Travel, Orality, and the Literary Discourse: Travels in the Past and Literary Travels at the Crossroad of the Oral and the Literary

Travel, Orality, and the Literary Discourse:
Travels in the Past and Literary Travels
at the Crossroad of the Oral and the Literary
Albrecht Classen
I. Theoretical Implications
The scholarly debate concerning the relationship between orality and literacy
in the Middle Ages has still not resulted in a satisfactory situation, and the
critical evaluation of either form of cornmunication continues to puzzle medievalists.
1 Despite a virtual flood of critical studies on this topic, the question at stake
poses highly thorny issues escaping easy answers. Scholars such as Paul Zumthor
have energetically argued that originally all literary texts at least until the fourteenth
century were by and !arge performed orally, whereas the written documents
were the products of later times.2 Others, such as D. H. Green, have suggested that
all medieval texts were located at a crossroad between listening and reading.3 The
whole debate depends, of course, on the individual genres, on the specific readership,
and the historical development of the relationship between individuals and
audience, not to forget the specific situation in individual countries, cities, monasteries,
at courts, and even at universities.4 The investigation always would have to
1 Franz H. Bäum!, „Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and llliteracy,“ Speculum
55 ( 1 980), pp. 237-265; Kommunikation und Allrag in Spätmittelalter undfrüher Neuzeit: Internationaler
Kongreß. Krems an der Donau. 9.-12. Oklober 1990, ed. H. Hundsbichler (Vienna:
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1992); Communicalie in de Middeleeuwen:
Studies over de verschrijielijking van de middeleeuwse cultuur, ed. Marco Mostert (Hilversum:
Verloren, 1 995); Wemer Röcke, Ursula Schaefer, eds., Mündlichkeil – Schrifi/ichkeit Weltbildwandel.
Literarische Kommunikation und Deucungsschemata von Wirklichkeit in der
Literatur des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (Tübingen: Narr, 1 996).
2 Paul Zumthor, La Ieiire et Ia voix. De Ia „litterature“ medievale (Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1987), p. 214: „Tout texte medievale est „oralisant“.“ See also Edward R. Haymes and Susann
T. Samples, Heroie Legends ofthe North.An Introduc/ion 10 the Nibelung and Dietrich Cycles
(New York-London: Garland, 1996), p. 14; Edward R. Haymes, Das Nibelungenlied.
Geschichte und Interpretation (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1 999), chapter 3, especially pp. 45 f.,
where he concedes a combination of orality and writing at least in the efforts of recording the
text for posterity since 1 200.
3 D. H. Green, Medieval Listening and Reading. The Primaty Reception of German Literature
800-1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 994). _
4 Sylvia Huot, From Song to Book: The Poetics of Writing in Old French Lyric and Lyrical Narracive
Poetry (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1987), pp. 2, 3; see also Michael Camille,
2 1 8 ALBRECHT CLASSEN
take into account the tension between Latin as the language of the elite – from
early on used in writing – and the individual vemaculars which found their way
into literacy only in the course of time, particularly since the thirteenth century.5
We may certainly assume that oral presentations, especially at the courts, dominated
throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, whereas chroniclers, legal authors,
and philosophers, for example, but also clerical writers resorted to writing (in
Latin) as the only reliable record for their purposes. In this sense the medieval
book or the manuscript can be identified as the major emblem of an entire culture,
at least as far as the leamed culture is concemed, whereas courtly and heroic Iiterature
seems to have been presented orally in the first place.6
According to Patrick Geary, the major tuming point in the historical development
of writing and the creation ofwritten documents might have been the eleventh
century,7 which also agrees with Brian Stock’s observation that during that
time clerical communities emerged working together on book projects and on the
preservation of theological, philosophical, and also literary texts in written form. 8
The victory of literacy seems to have been a triumphant one, as many extraordinary
examples of medieval manuscripts such as the Luttrell Psalter or the Manessische
Liederhandschrift, both produced sometime in the early fourteenth century,
illustrate, as here the writing process has led to the creation of outstanding art
works of literary and, respectively, theological nature accompanied by a dazzling
program of full-sized or astounding marginal drawings.9 A vast number of similarly
illustrated manuscripts, but also of fairly plain manuscripts from the eleventh
and twelfth centuries confirm the growing interest in the written word to the detri-
„The Book of Signs: Writing and Visual Difference in Gothic Manuscript Illumination,“ in
Ward and Image 1-2 ( 1 985), pp. 133-148; Jack Goody, The Interface Between the Written and
the Oral (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Harvey Graff, The
Labyrinths of Literacy: Reflections on Literac;, Past and Present CLondon and Philadelphia:
Falmer Press, 1987); a good summary is provided by Jesse M. Gellrich, Discourse and Dominion
in the Fourteenth Century. Oral Contexts of Writing in Philosophy, Politics, and Poeny
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
5 See, for instance, Walter J. Ong, Orality and Lileracy. The Technologizing ofthe Word (London
and New York: Methuen, 1982); for a theoretical point of view, see Michael Silverstein
and Greg Urban, Narural Histories of Discourse (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1996); Ana Maria Postigo de de Bcdia, De lo dicho a lo escrito (San Salvador de Jujuy: Universidad
Nacional de Jujuy, Secretaria de Ciencia y Tecnica y Estudios Regionales, 1996).
6 The Book and the Magie of Reading, ed. Albrecht Classen (New York and London: Garland,
1999); Maria Selig, „Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkcit im Bereich der trobadoresken Lieddichtung;
· in Röcke, Schaefer, eds., Mllndlichkeit, pp. 9-37; Juliann Vitullo, The Chivalric
Epic in Medieval ltaly (Gainesville et al.: University Press of Florida, 2000), pp. 93-99.
7 Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First
Millennium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
8 Brian Stock, The lmplications
“
of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in
the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).
9 Codex Manesse. Die Miniaturen der Großen Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, eds. Ingo F.
Wallher and Gise1a Siebeet (Frankfurt/Main: Insel, 1989); Janet Backhouse, Medieval Rural
Life in the Luttrell Psalter (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2000).
TRA VEL, ÜRALITY, AND THE LITERARY DISCOURSE 219
ment of orality. In other words, the vast number of medieval manuscripts at first
might indicate the preponderance of literacy over orality, and it appears to be
highly tempting to project modern conditions back on to the past, inviting us to
commit a major anachronistic fa llacy because of the continued relevance of oral
culture. Paul Saenger, fo r instance, argues that silent reading became the primary
mode of reading in the late Middle Ages, but that its fo undation was already established
in the seventh century: „The visual mode of lay reading led authors to enrich
vernacular texts with scholastic complexities that had hitherto been the restricted
province of Latin literature .“10 His fo cus, however, rests on scholarly (scientific)
and clerical Iiterature and does not take into account the rather contradictory evidence
of secular literature.
As Michael Clanchy has recently pointed out, „The monks and artists who
made the earliest illuminated manuscripts, tagether with the kings and aristocratic
patrons who supported them, valued writing primarily for its religious power.“11
Nevertheless, as time progressed, on one Ievel literary communication gained in
relevance, and when we turn to the late Middle Ages orality as the major means of
transferring information appears to have been definitely replaced by the written,
then also printed document. 12 This observation, however, needs to be critically examined,
as significant literary examples imply that in some cases and under specific
circumstances the opposite can be confirmed. Despite the manuscripts, and
the many illustrations of scribes writing down texts, of poets dictating their songs
to an other person who busily copies them down on parchrnent, and despite the supreme
influence of the monastic culture on everyday life far into the late Middle
Ages, orality continued to be the major mode of communication, both in pragmatic
and literary terms. We can even go one step further. Depending on the literary
genre and the author’s purposes, orality maintained, as I will argue in this paper, a
considerable role far into the early modern age and entered into a fascinating interplay
with literacy even at a time when the printing press had gained full acceptance
and was highly instrumental in transforrning an entire culture. 13
Currently the intriguing questions regarding communication in premodern
times no Ionger refer to an either-other situation, but instead to when, how, how
much, and by whom these fo rms of written and oral communication and performance
took place. 14 The debate also would gain solid ground if the issue would be
10 Paul Saenger, Sp ace Between Words. The Origins of Si len/ Reading (Stanford : Stanford University
Press, 1997), p. 273.
11 Michael Clanchy, „Introduction,“ in New Approaches lo Medie val Communication, ed. Marco
Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 3-13, here II.
12 For the situation in England, see Michael Clanchy, From Memory to Wr itten Record: England
1066-1307 (Carnbridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979); consult also Horst Wenzel,
Hören und Sehen, Schrift und Bild: Kultur und Gedächtnis im Mittelalter (Munich: Beck,
1995).
13 Ronald J. Deibert, Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order
Tra nsformation (New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press, 1997), chapters 3 and
4.
14 For a bibliography of the relevant scholarship, see New Approaches to Medie val Com220
ALBRECHT CLASSEN
seen in terms of a process of progressive literacy from the early to the late Middle
Ages, as has recently been suggested by Christa Bertelsmeier-Kirst who evaluated
the situation in the history of German literature.1s Historically, however, the two
„seemingly mutually exclusive and sequential epistemes [orality and textuality]“
have regularly been the battleground of major philosophical approaches, as the interconnectedness
„has been resisted (Augustine ), negativized (Piato ), deplored
(Levi-Strauss), elided (Derrida).“ Nevertheless, the fundamental and always present
interface continues to be an essential phenomenon difficult to fathom. 16 Critical
analyses of medieval manuscripts have also unearthed that there was a considerable
instability of the texts as the narratives, lyric poetry, and even scholarly treatises
were obviously handed dovm both orally and in written form, allowing later
copyists to edit the texts or to choose on their own what text version – of oral or
literary nature – seemed to be superior for their own purposes. 17 Voice and text,
orality and literacy thus appear to be not radical opposites during the Middle Ages
– not even during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – but rather as complimentary
factors determining medieval culture to a !arge extent.18 Many Iate-rnedieval
texts such as Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyda and the anonymous Till Eulenspiegel
illustrate the great rote played by the messenger, the Ietter and its oral delivery, and
also the oral discourse incorporated in the literary framework. The oral medium
was different from the written, but the reliability and concreteness of the messages
munication, ed. Marco Mostert, 1999; for a discussion of the orality versus literacy theme in
the history of German literature, see Haiko Wandholf, Der epische Blick. Eine mediengeschichtliche
Studie zur höfischen Literatur (Berlin: Schmidt, 1996).
15 Christa Bertelsmeier-Kierst, „Aufbruch in die Schriftlichkeit. Zur volkssprachlichen Überlieferung
im 12. Jahrhtmdert,“ in Aspekte des 12. Jahrhunderts. Freisinger Kolloquium 1998, ed.
Wolfgang Haubrichs, Eckart C. Lutz, and Giseta Vollmarm-Profe (Berlin: Schmidt, 2000), pp.
157-174.
16 A. N. Doane, „Introduction,“ in Vox intexta. Orality and Textua/iry in the Middle Ages, ed. A.
N. Doane and Carol Braun Pastemack (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1991),
pp. xi-xiv, here xii.
17 For a pragmatic example conceming Middle High German courtly Iove poetry, see Hubert
Heinen, ed., Mutabilität im Minnesang. Mehrfach uberlieferte Lieder des 12. und frühen 13.
Jahrhunderts (Göppingen: Kümmerte, 1989); for a discussion of the notion of „mouvance,“
sec Paul Zumthor, Essai de poetique medievale (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1972); idem, Jntroduction..il
Ia poesie orale (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1983); recently Joachim Bumke, Die vier
Fassungen der „Nibelungenklage. “ Untersuchungen zur Uberlieferungsgeschichre und
Textkritik der höfischen Epik im 13. Jahrhundert (Berlin-New York: de Gruyter, 1996), pp.
60-68, has rcexamined this issue with regard to the German epic tradition.
18 Paul Zumthor, La poesie et Ia voix dans Ia civilisation medievale (Paris: Presses universitaires
de France, 1984); Jeffrey Kittay, „Utterance Unmoored: The Changing Interpretation of the
Act of Writing in the European Middle Ages,“ Language in Sociery, 1 7 (1986), pp. 209-30;
see also the wide ranging contributions to this topic in ·,Aufführung ‚ und ‚Schrift‘ in Mittelalter
und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Jan-Dirk Müller (Stuttgart- Weimar: Metzler, 1996); for further
bibliographicaJ refercnces, see M. Mostert, ed., New Approaches, pp. 197-199; for a criticaJ
discussion of literacy, see Harvey J. Graff, The Labyrinth of Literacy. Rejlections on Literacy
Past and Present (London, New Y ork, and Philadelphia: The Falmer Press, 1987).
TRAVEL, ÜRALITY, AND THE LITERARY DISCOURSE 221
conveyed were more or less the same. 19
ß. Travel and Orality
To explore this issue further, to gain a solid grasp of this subtle but significant
interaction of the oral and the written, and also in order to identify the oral
element within the written medium, and vice versa, following I will examine a selection
of literary texts from the later Middle Ages where the narrative account is
situated in the framework of a travel, hence where the literary discourse i s predicated
on an oral exchange of tales, yet also proves to be the result of a writing process.
Boccaccio’s Decameron, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Jörg Wickram’s
Rollwagenbüchlein, and Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron will provide
us with the crucial evidence to come to terms with the issue, or at least to unearth
the dialectic relationship between both spheres. 20
Medieval travel Iiterature and actual travel experiences have been the topic
of much debate and scholarly investigation in recent years, as travel narratives provide
profound insight in mental concepts and attitudes with regards to other
worlds, foreigners, and alien cultures.21 Neither Boccaccio’s Decameron nor Marguerite’s
Heptameron represent travel experiences in the narrow sense of the word,
but both tim es the narrative framework is predicated upon the idea of the protagonist’s
transfer from one place to the other, both times initiated by severe extemal
conditions, once the Black Death, once a natural catastrophe. Likewise, neither in
the Canterbury Tales nor in the Rollwagenbüchlein are we fully confronted with a
travel experience per se, as the narratives, such as in Chaucer’s text, are framed by
the concept of a pilgrimage, a spiritual quest carried out in concrete physical terms.
And in the second case the narrator emphasizes that he offers his tales as a means
to chase away the boredom which arises during travel, meaning that he does not
irrtend to make the travel as such to his primary theme. Nevertheless, in all four
19 Jack Goody, The Interface Between the Written and the Oral. (Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1987); Harvey J. Graff. The Legacies of Literacy: Conlinuities
and Contradictions in Wesrem Culture and Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1987); idem, The Labyrinths of Literacy: Rejlections on Lileracy Pas/ and Present (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995); Jacques Merceron, Le message et safiction. La communicalion
par messager dans Ia liflerature fran{:aise des Xlle et X/1/e siecles (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1 998), pp. 85 ff.
20 Michael Richter, The Formation ofthe Medieval Wes!. Studies in the Oral Culture ofthe Barbarians
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), pp. 262f., points out the need to expand the research
of oral cultures from the early to the late Middle Ages.
2 1 See, for example, Reisen und Reiseliteratur im Mitleialter und in der Frühen Neuzeit, eds.
Xenja von Ertzdorff and Dieter Neukirc􀎿 (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1 992);
Diesseits- und Jenseitsreisen im Mittelalter, ed. Wolf-Dieter Lange (Bonn and Berlin: Bouvier,
1 992); Norbert Ohler, The Medieval Trave/er. Trans. from the German (Woodbridge:
Boydell, 1989); Arthur Percival Newton, Trave/ and Trave//ers of the Middle Ages (London
and New York: Routledge, 1 996; rpt. of the 1926 ed.); Wilhelm Baum, Die Verwandlung des
Mythos vom Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes. Rom, Byzanz und die Christen des Orients im
Mittelalter (Klagenfurt: Kitab, 1999).
222 ALBRECHT CLASSEN
texts we are confronted with a narrator who interacts with us as his/her audience
and indicates through his/her account how the protagonists carry out oral communication
determined by a travel experience.
The aim of my paper is not to study these texts in order to gain a new understanding
o f the poets‘ overall messages, but instead I want to analyze some critical
passages which specifically document orality and literacy which involve both us as
the audience and the protagonists, both the narrator and his or her historical audience.
In this sense I intend to suggest that Iate-rnedieval travel Iiterature in the
wider sense of the word represents a significant medium to explore the interrelationship
between orality and textuality, while at the same time it reflects the phenomenon
of“the other“ and one selfs inability to fend offthe foreigner.
Most medieval literary texts contain indications of a narrator who addresses
his or her audience, but in the late Middle Ages the peculiar arrangement of narrative
accounts for the stated purpose of providing entertaining, to help pass the long
time, and to overcome boredom seem to be a significant innovation. My choice of
texts deliberately relies on an interdisciplinary approach so as to gain a broader
perspective that might reveal the characteristic features of oral and literary communication
at a time of cultural transition.
ID. Boccaccio’s Decamerone
In his foreword to the Decameron (ca. 1350), Boccaccio points out how
much he hirnself was comforted „by the pleasant talk and consolation of a
friend.“22 He reflects upon his Iove pain and allows us a short glimpse into his soul
by these confessions, but he also reveals how much he considers his presentation
of tales as an oral performance. This is also confirmed by the entire narrative
structure insofar as here individual protagonists teil a tale to the company of
friends.23 Although the written record made the Decameron available to us, the
author relies on orality as the key feature for all his tales. Melancholy resulting
from the unhappy development of a Iove affair can be soothed and alleviated by
means of listening to pleasant stories: „driven away by new discourse“ (26), which
already finds its confirmation in Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan (ca. 1 2 10)
where the author informs us in his prologue: „the noble Lover loves love-tales.“24
Boccaccio the narrator underscores his rote by pointing out: „I intend to relate one
hundred tales or fahles or parables or stories,“ and he alerts us to the fact that these
in turn „were told in ten days by a band of seven ladies and three young men“ (26).
In contrast to medieval accounts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, how-
22 The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, trans. by Richard Aldington (New York: Deli Publishing,
1 930), p. 25; for a historical-critical edition, see Giovanni Boccaccio, Decamerone, ed.
Vittore Branca (Firenze: Presso l’Accademia della Crusca, 1976).
23 Vittore Branca, Boccaccio medieva/e e nuovi studi sul Decameron (Milano: R.C.S. Libri &
Grandi Opere, 1 996), pp. 165-187.
2 4 Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, with an Introduction by A. T. Hatto (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1960), p. 42.
TRAVEL, ÜRALJTY, ANOTHE LITERARY DISCOURSE 223
ever, when oral perforrnance appears to have been the norrn, that is, before the
texts were eventually copied down by scribes, the later Middle Ages experienced a
considerable paradigm shift toward literacy, although the oral component never
faded away entirely. Insofar as the experience of traveling gained in importance,
the intricate relationship between the written and the oral report also gained in significance
and required an intensive interaction both by authors and audiences.
Before the actual round of tale-telling begins, Boccaccio introduces the general
situation of the Black Death affecting the entire city of Florence, from which
resulted the occasion for the group of young people to withdraw to the countryside
and spend carefree time there in safety from the terrible disease. Again the narrator
comes forward and emphasizes that he will relate to the audience the horrors and
dreadful events in the city: „What I am about to tell now is a marvellous thing to
hear; and ifl and others had not seen it with our own eyes I would not dare to write
it, however much I was willing to believe and whatever the good faith of the person
from whom I heard it“ (3 1 ). Both eyewitness account and secondary witness
reports assure the veracity of Boccaccio’s report, but he also indicates that the account
was subsequently or parallel to the oral presentation written down. Immediately
following he relates a scene with some pigs which were rurnmaging through
the clothes of a poor man who just had died from the plage, and as they were immediately
affected by the disease they also died right afterwards. Boccaccio
stresses that he saw this happen himself: „I saw with my own eyes (as I said just
now)“ (3 1 ), strengtherring once again the oral character of his presentation. Following,
the narrative perforrnance within the written document assumes central
function, as the immediacy of the previous report which had insinuated a sense of
orality is now replaced by a sobering, logical description of the impact by the
plague. In other words, the eye-witness has turned into a chronicler who uses the
third person singular to address his audience.
This discourse is interrupted when the protagonists are introduced and then
begin to speak themselves, such as Pampinea: „Dear ladies, you must often have
heard, as I have, that to make a sensible use of one’s reason harrns nobody“ (37).
We as the audience are supposed to Iisten to her as we would Iisten to a person on
the stage. Filomena, for instance, quickly reveals how much she represents the narrator’s
voice who has her say that all women are „fickle, wayward, suspicious,
faint-hearted and cowardly“ (39), supported by Elisa, who reconfirrns men’s misogynistic
attitude about women: „Indeed rnen are a woman’s head and we can
rarely succeed in anything without their help“ (39). Following, the narrator returns
to the forefront, proving thereby that he is the mastermind behind the entire account,
even despite the tale-telling circuit which seemingly implies oral perforrnance
by independent and seemingly historical characters. Nevertheless, Boccaccio
regularly vvithdraws again behind their voices and has the ladies and men take
center-stage positions as they agree upon the rules of telling tales and deterrnine
the sequence of whose terrn it is to begin with the narration and then to succeed as
the next speaker.
The travel situation, in which the group of young people have moved away
224 ALBRECHT CLASSEN
from the city to their country estates, provides the ideal setting for oral perfmmances
which are then related in a literary framework of a written text, which in turn
again is peppered with clear references to the oral exchange?5 The conclusion of
Boccaccio’s Decameron allows for further investigations into the calculated structure
of orality combined with literacy. The narrator refers to hirnself as the writer
of these tales who is worried about having taken too much license „by making ladies
sometimes say and often Iisten to matters which are not proper to be said or
heard by virtuous ladies“ (637). He openly relates that he had written down all his
tales because his hand has become weary of the Iengthy writing process, but he
measures his collection of tales and their moral quality by means of reference to
everyday speech. Defending his moral innocence and claiming not to have intended
any subliminal erotic message by applying suspiciously sounding words,
Boccaccio points out that many people use words such as ‚“hole,‘ ‚peg,‘ ‚mortar,‘
‚pestle,‘ ’sausage,‘ ‚Bologna sausage,‘ and the like things“ becoming much more
guilty of double entendres than hirnself (637).26 Even though Boccaccio includes
painters in his discussion and defense of his own work, he really reaches out to the
actual day-to-day communication where his important evidence derives from. The
extensive explanation provides so much valuable material for our discussion that it
is worth quoting at Iength:
anyone can see that these things were not told in church, where everything
should be treated with reverent words and minds … but they were told in
gardens, in pleasure places, by young people who were old enough not to be
led astray by stories, and at a time when every one threw his cap over the
mill and the most virtuous were not reproved for it. (638)
Although there is sufficient evidence of Boccaccio considering hirnself as a champion
of literacy in the classical sense of the word, he is realist enough to recognize
the function of deeply rooted orality which continued to exert its influence on his
literary productivity as weil. His other defense against his attackers is a rather traditional
one, as he emphasizes that the tales were told to him by other, here unnamed
people: „But I could only write down the tales which were related; if they
had told better ones, I should have written them down better“ (368f.) – a topical
explanation which finds many antecedents in the earlier Middle Ages, such as in
the prologue to Marie de France’s lais 21 Boccaccio admits that his account is full
of jokes and jests, decidedly oral Statements, here interlaced with the literary exchange
in written form. He assumes, however, that the tales will be read primarily
by ladies with plenty of free time, with the emphasis on ‚reading‘ as his primary
21 Thomas Cramer, Waz hi/fet ane sinne kunst? Lyrik im 13. Jahrhundert. Studien zu ihrer A
·
sthetik
(Berlin: Schrnidt, 1998), pp. 22-34, emphasizes that writing and oral performance wcre
almost always intimately connected throughout the high and late Middle Ages.
26 For metaphoric eroticism in medieval literature, see Stefan Zeyen, …d az tet der liebe dorn.
Erotische Metaphorik in der deutschsprachigen Lyrik des 12.-14. Jahrhunderts (Essen: ItemVerlag,
1996).
27 The Lais ofMarie de France, transl. with an introduction by Glyn S. Burgcss and Keith Busby
(London: Penguin, 1986), pp. 4 1 , 43.
TRA VEL, ÜRALITY, AND THE LI TE RAR Y DISCOURSE 225
means of transmitting his accounts. The intricate structure of the entire sequence of
tales is gradually revealed both in the prologue and the epilogue, but we can also
identify an intriguing interplay of orality and literacy in the individual narratives.
Once again, the generat framework is that of a travel account relating the
move first from the city to the countryside, then from estate to estate where the
company of ladies and gentlernen enjoys each other for an extended period of time,
and also experiences, metaphorically speaking, a literary travel from tale to tale,
from speaker to speaker, and from discussion to discussion, and all this related by a
master narrator who confirms that he both wrote his texts and also had his texts
told by his protagonists to the other protagonists and his audience. One of many
examples would be: „When they had all laughed at Pamfilo’s last words and the
queen saw his tale was ended, she turned to Elisa and ordered her to tel! the next
story. And she began cheerfully as follows.“ ( 1 39)
In the conclusion, however, we are suddenly informed that Boccaccio assumes
that his tales will be read: „nor will the tales ever be thought anything but
useful and vittuous if they are read at the times and to the persons for which they
are intended“ (638). At the same time he admits that he heard his tales told orally
before he had been able to write them down himself: „But I could only write down
the tales which were related; if they had told better ones, I should have written
them down better“ (638f.). Immediately following, we learn once again that he addresses
a reading audience: „To those who read for pastime, no tale can be too long
if it succeeds in its object.“ (639) Serious reading seems to be limited to clerical
material, as he defends his jokes and jests as matters of literary medicine „to drive
away ladies‘ melancholies.“ (639) l f anyone objects to these funny narratives,
Boccaccio recommends to turn to the Old Testament and read: „they can easily
eure that by reading the lamentations of Jeremiah“ (640). Of course, Boccaccio
clearly presents hirnself as a writer, as a poet utilizing literacy, as he points out the
„pen“ that his weary hand had put down (637), yet he also relies heavily on the oral
delivery as the most appropriate medium for the group of young people to entertain
each other in those difficult times. The travel or transfer from Florence to the
countryside and there from estate to estate enforces the oral delivery, and the ensuing
debates reconfirm this impression. Nevertheless, in the background we remain
fully aware of the writing process, a process for which Boccaccop is ultimately
responsible and also proud of?8
IV. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
The ,General Prolog‘ in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales also provides us with
important evidence in the debate about the roJe of orality within travel literature?9
28 Burt Kimmelman, The Poetics of Authorship in the Larer Middle Ages. The Emergence of the
Modern Lirerary Persona (New York et al.: Peter Lang, 1 996), pp. 1 1 7 f.
29 The Works ofGeoffrey Chaucer, ed. F. N. Robinson, 2″d ed. (Oxford, London, and Me1bourne:
Oxford University Press, 1957178); the modern standard edition is The Riverside Chaucer, ed.
L. D. Benson, 3’d ed. (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1 987).
226 ALBRECHT CLASSEN
This collection of tales retlects both the travel experience on a pilgrimage and the
exchanges between the individual pilgrims. Chaucer’s intriguing combination of
many different voices, his play with direct and indirect speech, and his artistic interaction
of the first person narrative with the carefully planned literary discourse
carried out by his figures allow us to gain excellent insight i n the intricacies of the
oral and the written as practiced in late fourteenth- century England.30
Chaucer introduces hirnself as the master narrator who had embarked on a
pilgrimage to Canterbury: „In Southwerk at the Tabard as i lay/Redy to wenden on
my pilgrymage/To Caunterbury with ful devout corage“ (20-22). There he encountered
all the characters who later populate his collection of tales: „So hadde I
spoken with hem everichon/That I was of hir felaweshipe anon“ (3 1 f.). Insinuating
a realistic situation, he makes us believe that the introduction of each of them
would personalize the narrative framework and make us understand better the interactions
later to dominate the discourse: „Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun/To
teile yow al the condicioun/Of ech ofhem, so as it semed me“ (37-39). Addressing
his audience, Chaucer begs forgiveness for the crudeness of his language – a classical
modesty topos – and emphasizes, very much the same way as Boccaccio had
done, that he will present an oral delivery: „Thogh that I pleynly speke in this
mateere,/To teile yow hir wordes and hir cheere“ (727f.). Moreover, Chaucer also
refers to the difficulties of an oral presentation where each word has a particular
weight because of the swiftness with which language passes away: „He moot reherce
as ny as evere he kan/Everich a word, if it be in his charge,/Al speke he
never so rudeliche and large,/Or ellis he moot teile his tale untrewe“ (732-35).31
Most important, Chaucer introduces the „Hoost“ who subsequently serves as the
main character directing and controlling the tale telling event by means of his
commands, comments, encouragements, and criticisms. Chaucer clearly outlines
an oral situation with the „Hoost“ giving a major speech after a communal meal:
„And after soper pleyen he bigan,/And spak of myrthe amonges othere thynges“
(758f.). In this speech he urges the company of pilgrims not to pass the long time
of their journey without exchanging any words, and so initiates the tale telling,
specifically insisting on oral delivery: „Ye shapen yow to talen and to pleye;/For
trewely, confort ne myrthe is noon/To ride by the weye doumb as a stoon“ (772-
74). By relating entertairring stories to each other, the pilgrims will be able „to
shorte with oure weye“ (800), although this has very little to do with their actual
travel purpose. And whoever will prove to be the best story-teller will win a free
dinner once they will have retumed home. The pilgrims will ride on horseback and
will have to rely on their own mnemonic skills. Chaucer unrnistakably emphasizes
the oral character of the fictional set-up, as he has the host say to the rest of the
group: „Lat se now who shal teile the firste tale“ (83 1), recommending to them to
30 Derek Brewer, A New Introduction to Chaucer, 2″d ed. (London and New York: Longman,
1998 [1 984]), pp. 79, 270 f.
31 S. Lerer, „“Now Holde Youre Mouth:“ The Romance of Orality in the Thopas-Melibee Section
of the Canterbury Tales,“ in Oral Poerics in Middle English Poetry, ed. M. C. Amodio
and S. Miller (New York and London: Garland, 1994), pp. 1 8 1 -205.
TRA VEL, ÜRALITY, AND THE LITERAR Y DISCOURSE 227
be as brief as possible. Following, the knight is asked to deliver his first tale: „He
which that hath the shorteste shal bigynne“ (836).32 The knight is agreeable enough
to consent to the request to begin with his tale, and characterizes their plan as a
„game“ (853) in which he will happily participate: „Now lat us ryde, and herkneth
what I seye“ (855). In other words, the travel experience enforces the oral delivery.
At the same time the knight, similarly as the other pilgrims, refers to old narrative
traditions deeply steeped in orality: „Whilom, as olde stories teilen us“ (859). The
other tales begin with almost parallel formulas, such as in the Miller’s case:
„Whilom ther was dwellynge at Oxenford“ (3 1 87), in the Cook’s case: „A prentys
whilom dwelled in oure citee“ (4365), in the Man of Law’s case: „In Surrye whilom
dwelte a compaignye“ ( 134), or in the Wife of Bath’s case, though there with
some stylistic variation: „In th’olde dayes ofthe Kyng Arthour“ (853). Many Middle
English romances reveal similar features. as oral performance continued to be a
major form of deiivery to an audience, although only projected by the poets within
their literary (written) text.33 As Nancy Bradbury now points out, „Even in the
most leamed medieval authors, acts of telling, hearing, reading, and remembering
blend in ways that we now keep more separate.“34 This also applies to many other
texts composed by Chaucer, such as his Troilus and Criseyde where in the first
three books „Chaucer uses orally performed gemes to convey both the hero’s explicit
passion and the less distinct atmosphere of erotic expectancy that surrounds
Criseyde.“35 The knight also provides us with clear cues as to the oral delivery of
his tale as he refrains from going into all the details in order to avoid taking too
much of time: „I wolde have toold yow fully the manere/How wonnen was the
regne of Femenye“ (375f.). This is immediately matched by the exchange between
the host and the various pilgrims who discuss the continuation of their „game“ and
provide sufficient evidence that Chaucer intended this exchange for dramatic purposes
with the individual figures fighting and arguing with each other. Nevertheless,
even here we discover specific references to the reading process to which the
main narrator refers to more or less directly, so when he comments on the Miller’s
tale and makes excuses about its potentially risque quality: „And therefore, whoso
Iist it nat yheere,/Tume over the leef and chese another tale;/For he shal fynde
32 Scholarship has repeatedly dealt with this issue, focusing on individual tales, but has not examined
it from an interdisciplinary perspective, especially with regard to the dialeelies of
orality versus literacy. See, for instance, Eugene Green, „Speech Acts and the Art of the Exemplum
in the Poetry of Chaucer and Gower,“ in Rosanne G. Potter, ed., Literary Computing
and Litera1y Criticism: Theoretica/ and Practical Essays on Theme and Rhetoric (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), pp. 167-187; George R. Petty, Jr. „Deceit, and
Misinterpretation: Uncooperative Speech in the Canterbury Tales.“ The Chaucer Review 27, 4
(1993), p!J. 4 1 3-423; Leslie K. Amovick, „Dorigen’s Promise and Scholars· Premise: The
Orality of the Speech Act in the Frank! in ·s Tale,“ in Mark C. Amodio and Sarah Gray, Oral
Poetics in Middle English Poetry (New York-London: Garland, 1994), pp. 125-147.
33 Nancy Mason Bradbury, Writing Aloud. Storytelling in Late Medieval England (UrbanaChicago
: University o f lllinois Press, 1998), pp. 3 f. et passim.
34 lbidem, p. 192.
35 lbidem, p. 197.
228 ALBRECHT CLASSEN
ynowe, grete and smale“ (3 1 76-78). Primarily, however, Chaucer carefully structures
·his account so as to reflect the oral performance throughout, even though the
element of writing is not entirely excluded or hidden.
In comparison with Boccaccio’s Decameron, the narrative framework of
traveling serves Chaucer equally weil to insinuate a lively scenery in which orality
dominates. Together with the group of pilgrims we are riding along and experience
the change of day to night and vice versa, and so also the transition from tale to
tale, such as in the „Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale.“ The „Prologue of the
Frankeleyns Tale“ adds the important note that memory serves the narrators to tell
their tales, and not a written text: „And oon of hem have I in remembraunce,/
Which I shal seyn with good wyl as I kan“ (714f.). The Pardoner, on the
other hand, prepares the listeners of his tale by outlining in considerable detail the
structure ofhis account: „First I pronounce whennes that I come“ (335), and: „And
after that thanne teile I forth my tales“ (341 ). He also announces that he plans to
pepper his report with Latin phrases such as „Radix malorum est Cupiditas“ (334),
but he still relies on oral delivery throughout, as he says, for example, „Youre likyng
is that I shal teile a tale“ (455). The Parson, on the other hand, submits his
tale to his audience requesting criticism and corrections because „I am nat textueel“
(57), whereas it would be the task of the „clerkes“ to be concerned with
textual examinations based on the written word. However, this very concern of
submitting his tale to the audience’s careful perusal directly implies that his narrative
should be considered, after all, as a written docurnent.
The intricate relationship between orality and literacy finds solid corroboration
in Chaucer’s work which relies both on the concept of telling tales while one
spends time on a travel, and on the dramatic setting with a group of people loudly
and rambunctiously arguing over the sequence of narrators and with the host as the
Iead speaker in between.36
V. Jörg Wickram’s Rollwagenbüchlein
In the sixteenth century the German Jörg Wiekram composed a collection of
tales using a very similar approach as Chaucer and Boccaccio, his Rollwagenbüchlein.
This was one of the last ofhis works, published in 1555, seven years before
he died in 1 562. Wiekram was bom in 1505 in Colmar and later worked as a
book agent and clerk for the city council of that city, spending much of his time
traveling to the various book markets.37 The Rollwagenbüchlein, probably Wickram’s
most popular text, is also conceived as a travel narrative insofar as the indi-
36 Victoria Lee Wodzak, „Reading Dinosaur Bones: Marking the Transition from Orality to Litcracy
in „the Canterbury Tales,“ „Moll Flanders,“ „Ciarissa,“ and „Tristram Shandy““ (unpublished
doctoral thesis, University ofMissouri, Columbia, 1 996).
37 Erich Kleinschmidt, „Jörg Wickram,“ in Deutsche Dichter der frühen Neuzeit (1450-1600). ihr
Leben und Werk, ed. Stephan Füssel (Berlin: Schmidt, 1 993), pp. 494-5 1 1 . Whereas Boccaccio
and Chaucer would hardly need any introduction, the biographical references for Wiekram
are givcn here because thc author might be less known among medievalists.
TRA VEL, ÜRALITY, AND THE LITERARY DISCOURSE 229
vidual texts are s􀀏posed to serve people who need entertainment and begin to tell
each other tales.3 Wickram’s Rollwagenbüchlein provides highly interesting information
about the dialectics of orality and literacy as it was written almost exactly
hundred years after Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the movable type, and
yet clearly suggests that all the tales included in this book had been presented
orally. The author collected them, as he says on the frontispiece, for travelers on
ships and in coaches, but also for barbers and doctors, but especially for those merchants
who have to attend many different fairs and suffer from boredom and melancholy.
39 However, Wiekram unmistakably states his authorship of this book and
claims recognition for having written down all of these funny tales which will be,
as he assumes, read by his audience („lesen,“ 5, 19). More specifically, he recommends
bis book to those who need reading material during a joumey to offer entertainment
for their fellow travelers: „welchs auch vor menigklich on allen anstoß
mag gelesen werden“ (5, 29f.; what can be read to a group of people without being
objectionable ).
The very first page begins with an address to the reader:
“
Zum gtltigen Leser“
(7, 1 ; to the gracious reader), but immediately following the author projects an
ordinary situation during „travels when people discuss with each other and Iisten to
oral reports and tales: „wenn man etwan schampere und schandtliche wort geredt“
(7, 3f.; when one has told some funny and entertairring stories). Nevertheless, the
introduction concludes with a final greeting to the reader: „Bewar dich Gott
freündtlicher Leser“ (7, 30; dear reader, may God protect you), insinuating an exclusive
reading situation. As soon as we turn to the actual text, however, both
forms of communication are mentioned. On the one hand, Wiekram explains that
he has heard a good story which he now wants to relate to his audience: „daß ich
euch den selbigen erzell“ (9, 5f.; which I want to tell you). But the sentence concludes
with a verb which implies just the opposite: „von deren einem ich euch hie
schreiben wil“ (9, 8f.; of which I want to write down one for you). In fact, at the
end Wiekram hirnself offers a moral teaching divided into several parts („Erstlichen,“
„Zum andren,“ and „Zum dritten,“ 1 1 ; first, second, third), implying a
written text which needs to be analyzed in a critical fashion. In the introduction to
the second tale we find the almost classical formula „wer den !ißt oder hÖrt“ ( I 3, 6,
whoever reads or hears this), a combination of reading and listening, of the oral
and the literary.40 Interestingly, the actual tale entirely relies on the oral exchange
38 Albrecht Classen, „Witz, Humor, Satire. Georg Wiekrams Rollwagenbüchlein als Quelle für
sozialhistorische und mentalitätsgeschichtliche Studien zum 1 6 . Jahrhundert,“ Jahrbuch der
ungarischen Germanistik. 1999, pp. 13-35; for a social-historical approach to Wickram’s
work, see Elisabeth Wäghall, Dargestellte Welt – Reale Welt: Freundschaft, Liebe und Familie
in den Prosawerken Georg Wiekrams (Bem, Berlin, et al.: Peter Lang, 1996).
39 Quoted from: Georg Wickram, Das Rollwagenblichlein, Sämtliche Werke, 7, ed. Hans-Gert
Roloff (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1973).
40 Similar formulas can be found throughout the Middle Ages, sec Manfred Günter Scholz,
Hören und Lesen: Studien zur primären Rezeption der Literatur im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert
(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1980).
230 ALBRECHT CLASSEN
of statements and transports us into the concrete situation of a group of voyagers
who face a shipwreck and discuss what to do in their last hour. The same Observation
applies to the entire collection, as the tales relate concrete situations and gain
their major comic element from the discussion of people. A good example proves
to be the story of the drunken minister who makes a fool of hirnself at a dinner reception
and constantly calls for the inn keeper to refill his glass: „schenck dapffer
eyn“ ( 1 5, 2 1 ). Even the host’s reproaches have no effect on him, but when he has
to cross a narrow bridge on his way home and falls into the deep water, and then is
about to drown, he shouts out the same words and fails to appeal to God for help
(16).
Wiekram operates within a literary discourse, but heavily utilizes the oral
performance as the basic procedure within the tales. The witticism relies on the
dialogues and either the ignorance of one speaker or the smartness of the other. In
„Von zweyen zenckischen Bauren“ (no. 6) two peasants are constantly fighting
with each other and finally turn to the mayor for help. The latter’s wife Iets them in
but criticizes them for their cantankerous nature. Immediately one of the peasants
asks her whether she is a prostitute: „Fraw sind ir nit auch ein hur?“ (22, 1 3f.),
upon which she vehemently retorts and threatens him with a law suit. In response
the peasant explains that this is exactly the same way how he and his neighbor begin
their fights, as one word Ieads to the other, until the conversation erupts into a
serious struggle. The mayor’s wife had demonstrated that she was not one iota
better than the peasants, as she had reacted so violently to the simple question: „ob
ir ein hür seyen“ (22, 18). In other words, within the framework o f the written text,
Wiekram introduces extensive oral scenes and provides us with significant examples
for the continuity of orality even at a time of intense printing, and so of the
overarching dominance of the written word. The comic depends on the witty and
quick retort, derives, in other words, its power from the oral exchange which continued
to be of great significance far into the modern age. Similarly as in the case
of Boccaccio, Wiekram also confmns the authenticity of some of his tales, such as
in „Ein grawsame unnd erschrockenliehe History“ (no. 55), which deals with an
event of which he had been an eye witness: „so ich dann selb erlebt I auch beide
personen Weyb und mann fast wol erkant hab“ (1 10, 6-8; as I have witnessed it
myself, and have weil known both wife and husband). But Wiekram also emphasizes
that he included this tale in his collection, i.e., wrote it down for his audience’s
enlightenment about proper behavior and appropriate attitudes and opinions
about material goods, thereby reemphasizing the basic literary quality of his text.
In other cases we are Iransported directly into scenes where the protagonists orally
exchange Statements and explanations, such as in „Ein Franck hatt sich auß eim
Becher kranck getrunken“ (no. 57), where no reference to the text as having been
written down can be found: „Diser red lachten alle umbstender I und auch der
Artzet I nam urlob und zoch seins weges wider zu hauß“ ( 1 16, 24f.; all people
standing around laughed at these words, and so also the doctor; he took his leave
and returned home).
Insofar as Wiekram collected narrative accounts for the entertainment of
TRA VEL, ÜRALITY, AND THE LITERAR Y DISCOURSE 2 3 1
travelers, he follows the same stylistic patterns as those used by Boccaccio and
Chaucer. Even though the creative process resulted in a written document, the primary
focus rests on the oral transmission. Many tales begin with the rhetorical
formula „Es hat sich zu Paris begeben“ (142, 3), „hats sich begeben“ ( 1 47, 2),
„Auff ein zeyt“ ( 1 54, 3), „begab es sich“ (163, 3), „Es begab sich“ ( 1 85, 5),
„beschach es ein mal“ (200, 4), „Es hat sich begeben“ (203, 4), and „Zu Venedig
war ein Doctor“ (206, 4). In other words, the author (like Chaucer) situates his account
in an oral framework and retrieves the dialogues and discussions from the
past for the entertainrnent in the present. Wickram’s literary strategy, however,
subtly utilizes both the oral and the literary and applies both forms of communication
in a highly skillful fashion, In „Von einem grossen Eyferer“ (no. 84) the narrator
at first refers to Sebastian Brant’s famous Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) from
1494 to draw from the insight developed there: „Es schreibt der hochgelert Doctor
Sebastianus Brandt in seinem Narrenschiff … und spricht“ ( 1 6 1 , 3f.; the highly
learned Doctor Sebastianus Brant writes in his Ship of Fools … and says).41 But as
soon as he has elaborated his point with regard to Brant’s message, he turns to his
audience and begins with his tale, obviously intended as an oral delivery: „Davon
mercke ein guten schwanck. Es was auff ein zeyt … “ ( 1 6 1 , 9f. ). The narrative itself
depends entirely on orality, as all events, talks, and actions are described in this
mode: „Wann dann die gut Fraw bey iren Nachbawren saß I stunden sie hinzu I
triben gute schwanck und bossen mit inen“ (161, 19-21; when the good woman set
next to her neighbors, they stood next to her and made fun with her and joked
around). Another example can be found in „Ein Junger Gesell schlug sein Brawt
vor der Kirchen“ (no. 87), as here the public event – the groom’s beating of his
bride in front of the church just before their wedding – is reported orally to the
authorities who immediately take action and imprison the young man to teach him
a lesson: „Dise geschichte kam bald für die Herrschafften unnd Oberkeiten I die
gaben billichen unnd rechten bevelche“ ( 166, 19-21; this story was soon told to the
Iords and the authorities who gave appropriate and adequate order). In „Ein kluge
antwort eines Rahtsherren“ (no. 90) Wiekram takes us one step further and has us
Iisten to the deliberations in the city council where one member makes a witty
comment which reveals how much the mayor has govemed the city in a tyrannical
manner: „Also geschahe ein gemeine umbfrag I unnd sagt ein yeder sein gut
beduncken hierzu“ ( 1 70, 1 7f.). The witty councilor pretends to be asleep, and when
it is his turn to speak up he acts as if he had been asleep and quickly utters that he
would follow the mayor’s decision. The latter, however, is not present, but since
the mayor would not pay attention to the council’s recommendation anyway, it
would be futile not to submit to the tyrant: „Ich volgs dem Obristen Meister“ ( 1 70,
22f.). The narrative provides us direct insight in the subsequent deliberations and
reactions, all serving as immediate reflections of the oral process, and then turns
back to the master narrative: „Dise wort bedachten unnd erwagen die andem Her-
41 Sebastian Brant, Das Narrenschiff. Nach der Erstausgabe (Basel 1494) mit den Zusätzen der
Ausgaben von 1 495 und 1 499, ed. Manfred Lemmer (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1 962).
232 ALBRECHT CLASSEN
ren gar hoch“ ( 1 70, 3 l f.; the other members carefully thought about these words
and weighted them).
Finally, sometimes Wiekram also addresses his audience and teils them specifically
how to interpret his tale and what the consequences would be for them,
such as in „Ein Weyb hieß iren Mann auß dem Hauß bleiben“ (no. 9 1 ). The narrative
begins with the author‘ s generat introduction, setting the framework of the
subsequent actions. The central part consists of the oral debate between husband
and wife, and in the conclusion the author tums to the female members ofhis audience:
„Darumb ir Weyber sein gewamet I ir habend Rawch oder Staub imm Hawß
I heyssend darumb die Mann nit hinauß gehn“ (173, 1 – 3 ; therefore, women, be
wamed, if you have smoke or dust in the house, do not tell your husbands to go
outside).
In other words, orality continued to be an important part of the literary discoW“
se even in the sixteenth century, as we can identify important elements of
speech acts within the narrative framework. Wiekram operates both as a skillful
writer addressing both a reading and a listening audience, and he relies on both aspects
in the delivery of his tale. Insofar as his Rollwagenbüchlein draws from the
wide corpus of oral tales recounted by travelers for their mutual entertainment, the
written product still reflects this oral component and actually heavily depends on
the direct exchange of opinions and staternents for the full development of the intended
satire and general humor.
VI. Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron
Our final example of travel Iiterature where the oral and the literary interact
in an intriguing fashion comes from Marguerite de Navarre who composed, very
much in the tradition of Boccaccio’s Decameron, a famous collection of tales, The
Heptameron, first published in 1 5 5 8, nine years after the author’s death in 1549.42
Even though it would be erroneous to categorize this work as a travelogue, the basie
narrative scheme depends on the experience of travelers who are trying to escape
a nature catastrophe in the Pyrenees but have to wait until a bridge can be rebuilt
over a flooded river. They all had spent time in a mountain spa, but when torrential
rains had set in, the housing situation had become so miserable that they had
to tlee. Whereas many overly daring patients drown in rivers or die under different
circumstances (robbers, wild animals, etc.), a group of ladies and gentlernen finds
rescue in a country estate where they begin to tell each other stories to pass the
time. They specifically refer to Boccaccio’s Decameron which was, as we are told,
„recently … translated from Italian into French“ (68). In contrast to their Italian
forerunner, however, the group intends to tel! only tales that are tmthful, and in this
42 Marguerite de Navarre, The Heptameron, transl. with an introduction by P. A. Chilton (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1 984/86); for the original, see Marguerite d’Angouleme, L ‚Heptameron
des Nouvelles. Publie sur !es manuscrits par !es soins & avec les notes de MM. Le Roux
de lincy & Analoie des Montaiglon, 4 vols. (Paris: Auguste Eudes, 1880).
TRA VEL, ÜRALlTY, AND THE LITERARY DISCOURSE 233
sense to outdo their model.43 In contrast to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Wickram’s
Rollwagenbüchlein, but fairly comparable to Boccaccio’s text, the travelers
and story tellers in Marguerite‘ s work have arrived at a save haven and have to
wait for ten days until they can continue their joumey back home. But every travel
requires rest stops, and these breaks are normally filled with story telling. In this
sense we can also categorize the Heptameron as ‚travel literature‘ in which the oral
component is intimately intertwined with the written discourse.44 lnterestingly, the
master narrator does not fully disappear behind the protagonists‘ voices and also
comments on the scenery where the company gathers: „At midday they all went
back as arranged to the meadow, which was looking so beautiful and fair that it
would take a Boccaccio to describe it as it really was. Enough for us to say that a
more beautiful meadow there never was seen.“ (69) She continues to maintain this
control throughout, but the actual oral discourse among the protagonists quickly
dominates and pushes the written presentation in the background: „Hircan did not
notice the colour rising in her cheeks, and simply went on to invite Sirnontaut to
start, which he did at once.“ (70)
The actual narratives following the introductory section do not shed much
light on the dichotomy of orality versus literacy, although even here many dialogues
are included, coupled with lengthy commentary and descriptions in the third
person singular. The ensuing debates, however, after each tale clearly indicate how
much Marguerite intended to combine the two forms of communication in her
collection. Simontaut, for instance, the first to teil his tale, immediately comments
on his report and uses it as a basis for attacks against all women: „I think .you’ll
agree that ever since Eve made Adam sin, women have taken it upon themselves to
torture men … l’ve experienced feminine cruelty, and I know what will bring me to
death and damnation“ (78). To this Parlamente responds with negative criticism:
„Since Hell is as agreeable as you say, … “ (78) In turn Sirnontaut retorts almost
aggressively, obviously because he feels frustrated in his unrequited and one-sided
Iove for his Iady: „But the fire of Iove makes me forget the fire of this Hell.“ (78)
The debate focuses on the ancient „querelle des femmes“ and forces the representatives
of both genders to argue carefully and skillfully to avoid the traps of revealing
their prejudices and stereotypical thinking.45 Marguerite succeeds, how-
43 Volker Kapp, „Der Wandel einer literarischen Form: Boccaccios Decamerone und Marguerite
de Navarres Heptameron,“ Poetica: Zeitschrift für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft 14, 1-2
( 1 982), pp. 24-44.
44 For other scholarly approaches, see Giseie Mathieu-Castellani, La conversation conteuse. Les
nouvelles de Marguerite de Navarre (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992); Michel
Bideaux, Margeruite de Navarre: „I‘ heptamiron ·· de / ‚enquete au debat (Mont-de-Marsan:
Editions lnterUniversitaires, 1 992); Maddalena Harn, „La nouvelle et Ia qucte de Ia verite:
Marguerite de Navarre et Boccace“ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Northem lllinois University,
2000); Timothy Harnpton, Literature and Nation in the Sixteenth Century: Inventing Renaissance
France (lthaca: Comell University Press, 2001).
45 Gerard Defaux, „Marguerite de Navarre et Ia guerre des sexes: Heptameron, premiere
journee,“ French Forum 24, 2 (1 999), pp. 1 3 3 – 1 6 1 ; for a good collection of relevant texts
pertaining to this „querelle,“ see Woman Defamed and Woman Defended. An Anthology of
234 ALBRECHT (LASSEN
ever, to relay to us the emotions and irritations resulting from the individual tales
which either confirm or refute certain opinions and thus provoke considerable reactions.
Oisille’s tale of a mule-driver’s wife who was murdered by her husband’s
servant, for instance, moves all listeners to tears and provokes the story teller herselfto
encourage the ladies to „strengthen [their] resolve to preserve this most glorious
virtue, chastity.“ (81) Therefore, to avoid general depression and melancholy
which threaten to affect the entire group, Madame Oisille, the head of the company,
tums to Saffredent and requests a story from him which would not only provide
entertainment, but also free the audience from the somber mood resulting
from the previous tale. The truly intriguing element of Marguerite’s Heptameron
thus proves to be the complex interaction between author, master narrator, fictional
narrators, literary figures, and also us, the present audience, a phenomenon which
Jean Jost, studying Chaucerian examples, has defmed as „infinite regression“ and
as the „Narcissus syndrome.“46 Saffredent at first hesitates and wants to defer to
other members of the group to tell a tale, but he eventually agrees, realizing that
„he might as well speak now – after all, the Ionger he delayed, the more competition
he would have“ (82). The story itself is presented as an oral delivery – once
again, as the teller points out: „l’ve often wished, Ladies, that I’d been able to
share the good fortune ofthe man in the story I’m about to tell you.“ (83)
The debate among the participants grows more heated, it seems, the Ionger
the story telling process goes on, as individual listeners provoke each other to respond
to a story, to refrain from some vice, to pursue virtue, to be a better Iover, or
to restrain one’s desires. In order not to Iet the discussion go out of hands, normally
one person requests from one of the speakers to continue with the telling, such as
in the case of Saffredent tuming to Ennasuite: „Iet me invite you to teil the fourth
story, and let’s see ifyou can produce an example to refute what I say.“ (89)
More than in all the three other text exarnples, Marguerite’s Heptameron is
predicated on orality as the prime form of communication, especially as the story
tellers struggle with each other over personal issues and use their stories as arguments.
There are multiple layers of audiences, both as listeners and as readers, because
the company at first refers to Boccaccio’s Decameron in its French translation,
thus implying a reading audience. Next they set up a tale-telling scenario in
which all present are transformed into an oral audience. But Parlamente also suggests
that their endeavor should bear fruit in the form of a new book which they
could later present as a gift to ladies and Iords at the French court: „we shall make
Medieval Texts, ed. Alcuin Blamires with Karen Pran and C. W. Marx (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1 992); Albert Rabil, Jr., „lntroduction,“ in Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, Declamation on
the Nobility and Preeminence ofthe Fernale Sex, transl. and ed. with an Introduction by Albert
Rabil, Jr. (Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. ix-xxviii.
46 Jean E. Jost, „Chaucer’s Literale Characters Reading Their Texts. lnterpreting Infinite Regression,
or the Narcissus Syndrome,“ in The Book and the Magie of Reading, pp. 1 7 1 -217; see
also Helen Eugenia Klinke Groves, „Sex, Lies and the „Framed“ Narrative: Deception in the
„Heptameron“ of Marguerite de Navarre“ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Colorado,
Boulder, 1998).
TRAVEL, ÜRALITY, AND THE LITERARY DISCOURSE 235
them a present of them when we get back“ (69). The noble recipients then would
represent the next Ievel of audience, both as listeners and readers; finally the tales
as they were recorded in the sixteenth century were specifically intended as reading
material.47 In this regards it becomes understandable why at a later moment one
of the stories deals with a priest who barely can read and „whose only teacher was
Iove“ (313), as the play with orality assumes central position in the interaction of
the fictional protagonists. In fact, Marguerite’s prime interest seems to be focused
almost more on the discussions preceding and following each tale than on the tales
themselves,48 although we as readers are also invited to engage in a critical examination
of both the tales and the discussions.49 But she also has some of her protagonists
challenge the oral discourse and question it as a highly unreliable, almost
dangeraus fonn of interaction with an opponent. Geburon, for instance, when he
refers to the siege of a fortress or city, states that „neither threats nor offers of
money could persuade the defending forces [of some places] to parley, for they say
that once you engage in talks, you’re already half defeated!“ (219)
However, since the tale telling depends on oral delivery, and the entire group
exchanges their opinions freely without resorting to writing, such opinions have
only limited value and form part of a I arger issue, that is, the enormous intricacy of
human language and its powers to relate both truth and lies, to deceive and to illuminate.
Marguerite demonstrates through her Heptameron how much the written
and the oral are connected with each other and that the search for truth must be carried
out on both Ievels. This observation is the more surprising as we have already
moved far into the sixteenth century, into a time when the written literary discourse
seemingly has long discarded orality as a pragmatic function.50 The travel situation
as reflected in all our four texts, however, provided the authors with a powerful
literary strategy to demonstrate the continuing relevance of orality even at a time
when printing and the written word had gained absolute dominance. Whereas medieval
schotarship has so far assumed that „speaking in two languages“ – oral and
written – was a benchmark primarily of the early Middle Ages, our evidence suggests
that this dialectic continued far into the late Middle Ages.5 1
47 Cathleen M . Bauschatz, ‚“Voyla, mes dames … : ‚ Inscribed Women Listencrs and Readers in
the Heptameron“, in John D. Lyons, Mary B. McKinley, eds., Critical Tales: New Studies of
the Heptameron and Early Modern Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1993), pp. I 04-122.
48 Sylvie L. F. Richards, „Fictional Truth and the Prologue of the Heptameron,“ Rocky Mountain
Review on Language & Literature, 48 ( 1 994 ), pp. 6 1-76.
49 Mary J. Baker, „The Ro1e ofthe Reader in the Heptameron,“ French Studies: A Quarterly Review
43, 3 ( 1989), pp. 271-278.
50 This, at least, is the oft repeated position by many scholars who take the poets‘ statements and
approaches toward books and reading at face value; see, for instance, Laure! Amtower, Engaging
Words. The Culture of Reading in the La/er Midd/e Ages (New York: Palgrave, 2000).
Reality, however, was much more complex, as I hope to have demonstrated here.
51 Speaking Two Languages. Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary The01y in Medieval
Studies, ed. Allen J. Frantzen (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1991).
ORAL HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES
THE SPOKEN WORD IN CONTEXT
Edited by Gerhard Jaritz and Michael Richter
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
SONDERBAND XII
=
CEU MEDIEV ALIA
VOLU1vfE 3
Oral History of the Middle Ages
The Spoken W ord in Context
Edited by Gerhard Jaritz and Michael Richter
Krems and Budapest 200 1
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG DER ABTEILUNG
KULTUR UND WISSENSCHAFT DES AMTES
DER NIEDERÖSTERREICIDSCHEN LANDESREGIERUNG
niederästerreich kultur
copy editor: Judith Rasson
Cover illustration: The wife of Potiphar covets Joseph: “ … erat autem Joseph pulchra facie et
decorus apectu: post multos itaque dies iecit domina oculos suis in Ioseph et ait donni mecum.“
(“ … And Joseph was (a] goodly fperson], and weil favoured. And it came to pass after these
things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. „), Gen. 39:
6-7 (KJV). Concordantiae Caritatis, c. 1350. Cistercian abbey of Lilienfeld (Lower Austria), ms
151, fol. 244v (detail). Photo: Institut fiir Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit
(Krems an der Donau).
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Published by:
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– ISBN 963 9241 64 4 (Budapest)
-ISSN 1587-6470 CEU MEDIEVALIA
Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung
der materiellen Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnermarkt 13, A-
3500 Krems. Austria,
Department ofMedieval Studies, Centrat European University,
Nador utca 9, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary.
Printed by Printself, Budapest.
Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……………………….. 7
Michael RICHTER, Beyond Goody and Grundmann ………. . . . . . . ………. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I I
Tom PETTIIT, Textual to Oral: the Impact ofTransmission
on Narrative Word-Art …………………………………………………………………….. 1 9
Elöd NEMER!<.ENYI, Fictive Audience. The Second Person Singular in the Deliberatio ofBishop Gerard of Csanäd …………………………………………….. 3 9 Katalin SZENDE, Testaments and Testimonies. Orality and Literacy in Composing Last Wills in Late Medieval Hungary ……………………………. 49 Anna ADAMSKA, The Kingdom of Po land versus the Teutonic Knights: Oral Traditions and Literale Behaviour in the Later Middle Ages …………… 67 Giedre MICKÜNAITE, Ruler, Protector, and a Fairy Prince: the Everlasting Deeds of Grand Duke Vytautas as Related by the Lithuanian Tatars and Karaites ………………………………… 79 Yurij Zazuliak, Oral Tradition, Land Disputes, and the Noble Community in Galician Rus‘ from the 1440s to the 1 460s ……………………………………… 88 Nada ZECEVIC, Ai􀃭tc; yA.uKeia. The Importance ofthe Spoken Word in the Public Affairs ofCarlo Tocco (from the Anonymous Chronaca dei Tocco di Cefalonia) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 108 lohn A. NICHOLS, A Heated Conversation: Who was Isabel de Aubigny, Countess of Arundel? …………………………… 1 1 7 Tracey L. BILADO, Rhetorical Strategies and Legal Arguments: ‚Evil Customs‘ and Saint-Florent de Saumur, 979- 1 0 1 1 …………………….. 1 28 Detlev KRAACK, Traces of Orality in Written Contexts. Legal Proceedings and Consultations at the Royal Court as Reflected in Documentary Sources from l21h-century Germany ……… 1 42 6 Maria DOBOZY, From Oral Custom to Written Law: The German Sachsenspiegel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Martha KEIL, Rituals of Repentance and Testimonies at Rabbinical Courts in the 151h Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 64 Michael GOODICH, The Use of Direct Quotation from Canonization Hearing to Hagiographical Vita et Miracula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 77 Sylvia ScHEIN, Bemard of Clairvaux ’s Preaching of the Third Crusade and Orality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ….. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Michael BRAUER, Obstades to Oral Communication in tbe Mission offriar William ofRubruck among the Mongois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Elena LEMENEVA, From Oral to Written and Back: A Sermon Case Study . . . . . . . . 203 Albrecht CLASSEN, Travel, Orality, and the Literary Discourse: Travels in the Past and Literary Travels at the Crossroad of the Oral and the Literary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 217 Ulrich MÜLLER and Margarete SPRJNGETH, “Do not Shut Your Eyes ifYou Will See Musical Notes:“ German Heroie Poetry („Nibelungenlied“), Music, and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Jolanta SZPILEWSKA, Evoking Auditory Imagination: On the Poetics of Voice Production in The Story ofThe Glorious Resurrection ofOur Lord (c. 1580) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 Jens T. WOLLESEN, SpokenWords and Images in Late Medieval Italian Painting . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 257 Gerhard JARTTZ, Images and the Power of the Spoken Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Preface Oral culture played an instrumental role in medieval society.1 Due to the Iack of any direct source evidence, however, research into the functions and importance of oral communication in the Middle Ages must confront a number of significant problems. Only indrect traces offer the opportunity to analyze phenomena that were based on or connected with the spoken word. The ‚oral history‘ of the Middle Ages requires the application of different approaches than dealing with the 201h or 2 151 century. For some decades Medieval Studies have been interested in questions of orality and literacy, their relationship and the substitution of the spoken by the written word2 Oral and literate culture were not exclusive and certainly not opposed to each other.3 The ‚art of writing‘ was part of the ‚ars rhetorica‘ and writing makes no sense without speech.4 Any existing written Statement should also be seen as a spoken one, although, clearly, not every oral Statement as a written one. Authors regularly wrote with oral delivery in mind. ‚Speaking‘ and ‚writing‘ are not antonyms. It is also obvious that „the use of oral conununication in medieval society should not be evaluated … as a function of culture populaire vis-a-vis culture savante but, rather, of thc communication habits and the tendency of medieval man 1 For the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, cf. Willern Frijhoff, „Communication et vie quotidienne i1 Ia fin du moyen äge et a l’epoque moderne: reflexions de theorie et de methode,“ in Kommunialion und Alltag in Spätmillefalter und fniher Neuzeit, ed. Helmut Hundsbichler (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1992), p. 24: „La plupart de gens vivait encore pour l’essentiel dans une culture orale et !es procedes d’appropriation des idCes passaient de prefcrence par Ia parolc dite et ecoutee, quand bien memc on ctait capable d’une Ieelure visuelle plus ou moins rudimentaire.“ 2 See Marco Mostert, „New Approaches to Medieval Communication?“ in New Approaches to Medieval Communication. ed. Marco Mostert (Tumhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 15-37; Michael Richter, “Die Entdeckung der ‚Oralität‘ der mittelalterlichen Gesellschaft durch die neuere Mediävistik,“ in Die Aktualität des Miue/alters, ed. Hans-Werner Goetz (Bochum: D. Winkler, 2000), pp. 273-287. 3 Peter Burke calls the constrnct of „oral versus literate“ useful but at the same time dangerous: idem, „Mündliche Kultur und >Druckkultur< im spätmittelalterlichen Italien,“ in Volkskultur des europäischen Spätmittelalters, eds. Peter Dinzelbacher and Hans-Dieter Mück (Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1987), p. 60. 4 Michael Clanchy, „lntroduction,“ in New Approaches to Medieval Communication. ed. Marco Mostert (Tumhout: Brepols, 1999), p. 6. 8 to share his intellectual experiences in the corporate framework.“5 Oral delivery was not „the sole prerogative of any socioeconomic class. „6 For all these reasons, it is important to analyze the extent of and context, in which ’speech acts,‘ auditive effects, and oral tradition occur in medieval sources .7 Research into the use of the spoken word or references to it in texts and images provides new insight into various, mainly social, rules and pattems of the communication system. 1t opens up additional approaches to the organization and complexity of different, but indispensably related, media in medieval society, and their comparative analysis.8 The spoken word is connected with the physical presence of its ’sender.‘ Speech may represent the authenticity of the given message in a more obvious way than written texts or images. Therefore, the use of ’speech acts‘ in written or visual evidence also has to be seen in context with the attempt to create, construct, or prove authenticity. Moreover, spoken messages contribute to and increase the lifelikeness of their contents, which may influence their perception by the receiver, their efficacy and success. Being aware of such a situation will have led to the explicit and intended use and application of the spoken word in written texts and images- to increase their authenticity and importance, too. lf one operates with a model of ‚closeness‘ and ‚distance‘ of communication with regard to the Ievel of relation of ’senders‘ and ‚receivers,‘ then the ’speech acts‘ or their representation have to be seen as contributors to a ‚closer‘ connection among the participants of the communication process.9 At the same time, however, Speech might be evaluated as less official. One regularly comes across ‚oral space‘ 5 Sophia Menache, The Vox Dei. Commwzication in the Middle Ages (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 19. 6 Ibidem, p. 21. Cf. also Jan-Dirk Müller, „Zwischen mündlicher Anweisung und schrifilicher Sicherung von Tradition. Zur Kommunikationsstruktur spätmittelalterlicher Fechtbücher,“ in Kommunikation und Alltag in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit, ed. Helmut Hundsbichler (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1992), p. 400: „Offensichtlich sind schriftliche und nichtschriftliche Tradierung von Wissen weiterhin relativ unabhängig voneinander, nachdem die Schrift längst dazu angesetzt hat, lnseln der Mündlichkeil oder praktisch-enaktiver Wissensvermittlung zu erobem. Die Gedächtnisstütze kann die Erfahrung nicht ersetzen, sendem allenfalls reaktivieren. Sie ist sogar nur verständlich, wo sie auf anderweitig vermittelte Vorkenntnisse stößt.“ 7 􀆿f. W.F.H. Nicolaisen, ed., Oral Tradition in the Middle Ages (Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1995). 8 See, esp., Horst Wenzel, Hören und Sehen, Schrift und Bild. K ultur und Gedächtnis im Mittelalter (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1995), passim. 9 See also Siefan Sonderegger, „>Gesprochen oder nur geschrieben?< Mündlichkeil in mittelalterlichen
Texten als direkter Zugang zum Menschen,“ in Homo Medietas. Aufsätze zu Religiosität,
Literatur und Denkformen des Menschen vom Mittelalter bis in die Neuzeit. Festschrift
for Alois Maria Haas zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Claudia Brinker-von der Heyde and
Niklaus Largier (Bem e\ al.: Peter Lang, 1999), p. 665: „Jedenfalls darf man sich bewußt bleiben,
daß auch in den Texten des deutschen Mittelalters die Reflexe gesprochener Sprache eine
bedeutende Schicht ausmachen, die besonders dann immer wieder hervortritt, wenn es um
einen direkten Zugang zum Menschen geht, um einVerstehen aus unmittelbarer Partnerschaft
heraus … “
9
that has become institutionalized or more official by the application of ‚written
space.‘ 10 Simultanous employment of such different Ievels and qualities of
messages must often have had considerable influence on their efficacy.11
The papers in this volume are the outcome of an international workshop that
was held in February, 2001, at the Department ofMedieval Studies, Central European
University, Budapest. Participants concentrated on problems of the occurrence,
usage, and pattems of the spoken word in written and visual sources of the
Middle Ages. They dealt with the roJe and contents of direct and indirect speech in
textual evidence or in relation to it, such as chronicles, travel descriptions, court
and canonization protocols, sermons, testaments, law-books, literary sources,
drama, etc. They also tried to analyze the function of oral expression in connection
with late medieval images.
The audiovisuality of medieval communication processes12 has proved to be
evident and, thus, important for any kind of further comparative analysis of the
various Ievels of the ‚oral-visual-literate,‘ i.e. multimedia culture of the Middle
Ages. Particular emphasis has to be put on methodological problems, such as the
necessity of interdisciplinary approaches,13 or the question of the extent to which
we are, generally, able to comprehend and to decode the communication systems
of the past.14 Moreover, the medievalist does not come across any types of sources
in which oral communication represents the main concem.15 lnstead, she or he is
confronted, at first glance, with a great variety of ‚casual‘ and ‚marginal‘ evidence.
We would like to thank all the contributors to the workshop and to this
volume. Their cooperation made it possible to publish the results of the meeting in
the same year in which it took place. This can be seen as a rare exception, at least
in the world of the historical disciplines. The head, faculty, staff, and students of
the Department of Medieval Studies of CentTal European University offered
various help and support. Special thanks go to Judith Rasson, the copy editor of
10 This, e.g., could be weil shown in a case study on thc pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela:
Friederike Hassauer, „Schriftlichkeit und Mündlichkeil im Alltag des Pilgers am Beispiel der
Wallfahrt nach Santiago de Compostela,“ in Wallfahrt und Alltag in Mittelalter und früher
Neuzeit, eds. Gerhard Jaritz and Barbara Schuh (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 1992), pp. 277-316.
11 Cf. Bob Scribner, „Mündliche Kommunikation und Strategien der Macht in Deutschland im
16. Jahrhundert,“ in Kommunikation und Alltag in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit, ed.
Helmut Hundsbichler (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1992), pp. 183-197.
12 Wenzel, Hören rmd Sehen, p. 292.
13 Cf. Ursula Schaefer, „Zum Problem der Mündlichkeit,“ in Modernes Miuelalter. Neue Bilder
einer populären Epoche, ed. Joachim Heinzle (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Insel Verlag,
1994), pp. 374 f.
14 Frijhoff, „Communication et vie quotidienne,“ p. 25: „Sommes-nous encore en mesure de
communiquer avec Ja communication de jadis?“
1􀅄 Michael Richter, Sprache und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter. Untersuchungen zur mündlichen
Kommunikation in England von der Mit te des elften bis zu Beginn des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts
(Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1979), p. 22.
10
this volume, who took particluar care with the texts of the many non-native
speakers fighting with the pitfalls of the English language.
Budapest, Krems, and Constance
December 200 I
Gerhard Jaritz and Michael Richter