Defensio oder Die Kunst des Invektierens im Oberrheinischen Humanismus

Abstract

Summary Defensio or The Art of Disparagement in the Upper-Rhenish Humanism In the first years of the 16th century two scholars from the Alsatian province, secular priest Jakob Wimpfeling and Franciscan Thomas Murner, the latter one generation younger than the former, started a quarrel in Strasbourg. Quickly, their friends and students, then the city council, and finally even King Maximilian I got drawn into the polemical debate. At first sight the controversial topic was only a highly charged issue in politically troubled times: Had the Alsace region and its capital always belonged to Germany or had they been part of France at some time in the past? But it was also a quarrel about the educational sovereignty. This was an issue important to humanists. Secular ond ordinary priests hotly debated the topic not only in Strasbourg, but also elsewhere. The literary feud involved not only arguments, but also sharp personal attacks, offences and defamations. Several publications included disparaging letters, poems, treatises and pictures which often hardly bore any reference to the issue in question. The question arises why humanists, who are generally thought to be concerned with language and education, resorted to such drastic and defamatory means in their personal conflicts. The paper addresses this question with the help of the theories and methods currently employed by the Collaborative Research Centre Dresden with the title „Invectivity“. It analyzes the constellations of the controversy, examines the dynamics and escalations of their process, and traces the emotions of those involved. This will deepen our understanding about the operations of social demarcation and the mechanisms of group formation among humanists and concomitantly the fundamental social potential for conflict.