Medieval Concepts of the Past

Medieval Concepts of the Past RITUAL, MEMORY, HISTORIOGRAPHY Edited by GERD ALTHOFF University of Münster JOHANNES FRIED University of Frankfurt PATRICK J. GEARY University of California at Los Angeles GERMAN HISTORICAL INSTITUTE Washington, D. C. and ~CAMBRIDGE ~ UNIVERSITY PRESS 11 Artistic and Literary Representations of Family Consciousness JOHN B. FREED Kar! Schmid deepened our understanding of the German nobility's changing self-consciousness between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, most brilliantly, perhaps, in his article on the Welfs' rewriting of their dynastic history. Although critics have challenged and modified many of Schmid's specific points, it is clear that there was a change in family structure from amorphous sips composed of individuals who could claim kinship, whether agnatic or cognatic, with a powerful magnate to patrilineal dynasties that were often identified with the fortified center of the lineage's lordship, such as the Habsburgs.' This transformation was both a cause and a consequence of the process of territorialization and occurred, as the work of Georges Duby has made clear, at the expense of daughters and younger sons.' In this chapter I look at three highly problematic and disparate artistic and literary texts that can be read as reflecting the tensions caused for I wish to thank the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Munich for permission to reproduce the portrait of Count Sigiboto and the Landesdenkmalamt fiir Südtirol in Bolzano (Dozen) for permission to reproduce the Rodenegg frescoes. The photographs of the latter were made by Hubert Walder. I wish to thank my colleague, Professor Lawrence D. Walker, and the participants of the Heidelberg Conference for their helpful suggestions and criticisms. 1 Many of Kar! Schmid's key articles can be found in his collected articles: Gebetsgedenken und adl(ees Selbstverständnis im Mittelalter: A"s,~ewählte Beiträge: Festgabe zu seinem secllzigstem Gebllrtstag (Sig- maringen, 1983). His piece on the Welfs, "Welfisches Selbstverständnis," was republished in that collection. For a discussion of Schmids work, see John B. Freed, "Reflections on the Medieval German Nobility," Americall Historical Review 91 (1986): 560--6. See also Schmid's posthumous Geblüt, Herrschaft, Cesdtlcchtetbewusstsein: Gnllltlfragen zllm Verständnis des Adels im Mittelalter, edited and with an introduction to Schmids work and its scholarly reception by Dieter Mertens and Thomas Zotz, Vorträge und Forschungen 44 (Sigmaringen, 1998), 2 See in particular Georges Duby's articles "Lineage, Nobility and Knighthood: The Maconnais in the Twelfth Century - A Revision" and "Youth in Aristocratic Society: Northwestern France in the Twelfth Century," The Chivalrous Sodety, trans. Cynthia Postan (Berkeley, Calif., 1977),59-80, 112-22. The best synthesis in English about the formation of the high-medieval German princi- palities is Benjamin Arnold, Princes and Territories ill Medieval Germany (Cambridge, 1991). 233 234 John B. Freed and within noble or formerly noble families by the strengthening of princely authority. Each work was a response to a painful and trouble- some past and an attempt to shape the lineage's future destiny. What the three pieces have in common is that each was produced by a man and/or woman who was or who perceived himself or herself as a loser or poten- tial victim in the formation of the territorial principality. I focus primar- ily on the family portrait in the Codex Falkensteincnsis that was drawn at the behest of Count Sigiboto IV of Falkenstein and that has aroused sur- prisingly little scholarly interest. I compare the portrait with two works that have inspired far more attention and that I have discussed in greater detail elsewhere: the Rodenegg frescoes, the oldest known Romanesque paintings with a secular theme, which were commissioned, I believe, by the noblewoman Mathilda of Hohenburg, the wife of Arnold III of Rodank, a ministerial of the bishop of Brixen; and the Prauendienst (Ladies' Service), the oldest European vernacular autobiography, composed by the Styrian ministerial, Ulrich of Liechtenstein.' The unique charac- ter of these three sources makes them inherently difficult to interpret, but I believe that these texts become more comprehensible by situating them in their familial context and that such contextualization in turn illumi- nates their creators' understanding of their own and their lineage's soci- etal position. : Before leaving in 1166 on Frederick Barbarossa's ill-fated fourth Italian campaign, Count Sigiboto IV of Falkenstein commissioned a unique historical source, the Codex Falkensteinensis, the oldest extant family archive. Among its treasures are the only Traditionsbudi (collection of conveyances) and the oldest Urbar (manorial register) from a secular German lordship; two key texts about the Hantgemal, the Falkensteins' predium libertatis or earnest of free status (nos. 3, 131); Sigiboto's notorious so-called murder letter (no. 183); and a family portrait." Max Kemmerich in his Die f"'4I1- mittelalterliche Portraitmalerei ill Deutschland (Early Medieval Portraiture in 3 Nicole Rasrno, Pittute muralt in Alto Ad(~e (Bolzano, 1973),9; and Timothy McFarland, "Ulrich von Liechtenstein and the Autobiographical Narrative Form," in Peter F. Ganz and Werner Schröder, eds. Probleme miuelhochdcutscher Erzahlformcn: Marburger Colloquium, 1969 (Berlin, 1972), 195. I discuss the Rodenegg frescoes and the Prauendienst in John D. Freed, Noble Bondsmen: Mitristerial Marriages itr tire Archdiocese of Salzbll~f?, 1100-1343 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995),218-66. 4 The most recent edition of the codex is Elisabeth Noichl, ed., Codex Falleensteinensis: Die Rethts- aryzeicJrnulIgcn der Grafen von Faleenstein, Quellen und Erörterungen zur bayerischen Geschichte, n.s.29 (Munich, 1978) (hereafter CF). The numbers in parentheses in the text refer to the entries in the Noichl edition. On the Falkensteins, see John B. Freed, The Counts cif Falkcnstein: Noble &!f- Consciousness in Twelfth-Century Germany, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, voI. 74/6 (Philadelphia, 1984). On the murder letter, see Patrick Geary and John B. Freed, "Literacy and Violence in Twelfth-Century Bavaria: The 'Murder Letter' of Count Sigiboto IV," Vialor: Medieval atrd Renaissance Studies 25 (1994): 115-29. Representations of Family Consciousness 235 Figure 11.1 Count Sigiboto IV of Falkenstein, Hildegard of Mödling, and Their Sons. Courtesy of the Bavarian State Archives, Munich. Reproduced by permission. Germany) called this nurnature "the first family portrait of which I . know."s The portrait, which measures 12.3 by 16.2 centimeters, appears at the top of what was the first page of the manuscript when it was orig- inally bound (see Figure 11.1). It shows Sigiboto, who is identified as "Lord Count Sigiboto" (Dominus Siboto comes), seated on a benchlike structure against a backdrop of stars with his wife Hildegard of Mödling and their two half-grown sons, Kuno and Sigiboto v: They hold across their laps a banner with Sigiboto's parting words: "Die valeas patri, bene fiJi, dicite matri. Qui legis hec care, nostri petimus memorare. Hoc quidem cuned, mage tu, carissime fili." Elisabeth Noichl, the most recent editor of the text, translated this difficult passage as: "Sag Lebewohl dem Vater, und Ihr, Söhne, befleissigt Euch einer ehrerbietigen Sprache gegenüber der Mutter. Lieber, der Du dies liest, gedenke, bitte, unser. Das mögen war alle (tun), in erster Linie aber Du, liebster Sohn." An idiomatic ~ng1ish translation is: "Sons, bid your father farewell and speak respect- 5 Cited by Noichl, CF, 30*. 236 John B. Freed fully to your mother. Dear one who reads this, we beseech you, remem- ber us. All may do this, but especially you, dearest son.?" This portrait appears, at least at first glance, to be a visual representa- tion of the patrilineal lineage that by the twelfth century had allegedly replaced the bilateral kinship groupings among the northern European nobility of the earlier Middle Ages. At the heart of this new family structure was a single dominant couple who, if we are to believe Sigiboto's words, were bound to each other and to their children by strong ties of affection but who, we know, actually favored their eldest son at the expense of his sisters and younger brothers," Indeed, it is noteworthy that Sigiboto and/or the artist chose not to include the count's daughters in the portrait or in the genealogy that Sigiboto himself inserted into the codex after his return from Italy (no. 181). He later directed his sons to provide one of their sisters with a suitable dowry if he died before she married (no. 142) and required his son-in-law to designate his entire estate as the widow's dower of Sigiboto's daughter (no. 143). But the count also commanded that his daughters were to possess no share of the Austrian lands he had purchased from his niece (no. 171). At no time did Sigiboto deem it necessary to record the names of any of his daughters in the codex. Understanding the portrait requires placing the miniature in its proper place within the manuscript. Beneath the portrait is the notice in which Sigiboto appointed his father-in-law, Kuno III of Mödling. as his sons' guardian were he to die on the expedition (no. 1). Before the codex was rebound in the sixteenth century. the facing page and its back (now f 7-7') contained the list of the count's fiefs (no. 2). After this came the first entry about the Falkensteins' Hantgemal (no. 3) (the second entry, no. 131, was added after the count's return) and on the reverse side of this page (now f.2) was the notice about the endowment of Sigiboto's three Bavarian castles: Neuburg, Falkenstein, and Hartmannsberg (no. 4). The Urbar and Tiaditionsbuch followed. In other words, if a reader had opened the codex to the first page in 1166, he would have seen on the left side 6 Noichl, CF, 29*-33*.

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