Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature

ARTHURIANA Huston and Allen seem at least to be having fun with their parts. Huston maintains a gyno-sacerdotal demeanor appropriate to the Lady ofthe Lake, and Allen plays the vamp as heavy in a throwback to an acting style that seems inspired by Theda Bara. Margulies, try as she might, simply lacks gravitas—her still-intact-television ER midwestern accent making an already tinny dialogue sound only worse. Present in the miniseries is the battle between pagan/feminine/nurturing and Christian/masculine/destructive, with the Saxons thrown in for good measure as enemies to all. The time frame is correct, and some of the costuming and sets are close enough, but overall a great deal oftalent, time, money, and effort seems to have been for naught. It is encouraging that interest in movies and telefilms set in some version of the Middle Ages continues (cf. this Summer's A Knight's Tale which, for all its anachronisms, is still a better reimagining of the medieval). One only wishes that this interest provided us with something better to watch—and to write about. KEVIN J. HARTY 1.a Salle University w. H. Jackson and s. a. ranawake, eds., The Arthur ofthe Germans. The Arthurian Legendin Medieval German andDutch Literature. Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, III. Cardiff: University ofWales Press, 2000. Pp. xii, 337. isbn: o—7083-1595-x. $65. Volume III ofthe series Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, like the two previous volumes on Welsh (1991) and English (1999) Arthurian literature, was published in cooperation with the Vinaver Trust, established by the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society to commemorate the distinguished scholar Eugène Vinaver. The volumes in this series are intended to be successors to the now classic Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages (1959). In his Preface, W R. J. Barron notes that the volumes are 'primarily addressed to students of the individual culture in question, but also to those of other cultures who, for the appreciation of their own Arthurian literature, need to be aware ofthe various expressions ofthe legend' (p. ix). Therefore, 'the volumes aim to present the present state of knowledge as individual contributors see it' and who 'also address the needs ofspecialist scholars by discussing current academic controversies, and themselves treating open questions of research' (p. ix). The volume is divided into five parts: 1. 'Reception and Appropriation: The German Verse Romances, Twelfth Century to 1300'; 2. Continuity and Change in the Later Middle Ages'; 3. The Medieval Dutch Arthurian Material'; 4. Other Literary, Pictorial and Social Manifestations of Arthurian Culture'; 5. 'The Legacy' The Arthur ofthe Germans encompasses more than the subtitle would suggest, for the volume also contains a chapter on 'King Arthur and his Round Table in the Culture of Medieval Bohemia and in Medieval Czech Literature' by Alfred Thomas (pp. 249-56). In the Introduction (pp. 1-18), W. H. Jackson and Silvia Ranawake remark that 'the volume must be understood in the medieval, integrative sense ofthe words dietsch and tiutsch' REVIEWS123 (p. 1), that is, Middle High German and Middle Dutch respectively, which were just beginning to separate out as distinct languages. FIence also the inclusion of Czech literature, which shows 'a further eastward spread of Arthurian literature into the Slav world through the medium ofGerman' (p. 2). The first chapter, 'The Western Background' by Ingrid Kasten, sketches 'the early history of the Arthurian legend, which preceded its reception in German literature' (p. 21). And this is followed, as one would expect, by chapters on FIartmann von Aue, Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich von dem Türlin, Der Stricker, Der Pleier, and the late thirteenth-century anonymous Wigamur, Gauriel, Lohengrin, as well as fragments of Arthurian romances. Gottfried von Strassburg is saved for Part Two, where Mark Chinea discusses the entire German Tristan tradition in 'Tristan Narratives from the High to the Later Middle Ages' (pp. 117-34), to which chapter Volker Mertens has contributed an appendix on 'Arthur in the Tristan Tradition' (pp. 135-41). The second part also contains chapters on the Wigalois narratives, the Prosa-Lancelot, late medieval summations, such as Ulrich Fiietrer's Buch der Abenteuer, and Lorengel. Parts...

A comparison was made of all the known recensions and fragments in Middle Dutch (9) and Middle Low German (2) of the medieval legend of the Provenance of the Cross. Variants were written and weighted, and a computer-assisted stemma was produced. The stemma arranges the recensions into a few groups, but only a small number of conclusions can be drawn from it, e.g. that the two Low German texts, not surprisingly, are to be found at a larger distance from their nearest relatives than any of the Middle Dutch recensions. Both were very obviously translated from Middle Dutch, and it was already clear from the differing ways they solve translating problems that one was not copied from the other, nor did they have a close common ancestor; this is corroborated in the stemma. The dialects of the Middle Dutch texts were then determined by means of the computer-controlled method Rem and Wattel developed for the Corpus of 14th century charters and deeds; the results were entered into the stemma. It now turned out that one of the Low German recensions was relatively closely related to a Dutch text with Northern and Eastern traits. Both Low German texts, however, have as their second closest relatives early recensions which localise in Southern Brabant. All the early Middle Dutch recensions do in fact localise in Southern Brabant. The obvious conclusion is that an archetypical text must have been written in Southern Brabant.

Beards and Texts. Images of Masculinity in Medieval German Literature

Review: The Arthur of the Germans: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval German and Dutch Literature Get access Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 39, Issue 1, January 2003, Page 88, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/39.1.88 Published: 01 January 2003

Reviewed by: Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung ed. by Werner Besch, et al. John M. Jeep Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung. Vol. 2. 2nd edn. Ed. by Werner Besch, Anne Betten, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft/Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science/Manuels de linguistique et des sciences de communication. Vol. 2.2.) Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000. Pp. xiv, 1176. Only two years have elapsed since the appearance of Volume 1 of the planned three-volume second, revised edition of Sprachgeschichte, this most impressive manual of the history of German (first edn. 1984–85; on Vol. 1 of the 2nd edn. see Language 76.464–5; not surprisingly, the strengths mentioned in that review are to be found in Vol. 2). Appropriately, perhaps, this middle volume contains what might be characterized as the essential material of language history. Following a new and valuable Chapter 7, ‘Aspects of a European language history’ [translations mine], seven chapters follow, all under the heading ‘Results of language history research on the historical language stages’: Old High German, Old Low German (Old Saxon), Middle High German, Middle Low German, Early New High German, New High German (Seventeenth to mid-twentieth century), and German since the mid-twentieth century. Ranging from 54 (Old Low German) to nearly 250 pages (1700s to ca. 1950) in length, all of these chapters are of such high quality that they could have been published as linguistic monographs on the respective eras. With the exception of the most recent half-century, each period is described in articles treating sociocultural conditions and linguistic area, phonetics/phonology, morphology, vocabulary, syntax, and genres. Appropriate articles, such as Yiddish (Middle High), the Hansa (Middle Low), Humanists, Printing Press, and Luther (all Early New High), outline relevant individual phenomena that are generic to the respective historical linguistic periods. A new chapter, ‘Developmental tendencies of German since the mid-20th century’, includes articles on linguistic topics such as the official language of the GDR, feminism, phraseology, advertising, mass media, and electronic media, among others. This new chapter provides some of the most notable additions to the first edition while providing a record of linguistic research on German at the end of the twentieth century. Ch. 7, mentioned above, provides new articles on language and nationhood in western Europe, the role of language in the Christianization of Europe, Latin, French, English, modern written languages, and commonalities among the western European languages with respect to vocabulary and grammatical structures. The articles are clearly outlined, well-written, generally with sufficient examples, and close with impressively up-to-date bibliographies (of course with no attempt at exhaustive coverage). Again, the topicality of the literature listed attests to the superb organizational talents exploited to compile this collection. Minor irritations, and they are relatively scarce, are citations of editions that have since been superseded, surprisingly including references to the first edition of this work. These cases are far outweighed by the obviously meticulous editing throughout. The price of Vol. 2 has escalated (from DM 698 for Vol. 1) to DM 950; while Vol. 3 should be eagerly awaited, the bill might not be! As for the designation ‘handbook’, one would dread trying to carry the tomes very far. Co-editor Stefan Sonderegger, who penned three outstanding articles in Vol. 2, implicitly promises Vol. 3 by the year 2001 (1060); may the field of German historical linguistics be so fortunate as to see this prediction come true. [End Page 360] John M. Jeep Miami University/Millikin University Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America

The Dark Figure in Medieval German and Germanic Literature

While antifraternalism and criticism of the friars in medieval English and French literature have been studied extensively, the same cannot be said for the treatment of them in the literature of medieval Germany. This chapter seeks to fill this lacuna in research into medieval literature with an overview of antifraternal themes in German literature from the time of the friars' arrival in the German-speaking lands until the appearance of The Devil's Net and Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools in the fifteenth century and the polemics of Renaissance humanists and Protestant Reformers in the early sixteenth. It notes where antifraternal themes appear and where they do not appear, and it suggests possible social and political reasons for the apparent idiosyncracies of the German antifraternal tradition. The chapter is intended, then, as an introduction to detailed research into antifraternal themes in medieval German literature and into the possible roots of Reformation antifraternalism. Keywords: antifraternalism; medieval German literature; Renaissance

The product of consecutive fora and colloquia in 2016 and 2017, the concurrently held Forum “Sprachvariation” of the Internationale Gesellschaft für Dialektologie des Deutschen and the doctoral seminar of the Verein für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung, this volume assembles eight essays in four thematic areas: three studies on Middle Low German language, three on Middle Low German (MLG) literature, and one each on MLG and Early New High German (ENHG) literature, and ENHG language. Chronologically spanning the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries, the collection does not cohere strongly around a topic or disciplinary focus (“Schriftkultur,” p. 1, is rather broad). Rather it seeks to advance the field of MLG Studies, which have languished significantly compared to diachronic and synchronic studies in High German varieties. To this end, the studies provide fertile ground for future research, despite often rather narrow emphases without recourse to comparative developments in Middle High German (MHG) or other Germanic languages and literatures.

The Arthur of the Germans: the Arthurian legend in medieval German and Dutch literature

Undoubtedly, racism is a deeply-anchored problem that continues to vex our world. There is a long history behind it, which can easily be traced back to the Middle Ages and beyond. This article, however, takes into consideration a number of medieval narratives and art works in which surprisingly positive images of Blacks are provided. The encounter with black-skinned people tended to create problems even for the best-intended white intellectuals or poets during the pre-modern era, but the examples studied here reveal that long before the modern age there was already an alternative discourse to embrace at least individual Blacks as equals within the courtly and the religious context. Since Europe did not yet know the large-scale form of slavery, as it emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were much less contacts between Blacks and Whites. Nevertheless, the evidence brought to the table here clearly signals that we would commit a serious mistake by equating modern-day racism with the situation in the Middle Ages, as much as modern research (Heng) has argued along those lines. It would be more appropriate to talk about the encounter of races within the literary and art-historical context. Even the notion of Black diaspora would not fully address the issue because the evidence brought to the table here engages mostly with black or half-black knights and other individuals who enjoy considerable respect and appear to be integral members of courtly society both in the East and in the West. Instead of working with theoretical models developed for the analysis of racism in our own times, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), this study offers close readings of literary examples of personal encounters between members of different races in medieval German and Dutch literature, and of the representation of Blacks in late medieval and early modern art history, concluding with some comments on the first Black philosopher in eighteenth-century Germany.

Studying medieval anti-Judaism can easily give one a very negative impression, as Christians always seem to have hated their Jewish neighbors, and always seem to have formulated vehemently xenophobic opinions especially aggravated by the religious conflict that gained such a ferocious intensity in the late Middle Ages. The early Middle Ages appear to have been a time when Jews enjoyed at least a limited level of acceptance, as soon as Christian society began to flourish and achieve a higher degree of cultural and economic sophistication, laying the foundation for the development of cultural and national identity, the scales were severely tipped to the disadvantage of the Leonard Glick points out, just as life began to improve for Christians, it began to worsen for Jews. The result was that Jews were relegated to the role of moneylenders: a misfortune greater than they could have foreseen. Keywords: Christians; Jews; Leonard Glick; medieval German literature

The volume contains papers on religious and secular drama in the Middle Ages and the early modern age presented at a symposium in Cologne and centering on plays in Latin, Middle High German, Early New German, Middle Low German, and Middle Dutch. A number of papers are devoted to forms of ritualization in pre-modern drama, others examine its relative proximity to liturgy and the (culturally and liturgically determined) sequence of the seasons, while others again engage with the staging of the plays in terms of their ambivalent attempts to appeal to the responsibility of the individual against the background of an ultimate authority, and to arouse and instrumentalize emotions. All in all, the papers discuss the proliferation of early forms of theatricality and in so doing resume a long overdue theoretical discussion initiated by Rainer Warning and centering on the genesis, function, and structure of medieval plays.

Representations of Jews in Late Medieval and Early Modern German Literature, by John D. Martin. Studies in German Jewish History 5. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2004. 254 pp. $49.95. Incorporating recent discussions about distinction between anti-Judaism and antisemitism and hermeneutic John Martin contests almost universally negative portrayal of late medieval and early modern German representations of Jews formulated in modern scholarship. He rejects what he considers an uncritical acceptance of idea that only decline in Jewish and Christian relations in medieval Germany is depicted in medieval German literature as well as belief that medieval literature, especially medieval religious drama, played a large role in provoking anti-Jewish violence. In response to recent scholarship (especially work of Natascha Bremen Edith Wenzel, and Andrew Gow), Martin asserts that the facts of daily life in medieval Germany make it difficult to defend thesis that such conceptions of Jews as inhuman monsters exerted an unchallenged and unquestioned influence over minds of medieval (p. 29). He suggests instead that medieval Christians were aware of Jewishness of their own religion and that there existed a variety of literary Jews, who were complex and ambivalent. The monstrous image of Jew, however, was never sole, and often not prominent, image in literature. In his attempt to establish this contention, Martin examines a wide range of German literature, focusing on Passion plays, saints' legends, and fables. He notes that Jews could frequently be depicted in sympathetic light. Often Jews clearly identified in literature were depicted not as venal or irrational creatures but as people seeking truth about God. Even when late medieval literature cast Jews as associated with devil, Jews were more likely to be presented as dupes, not willing agents, of evil. Martin argues that emphasis on Jewish origins of Christianity in literature is multivalent, but that orientation does not necessarily imply a condemnation of Jews. He asserts that plays, for example, do not convey message that Christian Gospels do not offer hope to Jews or that Jews have no proper place in Christian society. What is more, literature at times portrays a realistic depiction of Jewish polemic and rabbinic teachings about Jesus. Martin concludes that Jewish resistance to Christian Gospels was nevertheless not seen as a symptom of an inherited race-based defect. Martin does note that certain literary productions clearly did include more anti-Jewish animus than others and that there were occasional, and often significant, shifts in representation. He points to two developments completed in several fifteenth-century texts, namely, shifting of blame for Crucifixion onto all Jews and creation of an anachronistic division between Jews and followers of Jesus. In some cases, this shift was also evident in dehumanization of Jews through use of animal imagery. Martin believes that even negative imagery needs to be properly contextualized, however. The degradation of Jews through use of scatological humor, for example, was entirely typical of Fastnachtspiele genre. Such contextualization, Martin argues, makes it possible to reconsider even some of apparently most vehement anti-Jewish portrayals. In work of Hans Folz, for example, he sees hostility toward Jews as an abstract, psychological phenomenon, not a credible, extant danger to lives and property of Christians. Folz, Martin contends, deals with Jews differently in his varying literary pieces, and overall evinces a disputative and theological interest in Jews. Even in literature that at times depicts Jews as sorcerers or magicians, some Jews, even when they remain unconverted, are depicted as righteous. …

Comprehensive survey of the legend of Charlemagne in the medieval German-speaking world. The legend of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne is widespread through the literature of the European Middle Ages. This book offers a detailed and critical analysis of how this myth emerged and developed in medieval German and Dutchliteratures, bringing to light the vast array of narratives either idealizing, if not glorifying, Charlemagne as a political and religious leader, or, at times, criticizing or even ridiculing him as a pompous and ineffectual ruler. The motif is traced from its earlest origins in chronicles, in the Kaiserchronik, through the Rolandslied and Der Stricker's Karl der Große, to his recasting as a saint in the Zürcher Buch vom Heiligen Karl. ALBRECHT CLASSEN is University Distinguished Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona; he received the title of Grand Knight Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Three Lions in 2017, in recognition of his outstanding service to German studies.

Comprehensive survey of the legend of Charlemagne in the medieval German-speaking world. The legend of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne is widespread through the literature of the European Middle Ages. This book offers a detailed and critical analysis of how this myth emerged and developed in medieval German and Dutchliteratures, bringing to light the vast array of narratives either idealizing, if not glorifying, Charlemagne as a political and religious leader, or, at times, criticizing or even ridiculing him as a pompous and ineffectual ruler. The motif is traced from its earlest origins in chronicles, in the Kaiserchronik, through the Rolandslied and Der Stricker's Karl der Große, to his recasting as a saint in the Zürcher Buch vom Heiligen Karl. ALBRECHT CLASSEN is University Distinguished Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona; he received the title of Grand Knight Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Three Lions in 2017, in recognition of his outstanding service to German studies.