Eleanor of Scotland

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beginning of the Augsburg edition in 1485

Eleanor of Scotland (also of Austria ) (* around 1433 in Dunfermline (Scotland); † November 20, 1480 in Innsbruck ) was the daughter of King James I of Scotland and Johanna Beaufort . In 1449 she married Sigmund von Tirol .

Life

Little is known about Eleonore's youth in Scotland, most of which she spent at Linlithgow Castle . After the death of her father (1437), her mother entered into a marriage and died in 1445. At that time, Eleanor and her sister Johanna traveled to France and lived at the court of King Charles VII in Tours . There they received adequate tuition and maintenance for noble girls for three years.

In 1448 it was decided to marry Eleonores with Sigmund von Tirol. In September 1448 the procuration ceremony took place in Belmont near Chinon . Then Eleanor left the highly cultural French court and traveled on an arduous route to the much more provincial Tyrol , the capital of which was nevertheless a German cultural center. On February 12, 1449 she married Sigmund in a modest ceremony in Merano . There were no surviving children from their marriage.

When Sigmund was absent from his country three times between 1455 and 1458, Eleanor acted as regent in his place. That is why she became involved in the dispute that Sigmund had with Cardinal Nikolaus von Kues . During her reign in the Vorlanden (1467) she chose Thann as her residence. After 1469 she was hardly politically active, but mainly exercised charitable welfare and also took care of church affairs.

Duke Sigmund was very interested in literature, encouraged authors and temporarily (around 1460) employed the humanists Laurentius Blumenau and Gregor Heimburg . Eleonore's Scottish court at home was also very literary, and she took part in her husband's cultural intercourse. When Heinrich Steinhöwel made a translation of Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus (1473), he dedicated it to Eleonore. This also maintained a lively correspondence with the Countess Palatine Mechthild von Rottenburg and was probably one of the ladies who were invited to Ulrich Füetrer's office in Munich in 1467 . (Since nothing has been preserved from this correspondence, there are now considerable doubts in recent research as to whether this correspondence even existed.)

Eleonore died in Innsbruck in 1480. The fact that she died in childbed with the birth of her first child, Wolfgang (* / † November 20, 1480) is now considered to be refuted, as well as the fact that this son Wolfgang existed. This is likely to be confused with the older brother of the same name of Duke Sigmund, who died as a child. Her grave is in Stams Abbey in Tyrol, where a statue in the so-called Austrian grave commemorates her.

Literary work

Eleonore is traditionally considered to be the translator of the French adventure novel Ponthus et la belle Sidoyne, which dates back to the Anglo-Norman verse story Horn et Rimenhild (around 1180) and was written at the end of the 14th century, into German ( Pontus and Sidonia , Version A, written sometime between 1449 and 1465) . Doubts as to whether she is actually the author of this translation could not be refuted. Since the novel is written extremely well, but Eleonore was less proficient in German than French, as two letters she wrote herself (now in the Tyrolean Provincial Archives) show, she could have received help from a scribe in writing it. After the death of his wife, Sigmund had her work, of which only a manuscript (today in Gotha, written by Nicolaus Huber in 1465) exists, was first printed by Hans Schönsperger in Augsburg in 1483. Even before this first printing there were several mentions of the novel; from this one can see how popular the adventurous material was and how widespread Eleonore's book was. The first edition was followed by further prints in 1485, 1491 and 1498 and it enjoyed great popularity in the early modern period (16th / 17th century). There were considerable sales figures, a number of quotes from other authors and also some adaptations of the material. Eleonore's work was last printed in 1792. Karl Simrock published a new version of the people's book in 1865.

In addition to the translation of Eleonores (version A), there is another, independent translation, created around the same time by an unknown author (version B), which exists in five manuscripts but was never printed. In addition to the lack of a noble name, the fact that this version differs stylistically from Eleonores Pontus and Sidonia in that it uses a more artificial language with many rhetorical figures instead of the simpler and more concise language also contributed to this.

In terms of content, Eleonore stuck to her template pretty much, even if she shortened the plot a little from time to time. The protagonist is the son of the king, Pontus, who comes from Galicia and who is fleeing the heathen from his empire in Brittany . There he catches love for the king's daughter Sidonia. This is followed by arguments with a rival who is also fighting for Sidonia's favor and slandering Pontus with her. He first had to move away for a year, where he heroically defeated numerous knights, was again falsely accused after his return and stayed away from the court for seven years. In time he gets back to his lover, whom he can save from being forcibly married to his rival. Instead, the wedding between Pontus and Sidonia takes place and the hero can drive the heathen out of his fatherly realm and completely eliminate his opponent. The whole story of the novel is directed towards this happy ending. The hero is portrayed as a flawless ideal of man, namely as extremely brave, beautiful, Christian, etc., while his enemies (the pagans and his rival) are characterized as vicious and non-religious. The author wants to provide his readers with a model and instruction for a virtuous and pious life through the flawless behavior of the protagonist. The central motif of the novel conceived in this way is therefore an idealistically portrayed chivalry and does not seem very realistic. In contrast, the somewhat earlier written works by Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken are rough and give a more realistic impression.

Primary literature

  • Reinhard Hahn (Ed.): Eleonore von Österreich: Pontus und Sidonia (=  texts of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period . No. 38 ). Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-503-03757-8 .

Secondary literature

  • Klaus Brandstätter : The Tyrolean princesses in the 15th century . In: Margarete Maultasch. The world of a princess and other Tyrolean women of the Middle Ages. Edited by Julia Hörmann-Thurn and Taxis. 2007, pp. 175-218. (Schlern writings 339).
  • Margarete Köfler - Silvia Caramelle: The two wives of Archduke Sigmund of Austria-Tyrol . 1982. (Schlern-Schriften 269).

Lexica articles

Literature on partial aspects

  • Reinhard Hahn: From French tongues in Teütsch. The literary life at the Innsbruck court in the later 15th century and the prose novel 'Pontus und Sidonia (A)' . Frankfurt a. M. 1990 (microcosm 27).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Hans-Hugo Steinhoff ( author's lexicon , 2nd edition, vol. 2, col. 471) considers Eleonore's authorship to be certain. Ibid. Vol. 11 (the delivery appeared in 2001), Col. 403: questionable. False, says Falk Eisermann in his manuscript description .
  2. ↑ http://www.handschriftencensus.de/8444 .
  3. ↑ z. B. by Johannes Agricola , 750 Teutscher Sprichormen (1534); Johann Fischart , Podagrammisch Trostbüchlein (1577); Andreas Gryphius , Peter Squentz (1657/58)
  4. ↑ z. B. Hans Sachs (1558)

Web links

Commons : Eleanor of Scotland  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Eleanor of Scotland
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eleanor of Austria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish princess and translator
DATE OF BIRTH around 1433
PLACE OF BIRTH Dunfermline
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1480
Place of death innsbruck