university. He died at Heidelberg on the 20th of September 1627.

Gruter's chief works were his _Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani_ (2 vols., Heidelberg, 1603), and _Lampas, sive fax artium liberalium_ (7 vols., Frankfort, 1602-1634).