Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature

Abstract

Commemorative dates related to Charlemagne's reign—for example, his elevation to emperor in 800 and death in 814—have come and gone in the early twenty-first century. This recent era generated untold numbers of popular and academic reflections and studies on the most famous ruler of the Carolingian dynasty, in part because of his position in the enduring myths of Europe, its pasts, and its potential futures. Albrecht Classen's 2021 contribution to the ongoing scholarship on Charlemagne is less a study than it is a survey of an important topic in literary and cultural history. Chronologically from the twelfth-century vernacular history Kaiserchronik through the fifteenth-century hagiographic text the Zürcher Buch vom Heiligen Karl and geographically from the southernmost German-speaking lands to Middle Dutch and Low German areas, the book also covers a wide variety of texts and genres. Such extensive coverage in one linguistic area (or two, or three, depending on one's perspective) testifies to the magnitude of Charlemagne's significance in European literary, narrative, and even religious history. While perhaps not indicative of widespread quality control issues, the present reviewer found that the spine of the book separated from the pages nearly immediately upon reading, which was all the more disappointing given the overall excellent formatting and printing quality.In the introduction, Classen manages in a mere eighteen pages to provide a sufficient overview of the origins of the Charlemagne legend, resources for further investigation, the development of the Latin literary tradition and its adoption and adaptation in German-speaking Europe, and several examples of genres and texts in which the ruler makes an appearance or serves as a central figure. More than once the reader is steered toward cultural interpretations of legendary rulers rather than seeking biographical detail, a reception history from a medieval perspective here not centered entirely on comparisons between French vernacular models and German adaptations, as is often the case, but through the lens of translation and translation in High and Low German dialect areas.The eight body chapters address the Kaiserchronik, Pfaffe Konrad's Rolandslied, der Stricker's Karl der Große, the fourteenth-century Karl Meinet compilation, Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken's Königin Sibille, Malagis, the Zürcher Buch vom Heiligen Karl, and various other, often lesser-known texts in Middle Dutch and Middle Low German. Each chapter averages around twenty pages and seeks both to present either a single text in the context of its development and reception history or a constellation of related texts. In addition to overviews of editorial history and explanations of genre-specific characteristics, an explanation of the narrative content of texts with citations of some relevant scholarship completes each chapter. Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature does not identify itself as a handbook, but a reception history handbook it is, and a useful one. This surfaces in various stylistic and formatting decisions, e.g., defining what a synoptic edition is (p. 20) and the relatively brief, but descriptively dense chapters, as well as in aforementioned features.The first chapter on the Kaiserchronik concentrates on the first extant version from the twelfth century and positions the text as the inspiration for subsequent German accounts of the Frankish king and emperor from the perspectives of chronicling his real or imagined exploits and commenting on aspects of idealized kingship (with which most later literary adaptations contend even if through inversion or critique). Another influential adaption is the Rolandslied, the subject of chapter two, which is traced through its French source in the Chanson de Roland and other earlier Latin chronicles to the Middle High German version dated to a quarter century or so after the Kaiserchronik. Konrad's Rolandslied provides the spiritual mirror of kingship generally and specifically that of Charlemagne to the secular heroic and administrative thrust of the Kaiserchronik, forming in its “crusade-like epic” structure (p. 45) a basis for successive explorations of the ruler as a holy figure.The third chapter moves into the thirteenth century with der Stricker's adaptation of the Rolandslied, framed by its composer as a didactic poem concerned with contemporary ideas about virtuous living and the personal characteristics that embody it. This project then employs Charlemagne as an exemplary figure in both senses, but also as a flawed and complex man, reflecting increasing interests in the literary portrayal of great figures in a more recognizably human form. Less hagiographical and more psychologizing, der Stricker expands on his source material and presents Charlemagne as a saintly ruler who overcomes his inner and outer failings, expresses emotion, and administers his realm as the embodiment of good muot.In the fourth chapter, a text from the first half of the fourteenth century expands further on the possibilities that legends of Charlemagne offer in a changing literary and cultural landscape. The Ripuarian Karl Meinet Compilation (or Karlmeinet Kompilation or dat boich van eme), possibly compiled by a clergyman serving in Aachen, encompasses five sections of varying length and with various sources, including a now-lost Low German version of the Rolandslied. The location and dating are significant, but Classen notes that Charles IV's interest in renewing the cult of the emperor postdates the compilation slightly and the dearth of reception history and influence suggests otherwise (p. 76). In the compilation, Charlemagne becomes a locus of interwoven literary approaches to historical and fictional biography: courtly romance, heroic epic, and the older narrative forms that influenced the chronicle tradition merge and the setting moves from the Frankish court to Muslim Spain.Chapter five, on Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken's Königin Sibille, enters the earlier fifteenth century with a discussion of Elisabeth's translation and adaptation of chansons de geste, emphasizing particularly the enduring popularity of these narratives and their interwoven referentiality. Sibille is read alongside the three other texts the author composed, as well as the plays of Hans Sachs and Schondoch's slightly earlier version, Königin von Frankreich, revealing an emergent novelistic demythologizing of Charlemagne, who cuts a figure closer to earth than the laudatory if complex portrayals in previous centuries allow, even if the religious strand of the legends and the contemplative treatment of failure and success are maintained to an extent.From later in the fifteenth century, the little-known Middle Dutch and German versions of the epic Malagis, whose translation history from its French chanson de geste source includes fragmentary Middle Dutch verse, complete verse in Early New Low German translated from the Dutch, and a Dutch prose edition from the sixteenth century. In these adaptations and translations, Charlemagne is cast as a base king, prone to poor behavior and a lack of desirable traits, and the opponent of a sorcerer, Malagis, whose magical and necromantic activities and cunning are portrayed as positive vis-à-vis an oppressive ruler, further severing the figure of Charlemagne in literature from his original purpose as a legendary embodiment of proper kingship.Chapter seven remains in the fifteenth century but returns to an earlier mode of representation, namely the hagiographical, that contrasts with the works in the two preceding chapters. In the Zürcher Buch vom Heiligen Karl, a work produced in a city with a cult of the Frankish king since the thirteenth century, reports of the king are influenced by der Stricker, Latin historians, and other sources, and the volume also includes a version of Florus and Pantschiflur (according to the orthography of the compilation). Combining late medieval narrative elements and forms (e.g., burlesque) with earlier (e.g., hagiography, the chronicle, courtly romance), the Zürcher Buch returns to the earlier mode of praising saintly, exemplary kingship with the addition of a genuine miracle story in order to prove that the king was a bona fide saint.The final chapter takes a diachronic view of texts about Charlemagne in Middle Dutch and Low German literature, surveying both the medieval manuscript traditions and the history of printed editions in the Early Modern period but focusing primarily on Karel ende Elegast/Karl und Ellegast, Ogier van Denemarken/Ogier van Dänemark, and Die Haymonskinder (related to the Malagis narrative). Because of the number of texts and the brevity of the chapter, each is covered in a somewhat superficial fashion but they nevertheless collectively present additional perspectives on Charlemagne in medieval literature, and bear witness to the necessity for scholars and readers of Middle High German literature to investigate not only Middle Dutch verse and prose versions, but also the Middle Low German translations through which many of the verse texts are transmitted.An afterword encapsulates the core of all the readings, namely that the changing portrayal of Charlemagne into the Early Modern period is neither wholly a literary project nor a political one, but often both, and one worthy of investigation diachronically and among lesser-studied texts and traditions. As a survey, the book would serve well in an undergraduate course on medieval literature, allowing students to view succinctly one linguistic area in one of the major strands of literary afterlives important to European identity formation; the usual caveats about pricing apply.