Tauler Reception in Religious Lyric the (Pseudo)-Tauler Cantilenae

ALMUT SUERBAUM

Tauler reception in religious lyric The (pseudo)-Tauler cantilenae

Views on authorship differ with each historical period: modern editions collect works under the name of an author, yet for medieval collections of sermons, authorship is often not an important category.1 Even where medieval manuscripts transmit groups of sermons under the name of an author, these texts rarely contain self-referential statements, and Tauler, unlike Eckhart, never refers to himself in his sermons by name.2 For modern editions, one of the principal tasks is therefore to separate authentic Tauler from texts travelling under his name, and decisions of modern editors and scholars about what is authentic differ considerably from those of earlier periods. Every century, or so it seems, has had its own Tauler. For modern readers, Tauler is the author of sermons whose thoughts influenced a wide range of people from different social spheres, both within convents and amongst lay people. For earlier periods, his oeuvre also comprised other literary genres; the early Tauler print of Petrus Canisius (Cologne 1543), for example, includes not just sermons, but also letters, tracts, legends, and songs.3 The latter group of texts is of particular interest for this paper, which will address the so-called Tauler cantilenae. These consist of a group of religious songs, often containing elements of mystical theology. Where they have been studied at all, the only question asked is usually whether they are genuine Tauler texts; and since there are good reasons for doubting that,4 they have usually been dismissed as both inauthentic and

1 On genre conventions of medieval sermon collections, see Regina D. Schiewer and Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘Predigt im Spätmittelalter’, in: Textsorten und Textallianzen um 1500, Teil I: Lite- rarische und religiöse Textallianzen um 1500, ed. by Alexander Schwarz, Franz Simmler, and Claudia Wich-Reif, Berlin 2009 (Berliner Sprachwissenschaftliche Studien 20), pp. 727-771. 2 Eckhart is unusual in referring to himself and the circumstances under which he composes his sermons; cf Burghard Mojsisch, ‘‘ce moi’. La conception du moi de maître Eckhart. Une contribution aux ‘Lumières’ du Moyen-Age’, in: Revue des sciences religieuses 70 (1996), pp. 18-30. Only the X-group of Berthold of Regensburg’s German sermons contains comparable self-references, though it is possible that these are in fact part of a complex literary construction of authority rather than self-referential statements by the author; cf Almut Suerbaum, ‘Formen der Publikumsansprache bei Berthold von Regensburg und ihr literarischer Kontext’, in: Predigt im Kontext, ed. Volker Mertens et al. (in press, Berlin); Schiewer and Schiewer (n. 1), p. 741f., and the contribution by R. Schiewer and Weigand in this volume. 3 On the significance of the Cologne print within he transmission of Tauler’s works, see Markus Polzer in this volume. Whether the Petrus Noviomagus mentioned in the print can be identified with Petrus Canisius has been disputed; see most recently Rob van de Schoor, ‘Canisius als Herausgeber’, in: Ons Geestelijk Erf 82.2 (2011), pp. 161-186. 4 Judith Theben, Die mystische Lyrik des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts. Untersuchungen – Texte – Repertorium, Berlin 2010 (Kulturtopographie des alemannischen Raums, vol. 2), p. 62, notes the

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derivative, and therefore of no intrinsic literary interest. Nevertheless, some were clearly popular and are widely transmitted, not just in the late Middle Ages, but also well into the contemporary period. This is true in particular of the best-known of the songs attributed to Tauler, ‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen’ (A ship draws near, well laden), which Daniel Sudermann first ascribed to Tauler in his collection of religious songs from Strasbourg manuscripts published in 1620, and which modern hymn books usually list as a Christmas carol.5 The song is an example of the seamless transition of medieval material into early modern and modern devotional practice, crossing the post-reforma- tion boundaries and remaining part of Catholic as well as Protestant traditions. As is evident from their manuscript transmission, the so-called Tauler cantilenae are part of a wider cultural phenomenon: during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, religious songs became an increasingly popular vehicle for religious contemplation, especially in the vernacular, and especially, though by no means exclusively, for women.6 The existence of multiple versions moreover suggests that these songs remained popular well into the early modern period, yet they have never been studied in any detail.7 While a comprehensive literary assessment is beyond the scope of this article, the cantilenae merit

fact that manuscripts transmitting religious songs as well as Tauler sermons do not contain the so-called Tauler cantilenae; conversely, none of the cantilenae are attributed to Tauler before the Cologne print. Both factors together suggest strongly that the attribution to Tauler is secondary. Daniel Sudermann’s collection Schöne auserlesene Sinnreiche Figuren II. Teil, Straßburg 1620, adds ‘Ich muoz die creaturen fliehen’ and ‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen’ to the group of songs attributed to Tauler. 5 Evangelisches Gesangbuch der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) und ihrer Glied- kirchen, der Evangelischen Kirche Augsburgischen und Helvetischen Bekenntnisses in Österreich sowie der Kirche Augsburgischer Konfession und der Reformierten Kirche im Elsass und in Lothringen (Frankreich), regional editions by province, 1993-1996, no 8; Gotteslob. Herausgege- ben von den Bischöfen Deutschlands und Österreichs und der Bistümer Bozen-Brixen, Lüttich und Luxemburg, regional versions by diocese, revised 1996, no 114; cf Liederdatenbank (http://www. liederdatenbank.de) for electronic versions of both hymn books. On the early transmission of ‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen‘, see Almut Suerbaum, ‘‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen.’ Mouvance in mystischen Liedern aus Straßburg’, in: Der Literaturbetrieb im spätmittelalterlichen Straßburg, ed. by Nigel F. Palmer and Stephen Mossmann, Göttingen 2012, pp. 99-116. 6 Johannes Janota, Studien zu Funktion und Typus des deutschen geistlichen Liedes im Mittelalter, Munich 1968 (Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen 23), is still the most comprehensive account for medieval German literature; Theben (n. 4) documents the widespread transmission of anonymous songs in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Medieval Dutch songs are recorded in the ‘liederenbank’ database (http://www.liederenbank.nl), cf Thom Mertens, “Die Gheestelicke Melody: A Program for the Spiritual Life in a Middle Dutch Song Cycle”, in: Women and Expe- rience in Later Medieval Writing: Reading in the Book of Life, ed. by Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker and Liz Herbert McAvoy, Hampshire 2009 (The New Middle Ages), pp. 123-147. 7 The only studies of note are Albert Ampe, ‘Een kritisch onderzoek von de ‘Institutiones Taulerianae’’, Ons Geestelijk Erf 40 (1966), pp. 167-240, esp. pp. 216-220, S. Eucharis Becker, ‘Untersuchungen zu dem Tauler zugeschriebenen Lied ‘Es kommt ein schiff geladen’’, in: Johannes Tauler. Ein deutscher Mystiker- Gedenkschrift zum 600. Todestag, ed. by Ephrem Filthaut, Essen 1961, pp. 77-92, and Kurt Ruh, ‘Mystische Spekulation in Reimversen des 14. Jahrhunderts’, in: Beiträge zur weltlichen und geistlichen Lyrik des 13. bis 15. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Kurt Ruh and Werner Schröder, Berlin 1973, pp. 205-230.

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consideration on their own terms, as well as in the context of Tauler reception, and that is what the current paper proposes to do. In the context of this volume on Tauler, the small group of songs raises three issues in particular which merit further consideration: the nature of the texts and their transmission; the reasons for attributing them to Tauler, and finally, the ways in which they shed light on late medieval and early modern Tauler reception.

I. ORIGINS AND TRANSMISSION

The title ‘Tauler-Cantilenen’ goes back to the 1543 Cologne print of Tauler’s works, whose redactor groups six texts under the rubric ‘Des erleuchten D. Joannis Tauleri etlige geistlige Cantilenen’ (Some religious songs by the illustrious Father JohannesTauler).8 All are believed by modern scholars to have their origins in the fourteenth century, although three of the songs are so far known only in the form of the Cologne print, while more recent studies have demonstrated that some of these songs are also transmitted in a number of manuscript variants.9 It is possible that they are the work of several writers using a similar theological and literary diction, though Ruh, the only scholar so far to have studied them as a group in any detail, considers the similarities such as to make a single author more plausible; nevertheless, the transmission suggests that the Cologne print is the first to group them together as a coherent collection.10 These six songs share certain simliarities with two further songs, ‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen’ and ‘Ich muoz die creaturen fliehen’ (I have to flee the creatures of the world) which Sudermann transcribed from Strasbourg manuscripts and attributed to Tauler. This suggests that the redactor of the Cologne Tauler print selected from a range of material, some of which we can trace back to fourteenth century sources. The origin of this material is more difficult to establish. For two of the most widely transmitted songs, Cantilena 6 ‘Von rechter armut” (On spiritual poverty) and ‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen’, we know at least six manuscript

8 Kölner Tauler-Druck v. J. 1543, Mm1vb-Mm2vb; songs 1-5 are editied in: Das deutsche Kir- chenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zum Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Philipp Wackernagel, vol. II, Leipzig 1867, pp. 305-308 (numbers 463-467); song 6 is now available in Theben (n. 4), p. 392-3, on the basis of an early fifteenth century manuscript from the Dominican convent of Zofingen (Freiburg, erzbischöfliches Archiv, Hs. 30, f. 72v-73r), which has a Latin and German title (fol. 73r: Von armut des gaistes and, on the preceding verso-page, sequitur de paupertate spirituali), but no author attribution. Theben lists eight further manuscripts for this song, of which the oldest dates from the late fourteenth century. 9 Kurt Ruh, art. ‘Tauler-Cantilenen’, in: Verfasserlexikon, 2nd edition, vol. 9, Berlin 1995, col. 657-662, offers a survey over the transmission and scholarship to date; cf Theben (n. 3), pp. 125-126 and 194-195. 10 Ruh (n. 9), col. 659, suggests that the songs are transpositions of prose texts, considers the possibility that they are the work of more than one nun, but proposes that a single author is most probable, given the transmission.

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versions, and in both cases, the earliest ones go back to the fourteenth century.11 One of the focal points of transmission is clearly the south-west of the German- speaking area, with a number of Alemannic manuscripts, mostly from Domi- nican convents, but there are also examples of Low German versions. This had led Kurt Ruh in the Verfasserlexikon to assume south-west German origin for all of these songs.12 Ruh had left open quite where the editor of the Cologne Tauler print might have come across them, but suggested that the Cologne print in turn became the main source of the later reception in the Low Countries – yet at least one of the Dutch versions of Cantilena 2 ‘Gotheit du bist eyn teiff abgrunt’ (God, thou art a deep abyss),13 in a Maastricht manuscript from 1470, predates the Cologne print.14 It may therefore be necessary to reassess the relationship between southern and northern regions and their distinct spiritual culture in the light of more recent manuscript finds. Furthermore, the discovery that at least one of the cantilenae appears to have been known in Gdansk as early as the second half of the fourteenth century, changes the picture: Johan- nes Marienwerder, who records the life and visions of the married lay-woman Dorothea von Montau shortly after her death as an anchoress at the cathedral in Marienwerder in 1384, includes a vision of her cell as a ship which is closely based on a version of the Marian song ‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen’ with its extended ship allegory for the incarnation.15 The fact that the central allegory of the song appears to have been the basis for the vision, and that the text of the song is traceable behind the wording of the Latin narrative recounting the vision, suggests that the song, which the Cologne print as well as Daniel Suder- mann group together with the Tauler cantilenae, must have been well-known in Prussia and the German east before 1384, the date of Dorothea’s death in Marienwerder.16 Notably, the early transmission of the cantilenae and associated songs is anonymous and does not attribute them to Tauler or any other figure of authority; nevertheless, the example from Gdansk highlights that at least some of these songs were well known and appear to have travelled considerably faster than earlier studies had suggested. Moreover, they appear to be a phenomenon of the fourteenth as much as the fifteenth century. Because authorship is such a dominant category for modern readers, it often influences the approaches taken to material which, in its early transmission, appears to have been firmly anonymous, and as a result, the critical literature

11 Theben (n. 3), p. 424; Gisela Kornrumpf, Vom Codex Manesse zur Kolmarer Liederhand- schrift. Aspekte der Überlieferung, Formtraditionen, Texte, vol. 1: Untersuchungen, Tübingen 2008 (Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen 133), here p. 208 12 Ruh (n. 9), col. 658. 13 Theben (n. 4), S. 462; cf Gisela Kornrumpf, (n. 11), p. 209f. 14 Maastricht GA, Ms. 479, f. 264r/v, cf Ruh (n. 9), c. 658, Theben (n. 4), p. 445. 15 On Dorothea von Montau, see the special volume of Oxford German Studies: Dorothea von Montau and Johannes Marienwerder. Constructions of Sanctity, ed. by Almut Suerbaum and Annette Volfing, Oxford German Studies 36 (2010); the references to ‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen’ in Dorothea’s visions are documented in Suerbaum (n. 5). 16 On the vision referring to ‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen’, see Suerbaum (n. 5).

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likes to speculate about who may have been responsible for these songs – Ruh’s article in the Verfasserlexikon is an eloquent example of this: “Als Verfasser der Tauler-Cantilenen sind, in Analogie zu anderen Liedern derselben Art, mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit Klosterfrauen anzunehmen.”17 Yet Ruh’s formula- tion reveals that this is a hypothesis, arrived at on the basis of the known transmission to date and some assumptions about the use of such songs. But the fact remains that we do not know who wrote them. Despite Ruh’s state- ment, we also do not know much about the cultural environment from which these songs originate, and the critical literature admits this uncertainty by cre- ating a plausible scenario: almost without exception, it is assumed that the most likely milieu for theological reflection through the medium of song must have been religious women, especially Dominican sisters. The origins for these sto- ries go back to Daniel Sudermann, who went through the surviving Strasbourg manuscripts of St Nikolaus in undis in search of authentic Tauler texts. In his 1626 edition, he transcribed a number of the songs in question under the rubric ‘Ein uraltes gesang, So unter dess Herren taulerii Schriften funden, etwas ver- staendlicher gemacht’.18 Sudermann’s strategy is twofold: he attempts to authenticate the texts by attributing them to Tauler, while at the same time bridging the linguistic distance by transposing the songs into a language closer to that of his seventeenth century readers. There is no evidence for such an attribution to Tauler prior to the Cologne print, yet the evidence of the life of Dorothea von Montau suggests that the songs, or at least some of them, do in fact go back almost to the life-time of Tauler.19 In another respect the Cologne print creates a profile that may obscure elements of the earlier transmission: it groups the texts together and refers to them as ‘cantilenae’. Yet it is clear that the early tradition consists mostly of individual texts interspersed into miscellany manuscripts which usually contain sermons, religious treatises and other devotional texts.20 The study by Judith Theben has demonstrated quite how widespread the phenomenon of religious lyric had become in the fifteenth century; small groups of such text circling around themes and concepts familiar from mystical theology are common in manuscripts, particularly, but perhaps not exclusively those from Dominican convents in the south-west.21

17 Ruh (n. 9), col. 658. 18 Ruh (n. 9), col. 661; Theben (n. 4), p. 62. 19 Suerbaum (n. 5). 20 Theben (n. 4), p. 62. 21 The role of northern Germany and the Low Countries has often been neglected in studies focused on the Alemanic south west, and would need much more detailed study; cf for the Northern German area Ulrike Hascher-Burger, Verborgene Klänge: Inventar der handschriftlich überlieferten Musik aus den Lüneburger Frauenklöstern bis ca. 1550. Mit einer Darstellung der Musik-Ikonographie von Ulrike Volkhardt. Hildesheim, Zürich, New York 2008; Henrike Läh- nemann, ‘Per organa. Musikalische Unterweisung in Handschriften der Lüneburger Klöster’, in: Dichtung und Didaxe. Lehrhaftes Sprechen in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, ed. by Henrike Lähnemann and Sandra Linden, Berlin 2009, pp. 397-412; and the volume Northern

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II. THE TAULER CANTILENAE AS MYSTICAL SONG

Literary analysis of these texts is rare; where brief summaries are offered, they are usually referred to as mystical songs. Like all brief descriptions, that is either self-evident, or problematic in all its elements. Are they songs? They certainly display some of the features we might expect of a song: the texts are compara- tively short, using relatively simple rhyme patterns, and while their metrical structure is less than regular, they use repetitions of structure which suggest they are conceived as strophic. That raises the issue of whether they are song in the modern sense, i.e. intended for actual performance, or whether they are simply reflections in lyric form, which might have been used for silent meditation, focusing on reading and reflection rather than actual singing.22 The absence of musical notation is no indicator in this respect, since it would be rare in vernacular manuscripts of this period – use of musical notation is an advanced tech- nical skill, comparable to illumination. In the absence of contextual information, assessments about cultural context can therefore only be made on the basis of signals from within the texts. What we can certainly say is, however, that they were treated as songs in the later transmission, since both the Cologne print and Daniel Sudermann’s edition give tunes to which they could be sung, and this is how they come to be included in early modern hymn collections. On the other hand, Ruh highlights their close association with prose texts of similar subject matter, and this proximity to religious prose and its use in meditation is sup- ported by the fact that the majority of songs use couplet rhyme.23 However, their metrical structure is not quite as irregular as some of the critics who see them firmly as the product of simple women would suggest. Some, like Cantilena 1 ‘Ich wil von blosheit singen’ (I want to sing of nakedness),24 use a canzona strophe and refrain. Such formal features commonly associated with secular courtly love song suggest that the cantilenae, in using them, lay claim to a certain literary status, even if they are not directly comparable to the œuvre of Hadewijch’s strophic songs, which present a whole song cycle using lyric forms and poetic diction of northern French and Provençal courtly love songs.25

German Mysticism, ed. Henrike Lähnemann and Elizabeth Andersen (in press, Brill 2012); for the Low Countries, cf Mertens (n. 6). 22 The relationship between written and performed forms of song is the source of considerable controversy: studies such as Aufführung und Schrift in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, ed. Jan-Dirk Müller, Stuttgart 1996, highlight the interdependence, but also the difference, between performance and written text, and musicological research emphasizes the fact that the presence of musical notation in a manuscript is not in itself an indication of actual performance; cf Eva Elizabeth Leach, Sung Birds: Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages, Ithaca 2007. On the other hand, Ulrike Hascher-Burger, ‘Music and the Devotio Moderna’, in: Church History and Religious Culture 88.3 (2008), pp. 313-328, suggests that within late-medieval devotional practice, they should be seen as complementary. 23 Ruh (n. 9), col. 659; cf Ruh (n. 7); Mertens (n. 6). 24 Wackernagel (n. 4), p. 305f. (no 463); Theben (n. 4), p. 462; Kornrumpf (n. 7), p. 209f. 25 Hadewijch, Liederen, ed. and transl. by Veerle Fraeters and Frank Willaert, with a reconstruction of the melodies by Louis Peter Grijp, Groningen 2009; cf on Hadewijch’s poetic experiment

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Nevertheless, the use of refrain structures indicates a degree of literary ambition which is matched by other elements pointing in a similar direction: some of the texts use a first person voice and contain reflections on the status of the lyric ‘I’ as well as the act of singing. This suggests that song is less an unreflected social practice than a format associated with literary traditions and status. If we therefore refer to them as song, the aim is not to establish whether or not they would originally have had a tune. References to song and singing are instead to be understood as indications for the literary milieu with which the texts establish an association. This leaves the question of their religious context: are the cantilenae mystical? Again, the answer is not entirely straightforward. Many of the songs use terms with which we are familiar from Tauler’s sermons. Thus the rubric of the first cantilena identifies two key terms: ‘Von inwendiger bloßheit und gelaßenheit’ (Of interior nakedness and detachment’).26 It expresses the desire of a lyric ‘I’ to sing of nakedness and of a state of purity, which is defined as a loss of self: Ich wil von bloßheit singen neuwen sank, wan rechte luterkeit ist on gedank, Gedanken mögen da nit sin, so ich verlorn hab das min. Ich bin entworden, der zumal entgeistet ist, der mag nit sorgen.27 (I want to sing a new song of nakedness, for true purity is a state without thought, and thoughts cannot be where I have lost my own self. I have become nothing; he who has been denuded is without care.) The theological concepts are familiar: the appeal to leave external things behind, to strip oneself of everything, including that which distinguishes the self. The linguistic stategies used are equally familiar, especially the use of negations such as ‘entgesten’, ‘ent-werden’. Both are close to ideas expressed in Tauler’s sermon of the three human beings: Der mensch ist als er drú menschen si. Den ussern menschen den sol man betwingen als verre man iemer mag an gelossenheit … als denne der ander, der vernúnftige mensche, stet in rechter lidiger gelossenheit und sunder annemlicheit, denne haltet er sich in sime luteren nichte … Dennen wirt der dritte mensche al zemole uf gericht und blibet ungehindert und mag sich keren in sinen ursprung und in sin ungeschaffenheit, do er eweklich gewesen ist, und stet do sunder bilde und forme in rechter lidikeit.28

Frits van Oostrom, Stemmen op schrift. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur vanaf het begin tot 1300, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 419-456; Almut Suerbaum, ‘Between ‘Unio’ and Alien- ation: Expressions of Desire in the Strophic Poems of Hadewijch’, in: Desire in Dante and the Middle Ages, ed. Manuele Gragnolati et al., Oxford 2012, pp. 152-163. 26 Theben (n. 4), S. 462; Kornrumpf (n. 7), S. 209f. (strophes I-IV). 27 Text according to Wackernagel (n. 4), p. 305f. (no 463). 28 Die Predigten Taulers aus der Engelberger und der Freiburger Handschrift sowie Schmidts Abschriften der ehemaligen Straßburger Handschrift, ed. by Ferdinand Vetter, Berlin 1910

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The parallels between the song and Tauler’s sermon are not, of course, an argument for attributing the song to Tauler; the sermon merely indicates the theological context to which some of the central terms of the song appear to point. Yet it would be too simple to see the song as merely transmitting certain elements of theological knowledge. Even the very short strophe quoted here highlights something that goes beyond theological disquisition, because it focu- ses explicitly on the nature of song. Song – that is the implication of its opening line – is placed in a certain opposition to thought and appears to transcend it. This is not Tauler’s ‘jubilus’, a form of rejoicing while contemplating the won- ders of creation;29 rather, it refers much more specifically to song, a form of song moreover which paradoxically allows experience to be articulated in the face of the silence enforced by the abyss (‘abgrunt’). A second song not only uses the theological concept of the ‘grunt’, but also another significant image – that of the desert. Cantilena 3 ‘Mein geist hat sich ergangen in eine wueste stil’ (My spirit has dwelt in a wilderness) evokes the desert as the place which the spirit had sought, a place which lacks ‘wort’ and ‘wise’.30 Min geist hat sich ergangen in eine wueste stil, da noch wort noch wise in stet. da ist kein wunder inne.

Min geist hat sich ergangen, vernunft kan das nit erlangen, es ist oben aller sinnen, und des wil ich min suchen lan.

Min geist hat sich ergangen zu einer stunt: Sink in den grunt, die ungeschaffen selicheit die wirt dir kunt.

Scheid dich von nit, du finds das nit das die zunge leüget und blibt doch yet das der geist aleine verstet der keines vrteils pflegt.31

(Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters 11), sermon 67, p. 365; cf. Louise Gnädinger, Johannes Tauler. Lebenswelt und mystische Lehre, Munich 1993, p. 134. 29 On the concept of ‘jubilus’ and its significance for Tauler, see Burkhard Hasebrink, ‘Gegenwart im Klang? Überlegungen zur Kritik des jubilus bei Tauler’, in: Lyrische Narrationen – narrative Lyrik. Gattungsinterferenzen in der mittelalterlichen Literatur, ed. by Hartmut Bleumer and Caroline Emmelius, Berlin/New York 2011 (Trends in Medieval Philology 16), pp. 387-404. 30 Wackernagel (n. 4), p. 306f. (no 464); Theben (n. 4), p. 479 31 Wackernagel (n. 8), pp. 306f. (no 465).

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The term ‘wise’ is particularly interesting in this context. Where it occurs in theological texts, it is often used adjectivally and in the negative, especially where the nature of God is described as ‘wiselos’ (unitary), but where it occurs as a collocation, ‘wort und wise’, it is used, without exception, to refer to words and tunes of a song.32 Within cantilena 3, it must therefore be seen as part of a cluster of references to the inadequacy of human language and of human sensory perception: the tongue cannot speak, and reason cannot capture that which cannot be sought out. At the same time, the pair formula ‘wort und wise’ differentiates between words and melody, drawing attention therefore to the particular nature of song. As in the previous example, the desert, here a metaphor rather than a concrete location, is thus both the place of apophatic nothingness and a promise of ‘ungeschaffene seligkeit’ (uncreated blessedness). Such images of the desert as a place of isolation are not unique to Tauler, and indeed we know that they play an important part in how the visions of Hadewijch and in the ‘Flowing Light of the Godhead’, the opus mixtum of Mechthild of Mag- deburg, both from second half of the thirteenth century, conceive of the state of abject separation from God.33 These parallels suggest that concepts of ere- mitical life, and especially the notion of the desert, may have had a specific resonance with the writing of semi-religious women.34 Yet the differences between Hadewijch’s or Mechthild’s use of the desert as a metaphor for total abjection and that of the cantilena are also obvious: here, the desert as a place of isolation is connoted positively, because it marks a state of contemplation beyond words and tunes. Cantilena 3 is interesting therefore in contextualizing theological reflection within a cluster of images focusing on the need for detachment. At the same time, it highlights what happens when such theological speculation is transposed from the catechetical prose of sermons or indeed prose visions to a performative act of singing, because the references to ‘wort und wise’ and to the act of speaking reveal an element of self-reflexivity about

32 Ruh (n. 22), p. 222, lists occurences of the negative term ‘wiselos’ in Tauler and Seuse in his commentary on the song ‘Ein meister der seit uns das wesen blos’ (A master tells us about pure essence), where the concept is attributed to the ‘vrieen armen’ of Eckharts sermon ‘Beati paupe- res’. The collocation ‘wort und wise’ is, without exception, used for refernces to words and tunes; cf Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, ed. by Georg Friedrich Benecke, Wilhelm Müller, Friedrich Zarncke, 3 vols., Leipzig 1854-1866, vol. 4, c. 754 (http://www.woerterbuchnetz.de/bmz); Mat- thias Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig 1872-1878, vol. 3, c. 938 (http://www.woerterbuchnetz/lexer). 33 Cf Louise Gnädiger, ‘Der Abgrund ruft dem Abgrund. Taulers Predigt ‘Beati oculi’ (V 45)’, in: Das ‘einig Ein’. Studien zu Theorie und Sprache der deutschen Mystik, ed. by Alois M. Haas and Heinrich Stirnimann, Freiburg / Schweiz 1980 (Dokimion 6), pp. 167-208. 34 Cf Paul A. Dietrich, ‘The Wilderness of God in Hadewijch II and Meister Eckhart and His Circle’, in: Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Mag- deburg and Marguerite Porete, ed. by Bernard McGinn, New York 1994, pp. 31-43; Bernard McGinn, ‘Ocean and Desert as Symbols of Mystical Absorption in the Christian Tradition, in: The Journal of Religion 74 (1994), pp. 151-181; Almut Suerbaum, ‘‘A Room with a view’. Zur Spannung zwischen Kontemplation und Leben in der Welt in den Dortheenviten des Johannes Marienwerder’, in: Muße im kulturellen Wandel, ed. by Burkhard Hasebrink and Philip Riedl (in press, Berlin).

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the nature of song which go beyond conveying theological concepts and content. In the tightly constructed short lines of the lyric, concepts are condensed to the point where it may be impossible to differentiate whether the notion of ‘gelassenheit’ evoked is more indebted to Eckhart or Tauler.35 Instead, the song creates a sense of paradox in articulating the desolate state of separation from God while simultaneously transcending it in moving beyond language.36 Some aspects of how these songs use theological ideas with which we are familiar from Tauler or in some cases, of course, Eckhart and Seuse, are stri- king in that the songs focus almost exclusively on concepts of nothingness, indifferent difference, and on the abyss.37 This is quite a long way away from the images of bridal mysticism which are traditionally associated with the spi- rituality of religious or semi-religious women; indeed, none of the songs use images which we would traditionally associate with concepts of ‘unio’, and it appears that the Cologne print selects only those songs which express the relationship between the soul or the ‘I’ in terms of absence and presence rather than ‘unio’. In this respect, the print differs from some of the early groupings of religious songs, and Judith Theben’s study has revealed, for example, that the manuscripts which contain the cantilenae of which we have multiple versions also transmit Marian songs. Indeed the scope of the material brought together in Theben’s study of late medieval mystical songs highlights the very particular focus on aspects of spiritual nakedness and poverty which is created in the Tauler print. So while Ruh is undoubtedly right in stating that the songs share many of the theological ideas with songs and also tracts from other con- texts, closer study of the texts also reveals that they present such common ideas from a very particular angle, shaping the intensity of the experience though the means of song.

III. MODES OF TAULER RECEPTION

To conclude, we should therefore ask what the songs tell us about modes of Tauler reception. As highlighted above, the Cologne print creates a very specific profile, because it collects songs which focus on particular themes. More-

35 Cf Imke Früh, ‘Im Zeichen und im Kontext von ‘gelossenheit’. Semanitisierungsstrategien in den Predigten Johannes Taulers’, in: Semantik der Gelassenheit. Generierung, Etablierung, Transformation, ed. Burkhard Hasebrink, Susanne Bernhardt, Imke Früh, Göttingen 2012 (His- torische Semantik 17), pp. 143-170, and Almut Suerbaum, ‘Sprachliche Interferenzen bei Begriffen des Lassens. Die ‘Lux Divinitatis’ und das ‘Fließende Licht der Gottheit’’, in the same volume, pp. 33-48. 36 IV,5; Wackernagel (n. 4), p. 307. 37 Cf Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, vol. 4: Die Mystik des deutschen Pre- digerordens und ihre Grundlegung durch die Hochscholastik, Munich 1996, pp. 478-526; Bernard McGinn, The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany, New York 2005, pp. 240-296; Loris Sturlese, Eckhart, Tauler, Suso. Filosofi e mistici nella Germania medievale, Florence 2010, pp. 157-194.

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over, it uses the concept of an author to create thematic cohesion across quite different genres. Even if there is no evidence to suggest that the so-called Tauler cantilenae are genuine Tauler in the modern sense, they are presented in the Cologne print as a plausible addition to a Tauler oeuvre. Such an attribution may therefore be part of a more wide-spread tendency observable since the fifteenth century, which sees the name ‘Tauler’ used as the hallmark for a texts containing mystical concepts.38 At the same time, this thematic cohesion between the songs and the sermons and tracts allows for a differentiation in genre. Both the reference to them as ‘cantilenae’, and the juxtaposition with prose texts highlights their literary difference against a shared background of religious thought: as songs, they focus not on content and didactic appeal, but instead on presence and a performative process. The Cologne print is not the first to group some of these songs together, but if we contrast its strategies with those of fifteenth century manuscripts, the distinctiveness of this approach becomes clear. Late-medieval song manuscripts such as the ‘St Katharinentaler Liedersammlung’ bring together strophic texts of quite disparate character, collecting translations of Latin hymns, narrative songs telling the story of biblical events, mystical reflection, and Marian devo- tion.39 Codicologically, these are the groups of manuscripts for which pro- venance from Dominican convents in the south west can be established. They represent a context in which singing, especially singing in the vernacular, has a special status. Yet the example of Dorothea of Montau points to the fact that song may also have been an early vehicle for transposing theological reflection into a sphere of spiritual practice. Song thus becomes a form of expressing, yet simultaneously also transcending, the boundaries of language. It is this focus on the performative quality of song which is prominent in the Cologne Tauler print. The cantilenae individually and as a group thus explore the paradox of sensual perception, articulating the need for detachment and distance from the senses, yet conveying this through the sensual medium of song and repetition. In the same way, the theology of the songs advocates an abnegation of self, yet does so by means of a stronlgly expressed lyric ‘I’. Whether this ‘I’ is gendered is perhaps more difficult to decide than early scholarship had suggested; yet there can, I think, be little doubt that the cantilenae represent an experiment in

38 For evidence of this from sermon transmission in the fifteenth century, see Regina D. Schiewer and Rudolf Kilian Weigand, ‘‘Ich glaube vestiglich, das dies predigen entweder Meister Eckhards oder Taulers sind, dan sich durch auss ire worte gleich lautent.’ Zur Problematik der Rezeption und Authentizität der Predigten’, in the current volume. 39 Ruth Meyer, ‘Die ‘St. Katharinentaler Liedersammlung.’ Zu Gehalt und Funktion einer bisher unbeachteten Liedersammlung des 15. Jahrhunderts’, in: Lied im deutschen Mittelalter. Über- lieferung, Typen, Gebrauch. Chiemsee-Colloquium 1991, ed. by Cyril Edwards, Ernst Hellgradt, Norbert H. Ott, Tübingen 1996, pp. 295-307; Ruth Meyer, Das ‘St. Katharinentaler Schwestern- buch’. Untersuchung, Edition, Kommentar, Tübingen 1996 (Münchener Texte und Untersuchun- gen 104); Gisela Kornrumpf, art. ‘St. Katharinentaler Liedersammlung, in: Verfasserlexikon, 2nd edition, vol. 11, Berlin 2004, col. 832-834.

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which literary forms allow a much better grasp of the inherently paradoxical nature of mystical experience than linear prose.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ampe, Albert, ‘Een kritisch onderzoek von de ‘Institutiones Taulerianae’’, Ons Gees- telijk Erf 40 (1966), pp. 167-240. Becker, S. Eucharis, ‘Untersuchungen zu dem Tauler zugeschriebenen Lied ‘Es kommt ein schiff geladen’’, in: Johannes Tauler. Ein deutscher Mystiker- Gedenkschrift zum 600. Todestag, ed. by Ephrem Filthaut, Essen 1961, pp. 77-92. Dietrich, Paul A., ‘The Wilderness of God in Hadewijch II and Meister Eckhart and His Circle’, in: Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Magdeburg and Marguerite Porete, ed. by Bernard McGinn, New York 1994. Fraeters, Veerle, and Willaert, Frank (eds.), Hadewijch. Liederen, ed. and transl., with a reconstruction of the melodies by Louis Peter Grijp, Groningen 2009. Früh, Imke, ‘Im Zeichen und im Kontext von ‘gelossenheit’. Semanitisierungsstrategien in den Predigten Johannes Taulers’, in: Semantik der Gelassenheit. Generierung, Etablierung, Transformation, ed. Burkhard Hasebrink, Susanne Bernhardt, Imke Früh, Göttingen 2012 (Historische Semantik 17), pp. 143-170. Gnädinger, Louise, ‘Der Abgrund ruft dem Abgrund. Taulers Predigt ‘Beati oculi’ (V 45) ’, in: Das ‘einig Ein’. Studien zu Theorie und Sprache der deutschen Mystik, ed. by Alois M. Haas and Heinrich Stirnimann, Freiburg / Schweiz 1980 (Dokimion 6), pp. 167-208. Gnädinger, Louise, Johannes Tauler. Lebenswelt und mystische Lehre, Munich 1993. Hascher-Burger, Ulrike, ‘Music and the Devotio Moderna’, in: Church History and Religious Culture 88.3 (2008), pp. 313-328. Hascher-Burger, Ulrike, Verborgene Klänge: Inventar der handschriftlich überlieferten Musik aus den Lüneburger Frauenklöstern bis ca. 1550. Mit einer Darstellung der Musik-Ikonographie von Ulrike Volkhardt. Hildesheim, Zürich, New York 2008. Hasebrink, Burkhard, ‘Gegenwart im Klang? Überlegungen zur Kritik des jubilus bei Tauler’, in: Lyrische Narrationen – narrative Lyrik. Gattungsinterferenzen in der mittelalterlichen Literatur, ed. by Hartmut Bleumer and Caroline Emmelius, Ber- lin/New York 2011 (Trends in Medieval Philology 16), pp. 387-404. Janota, Johannes, Studien zu Funktion und Typus des deutschen geistlichen Liedes im Mittelalter, Munich 1968 (Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen 23). Kornrumpf, Gisela, art. ‘St. Katharinentaler Liedersammlung, in: Verfasserlexikon, 2nd edition, vol. 11, Berlin 2004, col. 832-834. Kornrumpf, Gisela, Vom Codex Manesse zur Kolmarer Liederhandschrift. Aspekte der Überlieferung, Formtraditionen, Texte, vol. 1: Untersuchungen, Tübingen 2008 (Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen 133). Lähnemann, Henrike, ‘Per organa. Musikalische Unterweisung in Handschriften der Lüneburger Klöster’, in: Dichtung und Didaxe. Lehrhaftes Sprechen in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, ed. by Henrike Lähnemann and Sandra Linden, Berlin 2009. Lähnemann, Henrike, and Andersen, Elizabeth (eds.), Northern German Mysticism, ed. (in press, Leiden: Brill).

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Leach, Eva Elizabeth, Sung Birds: Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages, Ithaca 2007. McGinn, Bernard, ‘Ocean and Desert as Symbols of Mystical Absorption in the Christian Tradition, in: The Journal of Religion 74 (1994), pp. 151-181. McGinn, Bernard, The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany, New York 2005. Mertens, Thom, “Die Gheestelicke Melody: A Program for the Spiritual Life in a Middle Dutch Song Cycle”, in: Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing: Reading in the Book of Life, ed. by Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker and Liz Herbert McAvoy, Hampshire 2009 (The New Middle Ages), pp. 123-147. Meyer, Ruth, Das ‘St. Katharinentaler Schwesternbuch’. Untersuchung, Edition, Kom- mentar, Tübingen 1996 (Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen 104). Meyer, Ruth, ‘Die ‘St. Katharinentaler Liedersammlung.’ Zu Gehalt und Funktion einer bisher unbeachteten Liedersammlung des 15. Jahrhunderts’, in: Lied im deutschen Mittelalter. Überlieferung, Typen, Gebrauch. Chiemsee-Colloquium 1991, ed. by Cyril Edwards, Ernst Hellgradt, Norbert H. Ott, Tübingen 1996, pp. 295- 307. Mojsisch, Burghard ‘‘ce moi’. La conception du moi de maître Eckhart. Une contribution aux ‘Lumières’ du Moyen-Age’, in: Revue des sciences religieuses 70 (1996), pp. 18-30. Müller, Jan-Dirk, (ed.), Aufführung und Schrift in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. DFG- Symposion 1994, Stuttgart, Weimar 1996. Polzer, Markus, ‘Arnhem and the Tauler Revival. New Evidence Concerning a Second Manuscript from the St. Agnes Convent in Arnhem Containing Johannes Tauler’s Von eym waren Euangelischen leben’, Ons Geestelijk Erf 84.1 (2013), pp. 55-73. Ruh, Kurt, ‘Mystische Spekulation in Reimversen des 14. Jahrhunderts’, in: Beiträge zur weltlichen und geistlichen Lyrik des 13. bis 15.Jahrhunderts, ed. by Kurt Ruh and Werner Schröder, Berlin 1973, pp. 205-230. Ruh, Kurt, art. ‘Tauler-Cantilenen’, in: Verfasserlexikon, 2nd edition, vol. 9, Berlin 1995, col. 657-662. Ruh, Kurt, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, vol. 4: Die Mystik des deutschen Predigerordens und ihre Grundlegung durch die Hochscholastik, Munich 1996. Schiewer, Regina D., and Schiewer, Hans-Jochen, ‘Predigt im Spätmittelalter’, in: Textsorten und Textallianzen um 1500, Teil I: Literarische und religiöse Text- allianzen um 1500, ed. by Alexander Schwarz, Franz Simmler, and Claudia Wich-Reif, Berlin 2009 (Berliner Sprachwissenschaftliche Studien 20). Schiewer, Regina D., and Weigand, Rudolf Kilian, ‘‘Ich glaube vestiglich, das dies predigen entweder Meister Eckhards oder Taulers sind, dan sich durch auss ire worte gleich lautent.’ Zur Problematik der Rezeption und Authentizität der Predigten’, Ons Geestelijk Erf 84.1 (2013), pp. 7-19. Sturlese, Loris, Eckhart, Tauler, Suso. Filosofi e mistici nella Germania medievale, Florence 2010. Suerbaum, Almut, and Volfing, Annette (eds.), Dorothea von Montau and Johannes Marienwerder. Constructions of Sanctity. Oxford German Studies 36 (2010). Suerbaum, Almut, ‘Between ‘Unio’ and Alienation: Expressions of Desire in the Strophic Poems of Hadewijch’, in: Desire in Dante and the Middle Ages, ed. Manuele Gragnolati et al., Oxford 2012, pp. 152-163. Suerbaum, Almut, ‘Sprachliche Interferenzen bei Begriffen des Lassens. Die ‘Lux Divi- nitatis’ und das ‘Fließende Licht der Gottheit’’, in: Semantik der Gelassenheit.

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Generierung, Etablierung, Transformation, ed. Burkhard Hasebrink, Susanne Bernhardt, Imke Früh, Göttingen 2012 (Historische Semantik 17), pp. 33-48. Suerbaum, Almut, ‘Formen der Publikumsansprache bei Berthold von Regensburg und ihr literarischer Kontext’, in: Predigt im Kontext, ed. Volker Mertens et al. (in press, Berlin). Suerbaum, Almut, ‘‘Es kommt ein schiff, geladen.’ Mouvance in mystischen Liedern aus Straßburg’, in: Der Literaturbetrieb im spätmittelalterlichen Straßburg, ed. By Nigel F. Palmer and Stephen Mossmann, Göttingen 2012, pp. 99-116. Suerbaum, Almut, ‘‘A Room with a view’. Zur Spannung zwischen Kontemplation und Leben in der Welt in den Dortheenviten des Johannes Marienwerder’, in: Muße im kulturellen Wandel, ed. by Burkhard Hasebrink and Philip Riedl (in press, Berlin 2012). Theben, Judith, Die mystische Lyrik des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts. Untersuchungen – Texte – Repertorium, Berlin 2010 (Kulturtopographie des alemannischen Raums, vol. 2). van de Schoor, Rob, ‘Canisius als Herausgeber. Die Ausgaben von Tauler (1543), Kyrill (1546) und Leo dem Großen (1546)’, in: Ons Geestelijk Erf 82.2 (2011), pp. 161-186. Vetter, Ferdinand (ed.), Die Predigten Taulers aus der Engelberger und der Freiburger Handschrift sowie Schmidts Abschriften der ehemaligen Straßburger Hand- schrift, Berlin 1910 (Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters 11). Wackernagel, Philipp (ed.), Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zum Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1867.

ABSTRACT

Because the so-called Tauler cantilenae are considered inauthentic, they have received little critical attention. The current article argues that such focus on authenticity is a reflex of modern notions of authorship and obscures important aspects of late-medieval literary practice. In the case of the cantilenae, the Cologne Tauler print is the first to attribute these texts to Tauler and to group them together as a coherent oeuvre. Yet an analysis of the textual transmission highlights that some of the individual songs were well-known in the fourteenth century – not just in south-west Germany, as previously assumed, but also in the north. This points to the significance of lyric forms in the appropriation of theological concepts which are at the heart of Tauler’s sermons. At the same time, the grouping of songs in the Cologne Tauler print differs significantly from late-medieval song-manuscripts, which bring together strophic texts of much more disparate character. It is argued that the Tauler cantilenae display a common interest in the need to transcend the senses, and in the limitations of human language. While attribution to Tauler is therefore not an indication of historical authorship, it indicates a mode of reception in which thematic coherence, but also a focus on the ‘I’ of the singer, form the basis of contemplative practice.

Address of the author: Almut Suerbaum, Somerville College, GB-Oxford OX2 6HD ([email protected])

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