Thank you very much

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Page from Theuerdank , 2nd edition. 1519: Colored woodcut after Leonard Beck. Chapter 80: Maximilian's horse is hit by a cannonball and falls.

The Theuerdank is a lavishly designed verse novel from the early printing period , which was commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I and completed in 1517. It contains a story from his life, possibly written by Maximilian himself: the trip to his bride Maria of Burgundy in 1478, which is told as a fictional bridal journey of the knight Thewrdanck to Fräulein Ernreich in pairs. The focus of the allegorical narrative in the style of the medieval epic is the emperor himself as a knightly hero. He is surrounded by malevolent companions on his bridal journey and faces all dangers.

The Theuerdank was one of a number of artistically ambitious Maximilian undertakings, such as the printed works of the prayer book , the Weißkunig and the Ehrenpforte , in which he wanted to establish himself as ruler and perpetuate himself. The first time in 1517 in Nuremberg printed and richly illustrated Theuerdank was in a specially designed Drucktype prepared as writing the Theuerdank is called and as the beginning of Gothic script was significant. The work was reprinted several times, of which the new edition from 1679, published in Augsburg and Ulm , is the most important.

The work

content

Woodcut after Hans Schäufelin. Chapter 39: Accident puts Ritter Theuerdank in danger with a cannon.
Page from Theuerdank , 1517: The type, the so-called Theuerdank , is based on the imperial chancellery script, the flourishes are added by hand afterwards.

Knight Thewrdanck , the name refers to noble thoughts and determination , sets out to visit his bride, Fraulein Ernreich ( ie, honorable ), the daughter of King Rome ( ie, glorious ). The knight , 18 years old, is embroiled in all sorts of perils on his bridal trip together with his companion Ernhold (in later versions also: Ehrenhold , i.e. Ruf , Fama ), which he knows how to overcome victoriously. The hardships, which are, for example, confrontations with wild boars, falling rocks or kitchens caught on fire, are triggered by three figures who meet him one after the other and accompany him in the following, each with the descriptive name of Fürwittig (in later versions also Fürwitz , di cockiness ), Unfalo (later accident ) and Neidelhart (later Neidhard , di resentful ) call. The three are captains who fear the dissolution of their army as a result of the marriage and therefore try to prevent the knight from being married. Fürwitz gets the hero into trouble with stupid ideas; Accident is deliberate because he wants the honor of the brave for himself, and Neidhart puts the knight in all sorts of danger out of resentment. All three end up with the hangman: Fürwitz loses his head, the accident is hung on the gallows and Neidhard falls from the balcony to his death. Knight Theuerdank is betrothed at the end, but before Fraulein Ehrenreich belongs to him, he has to go to the Holy Land for new adventures; with this decision the story ends. Therefore, in the edition of 1517, chapter 117 remained empty; there are three blank pages before the final chapter. They were supplemented in later adaptations with Maximilian's crusade to the Holy Land.

construction

The knight's experiences are told in 118 chapters , each preceded by a woodcut. The total of 80 dangers of the knight are introduced by the background and the occasion for the courtship and concluded by its happy outcome and the unfulfilled plan of a crusade. The external structure follows that of the court epic ; The aventures of the knight, however, unlike in the epic of the High Middle Ages , have no inner drive, such as that of a probation or a guilt, but follow a mechanism of prevention: The hazards are modeled in episodes, they are artificially created by Fürwitz, Accident and Neidhard brought about. The dangers are transparent and have their coherence in the forms of those who caused them.

The work is preceded by thanks to Maximilian, from the god-genuinely Erwoelter Roemischer Kayser at all times of the empire , for the approval of the publication; Subsequently, the publisher Melchior Pfintzing dedicated it to the most transparent prince and gentleman Carlen Künigen from Hispania & Ertzhertzüge from Osterreych from Burgundy - the grandson of the emperor and after his death in 1519 as Charles V his successor - & my most gracious lord , that was Maximilian . In the appendix, Pfinzing again set up an anzaigung for King Karl so that he could recognize the real warfare of the work: a detailed table of contents along with an explanation of the speaking names and a clavis , the key for the identities of the main characters, which are, however, only described with their abbreviations . Theuerdank is KMEZOVB (Emperor Maximilian Archduke of Austria and Burgundy), Romreich HCVB ( Duke Carl von Burgund ) and his daughter, Miss Ehrenreich, is HMVB , Maria von Burgundy.

Emergence

The various handwritten versions of Theuerdank and their arrangements have been preserved; they belong to the holdings of the Austrian National Library in Vienna and are listed there as Codices Vindobonensis . They prove the close cooperation of Maximilian himself and several editors . Maximilian provided the concept, the content of the chapters and also the pictures of Theuerdank. He dictated drafts and made preliminary drawings. Marx Treitzsaurwein , Maximilian's personal secretary, edited the texts, Melchior Pfintzing wrote the verses. Pfintzing, under Maximilian a versatile church dignitary and in a high position at the imperial court, also took over the final editing. Treitzsaurwein had received a gift of grace for his editorial work on June 11, 1514 . The extent to which the respective editorial work by Treitzsaurwein and Pfintzing can also be assessed as authorship remains unclear. The proofs of 101 woodcuts as well as the pen drawings of five other illustrations have also been preserved. Handwritten numbering and notes that relate to the order of the pictures should come from Maximilian himself.

In 1517 around 40 copies of Theuerdank appeared in folio format on valuable parchment, and 300 on paper. The parchment copies were intended as gifts for high-ranking personalities in Maximilian's circle. The second edition was only delivered after Maximilian's death in 1519 by his grandson, Archduke Ferdinand . This edition story formed legends; It was reported that Maximilian kept his first Thewerdanncks in a coffin and always carried them with him on his travels as a memento mori : he himself, according to legend, was supposed to be placed in the coffin when he died and the verse epic taken out in memory of his deeds and for posterity to be spread.

intention

Maximilian had recognized the propaganda possibilities of book printing , which was expanding with new forms of design ; he promoted woodcuts and typography . The old form of the high mediaeval epic, which through the printing of the new era that was now beginning also found larger readership for the first time, was filled with the creation of legends of one's own person, which masters all dangers prudently, wisely and bravely. Fürwitz, Unfall and Neidhard are a trick, they represent three vices: arrogance, presumptuousness and envy. With them as adversaries, Maximilian succeeded in establishing a myth , a mixture of fiction and reality, which illustrated his position as a victor.

After his election as Roman-German King in 1486, Maximilian I was faced with an empire full of tension. The imperial reform he initiated at the Reichstag in Worms in 1495 had increased the pressure for Maximilian to clarify his power and his role after he had gained the imperial dignity in 1508 due to the resistance of the imperial estates . On closer inspection, Theuerdank's seemingly commonplace perils turn out to be the program. Its hazards, e.g. B. in a city household or on the hunt, refer to the everyday life of the various classes; Stories with avalanches or on a nearly capsizing ship also outline the regional expansion of the German-speaking area in Maximilian's empire . The allegorical figure of the knight Theuerdank could be understood as an “exemplary conqueror” of the “general dangers of every human being”.

As an art-loving ruler, Maximilian devoted himself to various bibliophile undertakings that were intended to perpetuate him, but mostly remained fragments. In addition to the Theuerdank , a prayer book (1514/1515) and the Weißkunig (around 1513), the unfinished story of his parents and his youth, were part of a program of publications with which the emperor manifest himself as ruler and an idea of ​​himself in his Wanted to spread and get rich. With a gate of honor , a huge mural made from woodcuts, he planned a printed triumphal arch in his memory, which remained unfinished due to his death in 1519.

layout

Title of Theuerdank , 1517; the big "R" of the "knight" in the last line shows the so-called elephant trunk .
Type set of Theuerdank

The pressure

The Theuerdank is an important work of the art of printing. The typography was designed by Vinzenz Rockner , who had already designed the font for Maximilian's prayer book . At the request of the emperor, its shape was modeled on the handwriting used in his office, a textura that printers at the beginning of the 16th century had long since turned away from copying. Characteristic of the typeface of the Theuerdank print are the scrolls added later (probably by Rockner himself) with the pen . The writing of the work prevailed under the name Theuerdank for a long time in the 16th century and is now regarded as the preliminary stage of Fraktur .

The printing and publication of the first edition in 1517 was done by Johann Schönsperger the Elder. Ä. (around 1455–1521), imperial court printer from 1508, worried in Nuremberg; he was at the request of the court for the job of Augsburg, where he continued his Offizin , moved business to Nuremberg. Schönsperger then printed the second edition in 1519 in Augsburg. He also did the design of the pages.

The Theuerdank fracture

The Gothic font cut by Schönsperger according to Rockner's design is characterized by the italic design of the lowercase letters with sharp refractions and the so-called quadrangles , the square thickening of the ends of the letter shaft on the base line. The sometimes referred to as fracture with the addition of 1512 run Theuerdank -Schrifttype distinguished moreover by the S-shaped trunk-like frills of the wide stored capitals , in the printer language also Trunk called, given the the typeface the expression of a decorative font, which in Theuerdank - Pressure was increased by hand.

Based on the example of Theuerdank, the Nuremberg form cutter Hieronymus Andrae developed between 1522 and 1527 an exemplary fracture type, in which u. a. Albrecht Dürer's writings were printed; Andrae cut the type in wood for the lettering of Maximilian's Ehrenpforte . This fracture prevailed against the Schwabacher type at the beginning of the 16th century . While the national Bastarda fonts were increasingly being replaced by the Antiqua in France, Italy, Spain and England , it established a special German way, the so-called split : up to the 19th century, Latin texts or text passages were set in the Antiqua, German in the Fraktur .

The illustrations

Woodcut for chapter 118 of Theuerdank after Hans Burgkmair
Woodcut for chapter 118 of Theuerdank after Hans Burgkmair, modified by Leonard Beck

The print from 1517 contained 118 colored woodcuts , for which leading artists, Hans Schäufelin , Hans Burgkmair and Leonhard Beck , provided drawings that were cut in wood by Jost de Negker . The woodcuts show extraordinary refinement in terms of drawing and cutting technique. The variability, using the lines to represent plasticity and spatiality, was considered new and underlined Maximilian's endeavors to advance the development and perfection of book and illustration art.

In addition to the lively representation of the figures, the illustrations are characterized by the special design of the respective background. It is worked out in detail and composed in a skilful chiaroscuro, so that the space in which the actors move extends deeply. Gates encourage the viewer to continue the images beyond their limits and thus develop a narrative effect. Matthäus Schultes, a viewer of the 17th century, found the stories illustrated in this way to be "a show and joy of Spihl".

Some of the woodcuts were changed by the participating artists. Hans Burgkmair made a mistake in his illustration for chapter 118: He depicted Captain Neidelhart in the background, who at the time of the story had long since been executed. Leonhard Beck, who changed several woodcuts, removed Neidelhart and replaced him with bushes. Beck also allowed himself to intervene in the dramaturgy of Burgkmair's illustrations. He corrected his woodcut for chapter 49, which depicted Theuerdank in danger from falling rocks; while Burgkmair's version only shows the stones that have just fallen down, in Beck's change a large stone is already rolling between the feet of the knight. The edition of 1517 and all later ones went to print with the changed illustrations; the original version has been preserved in one copy with proofs .

The artists did not always sign their designs. The first attribution of the 118 woodcuts to the three main masters was made in the 1880s by Simon Laschitzer. On the basis of the representations, which can be clearly assigned by signatures, Laschitzer determined the respective authors by means of comparative style studies of individual picture elements, e.g. B. the representation of the horses or faces, and the peculiarities of the design means, such. B. the forms of hatching or the graphic implementation of landscape or foliage; his attributions have remained unchallenged to this day.

Issues up to 1693

Page from the copy of Theuerdank from the 16th century, library of the University of Rostock: King Rome, that is Charles of Burgundy, informs his council of the choice of his son-in-law and then dies.
Title of the Theuerdank edition from 1679, printed by Matthäus Schultes in Augsburg

After the first edition in 1517, eleven further editions of Theuerdank were published by 1693. These can be divided into three groups:

  1. The Pfintzing group (1517, 1519 and 1537), largely shaped by the editing of Pfintzing (10,509 verses). The prints of the years 1519 and 1537 take over the text of the first edition, but differ in their entirety as printed works.
  2. The Waldis Group (1553, 1563, 1589 and 1596), shaped by the linguistic modernization of the fabulous poet and pastor Burkard Waldis . Despite deletions, the number of verses in this group grew to 12,240.
  3. The Schultes group (1679 Augsburg, 1679 Ulm, 16 ?? Ulm, 1693 Augsburg, 1693 Ulm), shaped by the revision of the Ulm form cutter and publisher Matthäus Schultes . These editions particularly emphasized the woodcuts. The text was revised by Schultes based on the Pfintzing version and shortened to 8,713 verses.

The Augsburg-Ulm edition of 1679

In 1679, Matthäus Schultes, publisher and printer in Augsburg, was made aware of a stack of old wood printing plates, which he found quite dirty in a “dark Kärcker”, “a short time ago” by a friend “in an elegant imperial city”. Schultes, who owned one of the imagery-free editions of Theuerdank and knew about the famous print from 1517, recognized what he had in front of him: the 118 plates of the "woodcuts that had been lost over the past one and a half hundred years".

Schultes published Theuerdank again in 1679 , both in Augsburg in his own company and in Ulm, where he had Matthäus Wagner printed. He followed the layout of the original and printed it in a Fraktur adapted to the taste of his time, which “brought old rhymes into something different / and this time more understandable”, according to the editorial note on the title. He placed the pictures individually and provided them with a heading, along with a short summary of the following episode related to Maximilian , and referred the corresponding verses completely to the back of the sheet. He had cleaned the printing plates, "freed them from the nestling worms" and reused all of them for his edition; the panels were astonishingly well preserved, only occasionally had their edge bars lost and only a few had been broken. Apparently Matthäus Schultes had not known that the illustrations were not only by Hans Schäufelin , named on the cover Johann Scheifelen von Nördlingen .

At the end of his print he also added a “Kurtze Birth, Life and Death Description of the Most Illuminated Knight Maximiliani I”, which, however, is quite extensive with 58 pages in folio and set in two columns. "K. Max ”, the“ expensive hero ”, becomes the last knight in this biography .

Unprinted reception

The Rostock University library holds a copy of Theuerdank , which was probably made in the second quarter of the 16th century based on the Nuremberg print edition of 1517. The scribe exactly imitated the printed script with the flourishes that were drawn in afterwards; the illustrations were copied exactly from the woodcuts and laid out and executed in the manner of medieval book illumination .

At Maximilian I's request, Richard Sbrulius wrote a translation into Latin hexameters under the title Magnanimus , which was dedicated to Ferdinand I. However, it remained incomplete and has only survived in handwriting.

Further adaptations and reprints

In the 18th century, when artists and the public increasingly began to prefer classical music from the late Baroque onwards, interest in stories such as Theuerdank , which initially only attracted the attention of scholars , was lost for a while . An examination of the work of Johann Koehler, published in Altdorf , has come down to us from 1741 . The 19th century rediscovered Maximilian's telling of verse in the course of Romanticism and the beginning of research into his own national history.

A stage technical processing in five acts was carried out in 1832 by Johann Ludwig Deinhardstein under the title Archduke Maximilians Bridal procession . Edited editions of Theuerdank were published in 1836 and 1846 based on the 1517 model . In Vienna in 1888 a facsimile was created using the latest technology at the time, using photographic processes . In 1897 Ludwig Thuille composed the opera Theuerdank based on the themes of the story. Several facsimile and annotated editions have appeared since the 1960s.

Ratings

The original edition of Theuerdank from 1517 is not only considered a rarity for libraries and science, but is also very popular with collectors. a full edition was available in second-hand bookshops in 2001 for a six-figure US dollar sum. Colored single sheets from opened editions from 1517 and 1519 were already circulating in stores more often and were meanwhile also repeatedly offered on international online marketplaces.

Work editions

  • The ververlicheiten and one part of the stories of the laudable streytparen and the highly famous hero and knight Mr. Tewrdanncks . Schönsperger, Nuremberg 1517; 2nd Edition. 1519.
  • The dangerous side and stories of the laudable, vicious and highly reputed hero and knight Theürdancks . Stainer, Augsburg 1537.
  • Memorable historia: the noble street hero and knight Theuwrdanck's manly deeds, and known dangers [...]. Franckfort on Mayn 1589.
  • The most serene knight or the [...] great deeds / adventures [...] of the most powerful / invincible / stupid / untiring and cleverest hero Maximiliani I. [...] under the name Theur-Dank [.. .] . Matthäus Schultes, Augsburg 1679; also: Ulm (printed by Matthäus Wagner) 1679.
  • Thank you very much . Edited and provided with a critical introduction by Carl Haltaus [also: Holtaus]. Quedlinburg 1836.
  • The Thank You. After the edition of 1519 . Stuttgart 1846.
  • Thank you very much . Edited by Karl Goedeke. Leipzig 1878.
  • The Holbein Society: The fun and one part of the stories of the laudable streytparen and highly famous hero and knight Mr. Tewrdanncks. A Reproduction of the Edition Printed at Augsburg in 1519. London 1884. (Facsimile)
  • Simon Laschitzer (ed.): Der Theuerdank. Facsimile reproduction produced by photolithographic etching after the 1st edition from 1517. Vienna 1888.
  • The Thank You. Re-edited by Simon Laschitzer . Reprint of the edition from 1883–1918. Academic printing and Publishing house, Graz 1966.
  • Melchior Pfinzing: Theuerdank, 1517. Reprint (The bibliophile paperbacks); Harenberg, Dortmund 1979.
  • Richardus Sbrulius: Magnanimus: the Latin version of Theuerdank Kaiser Maximilians I. Introduced and edited by Claudia and Christoph Schubert. Helfant Edition, Remchingen 2002.
  • The adventures of the knight Theuerdank. Colored reprint of the complete edition Nuremberg 1517 . Taschen, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-8228-2189-6 (Added: Stephan Füssel: Kaiser Maximilian and the media of his time. The Theuerdank of 1517. A cultural and historical introduction .) Reprint: Taschen, Cologne 2018, ISBN 978-3-8365 -7431-0 (With eight essays and comments on all 118 woodcuts).

literature

  • Stephan Füssel : Maximilian I. In: Walther Killy (Hrsg.): Literaturlexikon. Vol. 8, pp. 23-25; to Theuerdank p. 24.
  • Stephan Füssel: Emperor Maximilian and the media of his time. The Theuerdank of 1517. A cultural and historical introduction. Taschen, Köln 2003 (partial volume of ISBN 3-8228-2189-6 ; contained in reprint: Taschen, Köln 2018, ISBN 978-3-8365-7431-0 ).
  • Fritz Funke: Book customer. Verlag Documentation, Munich-Pullach 1969, p. 101ff.
  • Rudolf Hostettler : Type. A selection of good print types. Niggli, Teufen 1958, p. 116.
  • Johann David Köhler : Disquisitio de inclyto libro poetico Theuerdank. Altdorfi 1714.
  • Jan-Dirk Müller : Pfinzing, Melchior. In: The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author's Lexicon (VL) . Volume 7, Col. 568-571.
  • Jan-Dirk Müller: Kaiser Maximilian I. In: ²VL, Volume 6 (1987), Col. 204-236.
  • Jan-Dirk Müller: Trautzsaurwein, Marx (Marcus). In: VL . Volume 9 (1995), Col. 1028ff.
  • Jan-Dirk Müller, Hans-Joachim Ziegeler: Maximilian's work of fame. Arts and sciences around Emperor Maximilian I. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-034403-5 .
  • Ursula Rautenberg (Hrsg.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Buches. Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-010520-X , pp. 225f.
  • Peter Strohschneider : Romantic knightly verse in the late Middle Ages: studies on a functional historical text interpretation of Hermann von Sachsenheim's “Mörin” as well as Ulrich Fuetrer's “Persibein” and Maximilian I's “Teuerdank”. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1986, ISBN 3-8204-8550-3 .
  • Hans-Joachim Ziegeler : The viewing reader. On the relationship between text and illustration in Emperor Maximilian I “Theuerdank” . In: Literature and fine arts in the Tyrolean Middle Ages . Ed. V. Egon Kühebacher. Innsbruck 1982 (Innsbruck contributions to cultural studies. Germanistic series. Vol. 15), pp. 67–121.

Web links

Commons : Theuerdank  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Fritz Funke: Buchkunde: An overview of the history of the book . Walter de Gruyter & Co KG, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-094929-2 , p. 223 ( books.google.de ).
  2. See Müller (VL 1987), column 220
  3. ^ Stephan Füssel: Der Theuerdank of 1517. Composition and content of the "Theuerdank". Taschen, Cologne 2003, p. 56ff.
  4. Codex Vind. 2867 and 2806
  5. Matthäus Schultes, editor, publisher and printer of the Theuerdank edition of 1679, names in his foreword to the reader Emperor Maximilian as the author, who gave his writer Treitzsaurwein his story "in pen", which Pfintzing "put in order". See also Stephan Füssel: Der Theuerdank of 1517. Artists and editors of “Theuerdank”. Taschen, Cologne 2003, p. 42ff.
  6. Codex Vind. 2833
  7. Stephan Füssel: Der Theuerdank of 1517. The epic of the “last knight” Theuerdank. Taschen, Cologne 2003, p. 41.
  8. Stephan Füssel: Der Theuerdank of 1517. The epic of the “last knight” Theuerdank. Taschen, Cologne 2003, p. 39.
  9. Stephan Füssel: Der Theuerdank of 1517. Books and giant woodcuts for eternal memory. Taschen, Cologne 2003, p. 12 ff.
  10. cf. Funke (1969), p. 104.
  11. a b c Schultes (1679), in the foreword to his Theuerdank edition
  12. ^ Austrian National Library, Vienna; Cod. 2833
  13. Simon Laschitzer: Introduction to the facsimile edition of "Theuerdank". In: Yearbook of the art historical collections of the highest imperial family (8); Vienna 1888
  14. ^ Stephan Füssel: Der Theuerdank of 1517. A cultural-historical introduction. (2003) p. 44ff.
  15. See Müller (VL 1987), Col. 220: 1537 (printed by Stainer); 1553, 1563, 1589 and 1596, edited by Burghard Waldis, Frankfurt (printed by Egenolff)
  16. From private printing to bestseller | The printing history of Theuerdank. In: ac.at. www.univie.ac.at, accessed on November 28, 2018 (German).
  17. Compare the dating and bibliographical information from the Rostock University Library here
  18. ^ Jan Cölln: Theuerdank in Rostock. A case of the handwritten reception of book printing in the 16th century. In: Contributions to the history of the German language and literature. 126 (2004) H. 3, pp. 425-433; on the role of manuscript production in the early printing period see here
  19. Manfred Holleger: Maximilian I .: Ruler and man of a turning point . Kohlhammer Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-17-023247-1 , pp. 246 ( books.google.de ).
  20. Received in Vienna as cod. 9976
  21. Christie's Sale 9630 Lot 172 , April 23, 2001 ($ 215,000)
  22. sample page
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on November 21, 2007 in this version .