Women's service

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The women's service (Vrouwen dienest) is a Middle High German work by Ulrich von Liechtenstein and was written in 1255. It consists of 1850 epic stanzas, 57 songs, a corpse , three little books and seven letters. The work is considered to be the first epic written in first person form in the German language.

action

The women's service describes the life, the adventures and above all the love affair between the knight Ulrich and two women whom he adored. The work is therefore also divided into a first and a second service.

First service (8–1389)

The 32 introductory stanzas of the women's service tell of the protagonist's childhood. Ulrich describes a love from childhood , so he was born for love. At an early age, he decided to become a minnitter and to put himself in the service of women. At the age of twelve years, Ulrich in love during his Page ndienstes in the lady of the landlord and decides to face in their service. From now on there will be one women's award after another. For the protagonist, only the chosen one counts. At the age of 24 his childhood story ends with the description of the big wedding celebration of the daughter Leopold of Austria in Vienna , during which he received his sword .

He then competes in numerous tournaments, all - as he repeatedly emphasizes - in the service of his vrowe . Some time later, through a relative, he sends the lady a song in which he offers her his services. However, this refuses the offer and justifies the decision u. a. with the "defaced mouth" of the knight. (Probably with the "defaced mouth" metaphorically the protagonist's cheeky mouth is meant and not a pathological disfigurement in the form of a cleft lip .) When Ulrich receives this news, he is very sad. But he immediately decides - taking the mistress' s message literally - to have his "disfigured mouth" operated.

After the plastic-surgical operation in Graz , which Ulrich described realistically and which was therefore known in the Middle Ages , which he endured with full awareness, he let the lady know. She then grants him a first meeting. Due to the beautiful sight of the lady, however, he cannot utter a word and thus misses this chance to get closer. Nevertheless, he again pledges to serve her. As a result, he takes part in the great Friesach tournament disguised as a green knight and lets the lady know about his successes again. But she again gives Ulrich a refusal.

Nevertheless, he does not allow himself to be dissuaded from his goal. He continues to compete in tournaments for his vrowe , praises them and accepts many inconveniences for them. For example, during a tournament in Brixen there was an accident in which Ulrich was injured on the finger. Due to misunderstandings between Ulrich and his vrowe , she accuses him of lying and refuses an employment relationship again. In desperation, Ulrich cuts off his finger and sends it to the lady. Although she shakes the gesture, she seems to feel honored because she grants him the opportunity to start his next tournament tour in her service.

Then the big and lavish Venus voyage begins: Dressed up in splendid women's clothes as Mrs. Venus and on a beautiful horse, Ulrich moves from Venice to Bohemia for 29 days and competes in one tournament after another. But even this honorable act can not convince the vrowe of an employment relationship. She grants him another meeting at which Ulrich, disguised as a leper, was supposed to hide in the moat of her castle one night, from where he would be brought to her. At the crucial moment, however, an accident happens that also makes this meeting fail. Then Ulrich desperately wants to take his own life, but this can still be prevented.

He uses the following summer for other tournaments. Suddenly he receives a message from the mistress, which gives him hope again: Ulrich should dare a trip across the sea for the lady. If he could do that, she would be ready to accept his love affair. Ulrich willingly decides to take the trip, the vrowe writes a book and three songs and sends them to her. She is very happy about it and exempts Ulrich from the dangerous journey. In the following summer, the protagonist suddenly breaks off the women's service to his beloved. The reader does not learn more precise circumstances. He only reveals that the vrowe has committed an crime that he does not want to elaborate on. It must have been something very bad, because Ulrich decides never to serve a woman again in his life. The first service is thus ended.

Second service (1390-1835)

For a long time and many complaints later, Ulrich feels able to serve a woman again. At this point in his life there is already a woman whom he would like to serve. He also dedicates a large and elaborate tournament tour to this vrowe , this time disguised as King Arthur . After this journey is over, a series of sad events follow. First Duke Friedrich is slain, which causes great hardship in Austria. Then Ulrich is taken prisoner for a year and three weeks. Attempts at liberation by his friends fail. Only love for his vrowe keeps him alive. He writes her songs and repeatedly assures her that he will serve her until his death. However, as a result of these dire events, his hair turns gray and he loses the joy of poetry.

Didax (1753-1835)

Ulrich warns women against men who only have quick love in mind and advises men on how they can gain favor with women.

Epilogue (1836-1850)

In the epilogue, Ulrich explains that he knows that it is dishonorable to write about his own life, but that he did so on behalf of his mistress, whose wish it was and which should be complied with. He calls the work vrowen dienst himself .

Text sample

Ulrich is known to have created a humorous, often grotesque poetry. One of his bizarre and comical scenes is the famous "hand washing water scene". In it he describes how he drinks his handwashing water out of love for her during his page duty at the court of his vrowe :

Hand washing

water scene Min vreude was vil often great,
swenne ich kom, since you wazer goz
the hearts love vrowen min
uf ir vil wizen hendelin.
daz wazer, da with si twuoc,
I mingle daz from then truoc,
before i love ez gar uz tranc;
since there were min truren cranc.

Analogous translation

My joy was always huge
when I just came when the water of
my dearest mistress was
poured over her white hands.
The water with which she washed herself
, I secretly carried away,
and drank it completely with love;
It made me sick with longing.

Ulrich von Liechtenstein: Women's Service, FD 25.1-8

The autobiography aspect

Three essential aspects contribute to wanting to classify Ulrichs von Liechtenstein Women's Service in the genre of the autobiography of the 19th century: First, the entire text is told from the first-person perspective. Because Ulrich was also an important man who was verifiable by 94 documents and therefore comprehensible, the assumption that he was telling his own life is obvious. Second, the protagonist not only mentions himself by name, but also numerous other people and places that can be historically proven. And thirdly, the author assures at the beginning of the work that he is telling the pure truth: I have sworn to it (FD 7,8) (translation: and any lie is far from me) .

All these facts tempt one to classify the work in the genre of autobiography . However, it should not be overlooked that Ulrich also leaves a lot unmentioned: For example, he does not report any political or legal activities in his life, which, however, can undoubtedly be linked to his person through the documents. Although he lists historically verifiable people, the existence of some cannot be proven at all or not at that time. In addition, he does not reveal the name of the most important character in his work, namely that of the protagonist.

The women's service is therefore probably not an autobiography, but the first novel written in first-person form in the German language or at best a fictional autobiography, i. H. a novel that contains historically verifiable elements, but no statements that can be proven to indicate an autobiography. The first person named Ulrich is thus a fictional character and cannot be equated with the real person Ulrich von Liechtenstein, even if the novel contains real historical facts in its action space.

Ulrich's intention

In the Middle Ages, when life was shorter than it is today, it was important to bring artistic talents to bear quickly so that they could e.g. B. could serve as a kind of visiting card on the way to society. While the two minstrels Walther von der Vogelweide and Neidhart , who lived in Ulrich's time, were professional artists who wrote and sang for a living, the Liechtensteiner only did so out of the joy of art or to draw attention to himself within his professional association . Unlike the so-called wage writers, Ulrich was financially independent from birth. The later generation of Styrian minstrels, such as B. Rudolf von Stadeck , Herrand von Wildon and the Sunecker , presumably performed their own songs together with Ulrich's songs in their homeland but also from afar, so that Ulrich's songs were ultimately considered worthy of being entered in the Manessian song manuscript . Ulrich has thus managed to leave his calling card for posterity, which was probably an intention behind his literary work.

Text structure and origin

The work is not an ordinary, homogeneous , self-contained text, but a kind of collective work by an individual. The Maere , the epic part, consists of 1850 stanzas of eight male quads, each rhyming in pairs, and is, so to speak, the framework for the lyrical work of the author, because Ulrich has interspersed his 57 songs, a corpse , three little books and seven letters in this epic part . One could speak of a "super text" that combines many small, self-contained texts. For a long time, researchers did not agree on the origin of women's service , and even today there are still very different opinions on this topic. The fact is that the status of the songs, books and letters changes in the course of the work, as does that of the epic text, the Maere. While the inserts in the report of the first ministry are used as an example and serve as evidence of what has just been told, they come to the fore almost unnoticed but continuously until they are finally almost independent in the second service. In the first service, the Maere functions, so to speak, as a life story , in the second, however, more as a paraphrase or literary commentary ( razos ) on the songs. The older research assumed that the women's service was written chronologically and represented a kind of curriculum vitae of Ulrich, with the result that he was seen as historical evidence and thus falsified reality. Nowadays it is believed that Ulrich wrote the Maere only when the deposits were already there, in a fixed, biographical-chronological order. The text is therefore a reconstructed construction of a man who has made himself the hero of his own novel through ingenious self-stylization.

Reception history

Lore

The women's service is contained in full in the parchment manuscript Cgm 44 (HS M; Münchner Staatsbibliothek) from the 13th century, apart from two gaps. The Augsburg parchment manuscript germ. 10 (HS A; State and City Library) from the 13th century also contains a sheet of the work. Three pieces of a double sheet can also be found on the cover of the Fischmeisteramtsrechnung Landshut 1510 (HS L; State Archives) from the 13th century. 55 of 58 Ulrich's songs are preserved in the parchment manuscript Cgm 44 (HS M; Münchner Staatsbibliothek) from the 13th century as part of the women's service . However, three songs are missing due to the loss of lyrics in the Cgm 44 In the large Heidelberg song manuscript Cpg 848 ( Codex Manesse ) from the 13th century, Ulrich's songs can be found on pages 237r - 247r in the same order as in the women's service . The epic of love was well known to the illustrator of the Codex Manesse, but the direct template only contained the songs. With the exception of the corpse and a few songs and verses, Ulrich's lyrical work is complete.

reception

Because the service of women was not one of the most frequently edited medieval works, its revisions in the 19th and 20th centuries are also, compared with z. B. the Nibelungen - or the Arthurian stuff , rather sparse. The prose transmission (1812) by Ludwig Tieck marked the beginning of the receptions. Between 1830 and 1832 the musician Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy set some of Ulrich's songs to music . Wilhelm Fischer published his novella Ulrich von Liechtenstein in 1898 , which focuses on the love story between Ulrich and his future wife Perchta von Weißenstein. The trivial knight story Ulrich von Liechtenstein (1902) by Carl Felix von Schlichtegroll is about the dependence of the man on the strict lady. In 1928 a lyrical adaptation of the women's service by Will Vesper followed . Even Gerhart Hauptmann took at the Ulrich-topic: He wrote a comedy about the hero who in 1939 at the Burgtheater was premiered in Vienna. In the same year the story was published wife Venus moves through Kärntnerland of Luise George Bachmann . There is also a song by Ulrich in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play Jedermann . In 1979 the magazine G - Geschichte mit Pfiff published a short story by Gerhard Fink with the name A good man, just a bit strange ... About the sufferings of a knight in love ministry - and what his wife thinks about it . In 1981, Helmut Birkhan and Martin Neubauer took a completely new approach to women's service reception: They staged the protagonist Ulrich as comic heroes on six pages. The intention behind it is to convey the medieval story in a playful way.

The adventure film Knights from Passion is considered to be the first revision of the knight epic in the 21st century . Actually, this Hollywood production cannot directly speak of a women's service reception, as there are very few parallels between Ulrich's work and the film. But after all, is the protagonist of the film, if only as a pseudonym used Ulrich von Liechtenstein . But not only the name reminds of the hero of the women's service . The fact that the brave tournament fighter stubbornly fights for the reputation of his chosen ones and would even forego fame for their love is very similar to the character of the protagonist of women's service .

The most recent reception of the Styrian minstrel comes from the opera and concert singer or retired lawyer Eberhard Kummer , who in collaboration with the Karl-Franzens University Graz in June 2008 under the title Klingende Liebeskunst des Mittelalter. Ulrich von Liechtenstein meets Walther von der Vogelweide and Neidhart . held a concert in the reading room of the main library. Selected songs from the women's service were set to music and sung by Eberhard Kummer and accompanied on the harp. Above all, attention should be drawn to the previously underestimated importance of Ulrich von Liechtenstein for the development of minstrel singing. In 2012 a sound carrier with part of Ulrich's songs was released under the title "Ulrich von Liechtenstein - daz herze mîn ist minne wunt". It appeared on the label vox medii aevi with the support of the Karl-Franzens-University Graz .

Text output

  • Franz Viktor Spechtler (Ed.): Frauendienst. Ulrich of Liechtenstein. (= Göppingen works on German studies; Volume 485), Göppingen, 2003 ISBN 3-87452-721-2 .
  • Franz Viktor Spechtler (Ed.): Ulrich von Liechtenstein. Women's service. Translated from Middle High German into New High German. (= Select Europe. Literature scene.) Klagenfurt 2000, ISBN 3-85129-309-6 .
  • Ursula Peters (ed.): Frauendienst (youth history). In illustrations from the Munich Cod. Germ. 44 and the Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift. (= Litterae; No. 17), Göppingen 1973, ISBN 3-87452-147-8 .

literature

  • Heinz Gerstinger : Frau Venus rides ... - The fantastic story of Ulrich von Lichtenstein. 1995.
  • Carl von Kraus (Ed.): German song poet of the 13th century. Volume 1: Text. Tuebingen 1978.
  • Ulrich von Liechtenstein: Women's service . In: Elisabeth Martschini (Hrsg.): Writing and writing in court narrative texts of the 13th century . Solivagus-Verlag, Kiel 2014, ISBN 978-3-943025-14-9 , pp. 75-93 .
  • Jan-Dirk Müller: Ulrich von Liechtenstein. In: Author's Lexicon . Volume 9. 1995, columns 1274-1282.
  • Ursula Peters: Women's Service. Studies on Ulrich von Lichtenstein and the reality content of the Minne poetry (= Göppingen works on German studies; Volume 46), Göppingen 1971, ISBN 3-87452-086-2 .
  • Michael Pieper: The functions of commentary in Ulrichs von Liechtenstein's “women's service”. (= Göppingen works on German studies; Volume 351), Lauterburg 1982, ISBN 3-87452-564-3 .
  • Jürgen Ruben: On the “mixed form” in Ulrich von Liechtenstein's “women's service”. Investigations into the relationship between songs, books and letters and the narrative text. Hamburg 1969.
  • Franz Viktor Spechtler and Barbara Maier (eds.): I - Ulrich von Liechtenstein. Literature and Politics in the Middle Ages. Files of the Friesach Academy "City and Culture in the Middle Ages" 1996. Klagenfurt 1999. (= Series of publications by the Friesach Academy, Volume 5). ISBN 3-85129-266-9 .
  • Bernd Thum : Ulrich von Liechtenstein. Court ethics and social reality. Heidelberg 1968.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernhard Dietrich Haage: Medical Literature of the Teutonic Order in the Middle Ages. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 9, 1991, pp. 217-231; here: p. 226 f.
  2. ↑ Ralf Vollmuth , Peter Proff: "Because the face is a special ornament and wellbeing of the people ..." Comments on the question of aesthetics in oral and maxillofacial surgery in the Middle Ages and early modern times. In: Dominik Groß , Monika Reininger (Hrsg.): Medicine in history, philology and ethnology. Festschrift for Gundolf Keil. Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2176-2 , pp. 159-175; here: p. 163 f.
  3. ^ Ulrich von Liechtenstein: Frauendienst, V. 25.1-8. Edited by Franz Viktor Spechtler. Göppingen: 2003. (= Göppinger works on German studies. Vol. 485) ISBN 3-87452-721-2
  4. ↑ a b Jürgen Ruben: On the "mixed form" in Ulrich's "women's service" of Liechtenstein. Investigations into the relationship between songs, books and letters and the narrative text. Hamburg: 1969.
  5. ^ A b Franz Viktor Spechtler and Barbara Maier (eds.): I - Ulrich von Liechtenstein. Literature and Politics in the Middle Ages. Files of the Friesach Academy "City and Culture in the Middle Ages" 1996. Klagenfurt: 1999 (= series of publications by the Friesach Academy, Volume 5). ISBN 3-85129-266-9
  6. ↑ OPAC entry at the BSB Munich, with full-text digitized version : Cgm 44
  7. ↑ Manuscript census from the Marburg repertory