Quest (Middle Ages)

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The quest ( old French for a "request, desire", from the Latin questus or questio "lament") was initially a manorial levy in medieval France in the 12th and 13th centuries, where a "waist, qu'on appelle queste" is passed down is: This tax, together with other taxes, could account for between 30% and 50% of the income.

Request for help

In the life of monasteries and ecclesiastical religious orders , the quest meant begging alms in all its various forms. The term is derived from the Latin quaestio for "research, question".

Search mission

Later, the quest (pronounced in French) or quest (pronounced in English / German) as an adventurous quest ( hero's journey , aventiure ) of chivalry represented a possible model of action in medieval poetry . Accordingly, a called protagonist embarks on daring missions, conquers the most dangerous enemies, delivers secret messages, hides lost treasures, saves kidnapped noble ladies - and often has an almost unattainable goal in sight. Examples are the rose novel , the Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri or the Pelerinage de la vie humaine by Guillaume de Digulleville . The best-known tradition is La Queste del Saint Graal - often also referred to as Queste for short - from the Arthurian myth .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Elisabeth Lalou: Quest . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 7, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7608-8907-7 , Sp. 365 f.
  2. ↑ Lucas Brinkhoff: Franziskaner , in: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Vol. 1, p. 803.
  3. ^ Marc-René Jung: French literature , in: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Vol. 4, pp. 837-839.
  4. ^ Ingeborg Glier: Allegorie , in: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Vol. 1, pp. 423-424.

literature

Web links