Cornelius Relegatus

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I am called Cornelius, wolbekant to all students , copperplate from the Speculum Cornelianum from 1608/1618

Cornelius Relegatus (lat. " Cornelius who was expelled from the university "), also "the idle Cornelius", is a theatrical comedy by Albert Wichgreve (around 1575-1619) premiered on the university jubilee in Rostock in 1600 , which satirically the inglorious career of a failed student of the 16th century and for a long time shaped the public's views of the life of a strolling student . At the same time, the piece is a document of the academic mores and customs of the late 16th century.

The piece achieved enormous public success with an extraordinary long-term effect, but it was the only successful piece by its author.

History of transmission and reception

The original title of the piece was:

CORNELIUS RELEGATUS SIVE COMOEDIA NOVA, FESTIVISSIME DEPINGENS VITAM PSEUDOSTUDIOSORUM, & CONTINENS NONNULLOS RITUS ACADEMICOS IN GERMANIA

(German: Cornelius expelled from the university or a new comedy that most admirably describes the life of would-be students and contains some academic customs in Germany)

Title page of the second Rostock edition from 1601

The second edition of the piece appeared in Rostock in 1601/2 ( VD 17 number: 23: 281653E), the third in 1602 in Leipzig (VD 17 number: 3: 004240M). A probably unauthorized reprint appeared in Halle / Saale without a date, text-critical examinations showed that it is most similar to the first edition and that its time of origin can also be dated to 1600/1. Another printing took place in Altdorf in 1615 (VD 17 number: 75: 694101E).

In 1605 Johannes Sommer wrote a German version that appeared in Magdeburg :

CORNELIUS RELEGATUS. A funny new Comoedia, which describes the life of the wrongly named students even nicely. First described in Latin / By M.Albertum VVichgrevium Hambur. But now many requests and requests translated into German language

Sommer's comedy is largely a translation of the Latin text into German Knittelverse with only minor changes in content. While Wichgreve's text in its various editions is still preserved in numerous copies in German libraries and archives, only two copies of Sommers Cornelius relegatus are known, one in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków (previously owned by the Prussian State Library in Berlin), and one in the Biblioteka Uniwersitecka, Wrocław. The Göttingen State and University Library also has microfiche recordings of a now lost copy of its holdings. There is no evidence of a print of Sommer's text, which is also said to have been made by another printer in Magdeburg in 1605. Also, no copy of an edition from the year 1618 that is frequently mentioned in literature and bibliographies has so far been found.

The text was so popular that in the following years other authors wrote similar student comedies in order to profit from the success of Cornelius , and the motif of the idle student was also taken up in non-literary art forms - partly in direct connection with the comedy.

The artist Jacob van der Heyden (1573–1645) published a series of engravings in Strasbourg in 1608 and 1618 with the title “Speculum Cornelianum. Pugillus facetiarum iconographicarum "(German:" Cornelscher Spiegel. A handful of funny ideas in pictures ") and the German subtitle" Allerhand Kurtzweilige Stücklein, all students furnemblich zu Lieb ... ". The individual sheets showed the most important passages of the play. In 1879 the sheets were reprinted.

The Berlin artist Peter Rollos also dedicated himself to the subject in 1624 and published 58 copper engraving plates under the title "Vita Corneliana emblematibus in aes artificiose incisa ..." German subtitles read "this is the whole life of Cornelii, with exquisite melded copper engraving ..."

The subject of Cornelius was so popular in the 17th century that it was quoted many times in academic circles. One example is a prize medal from the University of Altdorf on display in the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg for special achievements from 1615, which, of all things, used a motif from the lost student Cornelius.

The content

The comedy satirically deals with the academic career of a young man named Cornelius, who as a young student at the university immediately succumbs to all the vices that exist there and fails miserably. However, a lucky coincidence turns things around, and the story gets a happy ending .

The play begins with Cornelius being sent to the university by his parents, although the family is already plagued by premonitions.

At the university, the young man then has to endure the customary admission rituals of the deposition before the admission test by a professor and the matriculation by the rector take place.

Hardly a student enrolled, Cornelius begins the lotter life. The very first drinking session ends with nightly excesses, followed by arrest and conviction by the academic courts . Next, Cornelius is sued by his creditors to the rector.

After that, more accidents accumulate: Cornelius is relegated to ten years, that is, expelled from the university; he learns that his parents are dead, that he is disinherited, and that he has just been born out of wedlock to care for. When he tries to hang himself from a rope hanging from the ceiling, the rope tears a hole in the ceiling from which money bags hidden there fall on him.

He decides to do better and build a new life with the money. His prince stands up for him and the rector takes him back to the university.

The name "Cornelius"

The name of "Cornelius" is not chosen by chance. In the student language of that time, the word cornelius denoted a negative state of mind in general, but also a hangover from excessive alcohol consumption .

The Germanist Reinhold Köhler published in the magazine for German philology in 1869 a treatise with the title "Cornelius, a supplement to the German dictionaries", in which he explained that the word from the last quarter of the 16th century to the 18th century had a very special meaning, largely forgotten in the 19th century. It is: “synonymous with bad mood, resentment, resentment, especially as much as remorse, shame, remorse. At the same time it includes everything that we nowadays describe as a shame, both the physical and the moral ”.

There are some cheerful "disputationes" written in Latin that deal with the causes of "Cornelius". The following text is also typical:

Often called Cornelius
The good wine, by dark night
Gassatum gan, the splendor of clothes,
The love to women mad and blind
For some alone the cause is
This is often referred to by Cornelius
Must move into his heart. - -
Every young student thinks
Which one does not always send valid
He has a hard time worrying about himself
Cornelius, who depressed him very much - -
The guest addressed Cornelius
Rules at home like here so well.
(Excerpt from: "Crucianus or Student-Cornelius in a German colloquio", 1627)

literature

  • Johannes Sommer, Cornelius relegatus (1605). Critical edition. Edited and commented by Moritz Ahrens, Leonard Keidel, Thomas Wilhelmi u. a. With an introduction by Thomas Wilhelmi , Moritz Ahrens & Leonard Keidel (Sandersdorf-Brehna 2011).
  • Karl Barth, Johannes Sommer . A folk writer of the post-Reformation period. Studies on his life and works (Diss. Greifswald 1921 [masch.]).
  • Johannes Bolte, Sommer, Johannes, in: ADB 34, pp. 603–605.
  • Johannes Bolte, Wichgrevius, Albert, in: ADB 42, pp. 310-312.
  • Reinhold Koehler, Cornelius. A supplement to the German dictionaries, in: Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 1 (1869), pp. 452–459.
  • Wilhelm Kühlmann, Sommer, Johannes, in: Killy Literaturlexikon Vol. 11, 2. completely revised. Ed. (Berlin, New York 2011), p. 55.
  • Ulrich Rasche, Cornelius relegatus in engravings and images from the archives of the early 17th century , in: Einst und Jetzt 53 (2008), pp. 15–47.
  • Ulrich Rasche, Cornelius relegatus and the disciplining of German students (16th to early 19th century). At the same time a contribution to the iconology of student memoria, in: Barbara Krug-Richter and Ruth-E. Mohrmann (Ed.), Early Modern University Cultures. Cultural-historical perspectives on universities in Europe (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2009 [supplements to the archive for cultural history 65]), pp. 157–221.
  • Friedrich Schulze, Paul Ssymank, German Studentism. From the oldest times to the present, 4th, completely revised. Edition (Munich 1932).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ VD 17 number: 23: 281653E . Association headquarters of the GBV (VZG). Retrieved February 13, 2019.
  2. ↑ VD 17 number: 3: 004240M . Association headquarters of the GBV (VZG). Retrieved February 13, 2019.
  3. ↑ VD 17 number: 75: 694101E . Association headquarters of the GBV (VZG). Retrieved February 13, 2019.