The Heidenmauer; or, The Benedictines. A Legend of the Rhine

Fenimore Cooper's 1832 book THE HEIDENMAUER is a novel that doesn't feel like a novel. It is more like a series of lectures gently but didactically introducing to literate worldwide readers of English a small number of themes. The dominant theme (for Americans) is what Catholics at the time of Martin Luther were like and what they were like in 1832. One theme for all readers was what Germany's Rhineland felt like to nobles and commoners, clergy and laymen, soldiers and farmers when Luther's thoughts were just beginning to make themselves heard. And Cooper also seemed to believe that his readers everywhere would benefit from dollops of political theory, history of Roman and medieval Europe, the advance across the Mediterranean of militant Islam, including the recent conquest of Rhodes, thoughts on how superstition inhibits action, why Germans hesitated to cast off Rome for uncharted religious waters of reform and other antiquarian highlights. ***

The novel's main story line is easily told. In the early 1520s the village of Duerckheim on the left bank (the onetime Roman side) of the Rhine owes allegiance to a nearby Benedictine abbey led by an aristocratic, easy-going abbot. But the prosperous village of Duerckheim and nearby farmlands are coveted by Count Emich. Calculating his odds, the Count persuades villagers to join him in a surprise attack to subdue the abbey. The latter is burned to the ground, with the supposed loss of life of a couple of leading characters of the several sub-plots. Count Emich gets what he wants and is willing to pay for his new possessions the heavy fine for sacrilege exacted by the Holy Roman Empire. The Benedictines are dispersed. End of main story. ***

Fenimore Cooper (1789 - 1851), already world famous for his 1826 LAST OF THE MOHICANS, served as American consul in Lyons, France from 1826 to 1833. He traveled widely in Europe and wrote much of THE HEIDENMAUER in Switzerland. I imagine him, like some others I have known, saying to himself: my vocation is to make America known to Europe and Europe to America. And I will constantly remind Americans that at its best America's culture and arts are in no way inferior to those of Europe. ***

Cooper was always an observer of religions and religious practices and attitudes. Over time, beginning with his six years in Europe he paid notably more sympathetic attention to Roman Catholicism. He realized that very few of his countrymen were likely ever to meet Catholics in the flesh and held strong inherited prejudices against them. These misconceptions he tried to correct in THE HEIDENMAUER. He wrote: "In this country, Catholicism, in its limited and popular meaning, is no longer catholic, since it is in so small a minority as to have no perceptible influence on the opinions or customs of the country" (Ch. 24). ***

Cooper theorized that revolutions are made by a handful of geniuses, like Luther, far, far in advance of the less brilliant masses. Somewhat clumsily he tried to imagine how varieties of Germans, lovers young and old, clergy and laity, pious and greedy mmight have slowly, slowly adjusted their Teutonic minds and practices to the Reformation. The Rhineland and the area around the old Roman town of Duerckheim, just after the fall of Rhodes in 1522, are still only lightly touched by the new thinking of Augustinian monk Martin Luther. Feudal loyalties are strained. Religious fervor is far from universal among Catholics, lay or clerical. Cooper argues that regardless of how pure the stated motive may be behind a land grab or a challenge to feudal or church authority, men are in fact largely driven by worldly ends in view, greed, self-interest, lust, power. ***

THE HEIDENMAUER is a novel that doesn't feel like a novel. In some ways it is a pretty good Platonic dialog with the flavor of some of the writings of Sigmund Freud. Cooper himself draws on Aesop's fable of the once peaceful and contented frogs who grew restless and asked an amused Zeus to give them a king. First the Father of gods and of men tossed a log into the frogs' swamp to be their king. But the croakers demanded something more exciting and powerful. So Zeus gave them a second king, a stork, who at his leisure then proceeded to devour them one by one. The people of Duerckheim traded King Log (an abbot) for King Stork (Count Emich). And thus the plan of Zeus was fulfilled. -OOO-