Fragments of Didacticism: The Early Middle High German ‘Rittersitte’ and ‘Der heimliche Bote’

Abstract

Some of the earliest texts in the medieval vernacular languages are transmitted as unique and often fragmentary manuscripts. In most cases we have no information as to their composition or reception, and sometimes even parts of their content remain unclear. This article proposes a way of reading early vernacular fragments as parts of the discourses to which they contribute. It argues that this context can help us assess the literary and didactic status of a text and even aid in their editing. This is demonstrated by the example of two early Middle High German texts: the ‘Rittersitte’ and ‘Der heimliche Bote’. The former is transmitted as a fragment and its editor has attempted to fill the gaps based on vivid imagination rather than on sound philological principles or contextual information. Scholars are still uncertain concerning the unity of the latter and its literary genre: is it a love letter or a didactic poem? Considering the broader discourse in which these texts participate provides some context for the transmission of the manuscripts and can help establish social situatedness for early didactic literature, even if the witnesses are incomplete or of questionable literary status. This chapter will reintroduce two pieces of didactic literature into the scholarly discussion and offer a new approach for understanding them. In reading the ‘Rittersitte’ and ‘Der heimliche Bote’ in their discursive context, we will not only explore ways to gain clarity about the contents of these texts, but also demonstrate what they can tell us – despite, or even because of their fragmentary status – about the Sitz im Leben of early secular didactic poetry. My aim is to establish more clearly the relevance of secular didacticism in the High Middle Ages and offer strategies to interpret the sparse evidence. I will first discuss the status of fragments in the field of medieval studies and explore its implications for an epistemological assessment of medieval writing, and then develop some of these ideas further using the examples of the ‘Rittersitte’ and ‘Der heimliche Bote’, addressing some unresolved issues scholars have to face when studying these texts: the content of the ‘Rittersitte’ and the question of the unity of ‘Der heimliche Bote’. Both texts are among the earliest examples of secular didactic literature in the German vernacular and are therefore essential for our understanding of the way vernacular didacticism came into its own in the Middle Ages. While both have been mentioned from time to time in recent scholarship, these arguments tend to be based on assumptions made about the texts in the 1930s to 1970s, which were both flawed and built around unrevised literary categories. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110650068-008 The Sitz im Leben of medieval vernacular didactic poetry, that is, the social relevance of these texts by the time they were produced, is not easily established. The increase in secular didactic writing from the twelfth century onward demonstrates a growing interest in guidance for life in the world. The norms and values codified in these prescriptive texts appear to have been valid for a surprisingly long period: the gros of text transmission of the two most popular, ‘Der Winsbecke’ and ‘Der Welsche Gast’, date to the fourteenth century. The earliest examples from the twelfth century, however, have come down to us only in a single (often incomplete) manuscript. Nothing about them suggests a wider readership, as we can establish for later texts. How can we judge the relevance of these texts, if we have no indication that they ever left the monasteries in which they were produced? Given their fragmentary condition, how do we even know for sure what content they meant to transmit? How can we analyse texts that display substantial lacunae or assess the conceptual unity of a text that does not conform to our criteria of genre, and without another witness against which to compare it? With no contextual information, such as authors, scribes, origi1 Ernst HELLGARDT, Die deutschsprachigen Handschriften im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert. Bestand und chronologischer Aufriss, in: Volker HONEMANN/ Nigel F. PALMER (eds.), Deutsche Handschriften 1100– 1400. Oxforder Kolloquium 1985, Tübingen 1988, pp. 33–81, lists 63 manuscripts containing German texts for the eleventh century, and 176 for the twelfth century, 83 of which fall into its last quarter or date around the turnof the century.Henames the ‘Kaiserchronik’and theGerman ‘SongofRoland’ (‘Rolandslied’) as the most notable texts in terms of the number of manuscripts transmitted from the twelfth century (p. 52). 2 Of the 16manuscripts or fragmentswhich transmit ;‘DerWinsbecke’ (composed in themid-thirteenth century), onedates to the late thirteenthcentury, two fromaround the turnof the fourteenthcentury,and themajority, eightmanuscripts, to the fourteenth century (http://www.handschriftencensus.de/werke/ 431). Similarly, ‘Der Welsche Gast’, composed in the winter 1215/16, is transmitted in two manuscripts from the thirteenth century, and 14 from the fourteenth or the turn of the fifteenth century (http://digi. ub.uni-heidelberg.de/wgd/handschriften.html). 3 Only the ‘Tugendspiegel’, an adaptation of theMoraliumdogmaphilosophorum’ from around 1170 is transmitted in twomanuscripts, one fragment dating from the end of the twelfth century (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, mgo 226) and another, incomplete one from the first half of the fourteenth century (Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibl., Cod. 1056). Cf. Joachim BUMKE (Hg.), Wernher von Elmendorf (Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 77), Tübingen 1974, pp. XII–XVI und illustration 2. 4 ‘DerWelsche Gast’ is transmitted, inmost manuscripts, with an elaborate programme of illustrations to aid the instruction, a premise that is questioned by HELLGARDT in this volume. For an introduction in thework and image cycle cf. Kathryn STARKEY, A Courtier’sMirror. Cultivating Elite Identity in Thomasin von Zerclaere’sWelscher Gast, Notre Dame, Indiana 2013; Heinrich RÜCKERT (ed.), Der wälsche Gast des Thomasin von Zirclaria (Bibliothek der gesamten deutschen National-Literatur 30), Quedlinburg, Leipzig, 1852. ‘Der Winsbecke’ was included in the prestigious Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, the ‘Codex Manesse’. It also sparked a parody from the fourteenth century, indicating a broader audience which would appreciate the comic reversal of the advice; cf. Albert LEITZMANN (ed.), Winsbeckische Gedichte nebst Tirol und Fridebrant, 3rd reworked edn. by Ingo REIFFENSTEIN (Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 9), Tübingen, 1962; nach Berlin, Staatsbibl., mgf 474. 178 Claudia Wittig