Fear and Fascination: Late Medieval German Perceptions of the Turks Revisited 

Fear and Fascination:
Late Medieval German Perceptions of the Turks Revisited
Gerhard Jaritz (Krems and Budapest)
The Turks held an ambiguous place in the perceptions of late medieval
Christian Europe. 1 On the one hand, they were evaluated as ferocious enernies;
in rnilitary concems, in religion, in politics, and in some aspects of culture they
were seen as a continuous dangeraus menace, as brutes, unbelievers, or heathens.
All the existing stereotypes ofthe vices, ofbarbarianism and cruelty were
applied to characterize their malignity and wickedness. They had to be fought
and repulsed. Reports about their atrocities found the way into letters, travel ac-
1 See, e.g., Kate Fleet, „Jtalian Perceptions ofthe Turks i.n the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,“
Joumal of Mediterranean Studies, 5,2 (1995): 159-172; Mustafa Soykut, „The Development
of the Image ‚Turk‘ in Italy through Della Letteratura de · Turki of Giambattista
Dom!,“ Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 9,2 (1999): 175-203; Robert Schwoebel, The
Shadow of the Crescent. The Renasi sance Image of the Turk (Nieuwkoop: de Graaf, 1967);
Nancy Bisaha, „Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks,“ Diss. (Ithaca: Cornell
University, 1997); eadem, ‚“New Barbarian‘ or Worthy Adversary? Humanist Constructs
of the Ottoman Turks in Fifteenth-Century ltaly,“ in Western Views of Islam in Medieval
and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other, eds. David R. Blanks and Michael Frassetto
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1 999), 185-205; Yuksel Kocadoru, „Die Türken. Studien
zu ihrem Bild und seiner Geschichte in Österreich,“ Diss. (Klagenfurt: Universität für
Bildungswissenschaften, 1990); Hasso Pfeiler, „Das Türkenbild in den deutschen Chroniken
des 15. Jahrhunderts,“ Diss. (Frankfurt/Main, 1956); Cornelia Kleinlogel, Exotik Erotik.
Zur Geschichte des Türkenbildes in der deutschen Literatur der frühen Neuzeit
(1453-1800) (Frankfurt/Main, Bern, and New York: Lang, 1 989); Burhaneddin Kämil,
„Die Türken in der deutschen Literatur bis zum Barock und die Sultansgestalten in den
Türkendramen Lohensteins,“ Diss. (Kiel: Christian-Aibrechts-Universität, 1 935); Ehrenfried
Herrnann, „Türke und Osmaneureich in der Vorstellung der Zeitgenossen Luthers. Ein
Beitrag zur Untersuchung des deutschen Türkenschrifttums,“ Diss. (Freiburg!Breisgau,
1961); Suheyla Artemel, ‚“The Great Turk’s ParticuJar lnclination to Red Herri.ng:‘ The
Popular Image of the Turk duri.ng the Renaissance in England,“ Journal of Mediterranean
Swdies, 5,2 (1995): 1 88-206; Albert Mas, „Les Turcs dans Ia Iitterature documentaire en
Espagne avant le 16• siecle,“ in Hommage des hispanistes fran􀉴ais a Noel Salomon (Barcelona:
Laia, 1979), 563-577; Rossitsa Gradeva, „Turks and Bulgarians, Fourteenth to
Eighteenth Centuries,“ Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 5,2 (1995): 173-187; Kyril Petkov,
„Die ‚Orientalisierung‘ des Balkans in der deutschen Vorstellung des 15. und 16.
Jahrhunderts. Eine Untersuchung spätmittelalterlicher und frühneuzeitlicher Wahrnehmungsmuster
in Deutschland,“ Medium Aevum Quotidianum, 37 (1997): 40-57. Cf. Maurizio
Peleggi, „Shifting Alterity: The Mongoi in the Visual and Literary Culture of the Late
Middle Ages,“ The Medieval Hsi toryJoumal, 4,1 (2001): 15-33.
40
counts, chronicles, and other treatises. Fear was the major component in the
creation of this image of the Turks/ certainly influenced by their advance into
Europe from the fourteenth century onwards and through the fall of Constantinople
in 1453.3 In connection with this negative perception, we are sometimes
confronted with an ambiguity of outcry and intentional silence. The world
chronicle of Hartmann Sehedei (Nuremberg, 1493), for instance, tells and laments
in its chronological yarts extensively the threat and the deeds of the Turks
against Latin Christianity. In its geographical part about Turkey, it prefers to
stay silent. It refers only generally to the aforementioned negative Situations and
events, emphasizing that a repetition of the manifold outrages of the Turks was
not necessary and not useful, and would also be annoying for the reader (“ … so
ist im besten vermyden dieselben ding yetzund abermals an disem ende ze erwidern
und widerumb ze erzelen nach dem solche erwiderung nit allain nit
nützlich auch unnotdürftig und darzu den Iesern verdrießlich sein würde.“).5
On the other hand, certain Turkish qualities and objects were adopted,
used, created or irnitated by the Christian Europeans. Thereby, these objects and
attributes of (material) culture could receive positive connotations; they found
their way into the upper classes of Western society. Such model qualities and
objects emerged either from their exceptional design and highly esteemed material
value or from other effective attributes that were often negatively evaluated
when connected with the Turks themselves, but positively rated, when they became
qualities appertaining to the medieval Latin Christian world. They were
accepted, named or even created as objects or qualities of Turkish origin, or to
be connected with the Turks. Merchants and trade played an important role in
this development.6 The well-known universal phenomenon of difference that
arouses the fascination with the strange and foreign (‚Reiz des Fremden’1) may
be seen as a k:ind of background for the creation of popularity. Strangeness and
otherness caused interest and the exoticisrn of the orient contributed to this
situation.8 The Turks‘ negative image, their menace and the fear of them could
2 Cf. Fleet, „Italian Perceptions,“ 159.
3 Cf. . Agostino Pertusi, „Primi Studi in Occidente suli’Origine e Ia Potenza dei Turchi,“ Studi
Veneziani, 12 (1970): 465-552; idem, La Caduta di Constantinopoli, 2 vols. (Milan:
Fondazione Lorenzo VaUa, 1976).
4 Sehedeisehe Weltchronik, reprint of the German edition, Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493
(Grünwald bei München: Konrad Kölbl, 1975), passim.
s Ibidem, fol. cclxxiii.
6 Cf. Fleet, „Italian Perceptions,“ 169 f.
7 Cf. Ulrich Knefelkarnp, „Der Reiz des Fremden in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. Über
Neugier und Wissen europäischer Reisender,“ in Kommunikation und Alltag in Spätmittelalter
und früher Neuzeit, red. Helmut Hundsbichler (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1992), 293-321.
8 Concerning exotism, with special regard to its visual vocabulary, see Götz Pochat, Der Exotismus
während des Mittelalters und der Renaissance. Voraussetzung, Entwicklung und
Wandel eines bildnerischen Vokabulars (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1970).
41
not divert European Christians from this fascination, but sometimes even furtbered
it. Fear and fascination co-existed and were correlated.9
Out of such an ambiguous Situation, the terms ‚Turk‘ and ‚Turkish‘ that
occur in the late medieval European source evidence always have to be seen and
analyzed in their proper context to make it possible to decide if and when the
‚image of the Turk‘ was used in a negative sense or in a figurative positive respect.
Examples that originate mainly from sources of German-speaking Europe
will be used to show these ambiguities and ambivalences toward Turkey, the
Turks, and the quality ‚Turkish‘ in the Latin West from the thirteenth to the beginning
ofthe sixteenth century.
A particular aspect of interest in Turks was connected with war, war
equipment and its qualities, particularly horses and armament. The Turks were
identified with effective warfare, rnilitary menace, with fighting strength and
quick move. Therefore, Turkish war-horses as weil as Turkish arms signified
efficacy in battle. To possess, apply or construct parts of ‚Turkish‘ war equipment
and strategies could also mean to achieve strength and rnilitary success. As
early as the thirteenth century in Western literary and normative sources we are,
for instance, regularly confronted with the use ofthe quick and effective Turkish
horse, as ‚türkesch ors‘,10 ‚türke‘ 1 1 or the war-horse ‚thurkeman.’12 They also
appear in subsequent periods. In the ‚autobiographical‘ Theuerdank ( 1 5 17) of
Emperor Maxirnilian I, the hero uses a brown Turkish horse (‚brauner Türke‘)
for hunting. 13
Part of the military sphere were also the ‚turkopel,‘ light troops or archers,
and their chief, the ‚turkopelier,‘ who appear in Old French and in Latin sources,
9 Cf., generally, Ortfried Schäffler, ed., Das Fremde: Erfahrungsmöglichkeiten zwischen Fas10
zination und Bedrohung (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1991 ).
The „türkesch ors,“ is mentioned in the epic poem Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach
(c. 1250􀀅: Wolfram von Eschenbach, ed. Albert Leitzrnann, viertes Heft: Willehalm, Buch I
11 bis V, 5 ed. (Tübingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1963), p. (42), line 21 .
See, e.g., the Bavarian or Upper German heroic epic of Ortnil (c. 1230), st. 3 1 0 (a quick
Turkish horse: ‚Einen snellen türken der Lamparte twanc‘) and 312 [Arthur Amelung,
„Ortnit,“ in idem, Ortnil and Wolfdietrich, vol. 1 (Deutsches Heldenbuch, Ili) (Berlin,
1871; reprint Dublin and Zurich: Weidmann, 1968), 1-77; Wolfgang Dinkelacker, „Ortnit,“
in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh (Berlin and New
12 York: Walter de Gruyter, 1989), cols. 58-67).
The ‚thurkeman‘ is mentioned as war-horse in the statutes o f the Teutonic Order (c. 1250);
see Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens nach den ältesten Handschriften, ed. Max Perlbach
(Halle a. S., 1 890; reprint Hitdesheim and New York: Olms, 1975), 97 f.:“Von des maisters
bestien und sinem gesinde . … so man urlouge hat, sö sal er hän ein celdende pfert oder einen
thurkeman, …. “ [German version]; „De bestiis et farnilia rnagistri. Magister debet
habere … , insuper Iernpore guerre palafridurn vel turcornannurn … “ [Latin version]; „Li
13 maistres doit avoir … en tens de guerre palefroi ou turqueman, … (French version].
Teuerdank, ed. Kar! Goedeke (Leipzig, 1878; reprint Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1 978), 145
ff., chapter 6 1 .
42
were taken over into Middle High German, and are mentioned in the statutes of
the Teutonic Order (c. 1250) as auxiliaries ofthe Master during wartime. 14
The recurring ‚Turkish saddles‘ fit very well into such contexts, for instance
in the fictive autobiograph(s Frauendienst (c. 1255) by the Styrian rninnesinger
Ulrich von Liechtenstein, 5• They need not under any circumstances be
understood as originating from Turkey and may also be seen as objects of Turkish
type, function, or efficacy, but produced in Europe.16
The ‚Turkish sabres‘ that we find regularly in the inventories of late medieval
nobility rnight also present a sirnilar case. There, one rnight perhaps also
assume that they were booty from actual fights with the Turks. In any case, their
particularity and worthiness of note, i.e. their value and prestigious awesomeness,
are evident. 17 Such objects may have found their way into the ‚exotic‘ collections
that became part of the aristocratic or upper class Cabinets of Curiosities
(„Kunst- und Wunderkammern“) from the sixteenth century onwards.18 We
rnay also see the gifts that the artist Albrecht Dürer received during his journey
14 Die Statuten des Deutschen Ordens, 97 f. ‚Turkopel‘ = Old French ‚turcople,‘ Latin ‚turcopulus‘
(strictly ’son of a Turk‘): see Arvid Rosenqvist, Der französische Einfluss auf die
mittelhochdeutsche Sprache in der 2. Hälfte des XIV. Jahrhunderts (Helsinki: Societe NeoPhilologique,
1943), 598. Conceming the ‚turkopel‘ in the epic poetry ofthe same period,
see, e.g., Wolfram von Eschenbach, viertes Heft: Wilel halm, p. (185), line I; Wolfram von
Eschenbach, ed. Albert Leitzmann, fünftes Heft: Wilel halm, Buch VI bis IX, 51h ed. {Tü15
bingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1963), pp. (304), 1ine 26, (350), line 27.
1t mentions fifty splendid and quick horses, each ofit equipped with a ‚Turkish saddle‘:
… den zoch man fiinfzec (louffer) vor,
die waren schoen und snel genuoc,
der ieslicher uf im truoc
ein turksen satel veste gar …
[Uirich von Liechtenstein, Frauendienst, ed. Franz Viktor Spechtler {Göppingen: Kürn16
merle Verlag, 1987), 162, st. 801). In the newest Iranslaiion this saddle is translated as a saddle ofTurkish type:
… vor ihnen zog man fünfzig Pferd,
die waren prächtig und auch schnell,
ein jedes einen Sattel trug
nach türkischer Art ganz wunderbar …
[Ulrich von Liechtenstein, Frauendienst, transl. by Franz Viktor Spechtler {Klagenfurt:
Wieser Verlag, 2000), 270, st. 801).. Cf. Hugo Suolahti, Der französische Einfluss auf die
deutsche Sprache im dreizehnten Jahrhundert (Helsinki: Societe Neo-Philologique, 1933),
17 171.
See, e. g , the inventory of the /andesfiirstlichen Amtshaus (1485) in the South Tyrolean
town of Bozen (Bolzano) !hat contains a ‚Turkish sabre‘ in a ehest in the room ofhis lordship.
In the Tyrolean castle ofHörtenberg (1489), the inventory mentions a number of arms
in the upper chambre, and among them on first place a Turkish sabre [Mittelalterliche Inventare
aus Tirol und Vorar/berg, ed. Oswald v. Zingerle (Innsbruck: Verlag der Wag18
ner’schen Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1909), 9 and 37). Cf., generally, Oliver Impey and Artbur MacGregor, eds., The Origins of Museums: The
Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1985).
43
to the Netherlands ( 1 520/2 1 ) in this regard. For instance, from one ofhis hosts at
Antwerp he got „an Indian nut and an old Turkish whip.“19
Being named or called ‚Turk‘ or ‚Turkish‘ could also be connected with
other connotations and a positive perception of necessary and effective
dangerousness and ferocity. The occurrence of the dog name ‚Türgk‘, whose
first known mention in the German-speaking area dates from 1 504 in sources
from Zurich (Switzerland), becomes understandable in this context.20 The name
evidently mediates the animal’s function as an efficient and frightening watchdog.
Beside the popular ‚Turkish‘ objects that were linked in various senses
with strength, cruelty, or efficacy in war, there is also another group of things
that occur quite regularly in context with Turkey and the Turks. These were often
precious and prestigious objects of fashion, mainly textile products, which
played an important roJe in the Iifestyle of the upper classes of Western society
from the Middle Ages onwards, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The inventory of the Camiolian castle Seissenberg (today Zuzemberk/
Slovenia) that was drawn up after the death of its noble owner Wolf Engelpert
Auersperg in the year 1 558 mentions 1 6 8 objects that the writer explicitly
called ‚Turkish. ’21 More than half of them were textiles: blankets, carpets,
belts, silk, golden cloth, etc. The other objects included the popular saddles and
sabres; moreover hamess, tents, Ieather bags, a pipe, and a gilded jug. Such a
rich ‚Turkish inventory‘ shows the important roJe of Turkish fashion in the upper
classes of an area that was directly confronted with the rnilitary threat from
the Turks. Menace and fascination took place at the same time.
By the fifteenth century and even earlier, this admiration of such prestigiaus
‚Turkish products‘ can be demonstrated in areas of confrontation as weil as
in regions far away from any direct conflict.22 A good French example for the
19
Albrecht Dürer, Tagebücher und Briefe (Munich and Vienna: Langen-Müller, 1969), 42:
20 „Mein Wirt schenkte mir eine indianische Nuß und eine alte türkische Geißel.“
Hans Wanner, “Hundenamen aus dem Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts,“ in Beiträge zur
Sprachwissenschaft und Volkskunde. Festschrift for Ernst Ochs zum 60. Geburtstag, ed.
Kar! Friedrich Müller (Lahr/Schwarzwald: Moritz Schauenburg Verlagsbuchhandlung,
1961), 220; Der Glückshafenrodel des Freischiessens zu Zürich 1504, ed. Friedrich Hegi
(Zürich: Schulthess, 1 942), 188. The watch-dogs ‚Türk‘ occur also later, particularly in
nineteenth-century German literature; see Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch,
vol. 22, reprint ofthe edition Leipzig, 1 952 (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag,
21 1984), cols. 1852 f.
For this and the following, see Maijan Matj􀄬ic, „Orientalische Waren und deren Bedeutung
für den Handel und die Wohnkultur in Krain,“ in Begegnung zwischen Orient und Ok22
zident, ed. Boris Miocinovic (Ptuj: Landesmuseum Ptuj, 1992), 60-63.
Cf. Götz Pochat, Das Fremde im Mittelalter. Darstellung in Kunst und Literatur (Würzburg:
Echter, 1997), 1 1 9. Markus Köhbach, „Imperium terribilis et admirabilis – die osmanische
Expansion und Europa,“ in Begegnung zwischen Orient und Okzident, ed. Boris
Miocinovic (Ptuj : Landesmuseum Ptuj, 1992), 15-19 emphasizes that the fear of the Turks
was replaced by a fascination oftheir culture’s exotism at the end ofthe seventeenth and in
the eighteenth century after the decisive successes against the Osmans. This statement has
44
latter case is the 1 4 7 1 inventory of the castle of Angers belonging to King Rene
of Naples, Duke of Anjou, Bar, and Lorraine. A large quantity of decorations
and furnishings of the castle is mentioned as being ‚Turkish‘ or ‚a Ia faczon de
Turquie. ’23
The value of ‚Turkish objects‘ was relevant also in the ruling Habsburg
family. In 1455, King Ladislas demanded from his guardian, emperor Frederick
III, the restitution of a Turkish carpet (‚türkisch tebich‘)?4 – Such interest in
Turkish carpets can be seen in the who1e ofthe Latin West:25 in 1 398 duke Louis
of Orleans bought twe1ve carpets from Turkey; the 1 4 1 6 inventory of the Duc de
Berry mentions two Turkish carpets; by the end of the fourteenth century Turkish
carpet merchants are said to have offered their products in front of the St.
Donatus church in Bruges.
Members of the nobility as weil as other important upper class members
of society were fond of Turkish fashions. For instance, the account books of the
Lower Austrian noble family of the Puchheimers for 1456 note a ‚brown Turkish
gown with fur lining. ’26 While in Antwerp during his journey to the Netherlands
in 1 520/21 , the famous Albrecht Dürer received another present: this time
a printed golden Turkish fabric.27 More examples could be given.
As in the case of warfare, weaponry, and horses, this evidence from the
fourteenth to the sixteenth century has its literary forerunners. mainly in the
prose and poetry of the thirteenth century, where precious fabrics and dress were
often connected with the Turks.
to be modified in a way that also in the periods before – in the ‚time of fear‘ – the Turkish
(material) culture exerted important influence and fascination on the West. Conceming the
Baroque ‚fashion of exotism‘ and the important roJe of the Turks in this context, see Maria
Elisabeth Pape, „Turquerie im 18. Jahrhundert und der ‚Recueil Ferriol‘,“ in Europa und
der Orient, 800-1900, catalogue of the exhibition, ed. Gereon Sievemich and Hendrik
Budde (Berlin: Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, 1989), 305-307.
23 Victor Gay, Glossaire Archeo1ogique du Moyen Age et de Ia Renaissance, vol. 2 (Paris:
Editions Auguste Picard, 1928), 435.
24 Harry Kühne!, „Die materielle Kultur Wiens im Mittelalter,“ in Wien im Mittelalter. 41.
Sonderausstellung des Historischen Museunrs der Stadt Wien (Wien: Museen der Stadt
Wien, 1975), 35. Conceming the ear1y Turkish carpet, see Kurt Erdmann, Die Geschichte
des früheil türkisehell Teppichs (London: Oguz Press, 1977).
25 For the following, see Erdmann, Geschichte des frühen türkischen Teppichs, 63 f. Cf. Richard
Ettinghausen, „Der Einfluß der angewandten Künste und der Malerei des Islam auf
die Künste Europas,“ in Europa und der Orient, 800-1900, catalogue ofthe exhibition, eds.
Gereon Sievemich and Hendrik Budde {Berlin: Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, 1989), 176-
181.
26 Helmut Hundsbichler, Gerhard Jaritz, and Elisabeth Vavra, „Tradition? Stagnation? Innovation?
– Die Bedeutung des Adels fiir die Entwicklung spätmittelalterlicher Sachkultur,“
in Adelige Sachkultur des Spätmittelalters. lllfematiollaler Ko11gress, Krems an der Donau,
22. bis 25. September 1980 (Vie1ma: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1982), 43. Conceming the adoption of Ottoman fashion in Western Art, cf. Juli an
Raby, Ve11ice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode (London: lslamic Art Publications, 1 982), esp.
21-34.
27 Dürer, Tagebücher und Briefe, 65.
45
In his Divine Comedy (c. 1 308-20), Dante Alighieri refers to the art and
design of oriental fabric to describe the body of the monster Geryon. The Turks
are used as an explicit model in the art of textile quality and design:28 „Turks
and Tartars never made a fabric with richer colours intricately woven.“ Such
exceptional quality or its perception in the West is also to be found in the various
precious ‚Turkish‘ textiles mentioned particularly in thirteenth-century
German literature.
The term ‚türkis (turkis)‘ does not only designate the gern turquoise, certainly
connected to Turkey and the Turks, that occurs regularly in different
variations, particularly in medieval German epic Iiterature (as ‚turchin,‘ ‚türke!,‘
‚turkoys,‘ ‚türkis,‘ etc.).29 It also could mean the precious (golden or red) fabric
‚turkis‘ that was meant for prestigious pieces of dress or was explicitly used for
‚Turkish Iaces‘ (‚Turckes porten;‘ ‚parten von turkis‘).30 At the beginning of the
14th century, epic poetry confronts us once – in the Wilhelm von Österreich by
Johann von Würzburg ( 1 3 1 4) – with the extraordinary fabric ‚türkander,‘ said to
be of such an intense black that all other blacks were poor in comparison.31 The
connection of this terrn with the Turks is not certain, but may be assumed.32
Generally, a ‚Turkish‘ textile turns out to have been a precious and prestigious
piece.
* * *
The late medieval perception ofthe quality ‚Turkish‘ has to be understood
as ambiguous and ambivalent. The most negative image could in another context
become a positive judgement of efficacy or preciousness. Sometimes both negative
and positive evaluations referred to the same general phenomenon, but with
changed roles. Warfare, battle equipment, and the horses ofthe Turks were dangerous,
frightful and devastating. If Christian Europeans were able to assume
such Turkish qualities, objects, and models of military efficacy and to act themselves
in the Turkish way, they also could become frightening and successful.
28
Dante, The Divine Comedy, vol. I : Infenzo, transl. Mark Musa (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1984), 224 (canto XVII). Cf. Peleggi, „Shifting A!terity,“ 25.
29 See Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, vol. 22, cols. 1 854, 1856, 1 862 fT.
30 See, e.g., Heinrichs von Neustadt ,Apollonius von Tyrland‘ nach der Gothaer Handschrift,
ed. S. Singer (Berlin: Weidmannsehe Buchhandlung, 1906), vv. 4149 f.: ‚parten güt von
turkis, 16344 f.: ‚er trug an im so reiche klaid von samit und von turkis rot‘ [ms. A], 19338
ff.: ‚Sy wurcket plia und samit, Turckes porten und capit, da claidt er dann sein ritter mit;‘
19877 f.: ‚es war ein tilch von golde gar, es war von turkisz pracht dar … ‚
31 ‚ • • • ain türkander, daz ist ain swartzes lachen, daz alliu swertze swachen muoz bi siner
swertz. ‚ (Arvid Rosenqvist, Der französische Einfluss auf die mittelhochdeutsche Sprache
in der ersten Hälfte des XIV. Jahrhunderts (Helsinki : Societe Neo-Philologique, 1932), 244
f.; Johanns von Würzburg „Wilhelm von Österreich. “ Aus der Gothaer Handschrift, ed.
Ernst Regel (Berlin, 1906; reprint Dublin and Zurich: Weidmann, 1 970)].
32 Rosenqvist, Der französische Einfluss auf die mittelhochdeutsche Sprache in der ersten
Hälfte des XIV. Jahrhunderts, 245.
46
The prestigious Turkish objects of Iifestyle and fashion appreciated by Western
upper classes have to be seen in the broader context of the generat phenomenon
of the fascination with the orient that can be demonstrated in various respects
during the whole of the Middle Ages.
The late medieval possibilities and contexts for the creation of images of
the Turks and of the quality ‚Turkish‘ were manifold. Historical studies on perception
of the Other always have to be aware of such pattems and varieties of
ambivalence.
47
MEDIUM AEVUM
QUOTIDIANUM
46
KREMS 2002
HERAUSGEGEBEN
VON GERHARD JARITZ
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG DERKULTURABTEILUNG
DES AMTES DER NIEDERÖSTERREICHISCHEN LANDESREGIERUNG
niederösterreich kultur
Titelgraphik Stephan J. Tramer
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der
materiellen Kultur des Mittelalters (http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/magQ, Körnermarkt
13, A- 3500 Krems, Österreich. Für den Inhalt verantwortlich zeichnen
die Autoren, ohne deren ausdrückliche Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdruck,
auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist. -Druck: Grafisches Zentrum an der Technischen
Universität Wien, Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, 1040 Wien.
Inhalt
Vorwort . . . . . . . . . ………………………………………….. ………………………………………….. 5
Peter Szab6, Medieval Trees and Modem Ecology:
How to Handle Written Sources …………………. ………………………………. . . .. 7
Kresimir KuZi.c, The Carving ofthe Solar Eclipse
on a Medieval Croatian Tombstone . . ………… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 26
Alexandr B. Tschemiak, Der Fuchsschwanz.
Einige Bemerkungen zum Schulgedicht
Videant qui nutriunt natos delicate ………………………………………………… 34
Gerhard Jaritz, Fear and Fascination:
Late Medieval German Perceptions ofthe Turks Revisited ……. . . . . …….. 40
Rezensionen ………………………………………………………………… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 48
Anschriften der Autoren und Rezensenten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …………………………………… 62
Vorwort
Das vorliegende Heft von Medium Aevum Quotidianum widmet sich sehr unterschiedlichen
Zugängen zu einer Geschichte des Alltags und der materiellen
Kultur des Mittelalters, welche neuerlich den interdisziplinären Charakter des
Forschungsfeldes deutlich machen sollen. Peter Szab6 (Budapest) vertritt einen
umweltgeschichtlichen Ansatz zur Analyse von ungarischen perambulationes
und der in ihnen auftretenden Verwendung und Beschreibung von Landschaftselementen.
Kresimir Kuzic (Zagreb) beschäftigt sich mit astronomischen Erklärungsmodellen
von Gestirnkonstellationen auf einem kroatischen Grabstein.
Alexandr B. Tscherniak (Sankt Petersburg) bietet in einer Iiteratur- und sprachhistorischen
Analyse den Deutungsversuch des spätmittelalterlichen ,,Fuchsschwanzes“.
In einem Beitrag zum Türkenbild des Spätmittelalters in der
schriftlichen Überlieferung werden unterschiedliche Konnotationsmuster in den
Beurteilungen festgestellt. Alle vier Beiträge konzentrieren sich direkt oder indirekt
stark auf verschiedene Varianten von Kontextualisierung, deren Berücksichtigung
sich in der modernen alltagsgeschichtlichen Forschung des Mittelalters
und der frühen Neuzeit als unerlässlich erweist.
Die nächsten beiden Hefte unserer Reihe werden im Frühling bzw. Frühsommer
2003 als Sonderbände herausgegeben werden. Sonderband XIIIlXIV
wird eine neue Auswahlbibliographie zu Alltag und materieller Kultur des Mittelalters
bieten. Seit Erscheinen der letzten derartigen Publikation in Medium
Aevum Quotidianum-Newsletter 7/8 (1986) sind doch viele neue wissenschaftliche
Veröffentlichungen aus unserem Interessensbereich erschienen, und eine
Neuherausgabe ist damit notwendig geworden. Sonderband XV wird Untersuchungen
beinhalten, die unter der Leitung bzw. Herausgeberschaft von Aaron J.
Gurjewitsch von der russischen Forschung in Bezug auf die Analyse von Bildquellen
für die Kultur-, Alltags- und Mentalitätsgeschichte des Mittelalters vorgelegt
wurden. -Darüber hinaus befinden sich weitere Hefte in Planung, welche
wieder alltagshistorische Beiträge beinhalten sollen, die bei den Internationalen
Mittelalter-Kongressen in Kalamazoo und Leeds im Jahre 2003 vorgetragen
werden.
Für die Jahre 2004/2005 sind zwei weitere Themenhefte geplant, welche
sich interdisziplinär, überregional und komparativ mit den Problemkreisen von
,,Mittelalterlicher Alltag und das Phänomen der Verkehrten Welt“ bzw. mit
,,Mittelalterlichen Bewertungsstrategien von materieller Kultur“ auseinandersetzen
sollen. Alle Mitglieder und Freunde von Medium Aevum Quotidianum sind
5
sehr herzlich eingeladen, an diesen Bänden aktiv mitzuarbeiten und uns bei
diesbezüglichem Interesse so bald wie möglich darauf bezogene Themenvorschläge
zu übermitteln.
6
Gerhard Jaritz
Herausgeber
(gerhard.jaritz@oeaw.ac.at)