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Neidhart Plays as Shrovetide Plays: Twelve Additional Documented Performances

1977; Routledge; Volume: 52; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19306962.1977.11787237

1930-6962

Eckehard Simon,

Renaissance Literature and Culture

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesEckehard Simon. “The Staging of Neidhart Plays. With Notes on Six Documented Performances,” GR, 44 (1969), 5–20; to he cited henceforth as “The Staging.”.Bernd Neumann, “Mittelalterliches Schauspiel am Niederrhein, “ZDP, 94 (1975), Sonderheft, (117–194), p. 168 and n. 102: to be cited below as Neumann. – Since 1970, Neumann (working with the drama scholar Hansjürgen Linke in Cologne) has been gathering evidence attesting the performance of all types of plays in medieval German towns by examining all available publications as well as the archives themselves. If his two 1975 articles (the one in the ZDP Sonderheft and “Geistliches Schauspiel im spätmittelalterlichen Friedberg,” Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter. Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde, 24 [1975], 113–131) are any indication, Neumann’s findings (contained mainly in his 1977 dissertation) will no doubt force us to rewrite many chapters in our histories of medieval German drama.First published by Hans Moser, “Städtische Fasnacht des Mittelalters,” in Masken zwischen Spiel und Ernst. Beiträge des Tübinger Arbeitskreises für Fasnachtsforschung, Volksleben, Untersuchungen des Ludwig-Uhland-Instituts der Universität Tübingen, 18 (Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde, 1967), (135–202), p. 196; to be cited below as Moser (1967).Hans Moser, “Brauchgeschichtliches aus dem Donauraum zwischen Regensburg und Passau,” in Archive und Geschichtsforschung. Studien zur fränkischen und bayerischen Geschichte Fridolin Solleder zum 80. Geburtstag dargebracht, ed. Horst Heldmann (Neustadt a. d. Aisch: Ph. C. W. Schmidt, 1966), (110–117), p. 124. This reference is missing in my 1969 article.Den pfeiltantz von den pecken gehalten, geben 1 t[aler] (Moser [1967], p. 196). What this “arrow dancc” held at Shrovetide may have looked like is difficult to imagine since no other references to a pfeiltantz have come down to us from medieval Germany.First mentioned by Eduard Otto, “Aus dem Volksleben der Stadt Butzbach im Mittelalter. Kulturgeschichtliche Quellenstudie,” Archiv für Hessische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Neue Folge, 1 (1894), (327–399), pp. 348, 350.First mentioned by Alfred Köberlin, “Bilder aus dem bürgerlichen Leben in Bamberg zu Ausgang des Mittelalters,” Alt-Bamberg, 11 (1909/10), (3–11), p. 11.I gather this from the following description given by Köberlin (see n. 7), p. 11: “An Epiphanias gab es wiederum lustige Aufzüge. So hören wir, daß am 6. Januar 1488 die ‘Küferknechte in des gnädigen Herrn Bischofs Hove gewesen sind mit einer königin und etlichen Moren und ir Spielwerk’ getrieben haben.” Köberlin did not realize that this refers to a morrisdance. This documentation is missing from the exhaustive study of the “Moriskentanz” published by Dietrich Huschenbett, “Die Frau mit dem Apfel und Frau Venus in Morisk en tanz und Fastnachtspiel,” in Volkskultur und Geschichte. Festgabe für Josef Dünninger zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Dieter Harmening et al. (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1970), 585–603.Richard Wolfram, Die Volkstänze in Österreich und verwandte Tänze in Europa (Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1951), p. 58.Discovered and first published by Otto Mittler, Geschich te der Stadt Baden. Im Auftrag von [sic] Einwohner- und Ortsbürgergemeinde Baden, vol. II: Von 1650 bis zur Gegenwart (Aarau: Sauerländer A. G., 1965), pp. 326f.Gerd Simon, Die erste deutsche Fastnachtsspieltradition. Zur Überlieferung, Textkritik und Chronologie der Nürnberger Fastnachtsspiele des 15. Jahrhunderts, Germanische Studien, 240 (Lübeck/Hamburg: Matthiesen, 1970), p. 88.Eckehard Simon, “The Origin of Neidhart Plays: A Reappraisal,” JEGP, 67 (1968), 458–474, esp. p. 471.The correct shelf number of the collective paper codex containing our play on fol. 166r–VA, which is still owned by the Benedictine Abbey of St. Paul im Lavanttal (Carinthia, Austria), is 26.4.26 = 261/4. To determine date and geographical provenance of the extant text more precisely, someone at St. Paul should be urged to examine the watermarks of the formerly independent fascicle fols. 148–192 which transmits the Neidhart Play inmidst of a formulary (Briefsteller). When I looked at the codex in July of 1969, I had only time to note that the watermark on fol. 166 (medieval foliation 37) is the lower half of a bell. — I am still inclined to adhere to my view (“The Origin,” cf. n. 12, p. 472 n. 49) that the present text of the St. Paul play is a fragment. There is, at any rate, no trace of a “schlussschnörkel” which Anton E. Schönbach (“Ein altes Neidhartspiel,” ZDA, 40 [1896], [368–374], p. 368) claimed the scribe to have entered on fol. 166va.Eckehard Simon, “Shrovetidc Plays in Late-Medieval Switzerland: An Appraisal,” MLN, 85 (1970), 323–331. A more systematic examination of municipal archives will reveal, I am certain, that Shrovetide Plays – or to put it more cautiously, plays at Shrovetide — were staged in late-medieval Switzerland with some regularity.First published by W[ybe] Jappe Alberts, ed. De stadsrekeningen van Arnhem, Deel 2: 1377-1401, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, Teksten en Documenten, 8 (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff N.V., 1969), p. 295.See W[ybe] Jappe Alberts, ed. De stadsrekeningen van Arnhem, Deel 3: 1402–1420, Teksten en Documenten, 11 (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff N.V., 1971), p. 400.We know from other sources that as late as 1523, the Arnhem gesellen put on a play on Shrove Tuesday entitled Henrick die Wijlde (Neumann, cf. n. 2, p. 169).David Brett-Evans, Von Hrotsvit bis Folz und Gengenbach. Eine Geschichte des mittelalterlichen deutschen Dramas, pt. II, Grundlagen der Germanistik, 18 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1975), p. 132.See Eckehard Simon, “The Rustic Muse: Neidhartschwänke in Murals, Stone Carvings, and Woodcuts,” GR, 46 (1971), 243–256, esp. p. 243. It is also possible that the sandstone carvings of the Veilchenschwank affixed to the third-floor balustrade of the great staircase (“Große Wendelstein”) in the Albrechtsburg in Meißen (dated 1485) may have something to do with the staging of a Neidhart Play (as, perhaps the chorea nithardi murals of Dießenhofen [ca. 1310–1330] and Winterthur [ca. 1360–1380] in Switzerland did); see “The Rustic Muse,” pp. 247f. Erhard Jöst (Heidelberg) has now investigated the fourteen third-floor staircase tablets in Meißen more closely and has determined that twelve carvings (not just seven, as I suspected) depict motifs drawn from the Neidhartiana. Tablets 3 and 4 on the northwestern siele appear to show Engelmar in the act of stealing Friderun’s mirror (or a garland) (3) and a man with a wooden leg and a cane who may also be Engelmar (4); four of the five tablets (5–8) on the southwestern siele and tablets 10 and 11 of the southern side show diverse couples engaged in dancing; they are designed to accompany the famed discovery of the foul “Veilchen” depicted on tablets 12–14. See Erhart Jöst, Bauernfeindlichkeit. Die Historien des Ritters Neithart Fuchs, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 192 (Göppingen: Alfred Kümmerle, 1976), pp. 248–259 and pp. 341–343 (plates); this pain-stakingly researched Heidelberg dissertation contains a number of valuable new finelings on the chapbook Neidhart Fuchs and the pictorial tradition of the Neidhartiana.For full references, see Eckehard Simon, “Neidharte and Neidhartianer: Notes on the History of a Song Corpus,” BGDSL [Tübingen], 94 (1972), (153–197), p. 180. Hence it is likely, contrary to the hesitation voiced in this article, that the Neidharte songs also had a receptive audience in the Lowlands at this time.This would not hold, of course, if we were to assume that the Neidhart Plays were “created” more than once and in different localities such as the Lowlands, for one. While this strikes me as possible for the Shrovetide Plays, for which many and diverse local traditions exist, I consider this unlikely for the thematically rather uniform Neidhart Plays.The Tirolean manuscript containing the Große Neidhartspiel (Keller 53), sections of which the Augsburg merchant Claus Spaun incorporated into his comprehensive Shrovetide Play collection of 1494 (MS. G, Cod. Guelf. 18. 12. Aug. 40, Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel), was not compiled “during the first decades of the fifteenth century” as I reported (following Victor Michels’ dating) in 1969 (“The Staging,” p. 6). Upon examining the watermarks, Gerd Simon (1970, cf. n. 11, p. 110) determined that the Tirolean manuscript (also containing Keller 54, 56, 57, 125, 128) was not written until 1492/93.All five medieval Neidhart Plays. including the Kleine Neidhartspiel from Nürnberg which is clearly a Shrovetide Play, are currently being re-edited by John Margetts (Liverpool) for the series “Wiener Neudrucke” edited by Herbert Zeman. See also Marg etts’s recent arlicle, “Das Bauerntum in der Literatur und in der Wirklichkeit bei Neidhart und in den Neidhart-Spielen,” in Deutsche Literatur des späten Mittelalters. Hamburger Colloquium 1973, ed. Wolfgang Harms and L[eslie] Peter Johnson (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1975), 153–163.Konrad Gusinde, Neidhart mit dem Veilchen, Germanistische Abhandlungen, 17 (Breslau: M.&H. Marcus, 1899).Eckehard Catholy, Das Fastnachtspiel des Spätmittelalters. Gestalt und Funktion, Hermaea, Germanistische Forschungen, Neue Folge, 8 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1961), pp. 316–325.On this play, see my article “The Alemannic Herbst und Mai Play and Its Literary Background,” Monatshefte, 62 (1970), 217–230 in which I tried to show, among other things, that the Herbst und Mai Play must be considered an early Swiss Shrovetide Play.Anton Dörrer, “Neidhartspiel- Probleme,” Der Schlern, 24 (1950), (374–381), p. 377.See Heinrichs, Livländische Chronik, 2nd ed., ed. Leonid Arbusow and Albert Bauer, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum [31], in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae historicis separatim editi (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1955), p. 32. This is, of course, a renowned event in the history of the medieval stage cited in many handbooks.See Anton Dörrer, “Jahreszeitenspiele,” Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Karl Langosch and Wolfgang Stammler, vol. V (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1955), cols. 437–443.See Neumann (cf. n. 2), p. 169: Primo den ghesellen, dye spoelden van den wijnter ende somer, 18 quartas. In the accounting ledger, this item is attached to entries for the Shrovetide period of 1404.Aside from taking a close look at archival evidence on the beginnings of Shrovetide theater drawn from a whole range of towns (not just Nürnberg, Lübeck, and Tirolean municipalities), I am examining, in this study, the earliest play manuscripts available to us. I then delve into a detailed analysis of all extant play texts from the earliest period while making concerted attempts to re-appraise their sources and models. My aim is, of course, to try to solve — or to disarm, as the case may be — the thorny question of the “origin” (or to put it more soberly, the “beginnings”) of Shrovetide Plays and secular theater which has beset, vexed, and led astray a number of students of medieval German drama since the late 19th century.