Sermon fairy tales

The expression sermon fairy tale denotes a popular narrative exemplification of sermons in the Middle Ages and the early modern period.

In 1858 Franz Pfeiffer brought to light finds from a monastery manuscript from the 15th century under the title "Predigtmärlein". He took this designation directly from the very same source where expressly " bredigen merlin " is mentioned. Every story - legend , ancient anecdote , historical report , saga , fable , swank , novels - and fairy tale material - with spiritual and moral pedagogical instruction can be sermon tales. It is also known under the term "example", which refers to the Latin word "exemplum" (example) and was already used in ancient rhetoric.

If you divide the word into its component parts " bredigen " and " Merlin ," said the former shows only the function of the text, namely the moral instruction from the pulpit , while the last expression of the joy of storytelling and maintaining the preacher is. The little sermon fairy tale was part of church sermons in the Middle Ages, especially in the Baroque period, and sometimes in later epochs.

The pulpit word then had more extensive tasks than it does today. For large sections of the population it was the only means of education after poor school lessons. The clergy were aware of the requirements associated with their profession. Elfriede Moser-Rath quotes a passage from Michael Staudacher's St. John's sermon , which says:

"(..) that a preacher is neither foreign nor inexperienced in natural, human, moral and other sciences (...) " in order to do justice to these tasks. It was also demanded that " (...) he must be a theologus, a philosopher, a juris consultus, a medicus ... yes, as it were an angel (...) so that he would know the divine through the worldly to explain, and so that in two cases, after an emergency, he could entertain his listeners with a pleasant exercise or a nice lecture, who would otherwise be weary of preaching, even to listen to the divine teaching, if they were not blinded to it and sugared, as it were, as gold-plated medical balls. "

The materials for sermon tales were taken from all areas of knowledge and experience, from biblical parables , ancient literature, from theological and hagiographic writings, from historical and popular traditions and natural history, etc.

In order to make these topics accessible to the people, they had to be translated into easily understandable and popular speech. Everyday problems should also be discussed in clear comparative images. Collections of the little sermon tales also served as edifying reading material for the home and family and as a substitute for going to church.

For a long time theologians saw in the sermon fairy tale a "degeneration of the taste of the sermon". The sermon fairy tale was completely cut off in its tradition after the Reformation in the 15th century. In the 17th century a discussion broke out among Protestants about the pros and cons of the sermon fairy tale. In the course of the counter-reformation movement, the Jesuits in particular, with their pronounced sense of folklore , took advantage of the crowd's curiosity and joy in playing and, in addition to nativity plays , Good Friday processions and passion plays , reintroduced sermon tales.