Nivardus of Ghent

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Nivardus von Gent , also Nivard von Gent, Latinized Nivardus Gandavensis , was a Flemish writer of the 12th century, best known for his Middle Latin poem Ysengrimus , an animal fable in elegiac distichs with satirical allusions to his time, especially to the life of the clergy.

life and work

Essentially, only what can be assumed from his poem is known about Nivardus. The author's name magister Niuardus is in a manuscript with excerpts from Ysengrimus (in the Florilegium Gallicum , 13th / 14th century) from the Berlin State Library . The name is predominantly used, even if two manuscripts with excerpts from Ysengrimus later became known by other names (Balduinus Cecus, Bernardus) and there were also attempts at other attributions (Bruno, since that was the name of the bear who is referred to as a poet in the poem) . From the text it can be assumed that the author had ties to the Rhineland and possibly came from the fact that he fondly remembers Cologne and praises the abbot Balduin of the Liesborn monastery . But he also has a fondness for France and his poem shows that he knows the country well (Tours, Paris, Reims, Cluny, Beauvais), which is why he may have studied in Paris. He was a clergyman, according to the overwhelming opinion he lived in Ghent, where he was a teacher in St. Peter's Abbey (the Blandinium Monastery) or at the Church of St. Pharaildis in the Count's Castle of Ghent. He had good relations with the dioceses of Reims and Tournai. From the people mentioned in the poem and the fact that he laments the failure of the Second Crusade (and blames Pope Eugene III), the creation of the work can be placed in the period after 1149. Bernhard von Clairvaux , the abbots Walter von Egmond ( Egmond Monastery ), Balduin von Liesborn and Bishop Anselm von Tournai also point to the mid-12th century .

The Ysengrimus consists of 6500 verses (3287 distiches) in seven books and is a main source of the Roman de Renart . The poem advocates a reform of the Church in accordance with the rules of St. Benedict.

The work fell into oblivion and was discovered by Franz Josef Mone in 1832 and published as Reinardus Vulpes .

literature

  • Ysengrimus. Publisher Ernst Voigt, Halle: Bookshop of the orphanage 1884 (text with commentary)
  • Elisabeth Charbonnier: Recherches sur l'Ysengrimus. Vienna: Viennese works on Germanic antiquity and philology 22 1983 (dissertation by Charbonnier in Paris, with French translation)
  • Le roman d'Ysengrin. Paris: Les belles lettres 1991 (French translation, commentary by Élisabeth Charbonnier)
  • Ysengrimus. Leiden: Brill 1987 (Latin edition, commentary by Jill Mann)
  • Ernst Voigt: The language in the Ysengrimus of the Nivard of Gent. 1884, In: Alf Önnerfors: Middle Latin Philology. Contributions to the study of medieval Latinity. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1975, pp. 192–211
  • Max Manitius: History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages. Volume 3, Beck, 1931, 2005, p. 763ff
  • Jill Mann: Nivardus von Gent , author's lexicon , De Gruyter, Volume 6, 1987, Sp. 1170–1178
  • Jill Mann: The satiric fiction of the Ysengrimus, in: Kenneth Varty (Ed.), Reynard the Fox, Berghahn Books 2000, pp. 1-6

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ The higher educated animals come from France, wolf and donkey from Germany.
  2. ↑ The wolf in the poem enters the monastery (Blandinia claustra)
  3. ↑ There are references to the local saints of the area around Ghent Bavo and Pharaildis
  4. ^ After Max Manitius, who refers to Voigt
personal data
SURNAME Nivardus of Ghent
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nivardus Gandavensis; Nivard de Saint-Pierre; Nivard of Ghent
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Middle Latin poet
DATE OF BIRTH 11th century or 12th century
DATE OF DEATH 12th Century