The Light of the Soul: The 'Lumen anime' C and Ulrich Putsch's 'Das liecht der sel' by Nigel Harris

Abstract

898 Reviews from the premiss that heathen culture is fundamentally inferior to that of the West?without, however, giving verymuch detail as to the differences. Instead, as Urban sees it, the focus of the work lies in delineating the process of cultural, social, and religious integration undergone by Arabel as a result of her decision tomarry Willehalm and to travel back to France with him. Rather than exploring two-way cultural exchanges, the emphasis is very much on tracing the education of Arabel in such a way as to underscore the Tightness' of Christian culture. In developing this argument, Urban is to some extent indebted toTimothy McFarland, who suggested the notion of minne-translatio from East toWest as providing an interpretativekey toArabel. Even the chessboard, which initiallyprovided the focal point for a dynamic and equally balanced encounter between the protagonists (as individuals and as representatives of their respective cultures), isultimately reduced to being an expensive material trophy, carried on the ship from the Orient to France. The book ispleasantly written and contains many shrewd and apposite observa tions. It is,however, unduly long,with a large number of excursuses and digressions. While these are interesting in themselves and conveniently digest a lot of references and background material, they do somewhat interrupt the flow of the argument. Overall, however, this is a helpful and very competent contribution to a somewhat neglected subject area. Oriel College, Oxford Annette Volfing The Light of theSoul: The 'Lumen anime' C and Ulrich Putsch's 'Das Hechtder sei'. Ed. byNigel Harris. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang. 2007. 487 pp. ?50; 76.90. ISBN 978-3-03910-737-7? Das Hecht der sei is a German translation, undertaken in 1426, of a representative of one branch of a subgroup of a family of related Latin texts called the Lumen anime C. This is itselfone branch of amuch larger family of extensively divergent texts, originating in the early fourteenth century, and known collectively as the Lumen anime. The version translated into German consists of no fewer than 637 separate sections, each ofwhich presents a brief description of a natural-scientific phenomenon accompanied by a theological parallel, usually amoral-ethical analogy, with the work as a whole probably intended as an aid for the composition of sermons. On the basis of an opening acrostic that identifies the translator as ulrikh pfarrer ze tyrol', the German version is considered to be the work of Ulrich Putsch, a senior cleric in the service of Friedrich IV, Duke of Tirol, and bishop of Brixen for ten years prior to his death in 1437. Nigel Harris presents a synoptic edition of Putsch's translation with a Latin textdrawn from amanuscript inwhich the closest version extant of the Lumen anime C to thatused by Putsch is preserved. The scale of the enterprise reveals Putsch to be a tremendously diligent trans lator, though not one possessed of a high level of literary skill. How well a con MLR, 104.3, 2009 899 temporary reader would have understood the German textwith no recourse to the Latin is a moot point. Most sections present at least one example of a Ger man word abstracted literally by Putsch from its Latin equivalent. In the case of scientific terminology, of which there ismuch, this places severe limitations on the ability of the German version to communicate the actual meaning; and perhaps as a consequence, the work did not achieve an extensive geographical or temporal influence. Seven manuscripts survive, all from the Austro-Bavarian Sprachraum, and none of themmuch post-dates 1470?Das Hecht der sei evidently being one of themany works that failed tomake the transition into the new print media. The structure of each section is, in almost all cases, identical. A quotation from a named scientific authority forms the opening statement inwhich the natural scientific phenomenon is described. The phenomenon is explained, with reference made to another named authority in support, equipped with amoral parallel, and an apposite theological quotation to conclude the section. A very few sections offer supplementary excursuses: ? 16 and ? 33, for example, discuss the precise location of purgatory, and ? 98 evaluates the competing explanations as towhy a murder victim's wounds bleed anew...