Language, Class, and Mimic Satire in the Characterization of Correspondents in the Epistolae obscurorum virorum

Abstract

Recent studies show that the satirical characterizations in the Epistolae obscurorum virorum contributed to the impression of hostile camps of humanists and scholastics in pre-Reformation Germany. A new type of mimic satire was created by Crotus Rubeanus, Ulrich von Hutten, and the other authors by distorting the language and by addressing fictional letters to Ortwin Gratius-a real-life Cologne humanist and opponent of Reuchlin. An important dimension of their satirical technique was exaggeration of salutations and the use of ridiculous names for the correspondents. Many of these names referred to the lower class of farmers, artisans, and craftsmen. In devising the characterizations of correspondents, the authors relied on assumptions of class and education that may be found in Johannes Murmellius' Didascalici libri duo and other humanist texts. Distinctions between the liberal and illiberal (or mechanical) arts, as taught in the Latin schools of the period, implied certain biases that the authors employed as part of their rhetorical appeal. THE EPISTOLAE OBSCURORUM VIRORUM [Letters of Obscure Men] is still considered one of the classics of Western literature. The Epistolae was the literary masterpiece produced during the most famous controversy in pre-Reformation Germany, the Reuchlin affair. While scholars during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Eduard B6cking, Aloys Bomer, and Walter Brecht, were concerned with publishing critical editions and establishing the authorship of the fictional letters, more recent efforts have shifted to explanations of their satirical meaning as well as their significance and place in the cultural and intellectual life of early sixteenth-century Germany.1 James Overfield argues that the traditional view of the Reuchlin affair as a climactic showdown between humanism and scholasticism