Zusammenfassung
Diese Studie verfolgt das Konzept des “Seelenadels,” wie es im Spätmittelalter verstanden wurde. Besondere Berücksichtigung erfahren dabei Geoffrey Chaucer, Heinrich von Langenstein und Michel Beheim. Dem französischen Dominikaner Guillelmus Peraldus gebührt hierbei das Verdienst, die Hauptideen vermittelt zu haben.
Abstract
This study traces the concept of the “nobility of soul” in the late Middle Ages, with special reference to Geoffrey Chaucer, Heinrich von Langenstein and Michel Beheim. The chief ideas were transmitted by the French Dominican Guillelmus Peraldus (Guillaume Peyraut).
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Literature
Chaucer also takes up the topic of true nobility in the Wife of Bath’s Tale (1109–64), the Franklin’s Tale (1520ff.), and in the moral ballad Gentilesse. See Earle Birney, “Chaucer’s ‘gentil’ Manciple and his ‘gentil’ Tale,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 61 (1960), 257–67
and Wolfgang E.E. Rudat, “Gentillesse and the Marriage Debate in the ‘Franklin’s Tale”: Chaucer’s Squires and the Question of Nobility,” Neophilologus, 68 (1984), 451–70. The text I have used for citations from Chaucer is The Canterbury Tales: A Facsimile and Transcription of the Hengwrt Manuscript, with Variants from the Elles-mere Manuscript, ed. P.G. Ruggiers (1979).
The word gentilesse has a range of meaning in Chaucer’s work, implying “kindness,” “gentility,” “nobility,” and “good breeding.” See Heribert Rasbach, “Gentle-genteel,” in Comparative Studies in Key-Words of Culture, éd. G. Deeters et al. (1959), III, 25–53
and Howard H. Schless, Chaucer and Dante: A Revaluation (1984), pp. 192ff.
George McGill Vogt, “Gleanings for the History of a Sentiment: Generositas virtus, non sanguis,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 24 (1925), 102–124. Vogt gives special attention to the versions of the couplet made popular by John Ball in the 14th century: “When Adam delved and Eve span,/ who was then the gentleman?”
P.G. Schmidt, ed., Proverbia sententiaeque latinitatis medii ac recentioris aevi, Carmina medii aevi posterions latina II/7 (1982), p. 919. See also Samuel Singer, Sprichwörter des Mittelalters (1947), III, 21–2. Singer gives the following versions of the sentiment: Juvenal (“Nobilitas sola est et unica virtus,” Sat. VIII, 20); Seneca (“Animus facit nobilem,” Epistolae 44.5); and Bede (“Nemo nobilis est nisi quern nobilitat virtus,” Proverbia 1103).
“E gentilezza dovunque à virtute” (Filostrato VII.94; ed. Branca). Cf. Dante: Convivio, IV canz., 101. The words of the passage are Troilus’s; he speaks of Criseida as one who is in every quality worthy of any great man of whatever rank. See R. K. Gordon, The Story of Troilus (1934)
Guido di Pino, La polemica del Boccaccio (1953), esp. pp. 217–8
Aldo D. Scaglione, Nature and Love in the Late Middle Ages (1963), esp. pp. 69–70
Vittore Branca, “Profilo Biografico,” in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, ed. V. Branca (1967), I, 26–8
and Thomas G. Bergin, Boccaccio (1981), p. 103. Bergin summarizes: “For Criseida is not only beautiful; she is truly noble, since nobility is not a matter of birth, but of the soul.”
Chauncey Wood, in The Elements of Chaucer’s ‘Troilus’ (1984), pp. 175–6, reminds us that the “high-minded defense of true nobility” in Capellanus, Boccaccio and Chaucer may be placed so as to bring a smile to the reader; what he calls “moral sentiments… uttered in immoral surroundings.”
Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W.R. Trask (1953), pp. 179–180.
See, for example, Werner Fechter, Lateinische Dichtkunst und deutsches Mittelalter (1964), pp. 63–4. Fechter mentions, among others, Hildebert of Lavardin PL 171.1043B), Petrus Cantor PL 205. 47D), Petrus of Blois PL 207.8B), Walter of Châtillon Alexan dreis 1.104), and the Carmina Burana (7.4).
Marvin L. Colker, “De Nobilitate Animi,” Mediaeval Studies, 23 (1961), 47. I wish here to acknowledge the help and advice offered me by Prof. Colker, who courteously made available an unpublished oral paper, ‘Nobilitas Animi.’ In it he supplements the list of authors cited in the aforementioned article. Among these are Democritus, Sophocles, Menander, Astydamas, the Phalaris letter of Axiochus, responsa attributed to Diogenes and Socrates, Anaximenes, Plutarch, Dion Chrysostom, Horace, and the Pseudo-Senecan De Moribus. Other scholarly treatments of the sentiment appear in Sister Mary P. Goetz, The Concept of Nobility in German Didactic Literature of the 13th Century, The Catholic Univ. of America Studies in German, 5 (1935)
Karl Vossler, “Adel der Geburt und der Gesinnung bei den Romanen,” in Aus der romanischen Welt (1948), pp. 44–52
Klaus Speckenbach, Studien zum Begriff ‘edelez herze’ im ‘Tristan’ Gottfrieds von Strassburg, Medium aevum. Philologische Studien 6 (1965), esp. pp. 72–97
Karl Heinz Borck, “Adel, Tugend und Geblüt,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Tübingen), 100 (1978), 423–457
Shirley B. Letwin, The Gentleman in Trollope: individuality and Moral Conduct (1982), esp. pp. 3–21; and Volker Honemann, “Aspekte des ‘Tugendadels’ im europäischen Spätmittelalter,” in Literatur und Laienbildung im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit: Symposion Wolfenbüttel 1981, ed. L. Grenzmann and K. Stackmann, Germanistische-Symposien-Berichtsbände, 5 (1984), pp. 274–286.
On this point, see the recent remarks of Derek Brewer concerning class-distinctions in Chaucer: Tradition and Innovation in Chaucer (1982), esp. pp. 63ff.
John E. Mason, Gentlefolk in the Making: Studies in the History of English Courtesy Literature and related Topics from 1531 to 1774 (Diss. Philadelphia, 1935), p. 8.
Karl Bosl, Die Gesellschaft in der Geschichte des Mittelalters, 2nd ed. (1969), esp. p. 32.
Charity C. Willard, “The Concept of True Nobility at the Burgundian Court,” Studies in the Renaissance, 14 (1967), 33–48. She takes note, for instance, of Castiglione’s Courtier and Buonaccorso’s Dialogus de vera nobilitate (composed before 1429).
Cf. James W. Holme, “Italian Courtesy-Books of the 16th Century,” The Modern Language Review, 5 (1910), 145–166.
Davis Bitton, The French Nobility in Crisis, 1560–1640 (1969), esp. pp. 77–91 (“The Relevance of Virtue”).
L.B. Campbell, ed., The Mirror for Magistrates (1938; rpt. 1960), p. 123.
Cf. Ruth Kelso, “The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the 16th Century,” University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, 14 (1929)
and W. Lee Ustick, “Changing Ideals of Aristocratic Character and Conduct in 17th Century England,” Modern Philology, 30 (1932), 147–166. The examination of the qualities of a gentleman continued into the Elizabethan era, and beyond. Thomas Gainsford writes, for example, in his Rich Cabinet (1616): “Generositie doth not account him a gentleman which is only descended of noble bloud….”
Cited by Edwin H. Cady, The Gentleman in America (1949; rpt. 1969), p. 6, who observes: “Virtue and character counted most.” Cf. the reference to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (II.ix.40ff.) in Vogt, Generositas virtus, non sanguis, 119–20.16 The best discussion of German affairs is in Bosl, Die Gesellschaft in der Geschichte des Mittelalters, pp. 28 ff.
There have been attempts by 19th-century scholars and Marxist literary historians to draw connections between social class and the topos under discussion, but generally unsuccessful ones. See, for example, G. Roethe, ed., Die Gedichte Reinmars von Zweter (1887; rpt. 1967), pp. 231–2
and Werner Lenk, “Grundzüge des Menschenbildes,” in Grundpositionen der deutschen Literatur im 16. Jahrhundert, ed. I. Spriewald et al. (1976), pp. 213–4.
George B. Pace and Alfred David, eds., Geoffrey Chaucer, The Minor Poems, Variorum Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 5 (1982), p. 67. They note the similarity of Chaucer’s lines to Dante’s definition of gentilezza in Convivio IV, canz. 3. 101–4 (p. 74).
Cf. Gino Dallari, “Sul concetto délia nobiltà nella terza canzone del ‘convivio’ dantesco,” Rendiconti, 61 (1928), 572–580
Maria Corti, “Le fonti del ‘Fiore di virtù’ e la teoria délia ‘nobiltà’ nel duecento,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 136 (1959), 29ff.; and Schless, Chaucer and Dante, pp. 237–243.
On Peraldus and the Summa, see Antoine Dondaine, “Guillaume Peyraut, vie et œuvres,” Archivum fratrum praedicatorum, 18 (1948), 162–236
Hans Neumann, “Der westflämische ‘Spiegel der Sonden’ und seine Quelle,” in Festschrift für Hermann Kunisch, ed. K. Lazarowicz and W. Kron (1961), p. 280; Dictionnaire de spiritualité (1967), VI, 1234
and Michael Evans, “An Illustrated Fragment of Peraldus’s Summa of Vice: Harleian MS 3244,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 43 (1982), 14.
Siegfried Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (1967), p. 75.
Kate O. Petersen, The Sources of the ‘Parson’s Tale,’ Radcliffe College Monographs 12 (1901), esp. pp. 41–4.
See, for example, the brief remarks in Rudolf Cruel, Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter (1879; rpt. 1966), pp. 455–6
C. Frati, “Ricerche sul ‘Fiore divirtu’,” Studi di filologia romanza, 6 (1893), 368ff.
Morton W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept, with Special Reference to Medieval English Literature (1952), pp. 87ff.
Judson B. Allen, The Friar as Critic: Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages (1971), p. 45; and Honemann, “Aspekte des ‘Tugendadels’ im europäischen Spätmittelalter,” pp. 275–6.
Epistolae Morales 44.5. Cf. Ep. 46.3; De Vita Beata 24.3; Ad. Polyb. 17.2; De Benef. III. 18.2; III.28. 1–3. Anna L. Motto, in her Guide to the Thought of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (1970), p. 139, gives the following summary of Seneca’s views on nobility: “The only nobility or superior rank is one’s higher capacity for virtue.” On Seneca and his influence, see Klaus-Dieter Nothdurft, Studien zum Einfluß Senecas auf die Philosophie und Theologie des 12. Jahrhunderts (1963)
E. Rivera de Ventosa, “Signification ideologica de las citas de Séneca en San Buenaventura,” Helmantica, 16 (1965), 385–98
Motto, Seneca (1973)
Marc Rozelaar, Seneca: Eine Gesamtdarstellung (1976)
and Villy Sorensen, Seneca, the Humanist at the Court of Nero, trans. W.G. Jones (1984). Seneca is quoted four times in Chaucer’s Parson s Tale.
See the excellent summary of research by Siegfried Wenzel, “The Source for the ‘Remédia’ of the ‘Parson’s Tale’,” Traditio, 27 (1971), 433–453; and “The Source of Chaucer’s Seven Deadly Sins,” Traditio, 30 (1974), 351–378. Wenzel considers the influence on Chaucer of two treatises on the vices, the Quoniam and the Primo, both abbreviations of Peraldus’s Summa that originated in England between 1275 and 1300. He also argues that a treatise, Postquam, was part of a combination of material standing behind the Parson’s Tale. In spite of the identification of possible model texts, it is not clear whether Chaucer’s immediate source was in Latin or in French, that is, whether interme diary versions were involved.
See also John Norton-Smith, who, in Geoffrey Chaucer (1974), p. 155, reasons that “the English style [of Chaucer’s Parson s Tale] does not suggest a Latin original. I suggest that an old French treatise… will turn up one day.”
Germaine Dempster, “The ‘Parson’s Tale’,” in Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’, ed. W.F. Bryan and G. Dempster (1941), p. 724. Cf. Wenzel, “The Source of Chaucer’s Seven Deadly Sins,” 377.
Heinrich von Langenstein, Erchantnuzz der sund, ed. P. Rainer Rudolf, Texte des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, 22 (1969), esp. pp. 171–6.
The most recent research suggests that, while some of the stories of The Canterbury Tales date from earlier periods in Chaucer’s life, “the conception of the scheme of a pilgrimage as a framework for his narratives, and the realization of this as far as it went, belong to the last dozen years of Chaucer’s life [i.e., 1388–1400].” See George Kane, Chaucer (1984), p. 56.
See Borck, “Adel, Tugend und Geblüt,” 423ff.; H. Schmitz, Blutsadel und Geistes adel in der hochhöfischen Dichtung, Bonner Beiträge zur deutschen Philologie 11 (1941); Speckenbach, Studien zum Begriff ‘edelez herze/ pp. 72ff.
and Marie Luise Rosenthal, “Zeugnisse zur Begriffsbestimmung des älteren Meistersangs,” in Der deutsche Meister sang, ed. B. Nagel (1967), pp. 73–4
Wiebke Freytag, Das Oxymoron bei Wolfram, Gottfried und anderen Dichtern des Mittelalters, Medium aevum. Philologische Studien 24 (1972), p. 85
Kurt Franz, Studien zur Soziologie des Spruchdichters in Deutschland im späten 13. Jahrhundert, GAG 111 (1974), pp. 56ff.; and Rüdiger Krohn, trans. Gottfried von Strassburg: ‘Tristan’ (1980), III, 224–6. Two of the clearest expressions of the sentiment from the 13th century are in the verse of Reinmar von Zweter (ed. G. Roethe): ilnieman ist edel, em tuo dan edellîchen” (80.12); and in Wernher der Gartenaere’s poem Meier Helmbrecht (ed. K. Ruh): “sun und wilt dû edel sin/… sô tuo vil edellîche” (503ff.). On the word edel itself in German literature, see Friedrich Vogt, Der Bedeutungswandel des Wortes ‘edeV (1909).
P. Rainer Rudolf, in “Heinrichs von Langenstein ‘Erchantnuzz der sund’ und ihre Quellen”, in Festschrift für Gerhard Eis, ed. G. Keil et al. (1968), p. 65, prepares the way for an appraisal of Peraldus’s influence by noting that the Summa was popular into the 17th century. Twelve editions existed before 1500; between 1500 and 1669, 21 editions appeared. On the manuscript tradition of the Summa, see Dondaine, “Guillaume Peyr-aut,” 162ff.
and Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii aevi (1975), II, 133–142.
Sebastian Brant, Das Narrenschiff, ed. M. Lemmer (1962), 76.56ff. (“Vow grossem ruemen”).
Edwin H. Zeydel, in The Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brant (1944), p. 253, gives this translation of the lines: “‘Tis virtue makes nobility,/For breeding, honor, virtue can/Alone proclaim the nobleman,/But if unvirtuous you be-/No breeding, honor, modesty-/ Of nobleness for me you’re bare,/ E’en though a prince your father were;/ Nobility with virtue goes,/Nobility from virtue flows.” Zeydel recognizes that the idea is “one of the keynotes of German literature… from Brant’s time to the present,” but confuses the issue by claiming it is “chiefly the creation of the middle classes” (p. 381). Friedrich Zarncke, the editor of the magisterial edition of the Narrenschiff (1854; rpt. 1961), fails even to acknowledge that Brant’s verses on true nobility belong to a well-established rhetorical tradition.
See, for example, Goetz, The Concept of Nobility, p. 45; Gerda Franz, Tugenden und Laster der Stände in der didaktischen Literatur des späten Mittelalters (Diss. Bonn, 1957); Wolfgang Heinemann, “Zur Ständedidaxe in der deutschen Literatur des 13.-15. Jahrhunderts,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Halle), 89 (1967), 378 and 92 (1970), 427
Wolfgang Hempel, Uebermuot diu alte…: Dersuperbia-Gedanke und seine Rolle in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters (1970), pp. 52ff.
W. Conze, “Beruf,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland (1972), I, 490–507; and Die ‘Fluemen der tugent’ des Hans Vintler, ed. I. von Zingerle, Aeltere tirolische Dichter, 1 (1874), pp. 193ff.
See the discussion by Ernst Bernheim, “Politische Begriffe des Mittelalters im Lichte der Anschauungen Augustins,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, N.F. 1 (1896/97), esp. 19. He cites the authoritative statement of Gregory the Great: “Omnes homines natura aequales genuit” (Moralia 21.15).
Biographical material on Heinrich von Langenstein is found in Hans Rupprich, “Das Wiener Schrifttum des ausgehenden Mittelalters,” Sitzungsberichte der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philo.-historische Klasse, 228 (1954), 152–4; Erchantnuzz der sund, pp. 15–18
Thomas Hohmann, “Deutsche Texte unter dem Namen ‘Heinrich von Langenstein’,” in Würzburger Prosastudien II, Medium aevum. Philologische Studien 31 (1975), pp. 219–236
and Nicholas H. Steneck, Science and Creation in the Middle Ages: Henry of Langenstein (d. 1397) on ‘Genesis’ (1976), pp. 9ff.
Thomas Hohmann, Heinrichs von Langenstein ‘Unterscheidung der Geister’, Lateinisch und Deutsch: Texte und Untersuchungen zu Ubersetzungsliteratur aus der Wiener Schule, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, 63 (1977), pp. 257–276.
Der Renner von Hugo von Trimberg, ed. G. Ehrismann and G. Schweikle (1970), I, 1417—8. The translation is: “No-one is noble, but he whom the mind/makes noble; and not possessions.”
A general orientation on the poem is given by Heinz Rupp, “Zum Renner Hugos von Trimberg,” in Festschrift für Max Wehrli, éd. S. Sonderegger et al. (1969), pp. 233–259.
Edward Schröder, in: “Die Summe der Tugenden und Laster: Zum Renner 2755.56,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, 29 (1885), 357–360, speculates on whether Hugo von Trimberg knew the Summa of Peraldus. All translations of medieval German passages in this paper are my own, unless otherwise indicated.
H. Niewöhner, ed., Die Gedichte Heinrichs des Teichners, Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters 44 (1953), 104.13ff. The lines read: “Nobility is to be seen in its fruits./ One can only assert nobility is,/ where virtue reveals itself./ Nobility cannot be inherited.” The songs referred to in our discussion of Heinrich der Teichner have the following titles or first lines: Von tugenden (104); Von edel (105); Wie man edel laut erchent (441); Ainer fraugt mich der maer (517).
See the discussion of nobility in the verse of Der Teichner by Heribert Bögl, Soziale Anschauungen bei Heinrich dem Teichner’, GAG 175 (1975), p. 15.
Peter Wiesinger, “Zur Autorschaft und Entstehung des Heinrich von Langenstein zugeschriebenen Traktats ‘Erkenntnis der Sünde’,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, 97 (1978), 42ff.
Cf. the 13th-century didactic poets Freidank: “Swie diu Hute geschaffen sintj wir sîn doch alle Adâmes kint” (ed. Bezzenberger, 135.10ff.); and Thomasin of Zerclaere: “So wizzet daz die edel sintjdie sint alle gotes kint” (ed. Neumann, 2925–6). Peraldus and Heinrich argue further that God did not make two Adams, one of silver from which nobles stem, and one of clay, from which non-nobles spring, but rather made only one Adam of dust, from which all men are derived (Erchantnuzz, p. 171). It is interesting that Gower shifts the focus of this discussion, using Adam as an exemplar of the non-noble classes in his Vox clamantis. Gower contends that Adam is the father of the inferior estates because of his disobedience in Eden. See V.J. Scattergood, Politics and Poetry in the 15th Century (1972), p. 271.
Heinrich had already prepared this argument on the equality of men in his chapter Von hoff art der hegier (43; “Concerning the pride of desire”). Criticizing the presumptuous elevation of self, he observes that all men are equal and the same by nature (Peraldus: naturaliter). Except for sin, no-one is lower than the other (p. 157). Comparable passages are found in the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, who is credited by neither author. (“From one beginning rises mankind…”; trans. Watts, III.6) Heinrich Peraldus call Gregory the Great as witness (Cf. note ), who stresses that no man has the right to dominion over others; God placed only the animal kingdom under the control of man. These general thoughts had been taken up by Dante Convivio,.2) and are expressed in the 16th century by Giovambattista Nenna of Bari in // Nennio. Holme, “Italian Courtesy-Books of the 16th Century,” 154; and Lester K. Born, “The Perfect Prince: A Study in 13th- and 14th-Century Ideals,” Speculum, 3 (1928), 485–6 (on Peral-dus’s De Eruditione/Regimine Principum).
The wide range of meaning of animus in German is clear from the equivalents suggested by Hans Haas and Richard v. Kienle in Lateinisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (1952), p. 38: Seele, Geist, Absicht, Entschluß, Neigung, Lust, Gesinnung, Stimmung, Sinnesart, Charakter, Gemüt, Herz, Mut, Selbstvertrauen, Denkfähigkeit, Gedächtnis, Aufmerksamkeit, Bewußtsein, and Besinnung. Seneca, who is the authority cited by Peraldus and Heinrich (Ep. 44.5), defines the animus as one “quodam modo se habens spiritus” (Ep. 50.6). On his distinctions, see Nothdurft, Studien zum Einfluß Senecas, pp. 70ff.
and Gerhard Bauer, Claustrum ani-mae (1973), I, 44ff. Cf. the remarks of Sugar of St. Denis (d. 1151): “Nobiles efficit animus” (Cited in: Scaglione, Nature and Love in the Late Middle Ages, p. 69). On the idea of true nobility as a gift of Grace, see Schless, Chaucer and Dante, pp. 191–2 (Boethius, Guinicelli, Dante, and Chaucer).
The 13th-century German mystic Meister Eckhart considers a similar issue in his sermon Von dem edeln menschen, the first portion of which develops the idea Wie edel der mensche geschaffen ist in sîner nature. See the discussion by Wolfgang Frühwald, “Formzwang und Gestaltungsfreiheit in Meister Eckhardts Predigt ‘Von dem edeln mens chen’,” in Festschrift für Hermann Kunisch, ed. K. Lazarowicz and W. Kron (1961), pp. 132–146.
Cf. Otto Schaffner, “Die ‘nobilis Deo creatura’ des hl. Bernhard von Clairvaux,” Geist und Leben, 23 (1950), 43–57
and Hermann Kunisch, “edelez herze-edeliu sêle: Vom Verhältnis höfischer Dichtung zur Mystik,” in Mediaevalia litteraria: Festschrift für Helmut de Boor, ed. U. Hennig and H. Kolb (1971), pp. 413–450.
Erchantnuzz, p. 173. The distinction between noble non-nobles and ignoble nobles is given a secular slant in the gentleman-literature of the 16th century. For example, the author of the treatise The Institution of a Gentleman (1555) distinguishes between the “gentil gentil,” “gentle ungentle,” and the “ungentle gentle.” See Karl D. Biilbring’s introduction to ‘The Compleat English Gentleman’ by Daniel Defoe (1890), pp. xxxv–xxxxvi. If, of course, two men are equal in good deeds, the man of noble birth is the more esteemed. See Holme, “Italian Courtesy-Books of the 16th Century,” 145.
On the connection between the heart and nobility in medieval literature, see Speckenbach, Studien zum Begriff ‘edelez herze,’ esp. pp. 94–7 (Guido Guinicelli, Dante, Andreas Capellanus, et al.).
Cf. Xenja von Ertzdorff, “Das ‘Herz’ in der lateinisch theologischen und frühen volkssprachigen religiösen Literatur,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Halle), 84 (1962), 249–301.
For treatments of Beheim’s poetry and life, consult William C. McDonald, ‘Whose Bread I Eaf: The Song-Poetry of Michel Beheim, GAG, 318 (1981)
and Frieder Schanze, Meisterliche Liedkunst zwischen Heinrich von Mügeln und Hans Sachs, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen, 82 (1983), I, 182–246.
See Burghart Wachinger, “Michel Beheim: Prosabuchquellen, Liedvortrag, Buch überlieferung,” in Poesie und Gebrauchsliteratur im deutschen Mittelalter: Würzburger Colloquium 1978, ed. V. Honemann et al. (1979), pp. 37–75.
Songs 164–201; cited according to the edition Die Gedichte des Michel Beheim, ed. H. Gille und I. Spriewald, Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters, 64 (1970), II. In one ms (D: Cpg 382), Beheim refers to this cycle as a book and booklet (buch, buchlin).
Whether this implies a reading public is uncertain. On the relationship of Beheim’s cycle to the Erchantnuzz der sund by Heinrich von Langenstein, see Thomas Hohmann, “Deutsche Texte ausder ‘Wiener Schule’ als Quelle für Michel Beheims religiöse Gedichte,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, 107 (1978), 320–3.
Der Ritterspiegel, ed. H. Neumann, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 38 (1936), 561–4. The translation is: “Their nobility came not from birth,/… but from virtue, as you have heard,/ which was wrought in the soul.” Neumann, in: “Johannes Rothe,” Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. K. Langosch (1955), V, 1003, observes: “Der Gedanke, daß nicht die edle Geburt, sondern Tüchtigkeit und Adel der Gesinnung den Wert des Menschen ausmachen, tritt immer wieder heraus” (v. 561 ff., 1514ff.). Just prior to Rothe, Heinrich Wittenwiler (fl. 1395) addresses the topic under consideration in his Ring (ed. Wiessner, 4419ff.). Likewise, Hans Vintler (notes 37, 38, and 53) devotes many verses to the sentiment in his Pluemen der tugent from the year 1411 (9540 ff.).
There are also obvious differences between the two, of course. Sebastian Brant was a legal authority and burgher, whose Narrenschiff was printed as a book (Basel, 1494) with illustrative woodcuts. He sought readers, not listeners, and addressed an urban audience. Still, he stands in a vernacular tradition in regard to the idea under discussion, as evidenced, in one way, by his redaction of the 13th century poem Bescheidenheit by Freidank. In it are contained these lines: “Swer tugent hat, derst wol geborn:/an tugent ist adel gar verlorn./ Er si eigen oder frî,/ der von geburt niht edel si,/ der sol sich edel machen/ mit tugentlîchen sachen” (54.6–11. Cf. note 51). See Speckenbach, Studien zum Begriff ‘edelez herze/ p. 93; Jan-Dirk Müller, “Poet, Prophet, Politiker: Sebastian Brant als Publizist und die Rolle der laikalen Intelligenz um 1500,” Lihi, 10/37 (1980), 102–127
and Klaus Manger, Das ‘Narrenschiff: Entstehung, Wirkung und Deutung, Erträge der Forschung, 186 (1983).
The numerous English definitions of the gentleman owe a debt to Baldesar Castiglione’s I/ Cortegiano, published in 1561 by Sir Thomas Hoby as The Boke of the Courtier. See A. Smythe Palmer, The Perfect Gentleman (1892)
G. Sitwell, “The English Gentleman,” The Ancestor, 1 (1902), 58–103; Mason, Gentlefolk in the Making, p. 34; Letwin, The Gentleman in Trollope, esp. p. 20; and R.W. Hanning and D. Rosand, eds., Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture (1983).
Paul O. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts (1965), pp. 48–9. Kristeller mentions the work of Poggio Bracciolini, Buonaccorso da Montemagno, Bartolomeo Platina, and Cristoforo Landino.
See, for example, Oskar Roth, Die Gesellschaft der ‘Honnêtes Gens’: Zur sozialethi schen Grundlegung des ‘honnêteté’-Ideals bei La Rochefoucauld (1981)
and Gerhardt Schröder, “Die Metamorphosen des ‘Honnête Homme’: Zur Entstehung der bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit unter dem Absolutismus,” in Hof Staat und Gesellschaft in der Literatur des 17. Jahrhunderts, ed. E. Blühm et al., Daphnis 11 (1982), pp. 215–221.
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McDonald, W.C. The Nobility of Soul: Uncharted Echoes of the Peraldean Tradition in Late Medieval German Literature. Dtsch Vierteljahrsschr Literaturwiss Geistesgesch 60, 543–571 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03375927
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03375927