Beyond Goody and Grundmann

Beyond Goody and Grundmann
Michael Richter
In 1 963, Jack Goody and lan Watt published a paper entitled „The Consequences
of Literacy.“1 lt deals with the invention of the Greek alphabet in the
eighth century BC and its contribution to Greek culture, the basis of Western culture
tout court. This paper has received very broad attention, much of which was
highly critical. The essence of the article may be given as follows:
The present argument must … confine itsel f to suggesting that some crucial
Features of Western culture came into being in Greece soon after the existence,
for the first time, of a rich urban society in which a substantial portion
of the population was able to read and write; and that, consequently, the
overwhelming debt of the whole of contemporary civilisation to classical
Greece must be regarded as in some measure the result not so much of the
Greek genius, as of the intrinsic differences between non-literate (or protoliterate)
and literate societies; the latter being mainly represented by those
societies using the Greek alphabet and its derivatives.2
Here the reader is asked to see a close causal connection between literacy shared
by a substantial section of the population and advance in culture, or, to use a term
not found there but implied: progress. Goody and Watt more than once maintain
that the majority of the Greek urban dwellers were able to read and write and that
the infrastructure existed to maintain this Ievel of education. Crucial to their argument
is that the Greek achievements (which in this contribution remain rather
vague) were attained soon after the creation of a largely literate society.3
The Greek paradigm for the scholar derives from another factor described in
the following terms: „The writing down of some of the main elements in the cultural
tradition in Greece … brought about an awareness of two things: of the past
as different from the present; and of the inherent inconsistencies in the picture of
life as it was inherited by the individual from the cultural tradition in its recorded
fonn. These two effects of widespread alphabetic writing, it may be surmised,
1 Comparative Studies in Society and Hislory, 5, (1962-63), pp. 304-345 (reprinted in Jack
Goody, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968).
2 lbid., p. 332.
3 On this issue see further Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992).
12 MICHAEL RICHTER
have continued and multiplied themselves ever since, and at an increasing pace
since the development of printing.'“‚
These medievalists who deal with literacy normally have a reference to this
article without consideration of whether it may contribute to a better understanding
of medieval societies. Tn this context it should be emphasized particularly that
Goody refers to effects „of widespread alphabetic writing“.5 For this reason it is
imperative to investigate pragmatically the social dimensions of writing in every
given society. In any case, the medievalists who draw on Goody and Watt in a
general manner conveniently fail to comment on another important Statement in
the same article which, admittedly, is not discussed in detail but would appear to
be as crucial: „For, even within a Iiterale culture, tbe oral tradition … neve1theless
remains the primary mode of cultural orientation, and, to varying degrees, is out of
step with the various literate traditions.“6
I suppose that this point was made rather casually because it was an obvious
phenomenon for anthropologists that did not need any elaboration, but it certainly
does place written culture into a wider social context. If the Statement is valid for
classical Greece, it is all the more relevant for the Middle Ages.
This article by Goody and Watt, like other scholarly contributions, should
be taken for what it is, the presentation of a hypothesis tbat needs to be tested for
its applicability in every case. Its main assumptions have found vehement critics
from the discipline of classicists,7 not, however, from medievalists. Here it seems
advisable to make two points. In the first place, Goody and Watt were not bistorians,
Iet alone medievalists, but anthropologists; secondly, in this article they nowhere
referred to the Middle Ages, but confined themselves to antiquity and contemporary
society. Since the appearance of this article, Jack Goody has published
in tbe field of medieval studies and there apparently did not heed his own earlier
evaluation of primary orality, but got caught, like so many others, in what I would
like to call the ‚texts trap‘. But here this is just an aside.
Two points have to be separated: the article on its own merits, and the use of
it made by medievalists who do not refer to the Iimits the authors tbemselves have
drawn. These medievalists who use Goody and Watt in support of their ideas
about literacy in the medieval world, more often by way of tacit assumptions than
in points specifically elaborated, do not discuss two essential features. First, the
educational infrastructure in medieval societies everywhere was fundamentally
different from what Goody and Watt posit for classical Greece, the medieval so-
4 Goody and Watt, Literacy, p. 333. The same point is made elsewhere: „The present attempt to
outline the possible relationships between the writing system and those cultural innovations of
early Greece which are common to all alphabetically-literate societies“ (p. 320).
5 „seems to have been used in a very wide range of activities, intellectual as weil as
economic, and by a wide range of people“ (ibidem, pp. 318 f.)
6 Ibidem, p. 335.
·
7 See, e.g., John Halverson, „Goody and the Implosion of the Literacy Thesis,“ Man, NS 27
( 1992), pp. 30 1-31 7.
BEYOND GOODY AND GRUNDMANN 13
cieties were much less closely knit than classical Greece.8 Second, the Ianguage
situation was different in Greek antiquity and in modern times from the Situation
in the Middle Ages. In ancient Greece and in the modern world the primary language
of the Iirerates is a written variety of their vernacular. This was not so for
most of the Middle Ages where the Ianguage written most widely was Latin,
mostly a foreign language the acquisition of which was restricted to a small section
of the population and only in special institutions and for restricted purposes.9
For many of the medieval centuries we are dealing with elite literacy10 par excellence,
which was not what Goody and Watt presented from Greece.
It would appear that the second statement of Goody and Watt quoted earlier
is highly pertinent to the medieval Situation; „The oral tradition remained the primary
mode of cultural orientation.“ Here the anthropologists come into their own
again. It is a great challenge to medievalists to come to terms with this situation,
and all the more so since oral tradition must necessarily be investigated by way of
written sources.11 This implies that the medium in which one works is qualitatively
different in several respects from the medium to be investigated. There are indications
that often, even though not throughout, those who produced our written
sources were not neutral towards the representatives of the oral culture. It may be
pointed out that the conviction that the oral tradition was the primary mode of
cultural orientation has been branded recently, by a Celticist, as „romantic“.12
Celticists should know better since Celtic societies have been carriers of vital oral
culture to the twentieth century more visibly that other Western societies.13
Here the medievalists would be weil served to heed the article by Herbert
Grundmann, ‚Litteratus- Illitteratus‘, published in 1958.14 Its reception would appear
to have been restricted to the world of Germanophone scholarship. There,
however, it has not been subjected to any substantial criticism since its appearance
almost half a century ago. Grundmann was a highly respected medievalist, from
8 Detlev lllmer, Formen der Erziehung und Wissensvermittlung im frühen Mittelalter (München:
Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1971 ); M. M. Hildebrandt, The Externat School in Carolingian Society
(Leiden: Brill, 1992).
9 Michael Richter, „Latein als Schlüssel zur Welt des früheren Mittelaters?“ Mitleilateinisches
Jahrbuch 27 (1993), pp. 15-26, reprinted in id., Studies in Medieval Language and Culture
(Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1995) pp. 198-204.
1° For this aspect see below, the discussion of Herbert Grundmann, „Litteratus- Illitteratus.“ 11
In detail see Michael Richter, The Formation of the Medieval West. Studies in the Oral Culture
of the Barbarians (Dublin and New York: Four Courts Press, 1994). See further Hermann
Moisl, Lordship and Tradition in Barbarian Europe (Lampeter: Meilen, 1999) (Studies in
Classics, vol. I 0).
12 Patrick Sims-Williams, „The Uses of Writing in Early Medieval Wales,“ in: Huw Pryce, ed.,
Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 15-
38, at p. 16. 13
See Wolfgang Meid, Dichter und Dichtkunst im alten Irland (Innsbruck: Institut fiir Sprach14
wissenschaften der Universität lnnsbruck, 1971 ).
Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 40, pp. 1-65.
14 MICHAEL RICHTER
1957 to 1970 president of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, and in charge of
the edition of mainly Latin material conceming medieval Germania, whatever that
term may stand for. It is not so much that Grundmann is wrong in what he writes,
but rather is misleading because of what he leaves out. We may add that since
Grundmann’s article appeared there has been some progress in medieval studies
which is relevant for us.
While there has been ample work on the phenomenon of writing and its
consequences, it would appear significant that the German language Iacks a single
equivalent for the English terms ‚literacy‘ or ‚literate’_l5 What discussion there has
been of written culture in Germany failed to place it alongside the phenomenon
that „the oral tradition …. remained the primary mode of cultural orientation.“16
This despite the fact that Grundmann referred to the culture that remained outside
the written sphere more than once and even made it explicit that this other culture
was not inferior to written culture but simply represented another world.17
Grundmann deals only with alphabetic writing, and he does not give any
indication that he is aware of either runic writing or ogam. He has three main
points to make:
I. litteratus in the Middle Ages has different connotations from that terrn in Roman
antiquity and simply refers to the ability to read and write; 18
2. the ability to write in the Middle Ages was largely the domain of clerics, to the
extent that litteratus I clericus almost became synonyms, at least before the
twelfth century; 19
3. the application of the Latin alphabet to non-Latin languages was carried out
early only exceptionally and only for the English language.20
Crucial in his argument is the evaluation of Latin vis-a-vis the other Western
European languages. Here the Romania has to be singled out as the area with
an important continuity from the Latin past. The roJe of Latin in the early Middle
15 Goody and Watt’s articlc was translated as „Konsequenzen der Literalität,“ in Literalität in
traditionalen Gesellschaften, trans. Friedhelm Herborth and Thomas Lindquist (Frankfurt/
Main: Suhrkamp, 1981 ). The two crucial terms are German neologisms.
16 A ten year project of the Univcrsity ofFreiburg on „Übergänge und Spannungsfelder zwischen
Mündlichkeil und Scluiftlichkeit“ did not explore orality in a new manner, see, in the series
ScriptOralia, e. g. Cluistine Ehler, Ursula Schaefcr, ed., Verschrifiung und Verschrifilichung
(Tübingen: Narr, 1998) (ScriptOralia 94).
17 Art. cit., pp. 8, 13, 32.
18 lbid., pp. 15, 1 7 . For the generallypositive connotations of the term idiota in the early Middle
Ages, legitimized by Acts 4: 13: Videntes autem Petri constantiam, et Joannis, comperto quod
homines essent sine litteris, et idiotae, admirabantur … , see Johannes Schneider, „Das Wort
idiota im mittelalterlichen Latein,“ in E. C. Welskopf, ed., Untersuchungen ausgewählter altgriechischer
sozialer Typenbegriffe und ihr !'“ort/eben in Antike und Millefalter (Berlin: Akademie-
Verlag, 1981 ), pp. 132-57 (Soziale Typenbegriffe im alten Griechenland und ihr Fortleben
in den Sprachen der Welt, Bd. 4).
19 lbid., p. 43.
20 lbid., pp. 34, 35, 40.
BEYOND GOODY AND GRUNDMANN 15
ages has always been a controversial subject among scholars of the Romance languages.
For twenty years or so there has been a growing argument from various
sides to suggest that Latin in the Romania, long past the end of the Western empire,
was accessible to people not specially educated, and with considerable regional
variation. As with concentric circles, Latin was accessible Iongest in Italy,
less so in Spain and least in Gaul, where one could differentiale even further between
north and south, the Iangue d’oil and the Iangue d’oc, respectively.21 In this
respect Grundmann, not without some ambivalence, holds the conservative position.
This is the view that from the beginning of the Middle Ages, even in the Romania,
Latin was as foreign a language22 as it was in the centrat Middle Ages, and
its acquisition required a formal education.
The more recent positions outlined above have many consequences for the
topic. As far as I can see, no attention has been paid by early medieval historians
to the fact that in the Roman world of late antiquity, the use of Latin in the Christi
an religion had meant the use of the lingua vulgaris, as is so evident in Jerome’s
Vulgate. This situation must now be extended to the Romance areas of the early
medieval centuries. Sermons preached in Latin were accessible without any Jinguistic
barrier to the uneducated Romance population, and if the liturgy may have
used a more arcane register of that language, the Vulgate for these people was
nevertbeless not a book with seven seals, as it were.
The situation where uneducated people could partake in Latin church services
is clear in the sermons of Caesarius of Arles from the first half of the sixth
century. In bringing the message of the Gospel to his flock Caesarius encountered
an attitude of indifference that he found alarming. ft is from his writings that we
hear of the arguments which he appears to have encountered frequently: „we cannot
read and therefore we cannot know the Christian commands.“ Caesarius did
not accept this argument, which he regarded as a poor excuse. He countered with
the example of merchants, who, should they themselves not be able to write, employed
others who possessed this skill, and thus even though themselves illiterate
could make use of written culture for their benefit. l f this was done for worldly
gain, said Caesarius, all the more should it be worth pursuing for the salvation of
one’s soul.23 He further argued that the laity had the capacity to retain a !arge repertoire
of secular verse and thus could as weil open themselves to Christian Latin
verse. Caesarius bundled the predicament in which he found hirnself in the words
21 See in particular Roger Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian
France (Liverpool: Caims, 1 982), which was even trans1ated into Spanish, and more publications
by him thereafter. Michel Banniard, Viva voce. Communication ecrite et communication
orale du iv• au ix‘ siecle en Occident Latin (Paris: Institut des Etudes Augustiniennes, 1992).
22 See esp. art. cit., pp. 24-26.
23 Sancti Caesarii episcopi Arelatensis opera omnia, ed. G. Morin (Maretioli, 1937), vol. I,
senno 6 and 8.
1 6 MICHAEL RICHTER
Incipe velle.24 It was only a question of motivation, not of formal education. It is
believed that this language situation continued in Gaul into the eighth century.
Turning to other areas of Western Europe, an entirely different picture
emerges. Here the focus must be first on Ireland, the society that received Catholic
Christianity a century earlier than the Franks. The horizon of Grundmann did not
extend that far, and, one may add, this is still the case with German medievalists.
Ireland is special for several reasons. In the first place, around 400, it received
Catholic Christianity from Britain and Gaul, two areas where Catholic Christianity
had just become the official religion of the state, tied, of course, to the Latin language.
25 In Ireland, this language of the new religion was retained. Here it was,
from the beginning, a sacral language accessible only to people who bad received
a formal education and was thus inaccessible to the majority of Christians.
This was to be the situation thereafter in all other parts of Western Europe
outside the Romania, a situation that Grundmann posited from the very beginning.
In the seventh century Ireland emerged as the society with the most dynarnic cultivation
of the Latin language?6 And from the late sixth century onwards, Irish
Christians, the farnous Irish peregrini, went forth into other societies to live their
Christianity abroad. It cannot be doubted that the Irish contributed substantially to
the spread and acceptance of the Latin Church in the West, with the central use of
the lingua sacra. This implies the subsequent division of society into litterati and
illitterati, where one should take note that the Christian religion could not tolerate
the belief systems of not-Christian as equal. The qualitative difference between
litterati and the rest emerged in this context, at least in the minds of the zealous
Christi ans.
There is another reason why Ireland must be singled out in this field.
Grundmann was no exception in not knowing that medieval Ireland has the riebest
corpus of vernacular Iiterature outside Latin.27 In fact, in seventh-century Ireland
one can observe, almost as in a laboratory, the stages in writing the vernacular
with the help of the Latin alphabet, from earliest glosses to continuous prose. This,
furthermore, happened in the sphere of the Christian religion28 as weil as in the
secular sphere. Here we must refer to the vast corpus of Irish law, compiled
24 1bid., sermo 6, p. 34.
25 For the most recent and highly competent account see Thomas Charl es-Edwards, Early Christian
Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), with an extensi ve bibiography.
26 Michael Richter, Ireland and Her Neighbours in the Seventh Cen tury (Dublin and N ew York:
Four Courts Press, 1999).
27 The bestmodern account is J. E. Caerwyn Williams, Patrick Ford , The lrish Literary Tradition
(Cardiff and Belmont/Mass: The University of Wales Press, 1992). It i s significant that the
Celtic countries are not included in standard works like Karl Langosch, Geschichte der Textüberlieferung
der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur, vol. 2 (Zürich: Atlantis Verlag,
1964).
28 The most convenient collection of material is found in Whitl ey Stokes and John Strachan, eds.,
Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, 2 vols. (Cambri dge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1901), re­
printed Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975.
BEYOND GOODY AND GRUNDMANN 17
around 700 and written almost completely in lrish.2 9 The Irish language as it
emerged in the early stages was a cultivated Hochsprache, but it would appear to
have been accessible to people not trained to read when it was recited to them. In
this way the written material in non-Latin languages was not inaccessible to illiterates.
The question of why a similar constellation apparently did not exist in
Wales, which had a great influence on early Ireland, has no simple answer. This is
a substantial area where Grundmann is unreliable due to Iack of information. It has
considerable consequences for the overall validity ofhis argument.
The spread of alphabetic writing along with the spread of Christianity created
the precondition for writing the vemacular languages as weil. The early
glosses in many !anguage areas show that this became possible at an early stage.
The fact that there is not more vemacular writing available from the early medieval
centuries shows that traditional methods of passing on the cultura! heritage –
the oral method- were considered as adequate and continually satisfactory. This is
indeed conceded by Grundmann and can be considered as a confirmation of sorts
for the medieva! period of Goody and Watt’s ideas ofprimary orality.
This position may be illustrated by a brief consideration of the Old Saxon
Heliandpoem with its over six thousand verses. Grundmann refers to it in passing
but makes only a reference to the person who initiated the composition, a Ludowicus
who could be either Louis the Pious (unlikely in my view) or his son
Louis.30 The Latin preface to this work also re!ates, however, that the poem was
the work of a native eminent poet who was highly respected by his fellow countrymen:
Praecepit namque cuidam viro de gente Saxonum, qui apud suos non ignobilis
vates habebatur, ut vetus ac novum Testamenturn in Gerrnanicam linguam
poetice transferre studeret, quatenus non solum literatis, verum etiam
illiteratis sacra divinorum praeceptorum lectio panderetur. Qui iussis imperialibus
libenter obtemperans nimirum eo facilius, quo desuper admonitus
est prius, ad tarn difficile tanque arduum se statim contulit opus, potius
tarnen confidens de adiutorio obtemperantiae, quam de suae ingenio parvitatis
…. Quod opus tarn lucide tamque eleganter iuxta idioma illius linguae
composuit, ut audientibus ac intelligentibus non minimam sui decoris dulcedinem
praestet.31
In this way, the poem shows that in case of need the Church could draw on an
elaborate Dichtersprache, which existed independent of writing and in the Heliand
has left a record of its qualities more clearly than in other instances. High
29 D. A Binchy, ed., Corpus luris Hibf;rnici , 6 vols. (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced
Studies,
1978); Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early lrish Law (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies,
1988) (Early lrish Law Series vol. 3).
30 Art. cit., p. 41.
31 Heliand und Genesis, ed. Otto Behaghel, 9’11 ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1984), p. 1 (Altdeutsche
Textbibliothek, 4).
18 MICHAEL RICHTER
quality of language before its wide use in writing is a concept which Iiterature
people find unpalatable, yet writing per se is no precondition for an improvement
in language.
Thus, we should note two phenomena pointing in different ways. Oral culture
existed on a very high Ievel as far as the quality of the language is concemed;
it was so firmly established and functioned so weil that there was no need to resort
to writing even though lhe technical preconditions existed. From this perspective
the people of Latin leaming, comprising their skills to read and write Latin in societies
where Latin was not the lingua vulgaris, must be considered as a socially
marginal group who were in no way responsible for the functioning of their society.
It is understandable that their view of themselves and the evaluation of their
skills would be different, yet their own high regard for their leaming must not be
taken at face value but instead as their subjective interpretations.
The preconditions for the creation of a small group of people skilled to write
Latin in the early medieval societies outside the Romania are in need of renewed
investigation in order to be able to give an adequate evaluation of the place of the
litterati in their contemporary context. This can best be done by approaching the
problern with the anthropologist’s evaluation of the roJe of oral culture. We may
also quote the formulation of the phenomenon of Dichtersprache before writing,
as expressed by the Iinguist Calvert Watkins: „A language necessarily implies a
society, a speech community, and a culture.“32 We are asked to investigate more
than has been done in the past the function of language as a social cohesive even
before its written form emerges. This is by no means easy, but it would necessarily
amount to a historicization of our available written sources, which would then assume
a new and more limited value.
32 Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon. Aspects of lndo-European Poetics (New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press, I 995), p. 7.
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:
and
– 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