Johannes of Würzburg

Johannes von Würzburg was a Frankish cleric who wrote a report on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he carried out after 1160 and before 1170.

Nothing more is known about his life. The work, first edited in 1721 as Descriptio Terrae Sanctae , is dedicated to a socius and domesticus Dietricus who could be identical to a Theodericus Monachus who also made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem around 1172 and wrote a report about it.

The news about the topography of Jerusalem in the period between the Second and the Third Crusade is interesting, but above all the numerous inscriptions that John narrates in the text. He notes the many Christian nations in the Holy City, observes the national rivalries and denies the main merit of the French in the conquest of 1099. Here he emphasizes the achievements of German knights, whom he describes as Francones (Franconia). For Ludwig Schmugge, this report by Johannes is important evidence that the experiences on pilgrimages also contributed to the development and written fixation of “national” prejudices in the 11th and 12th centuries.

Part of the information is based on the writing of Fretellus from Antioch.

The oldest manuscript of the text from the 12th century comes from the library of the Tegernsee monastery and has been kept in the Bavarian State Library in Munich under the signature clm 19418 since secularization .

output

• Robert BC Huygens: Peregrinationes tres (= Corpus Christianorum Continuatio mediaevalis Volume 139). Brepols, Turnholt 1994, ISBN 978-2-503-04391-3 , pp. 78-141.

translation

• Ferdinand Khull: Two German religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem . Styria, Graz 1895, pp. 106–156 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Max Manitius : History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages . Third part (volume) with Paul Lehmann's participation: From the outbreak of the church dispute to the end of the twelfth century . Munich 1931, pp. 620–622 ( Handbook of Classical Studies, Volume 9.2.3)
• Wilhelm Wattenbach:  Johannes of Würzburg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, p. 484.
• Alfred Wendehorst :  Johannes von Würzburg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 577 ( digitized version ).
• Alfred Wendehorst, Johannes von Würzburg I , in author's lexicon 2nd edition, Volume 4, 1983, Sp. 822-824
• Carmen von Samson-Himmelstjerna: German pilgrims of the Middle Ages in the mirror of their reports and the Middle High German narrative poetry (= Berlin historical studies, Volume 37). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2004 ISBN 978-3-428-11556-3

Remarks

1. ↑ Ludwig Schmugge: About "national" prejudices in the Middle Ages . In: German Archives for Research into the Middle Ages 38, 1982, pp. 439–459, here pp. 451f.
2. ↑ So already in Halm's catalog and in the information on the digitized version, the historical sources have saec. xiii.

Web links

• Digital copy of the clm 19418
• Johannes von Würzburg in the repertory "Historical Sources of the German Middle Ages" (formerly Repertorium fontium historiae Medii Aevi 6, 1991, p. 429)
• Literature by and about Johannes von Würzburg in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry in Mirabileweb.
• Works that use the Descriptio as a source in Mirabileweb, MEL department.