Visio Godeschalci

The Visio Godeschalci (lat. "Vision Gottschalk") is the report of the clearing farmer Gottschalk in Holstein of his 1189 vision . Two different clergymen questioned him independently of each other and wrote down his story in Latin in 1190. In Gottschalk's conception of the hereafter , Christian images mix with Norse images from pre-Christian times. The vision report provides insights into everyday life and the ideas of the afterlife of a member of the lower social class almost on the edge of the Christian world in the late 12th century.

prehistory

Gottschalk belonged to the second generation of the Holsten , whom Count Adolf II had called for the land of Wagrien in 1143 . Presumably in the 1170s he came from the parish Nortorf to Horchen, today's Großharrie in Mittelholstein , which at that time belonged to the parish of the Augustinian canons of Neumünster and is mentioned as early as 1141 as equipment of the monastery. It was Gottschalk's tithe , personally he was a free man. In order to expand his arable land, he cleared trees with stumps in the adjacent high forest. With his nearly blind woman, his sickly son and a horse he managed his Kate . Gottschalk was sick again and again and often suffered hardship, even in winter he went barefoot.

Gottschalk was part of the military line-up of the Holstein peasant ruling class, which supported Heinrich the Lion and besieged the Siegesburg in 1189 , one of the last positions of Count Adolf III. In vain had he asked Overboden to release him from his duty because of illness. He and his fellow villagers reached Segeberg on December 10th. Two days later the disease broke out with chills. He could still be contacted and received communion until December 17th . Then his senses faded, he could no longer speak and the pulse stopped. The body looked as if it had lost its soul, on the 20th its soul flowed out, as Gottschalk later tells. In this phase of apparent death , Gottschalk had a vision of death .

Vision report

The motif of the wandering in the afterlife and the return to the earthly world belongs to the widespread edifying literature of the Middle Ages , about which Gottschalk learned a lot from the sermon. It is typical for the journey to the hereafter that the visionary falls into ecstasy or sleep and the soul leaves the body, which remains as if dead. Often angels accompany the visionary as a guide. It is also typical that he sees different places in the afterlife and that he is not allowed to tell everything after his return. That he meets people he knows from life in the other world and is not allowed to linger there are also topoi in the vision literature of the 12th century.

Gottschalk's worldview is determined by the traditions of his family and fellow villagers, by the Sunday sermon and the pictures in the church. His conception of the hereafter essentially corresponds to church teaching, especially in the belief that earthly action is rewarded or punished in the hereafter. In the area that was really Christianized only a generation or two ago, popular belief is still strongly influenced by Germanic mythology . Gottschalk's experiences in the hereafter correspond to the popular belief of his time and his environment.

Wandering in the afterlife

Gottschalk's vision begins with a topos, with the arrival of the two angels who guide him through the hereafter and explain what has been seen. The souls of the dead flocked to a linden tree that was hung with innumerable pairs of shoes. Those who had shown mercy in their lives to the best of their ability received protective shoes .

The march of the dead through a desolate heather with thorns and spikes began with 14 shoe-wearers and about 120 disconsolate. The unprotected feet were stabbed; Those who fell were prepared in such a way that no healthy spot remained on them. When Gottschalk collapsed barefoot, his angel got him a pair of boots from the linden tree . The disconsolate were punished for disobedience to the commandments of God and the teachings of the priests; Obviously Gottschalk was one of them. After everyone had passed the thorny heather, 25 of the Discalced were redeemed from their sins and were allowed to join the group of shoe wearers.

The souls came to a broad river from which the blades of swords, spears, and lances rose. The dead who had to swim to the other bank were torn to pieces. Beams floating in the current slid to the bank, picked up the shoeed persons and automatically brought them unharmed to the other side. Those who had voluntarily served the common good, made paths passable, built dams in the mud and built or renovated bridges in the age of land development and land improvement , received the beams. All but six were now atoned. Gottschalk's first day in the otherworldly came to an end.

With the souls restored to their form, the procession formed in the order of redemption. At a fork in the road the bright and wide middle path led straight ahead; it was meant for the good guys . The narrow and boggy left path for the hopeless sinners went down and was lined on both sides by high walls. The stench from this path to hell polluted the air and was the cause of Gottschalk's later worsening illness. The way to the right for the perfect rose fiery and shimmering towards heaven. An angel pointed to the right to five people wearing shoes. He ordered the six not yet relieved at the end of the train to take a path between the abyss and the middle path through impassable, dark terrain. At a distance followed a heavily burdened man, whose identity Gottschalk does not reveal. From the perfect one could hear sweet songs of joy; they shone in incomparable light and easily mastered the steep climb. The hikers on the middle path through a lovely landscape cheerfully sang the glory of God. The six who had not yet been atoned for at the end of the train sighed and complained. Gottschalk was appointed their leader and feared bad things. But his angel comforted him that he would see the punishments, but his angels would protect him.

At the end of the second day a fire of immense heat on the surface of a blazing nine- gon. Nine demons tormented the penitents in various ways: sinners put an arm in the fire, a foot or some other part of the body. Those who were punished by the hand were thieves and those who were burned on the feet were walking the wrong way. Still some distance away, Gottschalk's left side was grazed by the blazing heat, and he felt intense pain. Gottschalk saw influential men in the fire, a former Overboden and members of the Holstein peasant ruling class who supported Heinrich the Lion.

After Gottschalk had seen sinners in the fire, his angels led him back to the middle path, which led upwards ever wider, ever brighter. Two souls from the former group of six, atoned by torture, accompanied him; 25 more redeemed joined and followed the procession, together they sang happy songs. The road turned into a broad, gleaming, beautiful street, and happy songs rang out from a tall, magnificent house. The street widened again with a bigger house, the residents of which sang even more melodiously. Once again the street became wider with a building that surpassed those seen in size, splendor and number of jubilantly singing residents. Gottschalk regretted that he had not asked his angels about the significance of this gradation of the street, the houses and their residents regarding the expanse, beauty, brightness and joy. A wondrous scent gave the hikers strength, and Gottschalk no longer wanted to eat.

After this journey of three days, the vastness of the realm of the living , as Gottschalk called the other world, opened up. The sun shone nine times brighter than on earth and was always at its zenith; there was neither shadow nor night. Everything shone in a golden light. A gleaming basilica appeared in a square with no windows or doors, and the choir was to the west. Radiant houses were attached to the church. The saints lived in the open ones, while those that were still closed were intended for future residents. When Gottschalk looked at the church from a distance, a man stood in radiant majesty on the ridge, the Evangelist Johannes . Gottschalk's companions had changed in the same way and suddenly they had disappeared; Gottschalk was alone with his two angels. On a bench next to the church he recognized two recently deceased canons ; they left room for six more who were still alive. Elsewhere he saw a lay brother in a bright little house, a kitchen helper of the monastery , who had earned this place through asceticism and mortification . On a second bench, Gottschalk knew three lay brothers who held space for two who were still alive. A house that was still locked was reserved for a widow who visits the sick and gives them funds to alleviate their suffering. She had endured the suffering inflicted on her by her husband faithfully and patiently. After the court came to her, she made generous donations to the poor. She faces the bad treatment of her children with equanimity. Looking at the west end of the church, Gottschalk had an overwhelming experience that he could not speak of at first: For a moment he saw an indescribably bright light above the choir, which made everything glow and permeated everything. When he looked up again, confused and trembling, the apparition was gone. Gottschalk was convinced that for a moment he had perceived God.

On the fifth day Gottschalk and his angels reached a huge place where many souls had gathered. Everyone turned up for the feast of St. Andrew , which was celebrated in December. All could be seen in perfect form, the men around thirty years of age. Some men dragged others on their backs; they were murderers who had to bear their sacrifice until the last day , unless they were slain in blood revenge; the murderer of a Christian, on the other hand, was in no way exempt from punishment. Lords and mistresses did their servants and maidservants with bowed heads. They were ashamed because they had not treated their servants like fellow Christians on earth . Pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem wore gold crosses set with precious stones on their chests. Those who made three pilgrimages to the tombs of the apostles in Rome wore a golden crown because of their perseverance. When St. Andrew appeared, he gently intoned a hymn and those standing around joined in cheering. Gottschalk tried in vain, his voice had no sound. Success was denied to him because he was not allowed to stay in the realm of the living , because after his return to the earthly world he was to tell people about his experiences. The angels promised him that they would bring him back here later. Suddenly Gottschalk was alone, the angels and the party were gone.

Gottschalk came to an infinitely large city on a wide plain; it was open to everyone without ramparts, ditches or curtain walls. The houses had a transparent central wall accompanied by benches and were supported on the sides by ornate columns. Millions of dead from all ages and races lived in this city, which Gottschalk did not enter because he no longer had a guide. From outside he saw a man from his parish who had died the previous day, was buried the same day and asked Gottschalk to convey a message to his son. He had survived the torture and didn't know where to stay. Gottschalk noticed how the twice married man took his deceased first wife by the hand and offered him the seat on her right on her bench. Many from his home village sat on the same bench. This was the last picture of his vision.

According to the vision

On December 24th, Gottschalk's unit was relieved, and his comrades brought him home in a cart, sick and confused. He had brought physical ailments with him from his trip: the skin on the soles of his feet peeled off so that he could no longer walk. The stench from the hell path gave him pain in his head with pus in his mouth and nose. The pain in his side from purgatory, which extended to other parts of the body, prevented him from lying on his side. For five weeks he ate and drank very seldom and little. From the end of January 1190 he was able to tell the neighbors about his experiences. But since he could hardly work on the farm, he asked his pastor in Neumünster for the last unction and while he was still on the sickbed he told him about his vision.

Remarks

1. ↑ Großharrie is apparently the oldest of the Harrie places, with a settlement going back to the Neolithic Age. (Assmann p. 11) The new settlers laid out their villages for farmers of their economic methods and legal system; the existing Slavic settlement was relocated. (Walther Lammers: The High Middle Ages up to the Battle of Bornhöved . Neumünster 1981 p. 303) Kleinharrie would then be the younger settlement.
2. ↑ Around 1330 the monastery was moved to Bordesholm . ( Neumünster # story )
3. ↑ Shoes were given to the dead to make their way to the afterlife easier. (Lammers note 11) The custom of putting dead shoes in the grave can be found in pre-Christian northern Germany and in England. The Icelandic Gísla saga mentions the shoes of the dead, and a southern Norwegian and a northern English folk song speak of the protective shoe from the hereafter. (Dinzelbacher (see literature) p. 81)
4. ↑ The linden tree is not to be found in other vision reports. Perhaps Gottschalk was thinking of the judicial linden tree under which a sentence was imposed or issued. (Dinzelbacher (see literature) p. 86)
5. ↑ Dangerous rivers appear several times in medieval reports on the afterlife. They are border rivers in front of the realm of the dead and symbolize the difficult access to the other world. The armed river is in the pre-Christian-North Germanic tradition. There is a similar river in the Völuspá , and the Danish author Saxo Grammaticus also knows the weapon-bearing river as a purifying punishment. (Dinzelbacher (see literature) pp. 90f.)
6. ↑ The thought of beams that move like rational beings and serve as a bridge to the hereafter appears here for the first time.
7. ↑ Fulfilling this task was synonymous with human mercy. (Lammers note 13)
8. ↑ In the picture of the fork in the road, the meaning of right and left, which was important in the Middle Ages, appears. Everything good is assigned to the right, everything weak and evil to the left. (Bünz, Neue Forschungen p. 93)
9. ↑ With this path there are four ways in Gottschalk's vision, like in a Middle English legend , which speaks of the ways into heaven, into paradise , into purgatory and into hell. (Dinzelbacher (see literature) note 189)
10. ↑ The theologians also believed that purgatory is a concrete fire. (Dinzelbacher (see literature) p. 93)
11. ↑ The nine number played an important role in Germanic. (Dinzelbacher (see literature) p. 94)
12. ↑ The scenes give an insight into everyday life and legal practice of the time. (Dinzelbacher (see literature) p. 94)
13. ↑ In the struggle for sovereignty, Gottschalk sided with the Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein and the church. (Lammers note 17)
14. ↑ Gottschalk had surely heard of the way to the land of the living , which full of fragrant flowers in three stages leads to heaven, as it occurs in Bonifatius in his letters when describing heaven. (Lammers note 21 and note 19) At Gottschalk, the path leads in three stages to paradise, the realm of the living. The fragrant flowers become a miraculous fragrance that replaced the food for the hikers.
15. ↑ Regio vivorum is in the Vulgate (Lammers note 21)
16. ↑ There is no night in Visio Tnugdali either. (Lammers note 53)
17. ↑ At first it appears more as a king's hall and later as a church building. (Assmann note 209)
18. ↑ The church refers to the former collegiate church of St. Marien in Neumünster, stylized into the grand and fantastic. The church, demolished in 1811, was located in the Kleinflecken district, next to today's Vizelinkirche . (Assmann Amn. 36)
19. ↑ It is not clear why St. John appeared to the visionary even though the Church was consecrated to the Virgin Mary.
20. ↑ Cf. Transfiguration of Jesus according to Matth. 17.2. (Lammers note 16)
21. ↑ Ansgar , too , had appeared to God as emanating light, Rimbert reports in Ansgar's biography.
22. ↑ The perfect age of the blessed goes back to Augustine , of whom Gottschalk must have heard in the sermon. (Lammers Amn. 34)
23. ↑ This was due to the legal customs that Gottschalk knew. (Lammers note 31) Even in the previous generation, the Saxon law determined the rules of conduct for the Holsten , which accepted blood revenge. (Assmann p. 16)
24. ↑ This thought probably has to do with Gottschalk's social position and his wishes. (Lammers note 32)
25. ↑ With the pilgrim badge, Gottschalk reports on little-known but once very widespread devotional objects. (Lammers note 33)
26. ↑ In most medieval visions, the deceased in the afterlife are grouped according to their merits, in Gottschalk's vision according to communities. Husband and wife live together, including the villagers and members of the monastery. (Dinzelbacher (see literature) p. 96)

Authors

There are two factually largely identical records of Gottschalk's vision by two clergymen whose names are not known. The authors differentiate between Gottschalk's statements and their own comments. Both versions are written in Latin. The more detailed, entitled Godeschalcus, comes from the pastor in Neumünster, whose parish also included Harrie. The literary and philosophically versed priest was a canon in the Augustinian canons of Neumünster; possibly it was the provost of the monastery, Sido von Neumünster . In the spring of 1190 he had asked Gottschalk several times at his sick bed and was convinced of the truthfulness and importance of the report. Presumably between August and October 1190 he wrote the story down. In addition to the actual vision, its version contains chapters that report on Gottschalk's life before and after the vision. The author refers to current events and thus also offers insights into everyday life and legal practice of the time.

The much shorter Visio Godeschalci was created a little later than the Godeschalcus version . It is written in the first-person form from the visionary's point of view and dispenses with local references. Probably the pastor of Nortorf was the author, he also questioned the visionary. He was probably writing for a readership uninterested in local events. The choice of words and scope of the two texts differ, but the content with its many details does not contradict each other at any point. It is likely that the pastor in Nortorf knew the report of his colleague from Neumünster, because like him he uses the same rarely used words and terms in some parallel passages. His version is mentioned by Caesarius von Heisterbach in the Dialogus miraculorum . The text has only survived as a copy in a late medieval composite manuscript. Until the edition by Erwin Assmann it was almost unknown.

Manuscripts

• Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Library , Cod. Guelf. 558 Helmst., 1v-24r (autograph)
• Hanover, Lower Saxony State Library , Ms. XXIII 163, f.1-81

literature

• Erwin Assmann (ed.): Godeschalcus and Visio Godeschalci with German translation . (Sources and research on the history of Schleswig-Holstein 74), Neumünster 1979.
• Walther Lammers: Gottschalk's Hike in the Hereafter . On popular piety in the 12th century north of the Elbe. (Meeting reports of the Scientific Society at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main 19/2), Wiesbaden 1982.
• Enno Bünz: The oldest inventory of the Augustinian canons of Neumünster. In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History, 1987, Vol. 112, pp. 27–32.
• Peter Dinzelbacher : verba hec tam mistica ex ore tam ydiote glebonis . In: Peter Dinzelbacher, Dieter R. Bauer (ed.): Popular religion in the high and late Middle Ages , Paderborn a. a. 1990, pp. 57-99.
• Enno Bünz: New research on the vision of the farmer Gottschalk (1189) . In: Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History , 1995, Vol. 120, pp. 77–111.
• Peter Dinzelbacher: Visio Godesc (h) alci. In: Lexikon des Mittelalters 8, Sp. 1731.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Assmann (see literature) p. 12 and p. 95, note 172
2. ↑ Bünz, list of goods (see literature) p. 94ff.
3. ↑ Assmann (see literature) pp. 10-13
4. ↑ Dinzelbacher (see literature) p. 76
5. ↑ Bünz, Neue Forschungen (see literature) p. 79
6. ↑ Dinzelbacher (see literature) pp. 75f.
7. ↑ Dinzelbacher (see literature) p. 76
8. ↑ Assmann (see literature) p. 151 chap. 62
9. ↑ Bünz, Neue Forschungen (see literature) pp. 85f.