Hermann messenger

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Handwritten Weltchronik manuscript

Hermann Bote or Hermen Bote (* around 1450, presumably in Braunschweig ; † around 1520 there ) was a customs clerk and Middle Low German chronicler , writer and author of political pamphlets .

Life

Hermann Bote, the son of the Braunschweig master blacksmith Arnd Bote, a council member in the Weichbild Hagen , was unable to practice his father's job because of a walking disability and instead received the training of a municipal civil servant. He is mentioned for the first time in 1471/73 in the city account books of Braunschweig's old town, where he worked as a customs and excise clerk in 1488 .

In 1488, during a civil uprising in the city , Bote wrote several political mockery poems about a Braunschweig councilor ( Ludeken Holland ), which is why he had to leave the city for a few years. During this time Bote was presumably active in the office of a municipal judge in the Braunschweig countryside. From 1493 to 1496 he is mentioned as administrator of the Ratskeller in the old town and in 1497 he was reinstated in the office of the municipal customs clerk. In 1513 he was again dismissed from this office and imprisoned because of further unrest. A death sentence that had already been imposed was overturned at the last moment and placed under house arrest . After the riots, he was recorded as head of the municipal brick yard from 1516 until his death in 1520.

Literary work

In 1491 Bote wrote a doctrine of state and estates, the “Boek van veleme rade” , in which he first dealt critically with the existing social order. His first world chronicle , the " Braunschweiger Weltchronik " , dates back to 1444 and was not started before 1493. The animal poem " Reynke de vos " dates from 1498, and Bote has been variously ascribed as authorship. In 1503 the “Customs Book” was published , Bote's only work from his official activities.

Based on his personal experiences that he had made during the civil uprising of 1488, Bote wrote the shift book around 1514 . In it he reports in detail about civil uprisings that occurred in late medieval Braunschweig, the so-called " Braunschweiger layers " : "Layer of the Gildemester" (1292–1294), "Layer of the Wheel" (1374-1380), "Layer of the unhorsame borghere" ( 1445/46), “Shift Hollandes” (1488–1490, with aftermath until 1511) and the “ Papenkrich ” (1413–1420), a dispute between the Braunschweig council and parts of the urban clergy. The first conclusion of the chronicle is a report "Van der Pagemunte" , in which the author describes the Braunschweig coin and currency relations as the actual cause of the unrest in the city, but in 1514 the "Uployp van twen schoten" (1512-1514) added, in which the messenger himself was repeatedly affected as a municipal customs clerk. The shift book is a unique work of the late medieval city chronicle, which contains only and in detail the causes and courses of civil uprisings in a city. A brief historical description of the Braunschweig churches, monasteries and chapels as well as a Braunschweig “heraldic book” were added to the chronicle from 1514 to 1516 .

Hermann Bote's late works include the collection of sayings “De Köker” , published in 1517, and a second, the so-called “Hannoversche Weltchronik” , which dates back to 1518. Bote's literary conclusion is formed by two mocking songs in which he intervened in 1519 in the journalistic disputes over the Hildesheim collegiate feud of 1519–1523.

Eulenspiegel author

In 1510 there was published "A short-term reading by Dil Ulenspiegel born uss dem Land zu Brunßwick, how he lived his life" (that's the title of the Strasbourg edition of 1515 - High German : An entertaining book by Till Eulenspiegel from the country of Braunschweig), the only world success medieval Lower Saxony poetry . Shortly after its publication, it became a " bestseller " in the West . During the 16th century alone, at least 35 editions appeared in Germany. At that time it was already being translated into most of the European languages.

In the print version the author calls himself only "N." In an early version of the text, the acrostic <ERMANB> can be found in the first letters of the chapters. With the discovery of the acrostic in 1973, a lively discussion began about Hermann Bote as a possible author / editor of the Eulenspiegel. The discussion is summarized by Herbert Blume. According to Blume, there are significant indications for Hermann Bote as the author of a Low German version, which either reached Strasbourg in handwritten form and was translated into Upper German there, or there was a Low German print of which no copy has survived. According to Blume, the objections raised against messengers are either unfounded or have now been conclusively refuted. For the majority of the researchers involved in the discussion, Bote's authorship is considered a "probability bordering on certainty", but conclusive evidence is missing ( see also Till Eulenspiegel: Possible authors ).

Works

Fonts

  • Braunschweig songs about Ludeken Holland - 1488
  • Saxony Chronicle (probably incorrectly attributed) - 1491
  • Boek van veleme rade - 1493
  • Brunswick World Chronicle - 1493
  • Reynke de vos - 1498 (claimed authorship)
  • Customs Book - 1503
  • Till Eulenspiegel - 1510
  • Shift book - 1514
  • List of all monasteries - 1516
  • Book of Arms - 1516
  • De Köker - 1517
  • World Chronicle of Hanover - 1518
  • Songs about the Hildesheim collegiate feud - 1519

Graphics

literature

  • Herbert Blume and Werner Wunderlich (eds.): Hermen Bote. Results and perspectives of research. Contributions to the Hermen-Bote-Colloquium on October 3, 1981 in Braunschweig. with a biography, Göppingen 1982.
  • Herbert Blume and Eberhard Rohse (eds.): Hermann Bote. City-Hanseatic author in Braunschweig, 1488-1988. Contributions to the Braunschweiger Bote-Kolloquium 1988, (= Early Modern Times; Volume 4), Tübingen 1991.
  • Herbert Blume: Hermann Bote: Brunswick town clerk and man of letters. Studies of his life and work. In: Braunschweiger contributions to the German language and literature. Volume 15, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-89534-875-4 .
  • Gerhard Cordes :  Messenger, Hermann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 487 ( digitized version ).
  • Brigitte Funke: Cronecken the sassen. Draft and success of a Saxon conception of history at the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age. (= Braunschweiger Werkstücke; Volume 104), Braunschweig 2001.
  • Bernd Ulrich Hucker : Hermen Bote - The picture of a chronicler. Braunschweig 1981.
  • Carola Kirschner: Hermen messenger. Urban literature around 1500 between tradition and innovation. Essen 1996.
  • Eberhard Rohse : "Gy eerliken stede" - the city-bourgeois-Hanseatic world using the example of Hermann Bote's "Radbuch". In: Matthias Puhle (Ed.): Hanseatic League - Cities - Bünde. The Saxon cities between the Elbe and Weser around 1500. Magdeburg 1996 (= Magdeburger Museumschriften; No. 4, Vol. 1: Essays), pp. 575–602. ISBN 3-930030-17-9 .
  • Eberhard Rohse: The chronicler as a hagiograph. The Braunschweiger city saint Sankt Author in the work of Hermann Bote. In: Eulenspiegel-Jahrbuch 38, 1998, pp. 73-69, ISBN 3-923233-01-9 .
  • Eberhard Rohse: Bote, Hermann (also Herman, Hermen). In: Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon. 8th to 18th centuries. On behalf of the Braunschweigische Landschaft ed. by Horst-Rüdiger Jarck with Dieter Lent: Appelhans, Braunschweig 2006, p. 101f. ISBN 3-937664-46-7 .
  • Henning Steinführer , Christian Heitzmann, Thomas Scharff (eds.): 500 years of shift book. Aspects and perspectives of Hermann Bote research. Braunschweiger Werkstücke Volume 116 = Series A 57. Publications from the City Archives, Braunschweig 2017, ISBN 978-3-944939-03-2 .

Web links

Commons : Hermann Bote  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Till Eulenspiegel (= Insel-Taschenbuch. 336). Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-458-32036-9 .
  2. ↑ Herbert Blume: Hermann Bote: Braunschweiger town clerk and man of letters. Studies of his life and work. In: Braunschweiger contributions to the German language and literature. Volume 15, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-89534-875-4 , pages 211-237
  3. ↑ Bernhard Dörries, Helmut Plath (Ed.): Alt-Hannover 1500-1900 / The history of a city in contemporary images from 1500-1900. fourth, improved edition 1977, Heinrich Feesche Verlag Hannover, ISBN 3-87223-024-7 , pp. 7, 136, 141.
personal data
SURNAME Messenger, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Messenger, herms
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Middle Low German chronicler and poet of political pamphlets
DATE OF BIRTH 1450
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH 1520
Place of death Braunschweig