Annolied

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The vernacular Annolied , comprising 49 stanzas, was probably written between 1077 and 1081, at least before 1100, in early Middle High German rhyming verses, presumably by a Siegburg monk. The mention of Mainz as the coronation site is a clue for dating . The coronations of the German kings usually took place in Aachen ; therefore the information can only refer to the time after the coronation of the opposing king Rudolf von Rheinfelden in 1077 or to the coronation of Heinrich V in 1106. The author is anonymous, most of the evidence speaks for his origin from the Rhine-Franconian area, in particular from the triangle Hersfeld-Saalfeld-Bamberg. Abbot Reginhard von Siegburg comes into question as the client .

The original manuscript of the Anno song has been lost. The earliest surviving evidence is Martin Opitzen's first print from 1639 and a partial print in 1597 by Bonaventura Vulcanius . Both used closely related, but not identical, templates. Since its first edition, the Annolied has attracted great research interest, and the research literature is correspondingly extensive. The works of Opitz (1639), Parnassus Boicus (1723), Wilhelm Wilmanns (1887), Roediger (1895), Ittenbach (1937/38), Knab (1962), Thomas (1968/77), Nellmann (new edition 1975 ) and Eickermann (manuscript discovery 1976).

Content and structure

The Annolied is a unique, atypical, but not singular text that cannot be clearly assigned to a genre; The Anno song is most likely to be described as a historical poem. His main theme is the glorification of the controversial Archbishop of Cologne Anno II (around 1010-1075) for the purpose of canonization. Anno's life is stylized and de-individualized, the focus is on the timeless model of his life and work. More space than the Vita Annos (stanzas 33–49) is occupied by a double historical discourse from the beginning of time to the present of the poet: one strand represents salvation history, the other world history. In the history of salvation (stanzas 2-7) the three-world scheme is striking, according to which God divides creation into a spiritual, a material and a third world, which stands between the other two worlds and is embodied by man. Your ideal representative is Anno. In the world history part (verses 8–33) the Annolied poet links Roman history with the history of the Germans in such a way that Caesar appears as the starting point of German history. Caesar raises the German tribes to joint and world domination. At the end of this line is Anno, the 33rd Bishop of Cologne.

A more recent interpretation by Dunphy and Herweg sees the key to the structure of the work in the poet's statement in the prologue that God originally created two "worlds", one profane and one spiritual, that he then mixed them in order to create human beings which is, so to speak, a “third world”. This idea goes back to the theology of Johannes Scottus Eriugena . The verse is of central importance if one understands the structure of the whole work in this light: the poet reports first the history of salvation, then the profane history, and then he mixes the two in a person's biography: Anno. The connection between the chronicle and the life of the saints, which has long been considered puzzling, is easy to understand.

The number symbolism is of a certain importance for the structural arrangement , v. a. the key numbers 3, 4, 7 and 33. The Annolied is a model case of numerically designed poetry, however, a number-symbolic penetration has not proven itself in the interpretation. The historical picture of the Anno song grants profane arguments unusually high priority. The emergence and nature of the empire stand on a new basis that has been removed from the emperor-pope problem. For the understanding of the Anno song, the historical background (turmoil of the Reich, investiture dispute ) is of great importance. In the first section of the Annolied a rare stylistic device, the acrostic, is used: The first letters of the first seven verses up to the section in which the history of salvation ends result in the Middle High German expression for "well-known". This expression is, so to speak, the bracket that holds together the salvation history discussed. In addition, one of the earliest references to the word “German” can be found in the Annolied , the earliest as a collective term for the Saxons , Bavarians and Franks .

Sources of the Anno song

The Annolied poet drew on a variety of sources. In addition to the Bible, these include a. Virgil's Aeneis , a work by Johannes Scotus , the Alexander novel , the Rhenish-Lotharingian regional historiography, the Hystoria Treverorum , the older Annovita and possibly the Annals Lampert von Hersfeld . The poet combined his sources into an artful composition in which salvation and world history interpenetrate (for example, in the connection of the Daniel dream with legends of the origin of German tribes, for example with the Troy myth of the Lower Rhine , and Roman history). The poet is characterized by great independence. Parts of the Annolied were included in the later Middle High German Imperial Chronicle ; the two works are often discussed together.

See also

Editions

  • B. Vulcanius: De literis et Lingua Getarum sive Gothorum . Ed .: Franciscus Raphelengius. Leiden 1597, p. 61-64 ( google.co.uk ).
  • Max Roediger: The Anno song. In: Monumenta Germaniae Historica . 1: Scriptores. 8: German chronicles and other history books of the Middle Ages. Volume 1: German Imperial Chronicle, Trier New Year's Eve, Annolied. Volume 2: Trier New Year's Eve, Annolied. Hahn, Hannover 1895, pp. 63–145, ( digitized version ).
  • Walter Haug and Benedikt Konrad Vollmann (eds.): Early German literature and Latin literatures in Germany 800–1150. In: Library of the Middle Ages. Volume 1, pp. 596-647.
  • Eberhard Nellmann (Ed.): Das Annolied. Middle High German / New High German. Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-15-001416-6 .
  • Martin Opitz (ed.): The Anno song. (1639). Diplomatic imprint (without the general text by Opitz) by Walther Bulst. Heidelberg 1961.
  • Graeme Dunphy (Ed.): Opitz's Anno: The Middle High German Annolied in the 1639 Edition of Martin Opitz (=  Scottish Papers in Germanic Studies . No. 11 ). Glasgow 2003 ( uni-frankfurt.de [PDF]). (The complete Opitz work including the Latin text with an English translation.)

literature

  • Susanne Bürkle: Telling about the origin. Myth and collective memory in the Anno song. In: Udo Friedrich and Bruno Quast (eds.): Presence of the myth. In: Trends in Medieval Philology. Volume 2, Berlin, New York 2004, pages 99-130.
  • Uta Goerlitz: Literary construction of (pre-) national identity since the “Annolied”: Analyzes and interpretations of German literature of the Middle Ages (11th – 16th centuries). Berlin 2007.
  • Anselm Haverkamp : Typics and Politics in Anno Song. On the “conflict of interpretations” in the Middle Ages. Metzler, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-476-00420-1 .
  • Mathias Herweg: Ludwigslied, De Heinrico, Annolied. The German poetry of the early Middle Ages as reflected in its scientific reception and research. Wiesbaden 2002.
  • Dorothea Klein: Middle Ages: Textbook of German Studies. Stuttgart, Weimar 2006.
  • Doris Knab: The Anno song. Problems of its literary classification. Tubingen 1962.
  • Mauritius Mittler: (Ed.): Siegburg lectures for the year 1983. Siegburg 1984.
  • Max Ittenbach: German seals of the Salian imperial period and related monuments. Würzburg-Aumühle 1937.
  • Heinz Thomas : Comments on the dating, content and form of the Anno song. In: Journal for German Philology. 96, 1977, pp. 24-61.
  • Max Wehrli : History of German Literature. Volume 1: From the early Middle Ages to the end of the 16th century. Stuttgart 1984, pp. 176-185.
  • Wilhelm Wilmanns : About the Anno song. Bonn 1886.

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