Monk of Salzburg

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The Ave Maria of the monk of Salzburg. From the Mondsee-Wiener Liederhandschrift (mid-15th century)

The monk of Salzburg was a song poet and composer of the late Middle Ages of European importance. With over 100 manuscripts, he is the poet from the Middle Ages with the greatest tradition.

life and work

The anonymous monk of Salzburg worked at the court of Salzburg Archbishop Pilgrim II of Puchheim (1365-1396) , of whom 50 early New High German love songs, seven other secular, especially drinking songs and around 50 sacred songs have survived. The authorship is not clarified everywhere. Some of his songs were and are still very popular today; there are more than a hundred copies of them. Three of these copies of the secular songs each name a different name as the author of the songs: the Benedictine monk Herman, the Dominican Mayster Hanns and the learned Herr Her Johans ain Munich, three collections of sacred songs name a Jakob von Mühldorf, a Peter von Sachsen and a people priest Martin.

It remains very unlikely that the monk of Salzburg is a Pilgrim himself, even if a Minnebrief written by him from 1392 seems to indicate this. Franz Viktor Spechtler, former professor of older German language and literature at the University of Salzburg, states in his book about the sacred songs: “We will be the learned poet and composer, clearly showing his connections to the sovereign and to an art-loving group of clerics is to look for future work at the archbishop's court and in the cathedral monastery (since 1122 with the tradition of an Augustinian canon monastery) than at the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter. ”He also justifies this with the fact that all the sequences transferred by the monk are in the gradual des Augustinian collegiate monastery St. Castulus zu Moosburg from 1360. The Germanic Medievalist Burghart Wachinger, on the other hand, does not place the monk with the canons but with the Benedictines and assigns only a low probability to the thesis that the monk could have lived in the cathedral monastery.

In fact, the sacred songs of the monk of Salzburg can be seen as the most important evidence of vernacular sacred song in the late Middle Ages for the entire German-speaking area (Hans Waechter). The predominant forms are the hymn, the sequence and the spiritual church song. These vernacular chants were part of the church liturgy in the late Middle Ages.

The spiritual songs of the monk of Salzburg are based on older German song traditions ( tones ) and follow the major festivals of the church year, the Christmas circle and the Easter circle , as well as Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi , or they deal with holy festivals and the song circle around Mary . Latin hymns and sequences were Germanized by the monk of Salzburg, a single song is written in Latin (O Maria pia) . The poems often form acrostics , in which the first letters of the lines result in meaningful words.

The love songs are no longer in the tradition of the classic minne songs of the Hohe Minne , the love between man and woman is not unattainable. Longing, fear and jealousy are also mentioned, hatred of rivals and anger against gossipers and envious people. Fun and worry are both present.

The monk of Salzburg was the first German composer to use polyphony for his songs. He wrote the first German-language canon Martin, dear Herre mein (in the original: Martein, dear herre, "ain radel von drein stymmen"). Through him, the Christmas carol Joseph, dear Joseph mein (in the original: Joseph, dear nefe mein, help me weigh my child ) based on the melody of the older Latin song Resonet in laudibus , the German text of which may have come from him. He is also the author of the so-called planet nursery rhyme . Martin Luther used his melody of a table blessing in his song Our Father in the Kingdom of Heaven . The most important manuscript collection with the most poems is the Mondsee-Wiener-Lieder manuscript by the Salzburg goldsmith Peter Spörl, which is now in the Austrian National Library.

The spiritual songs of the monk of Salzburg

Christmas circle

  • Mary chaste mother tender
  • From anegeng the sunne clear
  • Joseph, dear nefe mine
  • My consolation, Maria, raine mait
  • Besniten will go away
  • Eia herre got, what could it be?

From the Sunday after Epiphany at Passion time

  • Ave, meres stars
  • Maria pis greetings
  • Man's lover
  • Do got in the throne sas
  • Maidleich pluem, the Jungkfrawn Crown
  • To suffer from our vrawen

Easter circle

  • The night host shir des himels guest
  • Maria standing with swidem pain
  • Eia of great love
  • Kunig Christe, doer of all things
  • Holy cross, a paum gar aine
  • Schepher and wise pist
  • Sälig be the selden time
  • All will be opportune
  • Sig und säld is to be considered
  • Christ rejoicing with siges van
  • Greetings, holy day
  • Totally festive time
  • Kum soft consolation holy spirit
  • Kum her shepher holy spirit
  • Kum holy spirit

Trinity day until the end of the church year

  • Lord, got almighty, three person
  • Git in drivaldikait ainvalt
  • In god's name
  • Ave, living oblat
  • Praise all the tongues of the reach
  • Praise, O Sion, your hailer
  • Your servants' voices clear up
  • All twelve potential customers for us
  • Muter good thing the plague
  • We fill praise all the raine
  • Maid pored up
  • Rejoice Sion that went out

General songs of Mary

  • Ave, Balsam's Creature
  • Pluom delicate, pink on doren
  • Richer treasure of the highest joys
  • Ave, greet pist, possibly frome
  • I like to greet you
  • Salve greets pist, mueter hailes
  • Greetings to you, mutineers of our masters
  • O Maria pia

General songs at the times of the day

  • Lord Jesus Christ almighty got
  • Christ you until light and the day
  • O blessed drifaltikait

literature

Work editions

  • Franz Viktor Spechtler (ed.): The spiritual songs of the monk of Salzburg. De Gruyter, Berlin 1972 (= QF NF 51), ISBN 3-11-001847-0 .
  • Franz Viktor Spechtler (ed.), Christoph Wilhelm Aigner (transl.): The monk of Salzburg. Secular poetry. Otto Müller, Salzburg 1995, ISBN 3-7013-0900-0 .
  • Franz Viktor Spechtler (ed.): The monk of Salzburg. All the songs. Wieser, Klagenfurt / Celovec 2004, ISBN 3-85129-424-6 .
  • Johannes Heimrath, Michael Korth et al. (Ed.): I am you and you are me. The monk of Salzburg. Songs of the Middle Ages. Heimeran, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7765-0288-6 .
  • Christoph March (ed.): The secular songs of the monk of Salzburg. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-484-89114-9 .

Secondary literature

Sound carrier

  • The monk of Salzburg. Eberhard Kummer , Elisabeth Guy-Kummer and others / Cesar Bresgen , Help Austria Records HAS 174 (1978).
  • I am you and you are me The monk of Salzburg. Bärengässlin , Johannes Heimrath, Michael Korth. plans LP 88171 (1980).
    Republication under the title: Der Mönch von Salzburg. Songs of the Middle Ages. plans CD 88852.
  • Monk of Salzburg. Secular songs. Ensemble for early music Augsburg. Christophorus CHR 77176 (1995).
  • Monk of Salzburg. Songs. Paul Hofhaimer Consort Salzburg. arte nova 74321 37316 2 (1996).

Web links

Wikiquote: Monk of Salzburg  - Quotes

Audio samples

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cramer, 1990
  2. ↑ Evangelical Hymnal No. 344.
  3. ^ Burghart Wachinger: Mondsee-Wiener Liederhandschrift. In: Author's Lexicon . Volume VI, Col. 672-674.
personal data
SURNAME Monk of Salzburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Monk of Salzburg, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late medieval poet of secular and spiritual songs
DATE OF BIRTH before 1396
DATE OF DEATH 14th century or 15th century