Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

‘Antiquitus depingebatur’ The Roman Pictures of Death and Misfortune in the Ackermann aus Böhmen and Tkadleček, and in the Writings of the English Classicizing Friars

  • Published:
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Zusammenfassung

Der Aufsatz behandelt eingangs die lateinische Exempeltradition pseudoantiker Bildbeschreibungen im 14. Jh., exemplifiziert diese anhand von “römischen” Bildern des Todes, und interpretiert das “römische Bild des Todes” im Ackermann aus Böhmen im Kontext der lateinischen Exempelbilder sowie der zeitgenössischen Ikonographie. Die Todeskonzeption des ganzen Werks spiegelt sich deutlich in dieser Stelle. Das “römische Bild des Unglücks” im alttschechischen Tkadleček wird als Imitation des Todesbildes im Ackermann bei gleichzeitiger Rückbindung an die lateinische Tradition interpretiert.

Abstract

The article describes the tradition of Latin picture descriptions attributed to the ancients in the fourteenth century, exemplifies the genre by an edition of “Roman pictures” of Death, and interprets the “Roman picture of Death” in Johannes von Tepl, Der Ackermann aus Böhmen against the background of the Latin texts and contemporary iconography. The passage demonstrates clearly the author’s individual conception of Death. The “Roman picture of Misfortune” in the Old Czech Tkadleček is interpreted as an imitation of the Death image in the Ackermann with reference back to the Latin tradition.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Literature

  1. This paper has grown out of lectures on the Ackermann aus Böhmen given at Gregynog in Wales, at Goldsmith’s College (University of London), and at the University of Trier. In abbreviations for periodicals and series I follow Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (1977ff.), I, xiff. Further abbreviated titles are: Bernt / Burdach — Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, ed. Alois Bernt and Konrad Burdach, Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation III, 1 (1917)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bloomfield — Morton W. Bloomfield, Bertrand-Georges Guyot O.P., Donald R. Howard and Thyra B. Kabealo, Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500 A.D.: Including a Section of Incipits of Works on the Pater Noster, The Mediaeval Academy of America: Publication No. 88 (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Hrubý — Antonín Hrubý, Der “Ackermann” und seine Vorlage, MTU 35 (1971)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Hrubý / Simek — Tkadleček, ed. Hynek Hrubý and František Šimek, Sbirka pramenů 1,1,11 (1923)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Rosenfeld 1935 — Hellmut Rosenfeld, “Das römische Bild des Todes im Ackermann,” ZfdA, 72 (1935), 241–247

    Google Scholar 

  6. [cited]; rpt. in Festgruss Hellmut Rosenfeld zum 70. Geburtstag 24. VIII. 1977, ed. Francis B. Brévart, GAG 234 (1977), pp. 11–17

    Google Scholar 

  7. Smalley — Beryl Smalley, English Friars and Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century (1960)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Tubach — Frederic Christian Tubach, Index Exemplorum: A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales, FF Communications No. 204 (1969)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Wenzel — Siegfried Wenzel, Verses in Sermons: ‘Fasciculus Morum ‘and its Middle English Poems, The Mediaeval Academy of America: Publication No. 87 (1978).

    Google Scholar 

  10. This aspect of the influence of the English friars still awaits a thorough investigation. For connections between England and Bohemia in the later Middle Ages see for example Konrad Burdach, Der Dichter des Ackermann aus Böhmen und seine Zeit, Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation III,2 (1926–1932), pp. 140ff.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Jaroslav Kadlec, Leben und Schriften des Prager Magisters Adalbert Rankonis de Ericinio, Beitr. zur Gesch. der Philosophie u. Theologie des Mittelalters N.F. 4 (1971), pp. 11f., 59

    Google Scholar 

  12. Anne Hudson, “A Lollard Compilation in England and Bohemia,” Notes and Studies, 25 (1974), 129–140

    Google Scholar 

  13. Jiří Kejř, “‘Rosarius’ — Domnělé dílo slovenského husity,” Studie o Rukopisech, 14 (1975), 83–110

    Google Scholar 

  14. idem, “Ještě jednou o ‘Rosariu,’” Studie o Rukopisech, 15 (1976), 103–106

    Google Scholar 

  15. Karl Schnith, “England,” in Kaiser Karl IV.: Staatsmann und Mäzen, ed. Ferdinand Seibt, Exhibition Catalogue (1978), pp. 161–164.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, ed. Arthur Hübner, 3rd ed. with additions by Helmuth Thomas and Ulrich Pretzel, Altdeutsche Quellen 1 (1965), p. 18.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Cf. Johannes von Saaz, Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, ed. Günther Jungbluth (1969), 1, 75–77, valuable for its critical apparatus.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Hrubý/Šimek, pp. 108–10. Cf. the modernized edition: Tkadleček: Hádka milence s Neštěstím, ed. Františele Simek (1940); 2nd ed., with a preface by Ludmila Kubíková and František Šimek (1974), pp. 142–144.

  19. See Maurice O’C. Walshe, “‘Der Ackermann aus Böhmen’: Quellenfrage und Textgestaltung,” in Deutsche Literatur des späten Mittelalters: Hamburger Colloquium 1973, ed. Wolfgang Harms and Leslie Peter Johnson (1975), pp. 282–292, and

    Google Scholar 

  20. Günther Jungbluth, review of Hrubý, arcadia, 9 (1974), 185–193. The hypothesis of the lost common source has been accepted, in principle at least, by Fritz Tschirch, review of

    Google Scholar 

  21. Hrubý, AfdA, 84 (1973), 164–168

    Google Scholar 

  22. and by Hellmut Rosenfeld, “Der Ackermann aus Böhmen — Scholastische Disputation von 1370 oder humanistisches Wortkunstwerk von 1401? Zur Literatur im dreisprachigen Böhmen des Spätmittelalters,” in Akten des VI. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses Basel 1980, ed. Heinz Rupp and Hans-Gert Roloff (1980), III, 295–301

    Google Scholar 

  23. cf. Hellmut Rosenfeld, “Der Ackermann aus Böhmen: Von scholastischer Disputation zum spätmittelalterlichen Volksbuch,” in Europäische Volksliteratur, Fs. Felix Karlinger, Raabser Märchen-Reihe 4 (1980), 161–170.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Hrubý (pp. 94f.) considers that the “Fulgentius“ reference in Tkadleček identifies the source of the picture of Death in the Ackermann. However, it was rightly shown by Burdach that the Roman picture of Death is not derived from a picture of Saturn in the mythographic tradition (Bernt/Burdach, pp. 238–242). This red herring goes back to a note on die Römer vnd diepoeten (16,11) in the first edition: Der Ackermann aus Böhmen: Gespräch zwischen einem Witwer und dem Tode, ed. Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen (1824), p. 64 “schon in ihrem Saturn mit der Sichel, später im folgenden Bild.”

  25. Cf. the influential note, referring to Fulgentius and to the ancient Jupiter Dolichenus, in Der Ackermann aus Bœhmen, ed. Johann Knieschek, Bibliothek der mittelhochdeutschen Litteratur in Bœhmen 2 (1877; rpt. 1968), pp. 60f.

  26. Arthur Hübner, “Das Deutsche im Ackermann aus Böhmen,” SBBphil.-hist. Klasse, 18 (1935), 323–398

    Google Scholar 

  27. rpt. in Der Ackermann aus Böhmen des Johannes von Tepl und seine Zeit, ed. Ernst Schwarz, WdF 143 (1968), pp. 239–344 [cited], here pp. 340–342.

  28. Louis Leonor Hammerich, “Das römische Bild des Todes im Ackermann aus Böhmen,” in Humaniora: Essays in Literature, Folklore, Bibliography, Fs. Archer Taylor (1960), pp. 17–25.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Beryl Smalley, “Robert Holcot O.P.,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 26 (1956), 5–97, especially 65–82; Smalley, pp. 146f., and the appendix, pp. 393f.

    Google Scholar 

  30. For a full discussion of the medieval titles, see pp. 226 f. below. I am preparing an edition, together with a new and complete edition of Ridevall’s Fulgentius metaforalis. For the Imagines Fulgentii, see Fritz Saxl, Verzeichnis astrologischer Handschriften und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters in römischen Bibliotheken, SB Heidelberg, phil.-hist. Klasse 1915, 6/7. Abh. (1915), pp. 8–10, and the description of contents of MS Vat. Pal. lat. 1066

    Google Scholar 

  31. in Hans Liebeschütz, ed., Fulgentius metaforalis: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der antiken Mythologie im Mittelalter, Studien der Bibliothek Warburg 4 (1926), pp. 53f. Liebeschütz lists 29 manuscripts, pp. 49–53. Prudentia depingebatur is Bloomfield 4306 and 4314. I am grateful to Professor Judson Allen for making available to me his material on manuscripts of the Imagines Fulgentii. The text is most unstable and I have not found a complete manuscript with a reliable text, cf. notes 13, 14, 17, 54, 173, 183 and pp. 227–229 for the manuscripts I have used.

  32. There are no modern editions. For the Moralitates see John Alexander Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum: Vol. III (1910, rpt. 1962), pp. 106–116

  33. J.-Th. Welter, L’Exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et didactique du moyen âge (1927), pp. 360f., 366, and Bloomfield 6007; the only reliable printed text is that which forms an appendix to

    Google Scholar 

  34. Robertus Holcot, In Librum Sapientiae Regis Salomonis Praelectiones ccxiii (Basel 1586), pp. 709–748, where the order of exempla has been changed. For the Declamationes Senecae moralizatae, not by Nicholas Trevet (!), see Welter, pp. 363f., Ruth J. Dean, The Life and Works of Nicholas Trevet with special reference to the Anglo-Norman Chronicle, D. phil. thesis (typescript) (Oxford 1938), pp. 215–225, and Bloomfield 2525. For a version of the Aenigmata Aristotelis moralizata, with further references, see Herbert, p. 120, and Bloomfield 1421. Bohemian manuscripts containing all these works are Prague, Kapitolm knihovna MS E.LXIX, f. 158r–202v(s. xv in.) and MS N.XI, f. 112r–163v(s. xv med.).

    Google Scholar 

  35. Bibl. Apostolica Vaticana MS Pal.lat. 1066, reproduced by Liebeschütz [as n. 11], plates I–XV, and by Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, The Secret Art of Alchemy (1973), colour plates 53–62 (where the pictures are misconstrued as alchemical): the MS is dated 1424, and an initial on f. V contains the coat of arms of the Bavarian counts of Wolfstein in the Oberpfalz, cf. the description by Saxl [as n. 11], pp. 8–10; MS Pal. lat. 1726 (south-west German, c. 1425), for which see Saxl, pp. 36–40, and Jean Seznec, La Survivance des dieux antiques (1940; English ed. 1953; rpt. Princeton 1961), fig. 31. Blank spaces were left for illustrations in Chicago, Newberry Library MS 31.1 (s. xv, from Admont in Austria).

    Google Scholar 

  36. See Fritz Saxl, “‘Aller Tugenden und Laster Abbildung’: Eine spätmittelalterliche Allegoriensammlung, ihre Quellen und ihre Beziehungen zu Werken des frühen Bilddrucks,” in Festschrift jurJulius Schlosser zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Arpad Weixlgärtner and Leo Planiscig (1927), pp. 104–121

    Google Scholar 

  37. idem, “A Spiritual Encyclopaedia of the Later Middle Ages,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), 82–134

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Almuth Seebohm-Désautels, Texts and Images in a Fifteenth-century German Miscellany (Wellcome 49), Ph. D. thesis University of London (1982). Both manuscripts are from southern Germany, and they are written in strikingly similar early fifteenth-century hands.

    Google Scholar 

  39. The picture purports to be that of Janus which opened the catalogue of the gods in Varro’s Antiquitates, now lost (Der Kleine Pauly, ed. Konrat Ziegler et al. [1975], V, 1133). This is known from Augustine, De civitate dei VII.2; cf. the discussion ofjanus VII.2 (quasi ianuam semini), 7–10. Thomas Waleys also uses the title De sacris edibus deorum for this section of the Antiquitates, printed in Augustinus, De civitate dei, with Commentario. Thomae Valois et Nicolai Triveth (Louvain 1488; Hain 2061), commentary to VI.3; the title is not used in the commentaries by Nicholas Trevet and John Ridevall. For the commentaries on De civitate dei see Smalley, passim.

  40. See the discussion of Dürer’s Sol Justitiae in Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955), chapter 6 (III), pp. 256–265, quoting Pierre Bersuire on p. 262 n. 79.

  41. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Félix Lecoy (1965), I, 5–15 (v. 133–464).

    Google Scholar 

  42. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden monachi Cestrensis, ed. Churchill Babington and Joseph Rawson, Rolls Series 41/1–9 (1865–1886). The reigns of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III are all contained in book VII.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Examples are the Third Vatican Mythographer, ed. Georg Heinrich Bode, Scrip tores rerum mythicarum latini tres Romae nuper reperti I–II (1834; rpt. 1968), I, 152ff.; Michael Scotus, Liber introductorius, descriptions of the gods, ed.

  44. Fritz Saxl, “Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der Planetendarstellungen im Orient und im Okzident,” Der Islam, 3 (1912), 151–177, here pp. 175–177. Descriptions of personified figures were also influential, e.g. Alan of Lille, Anticlaudianus (ed. Bossuat) 1.270ff. (Prudentia), I.436ff. (Ratio). Cf. the description of ancient gem stones in ‘Picatrix’ Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Mağrīṭī, trans.

  45. Hellmut Ritter und Martin Lessner, Studies of the Warburg Institute 27 (1962), pp. 121–131, also known in Latin translation.

  46. Johannes Gallensis, Communiloquium sive Summa collationum (Augsburg 1474; Hain 7442; cf. Bloomfield 1086), Pars I, distinctio 4, retaining the attribution to Chrysippos.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Cf. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, ed. and trans. John C. Rolfe, Vol. III, Loeb Classical Library 200 (1927; rpt. 1960), pp. 36–39: Quod apte Chrysippus etgraphice imaginem Iustitiae modulis coloribusque uerborum depinxit. For the reading of Gellius in the Middle Ages

  48. see Peter Kenneth Marshall, Janet Martin and Richard H. Rouse, “Clare College MS. 26 and the Circulation of Aulus Gellius 1–7 in Medieval England and France,” Mediaeval Studies, 42 (1980), 353–394.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. The manuscript belonged to the Basel Dominicans, but it was probably written in northern Germany in the 1440s (f. 41r: 1445), cf. Gustav Binz, Die Deutschen Handschriften der Oeffentlichen Bibliothek Basel (1907), pp. 156–169. The Death picture is followed on f. 363v–366v by a collection of picture exempla, six probably taken from Holcot’s Moralitates, and among the others: Superbia, Mors (Appendix IX), Veritas, Justitia (probably from John of Wales), blind Justitia, Amor, Beatitudo, Sapientia, Religio, Mansuetudo.

    Google Scholar 

  50. See Wenzel, p. 57 and pp. 152ff. The D-E-T-H acrostic printed by Edward Wilson, A Descriptive Index of the English Lyrics in John of Grimestone’s Preaching Book, Medium Ævum Monographs N.S.2 (1973), p. 23 is a formal parallel but unrelated in content; the Latin material surrounding the English acrostic in Grimestone’s Preaching Book is also unrelated. The etymological principle of litterarum similitudo is documented by Roswitha Klinck, Die lateinische Etymologie des Mittelalters, Medium Aevum 17 (1970), pp. 68f., cf. p. 110 n. 38 (MORS).

    Google Scholar 

  51. Heinrich Schepers, “Holcot contra dicta Crathorn. I. Quellenkritik und biographische Auswertung der Bakkalaureatsschriften zweier Oxforder Dominikaner des XIV. Jahrhunderts,” Philosophisches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft, 77 (1970), 320–354. a]34_Smalley, pp. 145f. Hermann Oesterley, ed., Gesta Romanorum (1872; rpt. 1963) does not make it sufficiently clear that many of the texts printed in his appendix are not extracted from manuscripts of the Gesta Romanorum in the strict sense; some of the exempla collections used by Oesterley include material derived from Holcot’s Moralitates. The provenance of the “original” Gesta Romanorum is disputed, but it is important to note that the earliest dated manuscript (Innsbruck, Universitätsbibi. MS 310; Franciscan, S. German, 1342) contains Middle English verses and words, thus documenting the use of English (Franciscan) preaching materials on the continent; cf. Wilhelm Dick, ed., Die Gesta Romanorum nach der Innsbrucker Handschrift vom Jahre 1342, Erlanger Beiträge zur Englischen Philologie 7 (1890; rpt. 1970), pp. xxii–xxiv

    Google Scholar 

  52. Max Křepinský, “Quelques remarques relatives à l’histoire des Gesta Romanorum,” Le Moyen Age, 15 (1911), 307–318, 346–367. Walter Röll (Trier) tells me that the Innsbruck Gesta Romanorum contains material extracted directly from the Convertimini treatise, an English preacher’s compendium which originated in the milieu of the English friars (cf. n. 103).

    Google Scholar 

  53. This is a general principle of medieval allegorical writing: see Christoph Gerhardt, Die Metamorphosen des Pelikans: Exempel und Auslegung in mittelalterlicher Literatur, Trierer Studien zur Literatur 1 (1979), pp. 1 f. et passim, and Heimo Reinitzer, “Vom Vogel Phoenix: Über Naturbetrachtung und Naturdeutung,” in Natura loquax: Naturkunde und allegorische Naturdeutung vom Mittelalter bis zur frühen Neuzeit, Mikrokosmos 7, ed. Wolfgang Harms and Heimo Reinitzer, pp. 17–72.

    Google Scholar 

  54. John Kestell Floyer and Sidney G. Hamilton, Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Chapter Library of Worcester Cathedral (1906), pp. 82–87. The manuscript is English, in large folio, and has the appearance of a cathedral library volume: it is a vast compendium of the learned preaching materials favoured by the friars, ranging from the Timaeus and the Third Vatican Mythographer to compendia of the Fathers.

    Google Scholar 

  55. Thomas Wright and James Orchard Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae (1841–43), II, 120, giving the text of the English verses

    Google Scholar 

  56. Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins, The Index of Middle English Verse (1943), No. 677; Wenzel, p. 75 n. 81.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Michael de Ungaria, Sermones tredecim universales ([Louvain] s.a.; Hain 9045). I give the text from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 423, p. 226, marking material unique to the manuscript by square brackets. The verses alone are printed in Siegfried Wenzel, “Unrecorded Middle-English Verses,” Anglia, 92 (1974), 55–78, here p. 63 No. 24; cf. the mention in Wenzel, p. 75 n. 81.

    Google Scholar 

  58. A third, rather fuller version of this picture has come to my attention to late to be included: Johannes Griitsch O.F.M., Quadragesimale (Nürnberg, not after 1474: Hain 8057), reference XXX. E.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Mentioned by Gerald Robert Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England: A neglected chapter in the history of English letters and of the English people, 2nd revised ed. (1961), p. 53. The manuscript contains some further “pictures,” listed by Owst, loc. cit.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Sermones dominicales perutiles Biga salutis intitulati. a quodem fratre hungaro In conuentu Pesthiensiefiatrum minorum de obseruantia comportati (Hagenau 1498; Hain 9052). According to Tibor Klaniczay, A magyar irodalom története (1964), I, 109, however, he was a Dominican: this surmise may be ultimately based on the title page of Michael de Ungaria, Breviarium concionatorum sen Sermones universales (Coloniae 1620), where he is called Doct. Ord. F. Praedicatorum. Cf. Anscar Zawart, The History of Franciscan Preaching and Franciscan Preachers (1209–1927): A bio-bibliographical study, Franciscan Studies 7 (1928; rpt. 1971), p. 372. The text of the Sermones XIII is analysed by

    Google Scholar 

  61. Cyrill Horvath, “Michael de Ungaria XIII Beszéde,” Irodalamotörténeti Közlemények (1895), 129–152, but using only the printed edition. I wish to thank Robert Evans (Oxford) for helping me with the Hungarian bibliography.

    Google Scholar 

  62. Joannes Balbus, Catholicon (Mainz 1460; rpt. 1971), s.v. tirannus. For a medieval picture of a tyrant, see Die Parier und der schöne Stil: Europäische Kunst unter den Luxemburgern, Exhibition catalogue (1978), III, 118f.

    Google Scholar 

  63. See Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (1966; rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguine Books 21968), especially chapter 1.

    Google Scholar 

  64. Ad Herennium III.xxii.37. I quote from the translation in Ad C. Herennium De ratione dicendi (Rhetorica ad Herennium), ed. and trans. Harry Caplan, Loeb Classical Library 403 (1954; rpt. 1968), p. 221.

  65. An apposite example is the frontispiece of the early printed editions of the Ackermann aus Böhmen, for which see n. 152 below. Cf. Heinrich Theissing, Dürers Ritter, Tod und Teufel: Sinnbild und Bildsinn (1978), pp. 69 ff.

    Google Scholar 

  66. In III the three ages (1–3 of the four summonses in the Fasciculus morum [Appendix I]) have been recast in visual terms: the child with the mirror (the mortality aspect of the Narcissus image), the knight who may die in battle, the bent old man (as in Holbein’s Icones Mortis: Bilder des Todes [Leipzig: Insel Verlag s.a.], Der Alt man). For the three ages of man see Wilhelm Wackernagel, Die Lebensalter: Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Sitten- und Rechtsgeschichte (1862), pp. 15 f.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Raimond van Marie, Iconographie de l’art profane au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance. II. Allégories et symboles (1932; rpt. 1971), pp. 155 ff.

    Google Scholar 

  68. also the Visio Policarpi, ed. Leopold Zatočil, “Zwei Prager lateinische Texte als Quellen des Ackermann aus Böhmen,” Brünner Beiträge zur Germanistik und Nordistik, 1 (1977), 7–21, here p. 16 (MS A). Four ages are commoner, and I know no exact parallel to this version of the three ages; for a comprehensive bibliography see

  69. Dieter Wuttke, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 10 (1980), 85 n. 27, but with nothing to elucidate our picture.

  70. The text of the Ackermann aus Böhmen will be quoted from manuscript H (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl. Cgm 579, probably written in the 1470s in the Oberpfalz or N. Bavaria), with emendations. For the sigla, a complete critical apparatus, and a complete bibliography of modern editions seejungbluth [as n. 4]. It should be noted that manuscript E breaks off at chapter 14, and the controversy about the position of E in the stemma is irrelevant for chapter 16. The sigle a stands for the group baPQCONG; γ stands for the group DMKI; Tk is the Tkadleček (quoted from Hrubý/Šimek). Tk, E, H, ABLγ and α may all be treated as independent branches of the stemma, but the variants cannot be manipulated mechanically, and various cross-groupings have been proposed (e.g. TkE, HE, HL, H*S). The rhythm of certain passages in the Ackermann (e.g. 1,1; 5,16; 10,4) suggests that Johannes von Tepl intended less apocope than we find in H; for the purposes of this article I have chosen not to attempt a rhythmical reconstruction, such as is required in a critical edition, and I have thus lost some feminine cadences at the end of the phrase: Volkes, leute, gezeuge, werlte, creature (16,27–33). For the most recent literature on the textual criticism see Giorgio Sichel, Der Ackermann aus Böhmen: Storia della critica (1971), chapter VII; Frantisek Hrubý’s review of jungbluth, JEGPh, 71 (1972), 59–65

  71. Maurice O’C. Walshe [as n. 6]; idem Maurice O’C. Walshe, “Some notes on Der Ackermann aus Böhmen,” in Deutung und Bedeutung, Fs. Karl-Werner Maurer, ed. Brigitte Schludermann et al. (1973), pp. 70–76.

    Google Scholar 

  72. The second and third questions, present only in manuscripts of the a group (except CO), may have been lacking in the archetype (or in the original); α probably derives its readings here from a comparison with chapter 16. H omits only questions two and three. Aly omit questions two, three and four. B omits all but the first question. Tk reflects all five questions, including the question word wie: neb kterakespostawy … aneb kterakagestpostata a mocz twa 103,121. Hrubý translates “welcher Gestalt du bist … noch welches dein Wesen und deine Macht ist” (p. 107); postata and moc are synonyms, both corresponding to MHG gewalt( cf. Hrubý/Simek, p. 251). Cf. Willy Krogmann’s discussion of the questions, “Zur Textkritik des ‘Ackermann,’” ZfdPh, 69 (1944/45), 35–96, rpt. in Schwarz [as n. 8], pp. 403–489, here pp. 462f.; Willy Krogmann, “Untersuchungen zum ‘Ackermann’ III,” ZfdPh, 73 (1954), 73–103, here pp. 95f.

    Google Scholar 

  73. Hrubý, pp. 103–107. The point was first made by Arthur Hübner [as n. 4], p. 53, and was contested by Maurice O’C. Walshe, ed., Johannes von Tepl: Der Ackermann aus Böhmen (1951), p. 60.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Heinrich Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik (1960), I, 183

    Google Scholar 

  75. Hennig Brinkmann, Mittelalterliche Hermeneutik (1980), p. 6. Cf. the reference to Aristotle’s Categories in Hübner [as n. 8], p. 331, and

    Book  Google Scholar 

  76. Ludwig Pfannmüller, ed., Frauenlobs Marienleich, QF 120 (1913), pp. 109–114, and the collection of related material in

  77. Wilhelm Wilmas, ed., Walther von der Vogelweide II, 4th revised ed. by Victor Michels (1924), pp. 356f. (note to 102,11, with references to Der Welsche Gast 553 f., Der Kanzler XVI, 17, Reinmar von Zweter 73,5).

  78. Klaus Brandmeyer, Rhetorisches im ‘ackermann’: Untersuchungen zum Einfluß der Rhetorik und Poetik des Mittelalters auf die literarische Technik Johanns von Tepl (Diss. Hamburg 1970), p. 120 n. 4. For a full discussion of the question see Brinkmann [as n. 65], loc. cit.

    Google Scholar 

  79. Edmond Farai, Les Arts poétiques du xiie et du xiiie siècle: Recherches et documents sur la technique littéraire du moyen âge (1924; rpt. 1958), p. 150.

    Google Scholar 

  80. Isidore, Etymologiae IX.ii. 134–5 (ed. Lindsay, 1911): Titanas autem quosdam in Graecia ferunt foiisse robustos et excellentes viribus populos … quasi ulciscendae matris Terrae causa in deos armati existerent, quosfabulae a love bello ftisse superatos atque extinctos jingunt, propter quod e caelo iactis ßlminibus interierunt. Taken over in Balbus, Catholicon [as n. 56], s.v. Titan; cf. also the entry s.v. giganthomachia. The giants killed by Death are also mentioned in the Visio Policarpi (ed. Zatočil [as n. 61], p. 15): Ubi sunt principes mundi, gigantes nominati qui ante tempora multa fuerunt? For a rebel giant in the biblical tradition see the figure of Nimrod the giant hunter (gigans for potens in Genesis 10,8) popularized by Augustine

    Google Scholar 

  81. Steven J. Livesay and Richard R. Rouse, “Nimrod the Astronomer,” Traditio, 37 (1981), 203–266, especially pp. 208 ff.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  82. There is not much to choose between the two possibilities here. I follow the punctuation of H, but I am also guided by the view that in vnser bedeutnwß marks the conclusion of the allegorical picture and by the rhythm. For a different view see Louis Leonor Hammerich, Der Text des “Ackermanns aus Böhmen”, Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 36/4 (1938), p

    Google Scholar 

  83. On the text of this passage see Arnost Kraus, “Textkritisches 2: Die Nonne mit dem Psalter,” Germano-Slavica, 2 (1932/33), 546–547

    Google Scholar 

  84. Louis Leonor Hammerich, review of Bernt / Burdach, AfdA, 53 (1934), 189–206, here p. 192; Hammerich 1938 [as n. 74], pp. 10, 34–35; Hübner, ed. [as n. 4], pp. 53–54; Krogmann, “Textkritik” [as n. 63], pp. 422–425, 467

    Google Scholar 

  85. Louis Leonor Hammerich and Günther Jungbluth, ed., Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 32/4 (1951), pp. 23, 57f., 62f., 65, 75, 91, 96f., 119f., 126; Walshe [as n. 64], p. 60

    Google Scholar 

  86. Maurice O’C. Walshe, “Textkritisches zum ‘Ackermann aus Böhmen,’” ZfdPh, 71 (1951/52), 162–183, here p. 170

    Google Scholar 

  87. Hellmut Rosenfeld, review of Hammerich / Jungbluth, Studia Neophilologica, 25 (1952/53), 87–94, here pp. 91–93; Krogmann, “Untersuchungen III” [asn. 63], pp. 94–98

    Google Scholar 

  88. Maurice O’C. Walshe, “Establishing the Text of ‘Der Ackermann aus Böhmen,’” MLR, 52 (1957), 526–536, herep. 535; Tschirch [as n. 6], p. 166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  89. Quoted from the facsimile edition of a, Johannes von Saaz, Der Ackermann und der Tod, ed. Alois Bernt (1919).

  90. Der Marner (ed. Strauch) XIV, 4; Regenbogen (ed. Wackernagel, KL II, No. 424). See also Hellmut Rosenfeld, Das deutsche Bildgedicht: Seine antiken Vorbilder und seine Entwicklung bis zur Gegenwart, Palaestra 199 (1935), pp. 31–34.

    Google Scholar 

  91. Matthias Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch (1876; rpt. 1970) II, 1419 ff.; Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch XI/1/1, 242–244.

    Google Scholar 

  92. Dante, La Divina Commedia, Paradiso xxxi.44; cf. Enciclopedia Dantesca V (1976), 545f. Later it is commoner, e.g. Alberti’s De Iciarchia, in Leon Battista Alberti, Opere volgari II, ed. Cecil Grayson (1966), p. 188: Io tornava dal tempio su alto di San Miniato… (San Miniato in Florence).

    Google Scholar 

  93. Alois Weissthanner, “Mittelalterliche Rompilgerfahrer: Zur Überlieferung der Mirabilia und Indulgentiae urbis Romae,” Archivalische Zeitschrift, 49 (1954), 39–64 (with a critical edition).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  94. Josef Haupt, “Philippi Liber de terra sancta in der deutschen Übersetzung des Augustiner Lesemeisters Leupold, vom Jahre 1377,” Österreichische Vierteljahrsschriftßr katholische Theologie, 10 (1871), 511–540, here p. 531. For the history of the mosques see Encyclopaedia Judaica IX (1971), col. 1416. Cf. also Sir John Mandevilles Reisebeschreibung in deutscher Übersetzung von Michel Velser, ed. Ericjohn Morrall, DTM 66 (1974), pp. 58 f. The mosque in Heliopolis is described in Velser’s Mandeville translation as tempel, but then as in derselben kirchen und tempel (p. 32, line 21); the word kirche cannot have been used in Velser’s original, for it is attested only in manuscript A, the others reading in dem tempel (information by courtesy of John Morrall).

    Google Scholar 

  95. Morton W. Bloomfield, “Chaucer’s Sense of History,” in Morton W. Bloomfield, Studies in Ideas, Language, and Literature (1970), pp. 13–26, here p. 21.

    Google Scholar 

  96. Troilus and Criseyde II. 115–8 and 11.759. The Works ofGeojfrey Chaucer, ed. Fred Norris Robinson, 2nd ed. (1957; 41979), pp. 403, 410 and the note p. 820. Compare the discussion of cultural syncretism in Smalley, pp. 10f., with a relevant example from Kyng Alisaunder. I wish to thank Alastair Minnis (Bristol) for the Chaucer references.

    Google Scholar 

  97. Canticum psalmorum animas decorat, inuitat angelos in adiutorium, ßgat demones, omne malum occidit… Bruno of Würzburg, Expositio Psalmorum, PL CXLII, 46; cf. Ps. Augustine, PL XXXVI, 64. The passage is quoted by Renate Kroos, “Zu den Psalterien,” in Sankt Elisabeth: Fürstin, Dienerin, Heilige (1981), p. 346.

    Google Scholar 

  98. Cf. Franz Jelinek, Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch zu den deutschen Sprachdenkmälern Böhmens und der mährischen Städte Brünn, Iglau und Olmütz (XIII. bis XVI. Jahrhundert) (1911), p. 751 “unverletzlich,” quoting Knieschek’s edition of the Ackermann.

    Google Scholar 

  99. Virgil Moser, Frühneuhochdeutsche Grammatik 1.1 (1929), pp. 178f.

    Google Scholar 

  100. Karl Weinhold, Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik, 2nd ed. (1883; rpt. 1967), p. 92, listing beschedenheit;

    Google Scholar 

  101. Alfons Huther, Die Würzburger Kanzleisprache im 14. Jahrhundert (1913), pp. 41f., listing beschedenheit. Burdach describes MS A as East Central German (Bernt/Burdach, pp. 7–9). To judge from the extracts from A printed in Johannes Erben, ed., Ostmitteldeutsche Chrestomathie: Proben der frühen Schreib- und Druckersprache des mitteldeutschen Ostens (1961), pp. 197–201, which show a combination of Upper German and Central German forms (an, krieg, initial p-, -ent throughout the plural of the verb; mon, somer, kryg, dieser, zur-) the manuscript might well have been written in Southern Bohemia or East Franconia: in that case the scribe most probably intended MHG unbescheidenlîch anyway.

    Google Scholar 

  102. Louis Leonor Hammerich, AfdA, 53 (1934), 192 argues for unbeschewlich (= incontem-plabilis), citing Johannes von Neumarkt’s description of dazzling light; cf. Tschirch [as n. 6], p. 166 (rejects unbescheidenlich).

    Google Scholar 

  103. Deutsches Wörterbuch [as n. 79] XI/3 s.v. unbescheiden (1), unbescheidenlich (col. 340, with no comparable attestations); G. F. Benecke, W. Müller und Fr. Zarncke, Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch 11/2 (1966; rpt. 1963), pp. 102f.

    Google Scholar 

  104. Wirnt von Grafenberg, Wigalois (ed. Kapteyn) 11387 (note the variants); Konrad Fleck, Flore und Blanscheflur (ed. Sommer) 2304; Mai und Beaflor (ed. Vollmer), p. 150, lines 18f.; Tristan als Mönch (ed. Bushey) 1224; Johannes von Neumarkt, Buch der Liebkosung (ed. Klapper), p. 22, line 8 (= importuna mors, cf. Walshe, ZfdPh, 71 [1951/52], p. 170); compare Hartmann von Aue, Erec (ed. Wolff) 5931 f.

    Google Scholar 

  105. See Hester L. Williams, The Personification of Death in Medieval German Literature (1150–1300): A Misrepresentation of Christian Doctrine (Diss. Kansas 1974), pp. 27ff.

    Google Scholar 

  106. Peter Hommers, Gesta Romanorum deutsch (Diss. München 1968), pp. 45 (F1), 48 (W5), 61 (L1). Cf. Gerhardt 1979 [as n. 41], p. 8 and notes 11–12 (pp. 56f.).

    Google Scholar 

  107. Émile Mâle, L’Art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France, 2nd revised ed. (1922; 61968), pp. 328 ff.; Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie III (1971), col. 21. A principal carrier of the tradition is the Etymachia. for which

    Google Scholar 

  108. see Dietrich Schmidtke, in Verfasserlexikon, 2nd ed. [as n. 1] II (1980), col. 636–639.

    Google Scholar 

  109. The tradition is well documented by Erwin Panofsky, “Blind Cupid,” in Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (1939; rpt. New York etc. 1972 [cited]), pp. 95–128, here pp. 110ff.; cf. Rosenfeld 1935, p. 243, and

    Google Scholar 

  110. Hellmut Rosenfeld, Der mittelalterliche Totentanz: Entstehung, Entwicklung, Bedeutung (1954; 3rd revised ed. 1974), pp. 6–9. Cf. also p. 47 below.

    Google Scholar 

  111. Panofsky [as n. 102], p. 109 and n. 48; cf. Rainer Kahsnitz, “Justitia,” in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie II (1970), col. 468.

  112. Bernt/Burdach, p. 240; Rosenfeld 1935, p. 244. Cf., for example, the tools depicted in the Belles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry, facsimile ed. Millard Meiss and Elizabeth H. Beatson (1974), f. 95r and 99r(spade, pick and mattock).

  113. This theme is treated by Gerhard Hahn, Die Einheit des Ackermann aus Böhmen: Studien zur Komposition, MTU 5 (1963), pp. 92–96.

    Google Scholar 

  114. Pythagoras is often quoted in the exempla literature, see Bernt/Burdach, p. 236. Nothing comparable to this passage is contained in the three principal carriers of Pythagoras lore in the Middle Ages: John of Wales, Compendiloquium III.vi (Johannes Gallensis, Florilegium de vita et dictis illustrium philosophorum et breviloquium de sapientia sanctorum, ed. Lucas Waddingus [Romae 1655], pp. 234ff.)

    Google Scholar 

  115. Walter Burley, Liber de vita et moribus philosophorum, chapter xvii, ed. Hermann Knust, StLV 176 (1886), pp. 66–80; Liber philosophorum moralium antiquorum

    Google Scholar 

  116. ed. Ezio Franceschini, Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 91 (1931/32), 393–597, here pp. 427–33.

  117. Candacis’s palace, e.g. Der Alexanderroman des Archipresbyters Leo, ed. Friedrich Pfister, Sammlung mittellateinischer Texte 6 (1913), pp. 115f. (carved walls); Hartlieb’s Alexander, facsimile ed. Hans Friebertshäuser (1975), f. 93r

    Google Scholar 

  118. Kyng Alisaunder, ed. Geoffrey Victor Smithers, E.E.T.S., O.S. 237 (1952), lines 7656f.

  119. For ekphrasis see Bernt/Burdach, p. 238, and George Kurman, “Ecphrasis in Epic Poetry,” Comparative Literature, 26 (1974), 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  120. Gisbert Kranz, Das Bildgedicht in Europa: Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer literarischen Gattung (1973), has only a very incomplete list of early examples.

    Google Scholar 

  121. Stephan Cosacchi, Makabertanz: Der Totentanz in Kunst, Poesie und Brauchtum des Mittelalters (1965), plates III, IV, VI; Rosenfeld, Totentanz [as n. 102], pp. 12–13, 358.

    Google Scholar 

  122. Cf. Liliane Guerry, Le Thème du ‘Triomphe de la Mort’ dans la peinture italienne (1950).

    Google Scholar 

  123. For the iconography of Death, see in particular Mâle [as n. 101], pp. 347–389; Rudolf Helm, Skelett- und Todesdarstellungen bis zum Auftreten der Totentänze (1928); Van Marie [as n. 61], pp. 361–414

    Google Scholar 

  124. Wolfgang Stammler, Der Totentanz: Entstehung und Deutung (1948), with further literature p. 79 n. 59.

    Google Scholar 

  125. See also: Istvân Kosâky, Geschichte der Totentänze I, Bibliotheca humanitatis historica 1 (1936); Rosenfeld, Totentanz [as n. 102]; Guerry [as n. 113]; Tenenti [as n. 117]; Cosacchi [as n. 113]

  126. Hellmut Rosenfeld, “Tod”, in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie IV (1972), col. 327–332; Theissing [as n. 60].

    Google Scholar 

  127. Claus Michael Kauffmann, An Altar-piece of the Apocalypse from Master Bertram’s Workshop in Hamburg (1968), plate 9. Cf. Joachim M. Plotzek, “Bilder zur Apokalypse,” in Die Parler und der schöne Stil [as n. 56], III, 195–210 (with special reference to Bohemia), and the plate p. 208.

    Google Scholar 

  128. E.g. The Apocalypse in Latin and French (Bodleian MS. Douce 180), facsimile ed. Montague Rhodes James (1922), p. 16. Burdach mentions further examples, Bernt/Burdach, pp. 244f.

    Google Scholar 

  129. Illustrated by Van Marie [as n. 61], 11, 370 fig. 403; Alberto Tenenti, La Vie et la mort à travers l’art du xve siècle (1952), plates 1–2; Cosacchi [as n. 113], plates V–VI.

    Google Scholar 

  130. Cf. Louis Leonor Hammerich, “Johannes von Saaz und der Triumph des Todes im Camposanto von Pisa,” in Festgabe fir Ulrich Pretzel zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht, ed. Werner Simon et al. (1963), pp. 253–259, claiming a link between the picture and chapter 18 of the Ackermann.

    Google Scholar 

  131. The manuscript reads Hex. Quoted from Willy Krogmann, “Neue Funde der Ackermannforschung,” DVjs, 37 (1963), 254–265, reprinted in Schwarz [as n. 8], pp. 526–543, here p. 530. The text is newly edited, with corrections

    Google Scholar 

  132. by Jerry S. Roth, The Ackermann aus Böhmen and the Medieval “Streitgespräch” (Diss. University of Chicago 1980).

    Google Scholar 

  133. Cf. also Jan Vilikovský, Latinská poesie ᅾakovská v Čechách, Sborník filosofické fakulty university Komenského v Bratislavě VIII/2 (1932), pp. 250f.

    Google Scholar 

  134. Van Marie [as n. 61] 11,407 fig. 441. As a second example of combat between man and Death Van Marie mentions a mid-sixteenth-century engraving by Wolfgang Strauch of Nürnberg, Death and the Lansquenet, showing a fencing match; reproduced in Walter L. Strauss, The German Single-leaf Woodcut 1550–1600 III (1975), p. 1077. The verses by Hans Sachs, which accompany this picture, express the theme of resignation in the face of death.

    Google Scholar 

  135. The Grimani Breviary, ed. F. E. Ferrari et al. (Englished. 1972), plate 57; Hans Holbein, Bilder des Todes [as n. 61]. Compare also Theissing [as n. 60], p. 78.

    Google Scholar 

  136. There is no comparable frontispiece in the editio princeps (Paris 1488: Hain 4952). For the date and printer of the Gouda edition (CA 1083), see Wytze and Lotte Hellinga, The Fifteenth Century Printing Types of the Low Countries (1966), I, 85. The woodcuts of the Gouda edition are identical with those of the later Schiedam edition, reproduced by

    Google Scholar 

  137. Friedrich Lippmann, Le Chevalier délibéré, by Olivier de La Marche: The Illustrations of the edition of Schiedam reproduced, with a preface, The Bibliographical Society: Illustrated Monographs 5 (1898), with a diplomatic edition of the poem.

  138. See Emile Picot and Henri Stein, “Le Chevalier délibéré par Olivier de La Marche,” in Recueil de pièces historiques imprimées sous le règne de Louis XI (1923), I, 305–354

    Google Scholar 

  139. and Klaus Heitman, “Die spanischen übersetzer von Olivier de La Marches Chevalier délibéré,” in Studia Iberica, Fs. Hans Flasche, ed. K.-H. Körner and Klaus Rühl (1973), pp. 229–246.

    Google Scholar 

  140. See the interpretative sketch by René Menage, “Le Voyage délibéré du Chevalier de La Marche,” in Voyage, quête, pèlerinage dans la littérature et la civilisation médiévales, Sénéfiance no 2 (1976), pp. 209–219.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  141. Examples are mentioned by Burdach (Bernt/Burdach, pp. 248 f.) and Rosenfeld 1935, p. 244. See also Lutz S. Malke, Die Ausbreitung des verschollenen Urbildzyklus der Petrarcatrionfi durch Cassonipaare in Florenz unter Berücksichtigung des Gloriatriumphs (Diss. FU Berlin 1972), pp. 154f. n. 97 and pp. 156f. n. 103

    Google Scholar 

  142. Lynn White, “Indie Elements in the Iconography of Petrarch’s Trionfo della Morte,” Speculum, 49 (1974), 201–221 (cf. n. 145).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  143. Alexandre de Laborde, La Mort chevauchant un boeuf: Origine de cette illustration de l’office des morts dans certains livres d’heures de la fin du xvesiècle (1923 [cited]), also published as “Origine de la représentation de la mort, chevauchant un boeuf, dans les livres d’heures de la fin du xve siècle,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres (1923), pp. 100–113. See also the note by Bruno Roy, “Images de mort. II. La mort sur un boeuf,” in Le Sentiment de la mort au moyen âge, ed. Claude Sutto, Études présentées au Cinquième colloque de l’Institut d’études médiévales de l’Université de Montréal (1979), pp. 277–279.

    Google Scholar 

  144. See Mâle [as n. 101], p. 332 n. 3, p. 333 fig. 185; Guy de Tervarent, Attributs et symboles dans Vart profane 1450–1600 (1958), col. 244 f.

    Google Scholar 

  145. Reproduced by Georg Pudelko, “The Stylistic Development of Lorenzo Monaco — II.,” Burlington Magazine, 74 (1939), 76–81, here p. 77 plate IA, and by White [as n. 125], fig. 13 (an inferior reproduction). Cf. Malke[asn. 125], p. 154 n. 97.

    Google Scholar 

  146. De Laborde, La Mort, plate X (fr. 1989 and Chantilly), XI (Geneva and Copinger 4023); Panofsky [as n. 102], plate XLVI fig. 82 (Geneva)

    Google Scholar 

  147. Paul de Keyser, “De Houtsnijder van Geraerd Leeu’s Van den drie blinde danssen (Gouda, 1482),” Gentsche Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis, 1 (1934), 57–66; cf. also the facsimile edition

    Google Scholar 

  148. ed. Wilhelmus Johannes Schuijt, Van den drie Blinde Danssen. Naar de Nederlandse bewerking van 1482 in facsimile herdrukt (1955), p. 62. Cf. Mâle [as n. 101], p. 378.

    Google Scholar 

  149. De Laborde, La Mort, plate III (No. 8), plate XII (No. 1), plate XIII (Nos. 5 and 9), plate XIV (No. 13); Mâle, p. 378 (No. 13); European Miniatures and Illumination, Bulletin No. 6 (June 1969: Maggs Bros. Ltd. London), item 9, with plate (No. 10); Catalogue of Christies’ Sale, 11 June 1974, lot 13, plate 5 (No. 11); White, fig. 14 (No. 1); Dagmar Thoss, Französische Gotik und Renaissance in Meisterwerken der Buchmalerei: Ausstellung der Handschriften- und Inkunabelsammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek (1978), plate 50 (No. 6). I am grateful to Douglas Farquhar for the reference to No. 7 and for a drawing of the miniature.

    Google Scholar 

  150. Charles deTolnay, Hieronymus Bosch (1937; Englished. 1966), pp. 118–133, especially p. 133. For the date see

    Google Scholar 

  151. Gregory Martin and Mia Cinotti, The Complete Paintings of Bosch (1966; English ed. 1969), p. 94. There is a signed copy of the triptych in the Escorial, Martin and Cinotti, No. 22, p. 96.

    Google Scholar 

  152. The possibility of associating this figure with the tradition of Death riding an ox is mentioned by Jacques Combe, Iheronimus Bosch (English ed. 1946), p. 59 n. 56

    Google Scholar 

  153. cf. Patrik Reuterswärd, Hieronymus Bosch (German ed. 1970), p. 34. The implications of the identification of this figure as Death need further investigation.

    Google Scholar 

  154. La voie d’enfer et de paradis: An unpublished poem of the fourteenth century by Jehan de le Mote, ed. Mary Aquiline Pety (1940), lines 1697–704. See André Antoine Thomas, “Jean de le Mote, trouvère,” Histoire littéraire de la France, 36 (1924), 66–86, and De Laborde, La Mort, pp. 16f. n. 5.

    Google Scholar 

  155. Hans Walther, Initia carminum ac versuum medii aeviposterions latinorum, Carmina medii aevi posterions latini I, 2nd revised ed. (1969), No. 3990.

    Google Scholar 

  156. La Dance aux Aveugles, Et autres Poësies du XV. siécle extraites De la Bibliothèque des Ducs de Bourgogne (Lille 1748), pp. 59ff.; Pierre Michault, Oeuvres poétiques, ed. Barbara Folkart, Collection 10/18, 1386 (1980), pp. 110ff. The Dutch translation is available in a facsimile edition by Schuijt [as n. 133]. Cf. De Laborde, La Mort, pp. 15ff.

    Google Scholar 

  157. For the different types of animal which might be represented, see White [as n. 125], passim. For the significance and qualities of the ox in medieval art, see Malke [as n. 125], pp. 156f. n. 103; Heinrich and Margarethe Schmidt, Die vergessene Bildersprache christlicher Kunst: Ein Führer zum Verständnis der Tier-, Engel- und Mariensymbolik (1981), pp. 86–88.

    Google Scholar 

  158. Erwin Panofsky, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer (1943; 41955), p. 85, associates the ox in Diirer’s Sündenfall with “phlegmatic sluggishness”.

    Google Scholar 

  159. For the thieves with blindfolds see Friedrich Zoepfl, “Dismas und Gestas,” RDK IV (1958), col. 83–87

    Google Scholar 

  160. and Louis Réau, Iconographie de Vart chrétien II/2 (1958), p. 494. For the thieves with sweat-bands see the Sassenberger Altar in the Landesmuseum Münster, published in

    Google Scholar 

  161. Harald Busch, Meister des Nordens: Die Altniederdeutsche Malerei: 1450–1550 (1940), plate 250. For the “crucified monk” see Seebohm-Désautels [as n. 15], Part II, chapter 4.

    Google Scholar 

  162. Adolf Tobler and Ernst Lommatzsch, Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch IX (1973), col. 1044f. For Latin sudarium

    Google Scholar 

  163. see Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, ed. D. P. Carpentarius and G. A. L. Henschel (1886), VII, 646, und V, 39 s.v. lavador: duos Lavadors sive sudaria telle pro mortuis; Lorenz Diefenbach, Glossarium latinogermanicum mediae et infimae aetatis (1857), p. 564 ( = sweißtuch, totentuch, lichtuch)

    Google Scholar 

  164. Jan Frederik Niermeyer, Mediae latinitatis lexicon minus (1976), p. 1002

    Google Scholar 

  165. Albert Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-francais des auteurs chrétiens (1954), p. 790.

    Google Scholar 

  166. Cf. Alfred Plummer, The Gospel according to John (1881), pp. 240f., explaining σgogvδἀϱgogv, as a cloth bound under the chin of a corpse to keep the lower jaw from falling. Most medieval illustrations of Lazarus abandon the biblical sudarium and give him a shroud made of a single piece, cf. the plates in

    Google Scholar 

  167. Herwig Guratzsch, Die Auferweckung des Lazarus in der niederländischen Kunst von 1400 bis 1700 (1980). It is important to distinguish the sudarium from Veronica’s veil, the mandylion, which also belongs to the arma Christi.

    Google Scholar 

  168. Anton E. Schönbach, “Studien zur Geschichte der altdeutschen Predigt II,” WSB philos.-hist. Klasse, 142 (1900, rpt. 1968), p. 7. For the custom of covering the face with a cloth and binding the chin in post-medieval times

    Google Scholar 

  169. see Placidus Berger, Religiöses Brauchtum im Umkreis der Sterbeliturgie in Deutschland (1966), pp. 119f. and n. 487.

    Google Scholar 

  170. The earliest attested mention of this is in Konrad von Wiirzburg’s Partonopier und Meliur, ed. Karl Bartsch (1871; rpt. 1970), 5127ff.; see Alwin Schultz, Das höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesinger (1889), II, 77 f. For an illustration, see the seal of Rudolf IV of Austria, Die Parier und der schöne Stil [as n. 56] III, plate VIII (following p. 236).

    Google Scholar 

  171. See also Hans Burgkmaiers Tumier-Buch, ed. Joseph von Hefner (1853; rpt. ed. Reinhard Bentmann, Die bibliophilen Taschenbücher 43, 1978), pp. 27, 29, 39, 63, 65, 67.

  172. Reproduced in the facsimile edition, ed. Bernt [as n. 76], frontispiece; Johannes von Tepl, Der Ackermann aus Böhmen: Urtext und übersetzung, Goldmanns Gelbe Taschenbücher 2925 (1972), p. 2; and frequently.

    Google Scholar 

  173. See Karel Hâdek, “Strahovský kodex D G III 7,” Listyfilologické, 101 (1978), 79–83. I wish to thank Professor Heinrich Kunstmann (Munich) for looking over my edition and translation.

    Google Scholar 

  174. Hrubý/Šimek, pp. 108,60–110, 18; Šimek 1940 [as n. 5], pp. 155–157, 1974 [as n. 5], pp. 142–143 (XIV lines 183–239). I have also consulted the normalized editions of this passage in Jan Vilikovský, Proza z doby Karla IV (1938; rpt. 1948), pp. 318–319

    Google Scholar 

  175. and Bohuslav Havránek and Josef Hrabák, Výbor z České literatury od počatků po dobu Husovu (1957), pp. 576–577 (lines 136–176).

    Google Scholar 

  176. František Šimek, “O nově objeveném rukopisu,” Listyfilologické, 63 (1936), 265–273. Various sigla have been used for this MS: Z (Šimek 1936), S’ (Heidenreichovâ [as n. 178]), P (Krogmann, “Textkritik” [as n. 63]), ST (Šimek 1974 [as n. 5]).

    Google Scholar 

  177. Hrubý, p. 95 translates “seine späteren Statthalter”. Hrubý/Šimek, p. 208 translate correctly “Nâstupce” (“successor”); cf. Bohuslav Havránek, Staročeský Slovník, fase. 2 (1970), p. 169, and Klaret, Glossář 1084: successor dico namiestak (Klaret a jeho družina, ed. Václav Flajšhans, Sbírka pramenů I,1,1/1–2 (1926–28), I, p. 146). Note that the Dresden/Olomouc Bible translates praeses (“governer,” “Statthalter,” of Pilate)

    Google Scholar 

  178. by Old Czech wladarz: Staroceskâ bible Drâzd’anskâ a Olomouc, ed. Vladimir Kyas (1981), p. 126 (Mt 27,2).

  179. The goddess Štěstie is attested, for example, in the Old Czech translation of the Disticha Catonis, ed. Havrânek and Hrabâk [as n. 155], pp. 472–481, line 195 f.: Protot’ ščěstie zlým přichodí,/žet’ jim na věky uškodí, rendering Indulget Fortuna malis, ut laedere possit (II,23,2). Personified Neštěstie is attested only in Tkadleček (Jan Gebauer, Staročeský Slovník (1970), II, p. 606), and is based on the meaning infortunium/infelicitas, the opposite of štěstie = felicitas

    Google Scholar 

  180. cf. František Ryšánek and Jiří Daňhelka, Tomás ze Štítného Sborník Vyšehradský (1969), II, 325.

    Google Scholar 

  181. See plates 65–86 in Pierre Courcelle, La Consolation de Philosophie dans la tradition littéraire (1967), especially plate 68. For the distinction of Good Fortune and Misfortune see the two-headed pictures inspired by Trevet’s Boethius commentary [as n. 175], e.g. Courcelle, plate 85, where Misfortune is shown pouting.

    Google Scholar 

  182. See Aby Warburg, “Heidnisch-antike Weissagung in Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten,” Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Abh. 26 (1919), Heidelberg 1920, reprinted in

  183. Aby M. Warburg, Ausgewählte Schriften und Würdigungen, ed. Dieter Wuttke (1979), pp. 199–304, especially the treatment of Saturn, pp. 24f. Another demonic figure is blind Cupid, for whom see Panofsky [as n. 102]

  184. Compare the similar list in chapter VI. For typical hierarchical lists see Tondolus der Ritter: Die von J. und C. Hist gedruckte Fassung, ed. Nigel F. Palmer, WPM 13 (1980), p. 73, and the Visio Policarpi, ed. Zatočil [as n. 61], pp. 16f.

  185. For the significance of the stag as a messenger of Death, and for the demon of Death and others riding the stag, see Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens IV, ed. Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer (1931–2), col. 93f. s.v. Hirsch (4c)

  186. and Ernst Ludwig Rochholz, Schweizersagen aus dem Aargau (1856), II, 189–198 (“Alahirzi”); cf. De Tervarent [as n. 128], pp. 65–69. Rosenfeld 1953 [as n. 75], p. 92 n. 2 alludes to an illustration of Death riding a stag (or elk?) in Göttweig, Stiftsbibl. MS 453 (= Cat. No. 238, not MS 459!!), f. 221r, a prayer-book from Lyons dated 1473, cf. the illustration in Österreichische Kunsttopographie I (1907), p. 500 fig. 392.

    Google Scholar 

  187. See n. 144 above. For the swiftness of the stag see Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival 64, 19, and the note by Ernst Martin, ed. (1900), 11, 72.

    Google Scholar 

  188. Many-horned animals are mentioned in Stith Thompson, Motif-Index ofFolk-Literature (1955), I, B 15.3.1 (ox with three or four horns B 15.3.1.3/15.3.1.3.1).

  189. See G. Heidenreichovâ, “Staročeský ‘Tkadleček’ a poměr jeho stylu k německé skladbé ‘Ackermann aus Böhmen,’” Slouo a sîovesnost, 3 (1937), 87–98.

    Google Scholar 

  190. For this unpublished commentary, of which many manuscripts are known, see Alastair Minnis, “Aspects of the Medieval French and English Traditions of the De Consolatione Philosphiae,” in Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence, ed. Margaret Gibson (1981), pp. 213–361, especially pp. 314f. I have consulted Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson G 187, where the relevant passage is on f. 2rb. Essentially the same picture of Fortuna is described, but in different words, in Trevet’s commentary on Augustine, De civitate dei IV. 18 (unpublished; I have used Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodl. 292). It was taken over by Thomas Waleys in his commentary on De civitate dei, for which see n. 18 above, and by Robert Holcot in his lectures on the Twelve Prophets, Habakuk, chapter 3; I have used Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodl. 722, f. 92r).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford, UK

    Nigel F. Palmer

Authors
  1. Nigel F. Palmer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Palmer, N.F. ‘Antiquitus depingebatur’ The Roman Pictures of Death and Misfortune in the Ackermann aus Böhmen and Tkadleček, and in the Writings of the English Classicizing Friars. Dtsch Vierteljahrsschr Literaturwiss Geistesgesch 57, 171–239 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374776

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374776

Search

Navigation