Band 2 4 2011 MEDIAEVISTIK internationale Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung

Begründet von Peter Dinzelbacher Herausgegeben von Albrecht Classen

PETER LANG Frankfurt am Main • Berlin • Bern • Bruxelles • New York • Oxford • Wien MEDIAEVISTIK Internationale Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung

begründet von Prof. Dr. Peter Dinzelbacher herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Albrecht Classen

Beratergremium:

Prof. Dr. Jean Baumgarten, Paris - Prof. Dr. Robert Bjork, Arizona State University - Prof. Dr. Alexander Fidora, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona - Prof. Dr. Francis G. Gentry, Spring Mills - Prof. Dr. Dr. Bernhard Haage, Bad Mergentheim - Dr. Werner Heinz, Sindelfingen - Prof. Dr. John Marenbon, Trinity College - Prof. Dr. Nadia Margolis, Leverett - Prof. Dr. Constant J. Mews, Monash University - Prof. Dr. Ulrich Müller, Universität Salzburg - Prof. Dr. Cary Nederman, Texas A&M University - Prof. Dr. Connie Scarborough, Texas Tech University - Dr. Romedio Schmitz-Esser, Universität München - Prof. Dr. Nancy VanDeusen, Mission Viejo

Beiträge werden druckfertig in deutscher, englischer, französischer oder italienischer Sprache elektronisch an den Herausgeber erbeten. Für unverlangt eingesandte Manuskripte wird keine Haftung übernommen. Die Verfasser tragen für ihre Beiträge die Verantwortung. Eine Verpflich­ tung zur Aufnahme von Entgegnungen besteht nicht. MEDIAEVISTIK publiziert keine anderwei­ tig erscheinenden Aufsätze. Rezensionsexemplare werden mit der deutlichen Beschriftung "kostenloses Rezensionsexemplar" an Verlag und Herausgeber erbeten. Für eine Besprechung bzw. Rücksendung unverlangt einge­ sandter Bücher kann keine Gewähr geleistet werden. MEDIAEVISTIK erscheint einmal jährlich in einem Band. Bezugspreise: Abonnement sFr. 96.-- / EUR 66.--, Einzelband sFr. 110.--/EUR 75.70, jeweils zuzüglich Porto und Verpackung. Abbestel­ lung des Abonnements ist nur zum 31. Dezember möglich. Werbeanzeigen und Beilagen durch den Verlag.

Alle Beiträge sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Übersetzung, Nachdruck, Vervielfältigung auf pho­ tomechanischem oder ähnlichen Wege, Vortrag, Rundfunk- oder Fernsehsendung sowie Speiche­ rung und Verarbeitung in Datenverarbeitungsanlagen - auch auszugsweise - sind nur mit schrift­ licher Genehmigung des Verlages gestattet.

Anschrift des Herausgebers: Prof. Dr. A. Classen, Coll. of Arts, Dept. of German, 301 Learning Services Bldg. University of Arizona, USA 85721 Tucson, AZ. [email protected] Anschrift des Verlages: Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, Eschborner Landstr. 42-50, D-60489 Frankfurt am Main. www.peterlang.de Aus dem Inhalt der folgenden Bände:

Werner Heinz, Peter Dinzelbacher, ad multos annos!

Werner Hoffmann, Tradition und Neuerung. Zur Lyrik Johannes Hadlaubs am Beispiel seines Liedes Ach, ich sach si triuten wol ein kindelin (SMS, Lied 4)

Pinar Kayaalp, The Characterization of Frontier Warriors in Anatolian Epic Literature

Francesca Romoli, Le Vitae di Ioann di Novgorod, di Antonij il Romano e di Isaia di Rostov. Percorsi regionali e tradizione agiografica “pan-russa”

Albrecht Classen, The Symbolic and Metaphorical Role of Ships in Medieval German Literature: A Maritime Vehicle that Transforms the Protagonist

Beihefte zur Mediaevistik:

F. Rijkers, Arbeit - ein Weg zum Heil? Vorstellungen und Bewertungen körperlicher Arbeit in der spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen lateinischen Exegese der Schöpfungsgeschichte (2009)

Elisabeth Megier, Christliche Weltgeschichte im 12. Jahrhundert: Themen, Variationen und Kontraste. Untersuchungen zu Hugo von Fleury, Ordericus Vitalis und Otto von Freising (2010)

Andrea Grafetstätter / Sieglinde Hartmann / James Ogier (eds.), Islands and Cities in Medieval Myth, Literature, and History. Papers Delivered at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, in 2005, 2006, and 2007 (2011)

Olaf Wagener (Hrsg.), „vmbringt mit starcken turnen, murn“. Ortsbefestigungen im Mittelalter (2010)

Hiram Kümper (Hrsg.), eLearning & Mediävistik. Mittelalter lehren und lernen im neumedialen Zeitalter (2011) MEDIAEVISTIK Internationale Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung

Begründet von Peter Dinzelbacher Herausgegeben von Albrecht Classen

Band 2 4 • 2011

PETER LANG Frankfurt am Main • Berlin • Bern • Bruxelles • NewYork • Oxford • Wien Detail des Christophorus-Freskos an der Cyriak-Kirche in Pfarrwerfen (Salzburger Pongau)

Ganz versteckt in der vegetabilen Umrandung eines Christophorus- Freskos, welches weithin sichtbar die Höhe der äußeren Kirchen­ wand einnimmt, findet sich ein kleiner Menschenkopf, der aus den Blättern hervorlugt. Mit seinen unregelmäßigen Zähnen hat er sich in die Pflanzen verbissen - ein Verhalten, das eindeutig auf die negative Konnotation dieser Figur verweist. Insofern ist er den in Äste beißenden Dämonenfratzen am Eingang der Kirche des Nonnberger Benediktinerinnenstiftes in der Stadt Salzburg vergleichbar, die ebenso um 1500 geschaffen wurden. Diese Droh- und Wutgebärde dürfte nicht weiter zu entschlüsseln sein, sie ist ein Attribut der bösen Gestalten, wie es am eindrucksvollsten im Motiv der romanischen Säulenfresser gestaltet wurde (z.B. Fresko in der Klosterkirche in Müstair/Schweiz). In Pfarrwerfen erinnert der einem flüchtigen Blick gar nicht auffallende Kopf den auf­ merksameren Betrachter daran, daß der Böse zwar vom Heiligen an den Rand verdrängt wird, aber verhohlen immer als Bedrohung gefährlich bleibt.

(Bild und Text: Peter Dinzelbacher)

ISSN 2199-806X0934-7453 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2012 Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen.

www.peterlang.de Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 1

Inhalt

Aufsätze H. Hartmann, Die geblendete Welt. Zur Übertragung und Auslegung der Blindenheilung (Joh 9) im Evangelienbuch Otfrids von Weißenburg______15 H. Lambertus, Der Weg aus der Welt im Wandel. Welt und Weltflucht in Ru­ dolfs von Ems Barlaam und Josaphat und der altnorwegischen Barlaams saga ok Josaphats vor dem Hintergrund der indischen Buddhacarita-Tradition____ 37 C. Scarborough, Geographical and Allegorical Settings: An Ecocritical Rea­ ding of "Afrenta de Corpes" in the Poema de Mio Cid______111 A. Classen, Winter as a Phenomenon in Medieval Literature: A Transgres­ sion of the Traditional Chronotope?______125 W. C. McDonald, Michel Beheim's Image of Sin: Concerning his Song­ Poem: 'Der besluss über dis buch' (202), ca. 1470______151 K. B. Reynolds, Pio Rajna: Italy's First Romance Philologist______167 T. Capuano, The Romance Translations of Geoffrey of Franconia's Pelzbuch 175 M. Costigliolo, Qur'anic Sources of Nicholas of Cusa______219

Rezensionen

Gesamtes Mittelalter

De Amicitia: Friendship and Social Networks in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, K. MUSTAKALLIO / C. KRÖTZL (ed.) (A. CLASSEN)______239 M. CLAUSS, Ritter und Raufbolde. Vom Krieg im Mittelalter (Geschichte erzählt) (A. CLASSEN)______241 M. CLAUSS, Kriegsniederlagen im Mittelalter. Darstellung - Deutung - Bewältigung (A.CLASSEN)______242 Das Papsttum und das vielgestaltige Italien. Hundert Jahre Italia Pontificia, K. HERBERS / J. JOHRENDT (Hrsg.) (C. M. GRAFINGER)______244 Römisches Zentrum und kirchliche Peripherie. Das universale Papsttum als Bezugspunkt der Kirchen von den Reformpäpsten bis zu Innozenz III, J. JOHRENDT / HARALD MÜLLER (Hrsg.) (C. M. GRAFINGER)______247 Die imaginäre Burg, O. WAGENER / H. LAB, T (red.) (W. LANDEWE)___ 249 P. DINZELBACHER, Lebenswelten des Mittelalters 1000-1500. Bachmanns Basiswissen 1 (J. JEEP)______253 2 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

Fauna and Flora in the Middle Ages. Studies of the Medieval Environment and its Impact on the Human Mind (G. KOMPATSCHER GUFLER)______254 Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales 700­ 1700 (A. BREEZE)______257 H. FULTON (ed.), A Companion to Arthurian Literature (Blackwell Compa­ nions to Literature (R. Co Rm IER)______259 D. GANZ, Medien der Offenbarung (P. DINZELBACHER)______261 Generationen und gender in mittelalterlicher und frühneuzeitlicher Literatur, D. DE RENTIIS / U. SIEWERT (Hrsg.) (A. CLASSEN)______263 Glaube - Aberglaube - Tod. Vom Umgang mit dem Tod von der Frühge­ schichte bis zur Neuzeit. Konferenz am Lehrstuhl für Ur- und Frühgeschichte der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin vom 28.-30 (R. SCHMITZ-ESSER)____ 265 Aspects of the Performative in Medieval Culture. M. GRAGNOLATI / A. SUERBAUM (eds.) (A. CLASSEN)______267 F. E GRUNZWEIG, Das Schwert bei den "Germanen" (A. CLASSEN)_____ 269 M. HAAS, Musikalisches Denken im Mittelalter: Eine Einführung (W. HEINZ)______271 S. VON HEUSINGER, ANNETTE KEHNEL (eds.), Generations in the Cloister (P. DINZELBACHER)______276 B. DEEN SCHILDGEN, Heritage or Heresy - Preservation and Destruction of Religious Art and Architecture in Europe (C. BERTOLE)______278 Historische Narratologie: Mediävistische Perspektiven (A. CLASSEN)_____ 281 "Die sünde, der sich der tiuvel schamet in der helle". Homosexualität in der Kultur des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (A. CLASSEN)______284 Klöster und Inschriften. Glaubenszeugnisse gestickt, gemalt, gehauen, gra­ viert (A. CLASSEN)______286 S. KNIGHT, Merlin, Knowledge and Power Through the Ages (A. CLAS­ SEN)______287 M. KROKER / SVEN SPIONG (Hrsg.), Archäologie als Quelle der Stadtge­ schichte (R. SCHMITZ-ESSER)______289 Dichtung und Didaxe. Lehrhaftes Sprechen in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters (H. KÜMPER)______291 H. C LEA, Studies in Church History: The Rise of the Temporal Power Be­ nefit of Clergy -Excommunication - The Early Church and Slavery (F. GENTRY)______294 Literarische und religiöse Kommunikation in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (A. CLASSEN)______298 The Middle Ages. ALASTAIR MINNIS / IAN JOHNSON (ed.) (A. CLAS­ SEN) ______300 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 3

R. MACRIDES (ed.), History as Literature in Byzantium: Papers from the Fortieth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (W. TREADGOLD)_____ 302 J. MANN, From Aesop to Reynard (H. HARTMANN)______304 The Medieval Chronicle VI, ERIK KOOPER (ed.) (A. CLASSEN)______306 Medieval Clothing and Textiles (A. CLASSEN)______308 A. MINNIS / ROSALYNN VOADEN (ed.), Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition c. 1100 - c. 1500 (E. VON CONTZEN)______309 S. ROUSH / CRISTELLE L. BASKINS (ed.), The Medieval Marriage Scene. Prudence, Passion, Policy (E. PARRA MEMBRIVES)______313 R. KENNEDY / SIMON MEECHAM-JONES (ed.), Authority and Subjuga­ tion in Writing of Medieval Wales (E. BOYLE)______316 M. BALDZUHN, Schulbücher im Trivium des Mittealters und der Frühen Neuzeit: die Verschriftlichung von Unterricht in der Text- und Überliefe­ rungsgeschichte der "Fabulae" Avians und der deutschen "Disticha Catonis" (C. MARIA GRAFINGER)______318 Basic Issues in Medieval Philosophy: Selected Readings Presenting the Inter­ active Discourses Among the Major Figures (A. CLASSEN)______321 F. WALLIS, Medieval Medicine: A Reader (A. CLASSEN)______323 E. MEIER, Handbuch der Heiligen, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (A. CLASSEN)______323 J.-D. MÜLLER, Mediävistische Kulturwissenschaft: Ausgewählte Studien (J. JEEP)______325 A. MURRAY, Suicide in the Middle Ages. Vol. II: The Curse on Self­ Murder (A. CLASSEN)______327 Mythes à la cour, mythes pour la cour. Actes du XIIe Congrès de la Société internationale de littérature courtoise 29 juillet-4 août 2007 (A. CLASSEN) _ 328 U. PETERS / R. WARNING (Hrsg.), Fiktion und Fiktionalität in den Litera­ turen des Mittelalters (A. CLASSEN)______330 A History of Prayer, The First to the Fifteenth Century (A. BREEZE)______333 Prosules de la messe 3: Prosules de l'offertoire (P. MANNAERTS)______335 K. GVOZDEVA / H. R. VELTEN (Hrsg.), Medialität der Prozession. Per- formanz ritueller Bewegung in Texten und Bildern der Vormoderne / Média- lité de la procession. Performance du mouvement rituel en textes et en images à l'époque pré-moderne (H. HARTMANN)______338 "risus sacer - sacrum risibile". Interaktionsfelder von Sakralität und Geläch­ ter im kulturellen und historischen Wandel (A. CLASSEN)______341 J. RUFFER, Mittelalterliche Klöster. Deutschland - Österreich - Schweiz (A. CLASSEN)______343 4 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Global Medieval Life and Culture. General Editor Joyce E. Salisbury. Vol. 1: Joyce E. Salisbury, Europe; James L. Fitz­ simmons, The Americas. Vol. 2: Victoria B. Tashjian, Africa; James E. Lind­ say, North Africa and the Middle East. Vol. 3 : Raman N. Seylon, South Asia; William B. Ashbaugh, East Asia; Nancy Sullivan, Oceania (A. CLASSEN) _ 345 T. SCHILP / B. WELZEL (Hrsg.), Mittelalter und Industrialisierung. St. Ur­ banus in Huckarde (A. CLASSEN)______346 W. SCHMALE, Digitale Geschichtswissenschaft (G. VOGELER)______348 M. SCHUMACHER, Einführung in die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters (A. CLASSEN)______349 K. TAMBURR, The Harrowing of Hell in Medieval England (B. MUR­ DOCH) ______351 The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Anti­ quity through the Renaissance (A. CLASSEN)______353 B. BOERNER, Bildwirkungen. Die kommunikative Funktion mittelalterli­ cher Skulpturen (P. DINZELBACHER)______355 Tiere als Freunde im Mittelalter (D. FUHRER)______356 Tiere und Fabelwesen im Mittelalter (A. CLASSEN)______358 H. O. BIZZARRI / MARTIN RHODE, Tradition des proverbs et des exem- pla dans l'Occident médiéval / Die Tradition der Sprichwörter une exempla im Mittelalter. Colloque fribourgeois 2007 / Freiburger Colloquium 2007 (C. HALL)______360 A. CLASSEN (ed.), Urban Space in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age (D. NICHOLAS)______364 Vengeance in Medieval Europe: A Reader, D. LORD SMAIL / K. GIBSON (ed.) (A. CLASSEN)______368 Vengeance in the Middle Ages: Emotion, Religion and Feud (A. CLASSEN) 370 Weltdeutungen und Weltreligionen 600 bis 1500 (A. CLASSEN)______372 Zwischen Wort und Bild. Wahrnehmungen und Deutungen im Mittelalter (S. LUCHITSKAYA)______375 Endzeiten. Eschatologie in den monotheistischen Weltreligionen (G. TROMPF)______378 A bon droyt : spade di uomini liberi, cavalieri e santi = A bon droyt : epées d'hommes libres, chevaliers et saints (P. DINZELBACHER)______380 The Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, Graeme Dunphy (J. JEEP)___ 381 G. CLAEYS, Ideale Welten. Die Geschichte der Utopie, aus dem Engl (H. HARTMANN)______383 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 5

Frühmittelalter

I. KRISTNI SAGA, The Book of the Icelanders - The Story of the Conversi­ on. Sian Grø nlie (M. PIERCE) ______387 A. THOMAS HACK, Alter, Krankheit, Tod und Herrschaft im frühen Mit­ telalter (A. CLASSEN)______388 D. HOFMANN, Suizid in der Spätantike. Seine Bewertung in der lateini­ schen Literatur (P. DINZELBACHER)______391 M. INNES, Introduction to Early Medieval Western Europe, 300-900: The Sword, the Plough and the Book (R. WARD)______393 A. GRABNER-HAIDER / J. MAIER / K. PRENNER, Kulturgeschichte des frühen Mittelalters (R. SCHMITZ-ESSER)______398 I. KUPFERSCHMIED, Untersuchungen zur literarischen Gestalt der Kristni saga (W. SCHAFKE)______400 J. DAVIS / M. MCCORMICK (ed.), The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies, (C. LANDON)______404 I. LENSING, Das altenglische Heiligenleben (A. BREEZE)______407 J. MCGINNIS, Avicenna (Great Medieval Thinkers) (A. CLASSEN)______410 J. MULDOON, The North Atlantic Frontier of Medieval Europe: Vikings and Celts (A. BREEZE)______411 S. MULLER, Althochdeutsche Literatur. Eine kommentierte Anthologie. Althochdeutsch/Neuhochdeutsch - Altniederdeutsch/Neuhochdeutsch, über­ setzt, herausgegeben und kommentiert (H. HARTMANN)______414 T. M. NIEMEYER, Notker der Deutsche. Notker latinus zu Boethius, "De consolatione Philosophiae" Buch I - V. Herausgegeben von Petrus W. Tax. Die Werke Notkers des Deutschen (J. JEEP)______416 F. OAKLEY, Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050). (T. IZBICKI)______418 P. PURTON, A History of the Early Medieval Siege, c. 450-1200 (A. CLASSEN)______420 D. PRATT, The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great (U. LENKER) _ 421 R. REYNOLDS, Studies on Medieval Liturgical and Legal Manuscripts from Spain and Southern Italy (C. SCARBOROUGH)______424 K. SCHNEIDER, Paläographie/Handschriftenkunde für Germanisten: Eine Einführung. Sammlung kurzer Grammatiken germanischer Dialekte (J. JEEP)______427 G. STEINSLAND, Fornnordisk religion: Natur och Kultur (D. HEMMIE)__ 429 H. TIEFENBACH, Altsächsisches Handwörterbuch (M. PIERCE)______431 6 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

T. URKUNDENBUCH, Abteilung II: Die Urkunden zur Geschichte des Inn-, Eisack- und Pustertals (R. SCHMITZ-ESSER)______432 V. FORTUNATUS, Poems to Friends (A. CLASSEN)______434 D. BITTERLI, Say What I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition (E. SAYERS)______435 A. SOMERVILLE / R. A. MCDONALD (ed.), The Viking Age: A Reader (B. SNOOK)______439 S. WALDENBERGER, Präpositionen und Präpositionalphrasen im Mittel­ hochdeutschen (J. JEEP)______442 C. BOOKER, Past Convictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the De­ cline of the Carolingians (V. GARVER)______444 W. DAVIES, Brittany in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Societie (A. BREEZE)______447 W. DAVIES, Welsh History in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Societies (A. BREEZE)______449 G. DENNIS, The Taktika of Leo VI (L. MACCOULL)______451 F. AUSBUTTEL, Die Germanen (A. CLASSEN)______454 Die althochdeutsche und altsächsische Glossographie (J. JEEP)______456 A. GOLTZ, Barbar - König - Tyrann (R. SCHMITZ-ESSER)______458

Hochmittelalter

H. DAVIDSON, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (A. CLAS­ SEN) ______463 A. DIETL, Die Sprache der Signatur. Die mittelalterlichen Künstlerinschrif­ ten Italiens (R. SCHMITZ-ESSER)______464 W. FARINA, Chrétien de Troyes and the Dawn of Arthurian Romance (A. CLASSEN)______466 V. GAZEAU, Normannia monastica (P. DINZELBACHER)______469 Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain (A. CLASSEN) _ 470 K. C. GHATTAS, Rhythmus der Bilder. Narrative Strategien in Text- und Bildzeugnissen des 11. bis 13. Jahrhunderts (E. PARRA MEMBRIVES)____ 471 I. HABICHT, Der Zwerg als Träger metafiktionaler Diskurse in deutschen und französischen Texten des Mittelalters (A. CLASSEN)______473 H. HÄRTEL, Geschrieben und gemalt: Gelehrte Bücher aus Frauenhand. Eine Klosterbibliothek sächsischer Benediktinerinnen des 12. Jahrhunderts (A. CLASSEN)______475 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 7

T. HAYE, Päpste und Poeten. Die mittelalterliche Kurie als Objekt und För­ derer panegyrischer Dichtung, de Gruyter (K. GOLLWITZER-OH)______476 Das Antiphonar von St. Peter. Codex Vindobonensis Ser. n. 2700 der Öster­ reichischen Nationalbibliothek (A. CLASSEN)______479 G. HERCHERT, Einführung in den Minnesang (A. CLASSEN)______481 S. L HIGLEY: Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language. An Edition, Translation, and Discussion (M. H. GRAF)______482 É. JEAUNEAU, Rethinking the School of Chartres, trans (S. M CAREY)___ 488 P. LANDAU, Die Kölner Kanonistik des 12. Jahrhunderts (K-F. JOHAN­ NES) ______491 The Lays of Marie de France (A. CLASSEN)______492 R. LEGLER, Das Geheimnis von Castel del Monte: Kunst und Politik im Spiegel einer staufischen (W. HEINZ)______493 F. DELLE DONNE / A. PAGLIARDINI / E. PERNA / M. SILLER / F. VIOLANTE (Hrsg.), L'ereditá di Federico II. Dalla storia al mito, dalla Puglia al Tirolo/Das Erbe Friedrichs II (J. BERNWIESER)______507 The Letters of Heloise and Abelard. A Translation of Their Collected Cor­ respondence and Related Writings (A. CLASSEN)______508 J. LIEVEN, Adel, Herrschaft und Memoria. Studien zur Erinnerungskultur der Grafen von Kleve und Geldern im Hochmittelalter (A. CLASSEN)_____ 510 Aufbruch in die Gotik, M. PUHLE (Hrsg.), Magdeburger Museen und Phil­ ipp von Zabern (P. DINZELBACHER)______511 L. W MARVIN, The Occitan War: A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade (H. BERWINKEL)______513 M. MASER, Die Historia Arabum des Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada. Arabische Traditionen und die Identität der Hispania im 13. Jahrhundert (J. CARLOS BAYO)______515 N. MIEDEMA, Einführung in das "Nibelungenlied" (A. CLASSEN)______518 T. KLEIN / H.-J. SOLMS / K.-P. WEGERA, Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik (J. JEEP)______519 Das Nibelungenlied. Mittelhochdeutsche / Neuhochdeutsch. Nach der Hand­ schrift B, U. SCHULZE (hrsg.) (A. CLASSEN)______521 P. GODMAN, Paradoxes of Conscience in the High Middle Ages: Abelard, Heloise, and the Archpoet (D. FRAIOLI)______522 P. PAYER, Sex and the New Medieval Literature of Confession, 1150-1300 (A. CLASSEN)______524 Dieter Pfau. Zeitspuren in Siegerland und Wittgenstein. Früh- und Hochmit­ telalter 750-1250 (J. JEEP)______526 8 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

J. F. BOHMER, Regesta Imperii III: Die Regesten des Kaiserreiches unter Heinrich IV. 1056 (1050)-1106 (J. BERNWIESER)______528 Y. TZVI LANGERMANN (ed.), Avicenna and His Legacy. A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy (J. JANSENS / A. VESALIUSSTRAAT)______529 Die Regesten der Bischöfe von Freising, Bd. I: 739 bis 1184, bearb. von Alois Weißthanner, fortgesetzt und abgeschlossen durch Gertrud Thoma und Martin Ott (J. BERNWIESER)______536 Römisches Zentrum und kirchliche Peripherie Das universale Papsttum als Bezugspunkt der Kirchen von den Reformpäpsten bis zu Innozenz III, J. JOHRENDT / H. MÜLLER (Hrsg.) (T. IZBICKI)______537 Religione nelle campagne. A cura di Mariaclara Rossi (F. CANADE SAUT- M AN)______539 Schätze der Erinnerung. Geschichte, Mythos und Literatur in der Überliefe­ rung des Nibelungenliedes, V. GALLÉ (Hrsg.) (A. CLASSEN)______544 G. SCHEIBELREITER, Die Babenberger. Reichsfürsten und Landesherren (D. NICHOLAS)______545 R. SCHOLLER, Die Fassung *T des >Parzival< Wolframs von Eschenbach: Untersuchungen zur Überlieferung und zum Textprofil. Quellen und For­ schungen zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte 56 (J. JEEP)______547 S. SEEBER, Poetik des Lachens. Untersuchungen zum mittelhochdeutschen Roman um 1200 (A. CLASSEN)______549 Zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Burg. Archäologie und Geschichte. Interdisziplinärer Dialog zwischen Archäologie und Geschichte (H.-W. HEINE)______552 M. SPATH, Verflechtung von Erinnerung. Bildproduktion und Geschichts­ schreibung im Kloster San Clemente a Casauria während des 12 (M. KRUMM)______556 P. KARKKAINEN, Trinitarian Theology in the Medieval West (R. LUT- ZELSCHWAB)______558 J. BLYTHE, The Worldview and Thought of Tolomeo Fiadoni (E. KUEHN) _ 561 M. UTTENREUTHER, Die (Un)Ordnung der Geschlechter. Zur Interdepen­ denz von Passion, gender und genre in Gottfrieds von Strassburg Tristan (A. CLASSEN)______564 C. F BARNES, The Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt. A New Critical Edi­ tion and Color Facsimlie (R. SCHMITZ-ESSER)______567 T. GREGOR WAGNER, Die Seuchen der Kreuzzüge: Krankheit und Kran­ kenpflege auf den bewaffneten Pilgrerfahrten ins Heilige Land (W. SA­ YERS)______569 F. WARNATSCH-GLEICH, Herrschaft und Frömmigkeit. Zisterzienserin- nen im Hochmittelalter (A. CLASSEN)______572 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 9

H. WENZEL, Spiegelungen. Zur Kultur der Visualität im Mittelalter (A. CLASSEN)______573 V. BRANCONE, Il tesoro dei cardinali del Duecento. Inventari di libri e beni mobili (A. MEYER)______577 The Chronicle of the Czechs by Cosmas of Prague (J. ZYCHOWICZ)______577 Der Codex Manesse und die Entdeckung der Liebe. Eine Ausstellung der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, des Instituts für Fränkisch-Pfälzische Ge­ schichte und Landeskunde sowie des Germanistischen Seminars der Univer­ sität Heidelberg zum 625 (A. CLASSEN)______579 Die ältesten Viten Papst Cölestins V. (Peters von Morrone), P. HERDE (Hrsg.) (A. MEYER)______581 M. DALLAPIAZZA, Wolfram von Eschenbach: Parzival (A. CLASSEN)__ 582

Spätmittelalter

Chaucer and Religion (A. BREEZE)______585 C. SCHLEIF / V. SCHIER, Katerina's Windows: Donation and Devotion, Art and Music, as Heard and Seen Through the Writings of a Birgittine Nun (P. CUNEO)______586 A. BROWN / G. SMALL, Court and Civic Society in the Burgundian Low Countries (C. BRATU)______589 La cuisine et la table dans la France de la fin du Moyen Âge. Contenus et contenants di XlVe au XVIe siècle (M. VERONESI)______595 C. CYRUS, The Scribes for Women's Convents in Late Medieval Germany (A. CLASSEN)______598 Studies in the Role of Cities in Arthurian Literature and in the Value of Ar­ thurian Literature for a Civic Identity: When Arthuriana Meet Civic Spheres (A. CLASSEN)______600 P. DINZELBACHER, Unglaube im "Zeitalter des Glaubens". Atheismus und Skeptizismus im Mittelalter (B. LUNDT)______602 Een cronike van den greven van Benthem. Edition und Übersetzung einer spätmittelalterlichen Chronik über die Grafen von Bentheim, F. H. ROOLFS / H. RIEDEL-BIERSCHWALE / V. HONEMANN (Hrsg.) (A. CLASSEN) _ 603 G. EGAN, The Medieval Household. Daily Living c. 1150-c. 1450, with contributions by Justine Bayley, Nigel Blades, et al (A. CLASSEN)______604 S. FEIN / D. RAYBIN (eds.), Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches (W. QUINN)______606 K. AMANN (Hrsg.), Das Pfäferser Passionsspielfragment. Edition - Unter­ suchung - Kommentar (A. CLASSEN)______608 10 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

H. SEUSE, Stundenbuch der Weisheit. Das "Horologium Sapientiae" über­ setzt von Sandra Fenten (G. KOMPATSCHER GUFLER)______610 T. FUDGE, Jan Hus. Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia, I. B. Tauris (W. BEUTIN)______611 Döden som straff: Glömda gravar pä Galgbacken, ed (W. SAYERS)______617 G. GARNETT, Marsilius of Padua and 'the Truth of History' (K-F. JOHAN­ NES) ______619 M. HABERLEIN / C. KUHN / L. HÖRL (Hrsg.), Generationen in spätmittel­ alterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Städten (C. m Ar IA GRAFINGER)______621 E. GERTSMAN / E. GERTSMAN, The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages: Image, Text, (A. CLASSEN)______623 The Good Wife's Guide. Le Ménagier de Paris. A Medieval Household Book (A. CLASSEN)______625 R. L. GUIDI, L'inquietudine del Quattrocento (C. MARIA GRAFINGER)__ 627 R. HAMMEL-KIESOW / M. PUHLE / S. WITTENBURG, Die Hanse (A. CLASSEN)______629 A. FEDERICA, Voices of the Body: Liminal Grammar in Guido Cavalcanti's (F. ALFIE)______630 H. SEUSE, Stundenbuch der Weisheit. Das "Horologium Sapientiae (A. CLASSEN)______632 A. HIATT, Terra incognita: Mapping the Antipodes before 1600 (D. F. TINSLEY)______633 Himmel auf Erden, R. SUNTRUP / J. R. VEENSTRA (Hrsg.) (A. CLAS­ SEN) ______635 R. HORNBACK, The English Clown Tradition from the Middle Ages to Shakespeare (K. DiROBERTO)______637 Wojciech Iwańczak, Die Kartenmacher. Nürnberg als Zentrum der Kartogra­ phie im Zeitalter der Renaissance (A. CLASSEN)______639 J. JANOTA, Ich und sie, du und ich. Vom Minnelied zum Liebeslied (J. JEEP)______641 Kulturtopographie des deutschsprachigen Südwestens im späteren Mittelal­ ter. Studien und Texte (A. CLASSEN)______642 H. LACEY, The Royal Pardon. Access to Mercy in Fourteenth-Century England (R. LUTZELSCHWAB)______644 Les lais bretons moyen-anglais, C. STEVANOVITCH / A. MATHIEU (eds.) (W. SAYERS)______647 G. LANGE, Nibelungische Intertextualität. Generationenbeziehungen und genealogische Strukturen in der Heldenepik des Spätmittelalters (A. CLAS­ SEN)______651 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 11

Die heilige Christina von Bolsena. Eine antike Märtyrerin als typische Ver­ treterin einer ausgegrenzten Gruppe? Mit Edition der Vita cum passione s. Christine [BHL 1759d] aus dem 13. Jahrhundert. M. P. BACHMANN (Hrsg.) (G. KOMPATSCHER GUFLER)______652 Le portrait individuel. Réflexions autour d'une forme de représentation XIIIe- XVe siècle, D. OLARIU (ed.) (A. CLASSEN)______653 The Letters of Catherine of Siena. Vol. III and IV. Trans. with introduction and notes by Suzanne Noffke, O.P. (A. CLASSEN)______654 E. LIENERT, Die 'historische' Dietrichepik. Untersuchungen zu 'Dietrichs Flucht', 'Rabenschlacht' und 'Alpharts Tod' (A. CLASSEN)______655 B. LINDORFER, Bestraftes Sprechen (M. VERONESI)______656 S. LOLEIT, Wahrheit, Lüge, Fiktion. Das Bad in der deutschsprachigen Lite­ ratur des 16. Jahrhunderts (P. DINZELBACHER)______659 S. MACKAY, The Hammer of Witches. A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum (A. CLASSEN)______660 J. R. MADDICOTT, The Origins of the English Parliament 924-1327 (S. TAYLOR)______661 D. MAIRHOFER, Liber lacteus. Eine unbeachtete Mirakel- und Exempel­ sammlung aus dem Zisterzienserkloster Stams (A. CLASSEN)______666 M. MARTIN, Vision and Gender in Malory's 'Morte Darthur'. Arthurian Stu­ dies (A. BREEZE)______667 Masculinities and Femininities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (A. BREEZE)______668 B. ANGLICUS, De proprietatibus rerum, Volume I (G. KOMPATSCHER GUFLER)______670 J. G. MAYER / K. GOEHL / K. ENGLERT, Die Pflanzen der Klostermedi­ zin in Darstellung und Anwendung. Mit Pflanzenbildern des Benediktiners Vitus Auslasser (B. DIETRICH HAAGE)______671 Kirchlicher und religiöser Alltag im Spätmittelalter. Akten der internationa­ len Tagung in Weingarten (A. CLASSEN)______673 N. MORTON, The Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land 1190-1291 (P. MILLIMAN)______675 Le portrait individuel. Réflexions autour d'une forme de représentation XIIIe- XVe siècle (A. CLASSEN)______677 A. PINKUS, Patrons and Narratives of the Parler School. The Marian Tym­ pana 1350-1400 (T. ERTL)______679 Ladies, Whores, and Holy Women. A Sourcebook in Courtly, Religious, and Urban Cultures of Late Medieval Germany, A. M. RASMUSSEN / S. WESTPHAL-WIHL (eds.) (P. DINZELBACHER)______680 12 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

F. BATTENBERG / B. SCHILDT (Hrsg.), Das Reichskammergericht im Spiegel seiner Prozessakten. Bilanz und Perspektiven der Forschungen (D. NICHOLAS)______682 J. ROSENFELD, Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry. Love after Aristotle (A. CLASSEN)______684 E. BAUMELER, Die Herren von Bonstetten. Geschichte eines Zürcher Hochadelsgeschlechts im Spätmittelalter (D. NICHOLAS)______686 S. VON HEUSINGER, Die Zunft im Mittelalter. Zur Verflechtung von Poli­ tik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Straßburg (A. CLASSEN)______688 J. FEUCHTER / J. HELMRATH (Hrsg.), Politische Redekultur in der Vormoderne. Die Oratorik europäischer Parlamente in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (A. SAXER)______690 S. SCHMITT / S. Klapp (Hrsg.), Städtische Gesellschaft und Kirche im Spätmittelalter. Kolloquium Dhaun 2004 (D. NICHOLAS)______693 C. SCHONERT, Figurenspiele. Identität und Rollen Keies in Heinrichs von dem Türlin "Crône" (A. CLASSEN)______695 B. SPENCER, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges (A. CLASSEN)______696 The Charters of Stanton, Suffolk, c. 1215-1678 (A. BREEZE)______697 Stimmen und Bilder zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit/Voix, textes et images du Moyen-Age a l'aube des temps modernes, L. R. MESSERLI / A. SCHWARZ (Hrsg.) (A. CLASSEN)______699 M. THOMSETT, The Inquisition: A History (A. CLASSEN)______701 U. VON LIECHTENSTEIN, Leben - Zeit - Werk - Forschung (A. CLAS­ SEN) ______702 K. UTZ TREMP, Von der Häresie zur Hexerei. "Wirkliche" und imaginäre Sekten im Spätmittelalter (P. DINZELBACHER)______704 B. VON BREYDENBACH, Peregrinatio in terram sanctam. Eine Pilgerreise ins Heilige Land. Frühneuhochdeutscher Text und Übersetzung (A. CLASSEN)______706 V. SYROS, Die Rezeption der aristotelischen politischen Philosophie bei Marsilius von Padua (A. THUMFART)______707 U. HASCHER BURGER, Verborgene Klänge. Inventar der handschriftlich überlieferten Musik aus den Lüneburger Frauenklöstern bis ca. 1550 (A. CLASSEN)______711 R. VERNIER, Lord of the Pyrenees (P. DINZELBACHER)______712 R. VOSE, Dominicans, Muslims and Jews in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (C. SCARBOROUGH)______713 Wigamur. Kritische Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar. N. BUSCH (Hrsg.) (A. CLASSEN)______716 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 13

William of Saint-Amour: De periculis novissimorum temporum: Edition, Translation, and Introduction, G. GELTNER (Hrsg.) (T. IZBICKI)______718 D. WILLIMAN, The Letters of Pierre de Cros, Chamberlain to Pope Gregory XI (1371-1378) (A. MEYER)______719 G. ZEILINGER, Lebensformen im Krieg. Eine Alltags- und Erfahrungsge­ schichte des süddeutschen Städtekriegs 1449/50 (P. DINZELBACHER)____ 720 The Rituals and Rhetoric of Queenship, Medieval to Early Modern (A. BREEZE)______721 A. BUTTERFIELD, The Familiar Enemy: Chaucer, Language, and Nation in the Hundred Years War (E. EDITH SAYERS)______723 The Canterbury Tales (A. CLASSEN)______726

10.3726/83016_125 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 125

Albrecht Classen

Winter as a Phenomenon in Medieval Literature A Transgression of the Traditional Chronotope?

Geoffrey Chaucer begins his General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (shortly be­ fore 1400) with the 'classical' lines: "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, / And bathed every yeyne in swich licour / Of which vertu engendred is the flour."1 Similarly, in the prologue to her lai Lanval, Marie de France (about two hundred years earlier) situates King Arthur's court at summer time: "a la pentecuste en esté / i aveit li reis sujurné. / asez i duna riches duns : / e as cuntes e as baruns, / a ceus de la table r[o]ünde--" ("The king was there during the summer, at Pentecost, and he gave many rich gifts to counts and barons and to those of the Round Table. . . ."2). The events in Yonec commence at the same time as Chaucer's account of his pilgrims sets in: "ceo fu al meis de avril entrant, / quant cil oisel meinent lur chant. / li sires fu matin levez; / de aler en bois s'est aturnez" ("It was the beginning of the month of April, when the birds sing their songs, that the lord arose in the early morning and prepared to set out for the woods."3 Courtly romance, courtly love poetry, and even heroic epics are usually set in the time of spring and summer or do not reflect upon external conditions; the heroes do not suffer from cold and snow, nature is pleasant, and the protagonists can freely roam the world in pursuit of adventures. King Arthur's court seems to be associated with eternal spring time, a time of rejuvenation and happiness, as Wolfram von Eschenbach confirms in his Par- zival (ca. 1205): "Artüs der meienbære man, / swaz man ie von dem gesprach, / zeinen pfinxten daz geschach, / odr in des meien bluomenzît" (Book 281, 16-19; All that was ever told of Arthur, the man of the merry month of May, happened at Whit­ sun or at blossom-time in spring).4 As Uta Störmer-Caysa has recently observed, reflecting upon Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of the medieval chronotope, that is, the space-time continuum characteristic

1 The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston: Hougton Mifflin, 1987), vv. 1-4. 2 Original from the online version: http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/french_spanish_ and_italian/m05.htm; the trans. from The Lais of Marie de France, trans. with an intro­ duction by Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby (London: Penguin, 1986), 73. 3 http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/french_spanish_and_italian/m07.htm; The Lais, 86. 4 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival. Studienausgabe. Mittelhochdeutscher Text nach der sechsten Ausgabe von Karl Lachmann. Übersetzung von Peter Knecht. Einführung zum Text von Bernd Schirok (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1998); for the English transla­ tion, see Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, trans. A. T. Hatto (London: Penguin, 1980), 147. 126 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 of the world of the courtly protagonist, the knightly hero basically never suffers from any detrimental weather and principally enjoys the beauty of nature in a pleasant sea­ son. When Yvain/Iwein in Chretien de Troye's or Hartmann von Aue's respective ro­ mances (ca. 1170-1180 vs. ca. 1190) roams the forest naked after he has lost his mind out of love pain because his wife has rejected him for good, inclement temperatures or hostile conditions in the wilderness do not seem to bother him. In fact, following Stormer-Cayas, for medieval authors symbolic experience of time is more important than factual time according to the calendar, and if snow, a rare experience in the courtly world, ever appears, then it regularly serves for quasi-religious purposes, such as is the case in Wolfram's Parzival where the protagonist, before arriving at King Arthur's court, is surprised by a sudden snow fall - and this in the month of May.5 But this blanket of snow makes it possible for three blood drops to appear like on a can­ vas, coming from a wounded goose that a falcon that had escaped from its master had tried to kill in vain. The entire setting proves to be so unusual, almost miraculous, that the young hero suddenly falls in a trance, meditating on the love for his distant wife Cundwir amurs whom he perceives here almost mystically represented by the three drops of blood (Book 282, 23-Book 283, 22).6 The general disregard for the contingency of natural development affecting the development of the fictional characters, actually mostly characteristic of the modern novel, seems to determine the medieval romance. According to Stormer-Cayas, me­ dieval landscapes within literary contexts do not exist for and by themselves, but are a critical function of the operating protagonists and their subjective perception of the world around them.7 For Bakhtin that meant that the properties of time become mani­ fest in space, and space is being made meaningful through time and thus gains an ac­ tual, perceptible dimension, the heroe's "time-space of [his] represented life."8 Previ­ ous scholarship has repeatedly confirmed Stormer-Cayas's findings, emphasizing, as Ingrid Hahn does, that the month of May is the most commonly mentioned month in Arthurian romances and courtly love poetry, transforming the reference to May into a spring topos associated with happiness and joy, far removed from any other season

5 Uta Störmer-Caysa, Grundstrukturen mittelalterlicher Erzählungen: Raum und Zeit im hö­ fischen Roman (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2007), 110-20. 6 Joachim Bumke, Die Blutstropfen im Schnee: Uber Wahrnehmung und Erkenntnis im "Parzival" Wolframs von Eschenbach. Hermaea. Germanistische Forschungen, Neue Folge, 94 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2001), 62-64. He emphasizes, 63: "Der Schnee ist ein allegori­ sches Medium: es ist der Stoff, der zusammen mit dem Blut der Wildgans ein Bild höchster Schönheit hervorbringt, in dem Parzival das Gesicht seiner Frau erblickt." 7 Störmer-Cayas, Grundstrukturen, 63-76; she coins the very useful terms "biegsame Land­ schaft" and "Sproßräume," 70, to specify this phenomenon. 8 This is basically a translation of a citation provided by Störmer-Cayas, Grundstrukturen, 2. See also The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev and Voloshinov, ed. Pam Morris (London, New York, et al.: Edward Arnold, 1994), 186. Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 127 during the year.9 Of course, the pleasantries of spring could only be expressed by way of contrasting it with the cold and frosty winter, as many Latin poems exemplified in which "the quality of northern European landscape and the inner desolation of the spirit" correlated, as Derek Pearsall and Elizabeth Salter underline.10 But in those

9 Ingrid Hahn, Raum und Landschaft in Gottfrieds Tristan: Ein Beitrag zur Werkdeutung. Medium Aevum: Philologische Studien, 3 (Munich: Eidos Verlag, 1963), 29-31. 10 Derek Pearsall and Elizabeth Salter, Landscapes and Seasons of the Medieval World (Lon­ don: Paul Elek, 1973), 122; see their examples of medieval English and Latin poems with that same sensation of relief, or, vice versa, dread, 122-31. Alfred Biese, The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times. Burt Franklin Research and Source Works Series, 61 (1905; New York: Burt Franklin, s.y. [1964]), 88: "Delight in summer, complaint of winter - this is the fundamental chord struck again and again; there is scarcely any trace of blending the feelings of the lover with those of Nature." See also the anonymous Latin poem "De peste hiemis" (Wilhelm Wattenbach, Kleine Abhandlungen zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte: Gesammelte Berliner Akademieschriften, 1882-1897. Opuscula, 1. Rpt. [Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1974], 451-52), and Notker Balbulus's "Nubium cursum, " here quoted from Poésie latine chrétienne du Moyen Age, IIIe-XVe siècle. Texted recueillis, traduits et commentés par Henry Spitzmuller ([Paris and Bruges]: Desclée De Brouwer, 1971), 316-318. Peter Din- zelbacher was so kind to point out both poems to me. It seems worth to quote at least the first poem at length:

Tempus iners mea membra quatit, mens obruta torpet, Horret bruma, rigent pectora, sensus hebet. Sensus hebet, cum bruma viam claudit, negat, aufert: Ingenii rivos sistere bruma potest. Nam toga rara mihi, vestis mea pervia vento, Sibilat aura cutem, sibilus iste premit. Palla mihi, sed palliolum, nam fihula, pellis, Limbus, rupta, vetus, turpis, adheret ei. Nulla mihi pellis circumflua subvenit estu, Non me pellis ope torrida zona tenet. Sic ne mihi fortuna favet, dat, subvenit? immo Hec necat, hec aufert, hec nocet atra mihi. Ubera Trazoni sua porrigit, ubera lactis, Copia fecundat: ubera Trizo bibit. Ergo jubet, paretur; amat, fruitur; rogat, haurit; Pulsat, init: pugnat, opprimit; obit, obest. Hic stabulum, digitos, corpus, caput, implet, inaurat, Colligit, ornat, equis, jaspide, veste, mitra. Stat, premor; est, non sum; surgit, labor; capit, opto; Vicit, cedo; valet, vileo; vendit, emo. Vendit, letatur, lucratur: emo, fleo, perdo: Dives, opimus, habens, pauper, egenus, inops. Veste domat brumam, laxat vim frigoris igne, Vendicat estatem vestis et ignis ei. Cum solis faciem contristant pallia noctis, Nocturnusque venit tingere carbo diem, 128 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 cases winter proves to be an uncomfortable memory of the past monts, serving as a distant background to spring time, as perhaps best expressed by Guillaume de Lorris and, completing his fragmentary work several decades later, Jean de Meun in the fa­ mous allegorical romance Le Roman de la rose (ca. 1230/40 and ca. 1264/74). Nevertheless, winter is not entirely ignored in medieval literature, even if it figures only rarely, though this still needs to be tested, and then it actually proves to carry significant meaning. This should alert us to the question where and when protagonists experience winter weather, and why they have to go through with it, in contrast to most other courtly knights. Considering that neither the term 'winter' nor 'snow' figure in the major reference works on the Middle Ages,11 this absence invites further inves­ tigation, particularly because more often than not we encounter winter conditions af­ ter all against common assumptions (Störmer-Cayas). Moreover, as we can learn from anthropologists and ethnologists, both in ancient times and to some extent even until today winter has been regarded as a significant season in the year's life cycle. Folk mythology and ancient lore informs us as much as popular customs, proverbs, and folk tales today that winter is the only season that has been treated in a personified manner, such as in Nordic mythology, and often that is the case with frost and snow as well. In Germanic mythology both fall and winter are described as times when the spirits and ghosts reign free and threaten people. Feasts to celebrate the dead were held during late fall and early winter in many different cultures. At the same time, winter was regularly regarded as the ideal time to marry. Whereas summer is identi­ fied as the time of nourishment, winter is the time of consumption, which also finds its expression in religious-scientific discourse that suggested that winter was the time of reflection and meditation, hence a return to God.12 It would seem highly unlikely

Artifici sole tenebras illuminat, aulam Stellat candelis, provocat arte diem. Nocte diem pandit et noctem luce serenat, Est oblita sui nox, sine nocte nitens. Hora monet cenam, discumbitur : intima bachum. Fundit cella, pluit larga coquina dapes. Non hie bachus iners, non hunc effeminat hospes Fagus, sed recipit aureus hospes eum. 11 See, for example, Lexikon des Mittelalters; Dictionary of the Middle Ages; Sachwörterbuch der Mediävistik; Medieval Italy; Medieval France; Medieval Germany; Medieval Scandi­ navia; etc. 12 Jungbauer, "Winter," Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, ed. Hanns Bächtold- Stäubli. Vol. IX. Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Volkskunde. Abt. I: Aberglaube (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1938/1941), 662-68. In the Liecht der sel by Bishop Ulrich Putsch of Brixen (1426), which is a translation of the highly popular Lumen anime, we learn that all herbs and roots have more strength in winter than in summer because "aller saft vnd kraft der krewter wechst in dem sumer in die eßt vnd pleter, vnd zu winterczeit bleibt es in der wurczel. Allso Maria hat in vns größer kraftt vnd gnad in dem winter der trübsal dann in dem sumer der wertlichen glükheit und zufließung." Quoted from: The Light of the Soul: Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 129 that the courtly world was so far removed from its ancient roots as to ignore entirely such notions and attitudes despite its authors' attempt to project an ideal world of chivalry. Chroniclers, of course, do not leave out references to events during winter, or comments about particularly hard weather conditions, as reflected, for instance, by reports about wolves who entered even Paris during especially cold periods in the early fifteenth century.13 Similarly, the world of Old Norse sagas is dotted with refer­ ences to winter, a time when the protagonists take a break from their raiding and wait out better weather conditions for their sea-faring, as illustrated, for instance, in Egil's Saga (thirteenth century): "That winter, Earl Rognvald travelled inland across lake Eidesjo and south to Fjordane, and received word about King Vemund's movement. . . The following spring King Harald sailed southwards along the coast with his fleet."14 Or: "When winter passed and summer came round, Bard asked the king's leave to go to fetch the bride to whom he had been betrothed the previous summer" (13). Or: "That winter Sigurd from Sandnes died and Thorolf inherited everything from him" (17). Winter could also be the time of going on trading trips: "That winter Thorolf went to Finnmark again, taking almost a hundred men with him. Once again he traded with the Lapps and travelled widely through Finnmark" (23). In other words, winter was not a time that one simply passed over in silence, though the conditions often made things more difficult: "As soon as Bjorn arrived in the Shetlands, he married Thora, and they spent the winter in the fort of Mousa. In the spring, when the seas be­ came calmer, Bjorn launched his ship and prepared it for sailing in great haste" (58). In the Njals Saga (late thirteenth century), the calendar year is fully present as well, whether winter is discussed specifically or not: "From there they continued south to Denmark and then east to Smaland, and they were always victorious. They did not go back in the autumn. The following summer they went on to Reval . . . ."15 Or: "The following summer Najl and his sons rode to the Thing" (61). Or: "Gunnar and Njal saw to it that nothing else happened that year. In the spring Najal said to Atli, . . ." (63). Late-medieval artists were fully aware of the potentials of winter scenes, as we can find numerous examples, especially in illustrated books of hours and psalters. After all, medieval society was a mostly rural world, and farmers and estate managers had to be, as is still the case today, acutely aware of what works had to be done during what season throughout the year, including winter. This then proved to be the signifi-

The Lumen anime C and Ulrich Putsch's Das liecht der sel, ed. Nigel Harris (Oxford, Bern, et al.: Peter Lang, 2007), §437, p. 337. See also the §§ 31, 102, 137, 336, 349, 598 13 Jacques Berlioz, Catastrophes naturelles et calamités au Moyen Age. Micrologus' Library, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), ch. 2, 27-31, summarizes the account of the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris. 14 Egil's Saga, trans. Bernard Scudder. Ed. with an introduction and notes by Svanhildur Ôskarsdôttir (1997; London: Penguin, 2004), 7. 15 48Njal's Saga, trans. with introd. and notes by Robert Cook (1997; London: Penguin, 2001), 48. 130 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 cant segue for painters and illustrators to incorporate natural settings during all four seasons of the year. The famous illustration for the month of February in Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry from ca. 1410 provides us with a good insight into peasants staying indoors, trying to keep warm, while the sheep are flocking together in an enclosed area outside, and one man further away chopping down a tree for fire­ wood.16 This motif is often repeated in early-modern Flemish manuscript illumina­ tions, providing us with astoundingly minute details of farmers' lives. Sometimes we also find children at play in winter, throwing snowballs at each other.17 But I am not aware of medieval paintings showing a knight, or any other member of the court, standing in snow, or suffering from wintery cold,18 whereas in the sixteenth century numerous artists deliberately chose winter scenes for their paintings, such as Pieter Breughel the Elder ("Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap," 1562; "The Hunters in the Snow," 1565) and Pieter Breughel the Younger ("Massacre of the Innocent," ca. 1610).19 In contrast to modern times with its rather sophisticated heating systems and al­ ways available fuel, electricity, hot water, or steam, medieval society must have expe­ rienced winter rather differently, so it seems odd that courtly literature would be so void of references to the cold months. Or is that really true? An interesting passage in the late thirteenth-century romance of Mai und Beaflor provides us with a good start­ ing point to examine what winter might have meant, at least e negativo, in general and practical terms. Young Beaflor, the daughter of the Roman emperor, flees from her father because he has tried to rape her, and with the help of a kind of a step-father, a senator, and his wife, she manages to disappear out of sight, taking a boat which quickly transports her, apparently guided by God Himself, to Greece. There she meets the young prince Mai who rules over his country after his father's death. Although Beaflor is at first warmly welcomed by Mai's mother, she quickly develops bitter ha­ tred against her because her son wants to marry Beaflor, of whose background noth­ ing is known which makes her look suspicious in social terms. The enormous treasure that she has brought with her in the boat means nothing to the future mother-in-law, and so she storms away filled with bitterness and murderous desires when Mai indeed

16 http://www.christusrex.org/www2/berry/f2v.html (last accessed on Jan. 6, 2007). 17 Bodleian Library, MS Douce 135, fol. 7v; see Nicholas Orme, Medieval Children (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 162. 18 Among the 137 illustrations in the Manesse Songbook (early fourteenth century), only one faintly reflects upon cold weather, that is, the figure 116 showing the poet Der Marner who is sitting on a bench drinking from a mug, while a servant is warming a jug over a fire in front of him. Codex Manesse: Die Miniaturen der Großen Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, ed. and commented by Ingo F. Walther (Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1989); he emphasizes the pictorial similarities between this illustration and the image for January in medieval calen­ dars and books of hours (236). See also http://www.tempora-nostra.de/tempora-nostra/ manesse.php?id=203&tfl=117. 19 http://sun-wais.oit.unc.edu/wm/paint/auth/bruegel/; http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/ b/bruegel/pieter_y/ Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 131 takes the stranger to his wife. Things develop rather tragically for Beaflor because her husband soon leaves for a crusade against the Arabs in Spain, although, as she later finds out, she is pregnant. The letters that she and two counts send to Mai informing him about the pregnancy are falsified by his mother, so he learns that Beaflor is ex­ pecting a wolf child because she had allegedly slept with two priests. Mai, utterly distraught, writes back to the counts and orders them to wait with all decisions. His mother, however, can falsify this letter as well, which then reads that the counts are to kill her and the child immediately, or they all would have to suffer the death penalty themselves. Beaflor solves the crisis and flees in the same boat with which she had ar­ rived, later to be followed by Mai who then, however, assumes that his wife has in­ deed been killed. The denouement takes place in Rome, where the Emperor admits his guilt, resigns, and has Mai take over as the new ruler. When Beaflor arrives at Greece, the narrator offers the following description of the beautiful country:

Daz lant ist alsus gestalt, dar inne ist grozzer cheste walt. Da wirt selten winder. Diu weter sint da linder, denne si sein anderswa.20

[This land has the following characteristics, it has a great forest of chestnut trees. Rarely does it experience winter. The weather is more mild there than anywhere else.]

This does not imply, of course, that Beaflor has arrived in an earthly Paradise, quite on the contrary, since here she is persecuted by a hateful mother-in-law and might easily have died because of the devious strategy with the falsified letters. But the poet still makes clear that in terms of agriculture, weather, fruit, and so forth Greece represents the most pleasant country in the world: "Nie dehein lant so wun- nechleich / ward in alle der wer[l]de gesehen, / des ich all di hore iehen, / di dar inne gewesen sint" (2022-25; Everyone who has visited that country tells me that it is the most beautiful one in the whole world). The beauty and appeal depend on the absence of cold weather and hence on nature's cornucopia. Nevertheless, this is no guarantee that evil will not happen, as Beaflor's destiny demonstrates, though the description still insinuates how much medieval people detested the features of winter as detri­ mental to their health and happiness. The anonymous poet does not imply that a

20 Mai und Beaflor. Herausgegeben, übersetzt, kommentiert und mit einer Einleitung versehen von Albrecht Classen. Beihefte zur Mediaevistik, 6 (Frankfurt a. M., Berlin, et al.: Peter Lang, 2006), vv. 2027-31. For the pan-European tradition of this literary motif, see Nancy B. Black, Medieval Narratives of Accused Queens (Gainesville, Tallahassee, et al.: Univer­ sity of Florida Press, 2003). 132 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 country where winter has little or no impact would also guarantee freedom of worries and sorrows. But the experience of a mild climate proves to be most appealing and conveys a sense of carefreeness and happiness at least as regards sustenance, physical enjoyment, and individual happiness. Winter weather, by contrast, would create the very opposite conditions, obviously dreaded by the poet as the comparison implies. This finds, despite its very different generic framework, powerful confirmation in Dante's Canto XXXII in his Inferno, begun in 1308, where in the ninth circle, filled with frozen waters and rivers, those souls have to suffer who killed or betrayed during their lifetime.21 The thick ice and tremendous cold horrify Dante, who offers this sig­ nificant comparison: "Non fece al corso suo si grosso velo / di verno la Danoia in Osterlicchi / né Tanai lá sotto 'l freddo cielo" (25-27; Never in Austria did Danube broad / Darken his wintry stream with veil so thick, / Nor Don afar beneath the freez­ ing cloud).22 The association of sinfulness and death with winter in Dante's imagery does not require any particular stretch of imagination, as that cold season has always been seen in light of the life cycle. No wonder then, we might agree with Stormer- Caysa that for medieval vernacular poets the experience of winter seemed negative and was mostly avoided as a natural background for the knights' adventures. Nevertheless, we cannot content ourselves with this stereotypical model at hand and need to probe deeper whether winter could not also, as I want to demonstrate, provide an important natural backdrop for critical events in medieval literary texts. One significant example can be found in Gottfried von StraBburg's Tristan (ca. 1210) where the protagonist regularly visits his beloved Isolde making sure not to be dis­ covered by any of the courtly spies. He has to guard his steps because she is, of course, his uncle's, King Mark's, wife, yet Tristan trusts his intelligence and wit to keep their love affair a secret, though this quickly proves to be an impossibility. One day, after having talked for a long time with his friend, the Steward-in-Chief, Mar- jodo, things sudenly change. We do not know what time of the year it is, but when Tristan finally sneaks out of the lodging after his friend has fallen asleep, he has to cross the distance to Isolde's living quarters walking through snow. It is his usual path, but this time weather has turned cold, so it must be winter: "der was des nahtes besnit" (13497; "That night the path was covered with snow").23 Whereas normally Tristan proves to be the most circumspect hero who knows ex­ ceedingly well how to plan and organize all details to his own advantage, as even the

21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy; for a text edition, with Doré's illustra­ tions, see http://www.divinecomedy.org/divine_comedy.html (both last accessed on Jan. 6, 2008). 22 The English translation is taken from The Portable Dante, ed. Paolo Milano (1955; Har- mondsworth: Penguin, 1985), 171. 23 Gottfried von StraBburg. Tristan. Nach dem Text von Friedrich Ranke neu herausgegeben, ins Neuhochdeutsche übersetzt, mit einem Stellenkommentar und einem Nachwort von Rü­ diger Krohn (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1980); the English trans. is derived from Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan. Trans. entire for the first time. With the surviving fragments of the Tristran of Thomas. With an introd. by A. T. Hatto (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960), 219. Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 133 episode immediately prior to this one with the Irish wooer knight Gandin had demon­ strated, in this situation he rushes carelessly over to his beloved, not suspecting any danger or treason, entirely enthralled by his desire to see Isolde again. Considering that at that moment the moon is even shining, providing clear light and removing all shadows, which should have made it exceedingly easy for Tristan to guard his steps and to avoid leaving a trail, the absence of all precaution seems astonishing. The nar­ rator emphasizes regarding the protagonist: "Tristan nam keiner vare war, / wan gieng er baltliche dar" (13500-01; "Tristan gave no thought to spies and ambushes, but went boldly to the place of his secret assignation"). But there is no reason for him to be­ come so inattentive and to be so careless, considering that he is committing adultery right under the king's nose and in the presence of his entire court. Although Isolde's chambermaid Brangæne puts up a large chessboard to prevent the light being noticed on the outside, she forgets to lock the door after Tristan has entered. Marjodo, however, has a most symbolic dream of a wild boar rushing into the king's palace and then into the bedroom where he soils the sheets with his foam (13532-33), a clear allusion to Tristan's sexual union with the queen.24 But the dream abruptly stops right there, and the steward wakes up. Not finding his friend Tristan next to him in his bed, which must not be misread as an allusion to a sexual relation­ ship with him, he himself gets up and soon enough finds his friend's trail in the snow leading directly to the queen's quarter. In contrast to his friend, for Marjodo the moonshine and the snow provide clear guidance and give him direction: "hie mite so volgete er dem spor / hin durch ein boumgertelin. / ouch leitete in des manen schin / über sne und über gras, / da er vor hin gegangen was, / unz an der kemenaten tür" (13564-69; "He then followed these tracks through a little orchard. The light of the moon, too, showed him the way over the snow-covered lawn, where Tristan had passed before him, as far as the chamber door"). At first hesitating whether he should dare to enter, his curiosity gets the better of him, so he proceeds, and soon enough discovers the couple in the dark and can spy on their love-making. Whereas before he had been Tristan's friend, and had secretly carried love for Isolde in his heart, all that now turns to hatred, and eventually he signals to the king that his wife might have an affair with his nephew. Without the snow Tristan would not have left any tracks, and then Marjodo would not have found out where his friend might have snuck away. It is the beginning of the end, at least for Tristan, who from then on becomes a passive, or at least only a re­ acting, victim of his own entrapment in love. All the time beforehand he had always intelligently planned his own approach, carefully assessing all aspects in advance, and thus he had succeeded virtually in everything he had set his mind on. Now, however, love has blinded him to the dangers, and nature, that is, winter with its snow becomes

24 Albrecht Classen, "Die narrative Funktion des Traumes in mittelhochdeutscher Literatur," Mediaevistik 5 (1992): 11-37; id., "Transpositions of Dreams to Reality in Middle High German Narratives," Shifts and Transpositions in Medieval Narratives. A Festschrift for Dr. Elspeth Kennedy, ed. Karen Pratt (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1994), 109-120. 134 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 the greatest trap. We might even question the narrator's comment according to which in this situation Fortune had gotten the better of Tristan, setting a snare: "do h^te im misselinge / ir stricke, ir melde, ir arbeit / an den selben pfat geleit" (13492-94; "111 Fortune had set her snares, her baying pack, and trouble ahead of him along that self­ same path"). Did Tristan not notice that winter had set in. Did he not hear the sound of his footsteps in the snow? Did he not realize in the clear moon light that he created tracks? The simple answer is 'no,' and in this regard he strongly resembles Parzival when he suddenly comes across the three drops of blood in the snow. However, Tristan is not caught by surprise when snow covers the ground, at least the narrator does not in­ dicate anything of that sort; on the contrary, it seems to be a normal change of weather at night, and the protagonist is simply walking through freshly fallen snow that does not melt away quickly; otherwise Marjodo would have had difficulties finding the steps and would not have been able to follow his friend to the queen's chamber. In other words, Tristan is not the victim of a change of Fortune; rather, the snow reveals his unexpected impetuousness and rashness, hence his loss of foresight­ edness and calculating mind. The narrator explicitly emphasizes how visible everything was because of the bright moon, so night time was not a hindrance for the hero to scan around carefully and to make sure that he would not leave any traces. But that's precisely what he does not do, as we can observe when we return to the verses cited already above: "Tristan nam keiner vare / noch keiner slahte merke war" (13500-01). Consequently, we may safely argue that the winter setting sheds important light on how much love has blinded him and robbed him of his traditional attention and strategizing skills, thereby emblematically resembling, as William C. McDonald has observed, the boar that roams through King Mark's palace and bedroom, at least in Marjodo's dream.25 Ironi­ cally, insofar as Tristan leaves his own bedroom to see his beloved like an animal following its instinctual desire for its pasture (13486), he quickly becomes a quarry for Marjodo although the steward cannot completely hunt him down and kill him. Whereas before Tristan had proven to be a great huntsman, best expressed by his ex­ traordinary knowledge how to cut up the dead animal in a most artistic manner, whereupon King Mark has asked him to become his master of the hunt - the narrator had actually identified him earlier already as "jegermeister" (3324; "Master- Huntsman"), and Mark himself had asked him to assume that position (3370) - he has turned into the hunted himself because love has caught him and blinded him to the outside dangers. The winter setting reveals this and exposes Tristan for the first time, and from then on it will be a constant struggle for him and Isolde to keep the public attention away from them and to defuse the King's jealousy and to fend off his spies.26

25 William C. McDonald, "The Boar Emblem in Gottfried's Tristan," Neuphilologische Mit­ teilungen 92, 2 (1991): 159-78. 26 Significantly, in the orchard scene where King Marke and the dwarf Melot hide in an olive tree to catch the lovers in flagrante (14583ff.), Tristan detects their shadows and can adjust Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 135

A most remarkable winter setting can be found in Heinrich von dem Turlin's Ar­ thurian romance Die Krone (Diu Crone; The Crown) composed sometime between 1210 and 1240 in the area of Carinthia, today part of Austria. Much could be said about this most unusual romance where several sequences of miraculous appearances baffle the protagonist, Gawein, but they do not concern us here.27 What matters for us, in contrast, is the rather unexpected time frame for King Arthur and his companions: it is winter, and the temperatures have fallen very low. One day news arrive that Count Rivalin would challenge King Glais at a tournament, and the knights all decide to attend the event without informing King Arthur or asking for his permission who would probably not allow them to do so. Once he has woken up and realized what they have done to him, disgruntled he chooses to go hunting instead. Because the weather makes it difficult for the animals to move, being stuck in the deep snow, the king and his hunters easily catch and kill much quarry. When he has returned home in the evening, he delights in warming his hands at the fire: "Artus versaumet sich des niht, / Als er ditz vivr vant, / Dar raht er ietweder hant, / E er dar chom, langest e, / Wan im tet der vrost we" (3340-44; "The king therefore did not delay when he saw the fire, but stretched out his hands toward it while yet some distance away, because he was suffering from the cold," 39).28 He does not realize that the queen has been watching him for some time from the distance, who then scornfully comments on his attempts to warm himself up because his behavior seems weak and rather woman-like to her, as if her husband would not stand up to the ideals of masculinity in terms of bodily heat: "'Wer lert ivch dise hovezuht, / Her chunich, daz ir iwern leip / So eisiert sam ein weip?" (3373-75; "'Where did you learn this knightly custom, my lord,' she asked, ' that you should hu­ mor yourself like a woman?" 40). Of course, as the narrator underscores himself, her words are uttered simply out of spitefulness and would not deserve to be taken seri­ ously, an explicit swipe at all women (3370-72). But Ginover continues with her mocking. Whereas her husband would need excessive outside heat to warm himself up, she herself, in her thin clothes, had not even been sitting near the fire.

his behavior accordingly. But in this episode it seems to be summer, which represents very different conditions for him. Could we argue that winter makes Tristan inattentive to details and to a victim of his concupiscence? 27 Ernst S. Dick, "Heinrich von dem Türlin," German Writers and Works of the High Middle Ages: 1170-1280, ed. James Hardin and Will Hasty. Dictionary of Literary Biography, 138 (Detroit, Washington, D.C., and London: Gale Research, 1994), 44-49. The sheer size of this romance has invited many scholars to comment on this text, see, most recently, Neil Thomas, Diu Crone and the Medieval Arthurian Cycle. Arthurian Studies (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002), but the curious winter setting generally finds no interest. 28 Heinrich von dem Türlin, Die Krone (Verse 1-12281), ed. Fritz Peter Knapp and Manuela Niesner. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 112 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2000); The Crown: A Tale of Sir Gawein and King Arthur's Court, trans. and with an intro. by J. W. Thomas (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). 136 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

Worse even, she knows of another unnamed knight who seems to be much more warm-blooded than Arthur and shows no effects of the cold winter weather, and ap­ parently receives his inner heat from the love that he feels for his lady, who is, as we will find out later, the queen herself. This cold-resistant knight seems immune to the impact of the freezing temperature: "'. . . Er ist aber bechant vil. / Wan in eys vnd der sne / Niht mer entwelt dann der chle / Deheinr seiner reise. / Wan im des vrostes vreise / Ze deheiner zeit nimer tuot / Dann sumers hitz vnd bluomen bluot . . .'" (3398-404; ". . . 'He is well known because ice and snow do not affect him more than clover does affect his journeys. And the terror of the cold means no more to him than the heat and flowers of the summer . . .,'" 40).29 Obviously, the queen intends to taunt her husband and ridicules him through this strange comparison, yet she clearly has a deep impact on him with her derogatory comments, which, though she immediately regrets her own words (3431), prod him to seek out this wintry adventure and to meet this unexpected challenger. He rides out into the frozen forest of Gaudin, accompa­ nied by the court steward Keii and two other knights, whom he places strategically in the forest to ambush and challenge the stranger. But the winter temperatures is getting to all of them, hurting them badly, espe­ cially the steward: "Wan tiefer sne vnd dikes eys, / Tet im also groze not, / Daz er wand wesen tot" (3668-70; "the deep snow and thick ice caused him such distress that he thought he was dead," 43). After having shivered for a long time and desperately trying to keep warm in vain, he falls asleep and notices almost too late that the knight he had been waiting for has arrived and passed him disregarding him entirely. In his usually nasty manner, Keii hurls many insults at him, but in the subsequent joust he is badly defeated and falls of his horse, which the stranger takes with him. The same happens to the three other knights, and only Arthur experiences a different destiny. At first, though we witness him suffering badly from the cold, lamenting about women's fickleness and untrustworthiness, finally sighing that he wished morning were coming and he could return home, now assuming that his wife had only heard rumors of that fabulous knight and did not really intend to insult her husband (4321-81). Unfortunately for him, that is the very moment when that knight appears near him, and both enter into a rather aggressive, yet still polite verbal exchange. Arthur urges him to reveal his name and to let him have the horses that he had taken from his de­ feated opponents because he is tired and cold down to the bones: "'. . ,Nv seit ir so gewizzen, / Daz ir mir di red sagt, / Wan ez nv vil nahen tagt, / Des muoz ich reiten hinnen. . .'" (4517-20; ". . .'Now be sensible and tell me, because it is almost dawn and I must go . . .,'" 51-52). Soon they enter into a joust, and of course the fighting contin­ ues for quite a while until the shields are utterly cut down to pieces and the stranger's life thereby becomes at risk. Finally, because he announces he would only reveal his name to King Arthur, the latter identifies himself first, which overcomes their hostil­ ity for the time being. However, Gasozein de Dragoz, as the stranger is called, claims

29 I adjusted Thomas's translation slightly to stay closer to the original. Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 137 that Ginover, from her first day of life, was promised to him by the "night spirits," which Arthur, of course, rejects, though he does not oppose the knightly challenge for his wife. Finally, they postpone the date of the joust by forty days when the conditions would be better and Gasozein could arm himself properly. Once the king has joined with his knights again, they return to the castle, desperate in their attempt to flee from the deadly cold: "Da was ir gemach starch guot, / Sam den der vrost we tuot / Wan si funden keche gluot" (5376-78; "There they found a bright fire and enjoyed the comfort of those who have escaped from the bitter cold," 60). The next day, the queen and her women wonder about the adventure the men might have encountered, and now also express deep concern regarding the danger of winter weather that could have killed them: "War er des nahtes w sr gewesen / Vnd wie choum er sei genesen / Von dem herten gefruste / Vnd ob sein vreise ze fluste / Stuend oder nah gewinne" (5389-93; "they wondered where he might have been dur­ ing the night, how he could have survived the terrible frost, and whether or not his trip had been successful," 60). The next day one more time winter as a theme comes up because Arthur orders his court to pack up and move to Karidol, but since the weather conditions are so fierce and most servants are afraid of the cold, the king finally grants them a week stay, which provides a powerful poetic image of winter in its most dramatic manifestation:

Daz ervorht div geent rot Vnd div vngechleite diet, Div mit micheln sorgen schiet Von den herbergen, Wan ez in den bergen Was grimmechlichen kalt. Di baten, daz man entwalt den chunik dirre reise Durch des vrostes vreise. (5435-43)

["Since it was terribly cold in the mountains, the order frightened those who traveled on foot and the ones with scanty clothing, for whom it was a real hardship to leave their quarters. They asked that the king be persuaded not to make the journey because of the danger from the ice and snow," 61]

Once the narrative emphasis has shifted away from Arthur and this night scene, focusing instead on Gawein's adventures, the interest in winter and its direct impact on people fades away. But the entire chapter demonstrates how much Heinrich von dem Turlin had intended to thematize winter in all of its fierce and dangerous forces that might have even deadly consequences for those who are exposed to it, though the stranger knight seems to be unaffected by it altogether, which finds no other explana­ tion but that he is profoundly filled with passionate love for the queen and so does not suffer from any external cold. 138 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

King Arthur and his wife experience a small crisis in their marriage as their indi­ vidual responses to the cold weather indicates. It is most natural and instinctual for him to warm his hands over a fire after having been exposed to the raw forces of na­ ture during his hunt, and she should acknowledge that, as she does later when she is worried about her husband's well-being. But she seems dissatisfied with him, assum­ ing that he does not live up to the hoped-for masculinity and strength, as apparently displayed by the mysterious knight out in the winter weather. At the same time Arthur responds to her scoffing in a rather rash manner, immediately trying to prove her wrong, though he should have realized how little her mocking really meant. Never­ theless, the winter scene represents a new, rather unusual challenge for the king and his men, and he proves to be the only one capable of meeting it successfully. It also means that Guinever has to realize how much she overstepped her boundaries and how much she truly loves her husband for whom she cares deeply, a realization that the winter adventure has brought about: "'. . .Got geb, daz mir ze sorgen / Disiv reis iht gevalle, / Wan mein gedanch alle, / Di varnt in mir ze wage. / Jchn weiz, waz mein hertze sage . . .'" (5398-402; "'. . .God grant that the journey may not bring me any grief, for my thoughts are all confused. I do not know what my heart is saying . . .,'" 61). Whereas the world of Old French fabliaux seems mostly concerned with sex, vio­ lence, gender relationships, with wit and witticism, and discourse, at times we also notice specific references to winter that have a direct impact on the development of the narrative. In "De l'Enfant Qui Fu Remis au Soleil" (thirteenth century) a trades­ man, as is usual in this profession, has to stay away from home for a long time.30 Once, however, it takes him two years to return to his wife, and there he encounters a new son born by her during his absence. The narrator makes clear from the beginning that she had slept with a young knight ("bacheler," 13) which then resulted in her pregnancy. The tradesman fully understands that this cannot be his own child, but he does not say anything in response to her fanciful explanation that one day, when she had been lonely and missing him, she had climbed up to a tower, crying out of des­ peration, when suddenly a snowflake fell into her mouth that impregnated her: "'. . . Un poi de noif qui tant fu douce / Que cel bel enfant en conçui / D'un seul petit que j'en recui / Einsis m'avint con je vous di.'" (34-37; "I caught within my mouth some snow. / So sweet it tasted that, you know, / this handsome little baby followed / from just the little bit I swallowed," 383). Most rationally in his handling of the situation, the truly suspicious husband pre­ tends to accept all her explanations and thanks God for the grace that he has bestowed upon him with this alleged heir of his ("merci," 41), but he never forgets about the de­ ception and ponders for years how to avenge himself. The day has finally arrived

30 Quoted from Nouveau Recueil complet des fabliaux (NRCF), publié par Willem Noomen and Nico van den Boogaard. Vol. V ( Assen and Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1990), 34-37; the English translation is taken from Gallic Salt: Eighteen Fabliaux, trans. from the Old French by Robert Harrison (Berkeley, Los, Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1974), 218-21. Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 139 when the boys turns fifteen, and the husband can take him with him on one of his business trips to show him the ins and outs of his trade. Although his wife expresses her dismay, considering the son's youth, she has to consent, and both disappear the next day. However, underneath the surface of the marital discourse, another level can be detected because both are fully aware of the boy being the product of adultery, and both know that the other one is informed about it, otherwise she would not worry about her husband's decision to take the boy with him on the journey: "Mais la dame n'agree point / Ce qu'elle en voit son fil mener, / Qui de li part sans retourner" (86-88; "The wife, though, wasn't glad to see / her son depart; with grave concern / she feared that he would not return," 385-87). And her worst fears come true because her hus­ band trades the boy in for seed to a merchant in Genoa who sells the illegitimate son as a slave to Alexandria, never to be heard of again. The merchant calmly completes his business and then returns home where he relates to his wife the tragic story that one day while he had walked with the young boy on a mountain top the sun's heat had become so intense that the child, being made out of snow, simply melted away:

Que li solaus clers ardent et chaut Sor nous ardamment descendi. Sa clarté trop chier nous vendi Car vo fil remestre couvint De l'ardeur qui du solau vint. Par ce sai bien et m'apersoif Que nostre fius fu fais de noif Et pour ce pas ne me merveil S'il est remés el chaut soleil. (124-32)

[". . . the sun, so fiery, hot, and bright, cast down on us its burning rays - it cost us dearly, did that blaze, because your son began to thaw beneath the solar heat. I saw at once that this had happened, though, because your son was made of snow, and wasn't too surprised he'd run, beneath that scorching midday sun." (389)]

The forlorn mother feels profound grief over the loss of her child: "Mais ne di­ raient pas doi cent / Le duel que sa femme demainne / Pour son fil, que pas ne ra- mainne: / Souvent se pasme, einsis avint" (104-07; "A hundred couldn't have re­ counted / all the sorrow of his wife / who'd lost her little boy for life. / She fainted time and time again," 387), a fact that deserves particular attention within another context.31 The critical point here, however, proves to be the secret war waged between husband and wife, and her sudden realization at the end that she has lost the battle:

31 Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005). 140 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

"Bien s'est la dame aperseüe / Que son signeur l'a deceüe" (133-34; "The lady knew she'd been beguiled," 389). After all, a child born of a snowflake would not have any chance during summer, and since her own explanation regarding the origin of her son, utterly silly and foolish in itself, leaves her vulnerable, she has no chance to fight back in this situation. The husband emerges as the winner in this bitter marital conflict over her infidelity because he holds back his anger and hides it behind a mask of pretense for fifteen years until the right moment has arrived at which he can enact his revenge, an utter blow to his untrustworthy wife. Significantly, this fabliau was not original, and it proves to be only one of many different versions. The oldest ones with this narrative motif can be found in a Wolfen­ büttel (Germany) manuscript from the tenth or eleventh century, and in the Cam­ bridge Song Collection (eleventh century), and then it experienced a rich reception throughout medieval and early-modern Europe in many different languages, such as in a thirteenth-century Middle High German anonymous mœre ("Schneekind"), in Giovanni Sercambi's (1347-1424) Novelle (no. 126), in sixteenth-century didactic and entertaining narratives by Johannes Pauli, Hans Sachs, Burkart Waldis, Kaspar Brun- mylleus, and later it entered oral traditions that have continued until the present.32 In the fabliau, the wife refers to winter as the time of her deepest feelings of lone­ liness and sadness, allegedly sorely missing her husband: "Yvers fu, si negoit mout fort. / Et je, qui pas ne me gardoie, / Amont vers le ciel esgardoie:" (30-32; "'Twas winter, snow fell heavily, / and glancing upward in the air / all innocent and unaware . . .," 383). Of course, it is a lie, and she obviously enjoyed her love affair fully, though the narrator does not relate when that affair actually took place and what hap­ piness she felt, but the pregnancy, according to medieval medical sciences, serves as clear evidence that she enjoyed the love relationship thoroughly, so the reference to winter only camouflages what she really experienced. Moreover, for the following fifteen years the couple lives with the blatant lie about the origin of the son, and the claim of a snowflake having been responsible for the mother's conception stands be­ tween them like a sore wound that cannot heal. In the thirteenth-century German version, the husband has stayed away for four years, and the wife explains that she had entered their herbal garden out of longing for him. There she felt such a desire for his presence that she picked up some snow and swallowed it, which carries a strongly sexual allusion (ms. A): "do wurden mir din minne kunt, / do gewan ich ditze kindelin. / ze minen triuwen, ez ist din.'" (26-28; I felt your love, so I conceived this little child. By my truth, it is yours). In a variant (ms. B), she goes one step further and characterizes her longing for him in even more ardent terms: "do ward ich swanger ze stunt / von der bruenschlichen gir, / die ich hett

32 Lutz Röhrich and Hans-Jörg Uther, "Schneekind," Enzyklopädie des Märchens, ed. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich. Vol. 12, 1 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005), 126-29. For the thirteenth-century German versions, see Novellistik des Mittelalters: Märendichtung, ed., trans., and commented by Klaus Grubmüller. Bibliothek des Mittelalters, 23 (Frankfurt a. M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1996), 1055-63. Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 141 do zu dir.'" (26-28; I immediately became pregnant from the burning lust that I felt for you).33 The husband waits only ten years until he takes the boy away, though he him­ self is in charge of educating him in all the courtly arts, including hunting, playing chess, hunting with falcons, etc. He receives three hundred marks for the boy, which is a large amount of money, as the narrator comments (55), but, what is even better, people pay him great respect for his ability to see through his wife's deception and for refusing to raise the bastard child any longer than necessary (56-58). The explanation how the boy disappeared also proves to be different because the husband refers to the waves that hit the boy during a storm on their voyage, and since he had been created out of snow, he had immediately turned into water. To add insult to injury, the mer­ chant consoles his wife for the loss of the child by emphasizing that all water is flowing back to where it originally had come from (75-78), so she could have hopes of recovering her son within a year's time, another indirect swipe at her adulterous act a long time ago. In the variant ms. B, the husband relates that when he had reached Egypt, the sun's heat caused the melting of the boy, and he pretends to blame himself for having for­ gotten this problem with the child that had been created out of snow (72-75). But both narrators emphasize in their epimythia that a smart man does not openly fight against his evil wife; instead he conceives of equally intelligent ruses to fend off the wife's devious strategies predicated on the experience with snow and the winter weather. We hear of a quite different snow setting in the mid fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor by the Spanish author Juan Ruiz who has his protagonist try to cross the mountains on several occasions and regularly runs into extremely bad weather under which he is threatened to succumb. But wild mountain women (serranas) rescue him and take him to their abodes, though they do not necessarily treat him kindly; instead they impose their mighty femininity upon him and endanger his male identity. First, however, it proves to be remarkable that this book that pretends to be a guide for good love incorporates these specific references to winter weather in the first place, though meterologically it should be already spring, considering that the episode takes place in March:

El mes era de marjo, dia de sant meder, pasado el puerto de lacayo fuy camino prender, de nieue e de graniso non ove do me asconder; quien busco lo que non pierde, lo que tiene deue perder. (951)

[It was March, Saint Emeterius's Day. I took the road to the Locoya Pass. I had nowhere to hide from the hail and snow; if you seek what you haven't lost, you'll lose what you have.34]

33 Here quoted from Novellistik, 84. 34 Juan Ruiz, The Book of Good Love, trans. Elizabeth Drayson MacDonald (London and Rut­ land, VT: Everyman, 1999). For a discussion of the sexual encounters between the prota- 142 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

Since he is tired and frozen from the cold, he cannot help but comply with her re­ quests: "yo, desque me vy con miedo, con frio e con quexa" (957, 3). Of course, Ruiz offers a highly satirical image, combining the natural threat to the traveler caused by the winter weather with the female challenge, thereby evoking male sexual fantasies based on fear of women's superior strength and on the attractiveness of the female taking charge: "Echome a su pescuezo por las buenas rrespuestas, / E a mi non me peso por que me lleuo acuestas; / escuso me de passar los arroyos E las cuestas" (958, 1-3; "She was so pleased she threw me round her neck. / I didn't mind that she carried me on her back; / she saved me from crossing streams and hillocks"). In other words, hail and snow gain metonymic function for female threats of a sexual kind: "ffasia niue e gransaua. diome la chata luego" (964, 1; "It was hailing and snowing at the same time"). Not surprisingly, once the serrana has taken him to her hut and has fed him with plenty of meat and bread, she demands sex from him, and he happily consigns to her demands, although he still pretends to have been forced by her into it: "por la muñeca me priso, oue de faser quanto quiso; / creo que ffiz buen barato" (971, 3-4; "She seized me by the wrist - / I had to do as she said. / I think she got a good deal"). The encounter with the second mountain girl is not framed by a winter scene, whereas the third one returns to that topic:

Syenpre ha la mala manera la sierra E la altura; sy nieua o si yela, nunca da calentura. byen encima del puerto fasia orrilla dura, viento con grand elada, Rosio con grand friura. (1006)

[The sierra and mountain heights have an evil climate, it either snows or freezes and is never warm. Above the pass the weather was fooul, high winds and ice, frost and severe cold.]

In full conformity with general attitudes about nature at that time, Ruiz expresses his great fear of the wintery weather conditions, especially because it hits him while in the mountains at a time when spring should actually have set in down in the plain: "Nunca desque nas?i pase tan grand peligro / de frio; . . ." (1008, 1-2; "I have never been so terrified of the cold"), but it is not the snow and low temperature, but in real­ ity the imminent confrontation with the next fierce serrana: "la mas grande fantasma que vy en este siglo. / yeguarisa, trifuda, talla de mal Qeñiglo" (1008, 3-4; I met a monster, the worst apparition I'd ever seen, / the most muscular great mare, filthy and scruffy to look at"). The subsequent description of her fully conforms with the tradi-

gonist and the serranas, see Connie Scarborough, "The Rape of Men and other "Lessons" about Sex in the Libro de buen amor,” to appear in The History of Sexuality in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter). Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 143 tional 'old hag' topos often introduced in medieval literature for comic relief, whether we think of Cundrie in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival or the old and ugly lady in Chaucer's Wife o f Bath's Tale,35 Escaping from bitter frost and snow on the mountain, Ruiz the narrator is caught by the monstrous woman who intends to impose her will upon him, which includes that he marry her (1038). Since he proves to be somewhat resistant, she threatens to toss him out of her hut again into the deadly freezing conditions of the winter: "e yo non me pago / del que non da algo, / nin le do la posada" (1041, 3-5; "and I don't like / a man who gives me nothing, nor do I give him shelter"). We might say, then, that for Ruiz the experience at the mountain pass during the winter storm represents, symboli­ cally speaking, the confrontation with uncontrollable and powerful women who are highly sexed and take control of the men, utilizing them as playthings. Turning to Ruiz's contemporary, Boccaccio, we encounter a very similar approach to the theme of winter within the context of a problematic love relationship. In the seventh tale of the eighth day in his Decameron, the young scholar Rinieri falls in love with the widow Elena though she quickly demonstrates a mean-spirited character and a remarkable ruthlessness that almost leads to her wooer's death. She has a lover herself, and does not care about Rinieri, but she immediately intends to make a fool of him by leading him along, hoping thereby to make the man she herself is infatuated with to love her even more: "pensandosi che quanti più n'adescasse e prendesse col suo piacere, tanto di maggior pregio fosse la sua bellezza e massimamente a colui al quale ella insieme col suo amore l'aveva data."36 The narrator, however, emphasizes how much the entire erotic situation is predicated on the conflict between an intelli­ gent scholar and a cunning, deceptive woman: "ella non sapeva ben, donne mie, che cosa è il mettere in aia con gli scolari" (537; ' She did not know, ladies, what it is to contend with a scholar"). Because her own lover, to whom she relates the entire affair as a kind of a joke, gets somewhat jealous, she decides to stage a show for him and to make the scholar suffer badly for their own amusement. Since it is the time of Christmas, and tem­ peratures are dropping rapidly, the setting is just right for her plan, ordering the young man to come to her courtyard and to wait there for her until she would have time for him. We are informed, above all, that there had been heavy snowfall the day before, so the scholar soon enough begins to feel the cold, though he displays patience in

35 See, for instance, Patrizia Bettella, The Ugly Woman: Transgressive Aesthetic Models in Italian Poetry from the Middle Ages to the Baroque (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005); Michael Dallapiazza, "Hässlichkeit und Individualität: Ansätze zur Überwindung der Idealität des Schönen in Wolframs von Eschenbach Parzival," Deutsche Vierteljahres­ schrift für Geistesgeschichte und Literaturwissenschaft 50, 3 (1985): 400-21. 36 Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron. Ed. critica secondo l'autografo hamiltoniano, a cura di Vittore Branca (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 1976), 536. The English trans. is taken from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, trans. Richard Aldington (1930; New York: Dell Publishing, 1970), 479: "she thought that the more men were taken with her beauty the more highly it would be prized, especially by the man to whom she had given her love." 144 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 hope of soon receiving his reward: "egli cominciò a sentir più freddo che voluto non avrebbe; ma aspettando di ristorarsi pur pazientemente il sosteneva" (537; the scholar had not been long in the courtyard when he began to feel colder than he would have wished. But he put up with it patiently, expecting speedy comfort," 480). Tragically, this comfort is not granted him, and the lady makes a big spectacle out of him for her lover's pleasure, having her maid pretend to him that the woman's brother has arrived and does not leave her to make room for the scholar. The night progresses, and the lady and her lover enjoy each other in bed, while the man outside almost freezes to death. After midnight and many dalliances exchanged, the couple goes to a little window and secretly observe the scholar, who is desperately hopping around trying to stay warm, and chattering so badly that she feels inclined to make fun of him even further: " 'Che dirai, speranza mia dolce? parti che io sappia far gli uomini carolare senza suono di trombe o di cornamusa?'" (539; "'What say you to this, my sweet? Do you think now that I can make men dance without the noise of trumpets or Sicilian bagpipes?'" 481). All this is drawn out to an extreme, with the young man forced to stay in the freezing cold finally realizing that he was tricked by his lady, which radically changes his love to hatred. If he had not had the strength of youth, as the narrator underscores, and if not soon warm weather had returned, he would not have survived, despite a medical doctor's help: "e se non fosse che egli era giovane e sopraveniva il caldo, egli avrebbe avuto troppo da sostenere" (540; "If he had not been young and if the warm weather had not soon arrived, he would have died," 483). The critical aspect, however, does not con­ sist of his suffering, or his lady's mockery, but rather, in our context, of the direct im­ pact of the bad weather on the scholar's emotions and his attitude toward the cruel woman. Indeed, weather is significant here in determining the plot development be­ cause not only did she make a fool of him, as he realizes at the end, but she would not have cared at all if he had succumbed to the low temperature and the renewed snow­ fall: "e sdegnato forte verso di lei, il lungo e fervente amor portatole subitamente in crudo e acerbo odio trasmutò, seco gran cose e varie volgendo a trovar modo alla vendetta, la quale ora molto più disiderava che prima d'esser con la donna non avea disiato" (539-40; "In his rage with her, the long and ardent love he had felt for her was suddenly changed to sharp and bitter hatred, and he kept revolving different means of vengeance in his mind, for he now more desired to be revenged than he had formerly desired to be with the lady," 482).37 The further narrative details do not interest here and are well known anyway. Suf­ fice to contrast the subsequent events with the deadly entrapment in the courtyard. In the heat of the following summer Rinieri finds an opportunity to avenge his bitter suf­ fering in the winter, by exposing her naked body to the heat of the sun, the insects, and the embarrassment of the situation. However, the dialogue between both, her

37 Albrecht Classen, "Anger and Anger Management in the Middle Ages: Mental-Historical Perspectives," in: Mediävistik 19 (2006): 21-50, esp. 43-47. Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 145 stuck on the roof of a remote building with the ladder taken down by him, and the scholar below, mocking her, also turns the relationship between both more than bitter because he is deliberately suppressing his human compassion and makes her suffer badly until the evening, disregarding all her entreaties and pleadings, condemning her as a vile and evil creature. He goes so far as to characterize his action not as venge­ ance but as punishment, from which he would never refrain: "'. . . Ma presupposto che io pur magnanimo fossi, non se' tu di quelle in cui la magnanimità debba i suoi effetti mostrare; la fine dell penitenza nella salvatiche fiere come tu se', e similmente della vendetta, vuole essere la morte . . .'" (546; "'. . . But supposing I were magnanimous, you are not the person to whom magnanimity should be shown. The end of penitence and of vengeance with wild beasts like you should be death . . .'," 488). Certainly, the misogyny in this tale, often commented on, is probably the strongest in the entire Decameron, but Rinieri does not necessarily emerge as an ideal character either, first having let her fool him so badly in winter, and then making her suffer so excessively in summer.38 The remarkable aspect for our purpose proves to be the strong role played by weather, and both times the narrative focuses on the extreme conditions of winter versus summer insofar as they have the most effect on changing radically not only the protagonists' character, but also the plot development. In other words, Boccaccio has strongly distanced himself from the utopian nature and idyllic weather setting of the classical Arthurian romance or courtly love poetry and here employs, similarly as Juan de Ruiz in his Libro de buen amor, the cold win­ ter as the catalyst in the life of his wanderer-lover, whereas the hot summer reveals the scholar's mercilessness and cruelty. At the same time, considering our observa­ tions regarding winter scenes in Wolfram's Parzival and Gottfried's Tristan we could actually draw lines of similarities because the appearance of snow there had a deep impact on their respective protagonist and forced the narrative to take a dramatic turn, though not necessarily toward the better or the worse. Rather, the winter setting seems to signal that the time has come to probe the issues at hand deeper, or to challenge the main character in his pursuit of love more painfully, thereby setting the stage for the ultimate catastrophe to come or for the triumph to occur. Our final example must be the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late fourteenth century), though the range of texts from the Middle Ages that contain allu­ sions to or discussions of winter as an important moment in the protagonist's life, could be extended considerably, thoroughly disproving the common assumption that

38 For a warning against this one-sided approach, see Millicent J. Marcus, "Misogyn as Mis­ reading: A Gloss on Decameron VIII, 7," Stanford Italian Review 4 (1984): 23-40; see also Marilyn Migiel, A Rhetoric of the Decameron (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 5, 14, 55, et passim. She encourages further studies on the diffe­ rent treatment of violence against women versus violence against men, 196-97. 146 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 courtly literature regularly and consistently relied on spring or summer as the narra­ tive framework.39 Similarly as Heinrich von dem Türlin's Die Krone, King Arthur's court is assem­ bled at Christmas time, hence the immediate allusion to winter as the central backdrop for the alliterative romance. But at the beginning happiness abounds at every corner, and the weather outside does not seem to have any impact on those frolicking inside. The arrival of the Green Knight breaks up that illusion and forces the members of the Round T able to consider the artificial, almost illusionary situation at court, though the color green reminds everyone, of course, of the promised rebirth and rejuvenation following the cold winter. The true challenge, however, does not begin until Gawain embarks on his journey the following year to meet the Green Knight, and this time he has really to struggle against the freezing temperature, the wild beasts, and the forbidding forest, while the members of the Round T able stay behind, still caught in the septic world of the court (550-61)40 His quest for the Green Knight takes him on a spiritual journey of sorts, entering lonely territory, being without friends, conversing with God and his horse exclusively, meeting people only occasionally, but encountering fierce animals, dragons, and ogres whom he overcomes one by one.41 Yet, the worst enemy quickly proves to be the cold weather in this time of winter, which the poet describes in most impressive terms:

For werre wrathed hym not so much, Þat wynter was wors, When Þe colde, cler water fro Þe cloude3 schadden, And fres er hit falle my3t to Þe fale erÞe. Ner slayn wyth Þe slete, he sleped in his yrnes Mo ny3te3 Þen inoghe, in naked rokke3, (726-30).

39 Two most significant examples would be the Middle High German poets Neidhart (ca. 1220-1240) and Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376/77-1445). Whereas the former created the first specific winter poetry as a platform for his satirical knight lover where most of his en­ deavors to win the hearts (and bodies) of the village girls fail miserably, Oswald reflected in a number of his poems on the miseries of winter while he was stuck on his castle Hauen­ stein in the South-Tyrolean Alps. Siegfried Beyschlag, Die Lieder Neidharts: Der Textbe­ stand der Pergament-Handschriften und die Melodien (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975), 107-351, 439-75. Die Lieder Oswalds von Wolkenstein, ed. Karl Kurt Klein. 3rd rev. and expand. ed. by Hans Moser, Norbert Richard Wolf, and Notburga Wolf. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 55 (1962; Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1987). See songs Kl. 58 and Kl. 104. 40 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Dual-Language Version, ed. and trans. William Van- tuono (New York and London: Garland, 1991). It would be futile to reflect upon the rich body of relevant scholarship; instead it will suffice here to analyze the theme of winter in the larger context of the Bakhtinian "chronotope" and its validity for interpretive criticism. But see, for instance, William F. Wood, "Nature and the Inner Man in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Chaucer Review 36, 3 (2002): 209-27. 41 Bernard S. Levy, "Gawain's Spiritual Journey: Imitatio Christi in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Annuale Mediaevale 6 (1965): 65-106. Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 147

[If the warring was nerve-wracking, that winter was worse, When the cold clear water scattered from the clouds, And froze before it fell on the faded earth. Nearly slain by the sleet, he slept in his armor More knights than enough, among naked rocks.]

Many times Gawain sighs and prays to the Virgin Mary to take him to a human abode, but he proceeds through thick and thin, entering ever more wild forests and swamps, badly suffering from the cold, like the animals around him: "Wyth mony brydde3 vnblyÞe vpon bare twyges, / Þat pitosly Þer piped for pyne of Þe colde" (746­ 47; "With many birds, not blitheful, upon bare twigs, / That piteously piped there in pain from the cold"). Surprisingly, the more miserable the protagonist is suffering, the more the text creates a poetic image of outstanding aesthetic quality, precisely be­ cause of the alienation and near-death experience Gawain is going through. The green color is still not there, but we also learn that he is soon reaching Hautdesert where, unbeknown to him, he encounters the Green Knight, and so also experiences the im­ minent rebirth of life in a symbolic manner. All of his suffering, however, has prepared him well for the quasi-religious expe­ rience of cleansing himself of all sins by confessing them and begging for forgive­ ness. It would be erroneous to identify Hautdesert simply as a religious symbol, but it is certainly the long-desired respite before his ultimate encounter with his opponent, and in a way a replica of King Arthur's court. The feasting, the sexual temptations, the jolliness, and the mirth of the host and his guest along with all other members of the court represent the joys of the religious holiday, the jubilation over the happiness that life can provide, and yet, after Gawain has resisted the lady's temptations for three days, he finally succumbs and accepts her life-saving belt, a stark reminder of the death-threat he is facing, and, if we will, of the symbolic meaning of winter on human life. Equipped with this magical object, he finally dares to face the Green Knight at the Green Chapel, and again the winter scenery proves to have a striking impact on him and the entire setting once again:

Mist muged on Þe mor, malt on Þe mounte3. Vch hille hade a hatte, a myst-hakel huge. Broke3 byled and breke bi bonkke3 aboute, Schyre schaterande on schore3 Þer Þay doun showued. Wela wylle wat3 Þe way Þer Þay bi wod schulden, Til hit wat3 sone sesoun Þat Þe sunne ryses Þat tyde. 2080-86.

[Mist amassed on the moor, melted on the mounts, And each hill had a hat, a huge mantle of mist. Streams surged and erupted along slopes round about, Sheerly splashing on shores where they swiftly swept down. 148 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011

Wild was the way when they went through the woods, Till was soon time for the sun to rise that day.]

The final encounter at the Green Chapel represents the epitome of the narrative development, and both the details of the second encounter with the Green Knight and the way how Gawain survives, then returns home, humbled and yet triumphant, have been discussed many times and do not need to be repeated here.42 We only have to remember that for Gawain it seems like a hellish place, the location of his own mur­ der (2194), yet he survives, and he succeeds ultimately in proving himself as a worthy knight because he has bravely faced even the last and most difficult threat, a threat against his own body against which he was not allowed to defend himself, and this in the midst of winter. Gawain returns home to King Arthur as a changed man, ashamed of his cowardice and covetousness (2508), though everyone at the Round T able laughs about his self­ concept as a trifle matter, not worthy for a man like Gawain to worry about. But Ga- wain has also returned from winter back to early spring, despite the continuation of the cold temperatures, insofar as he has met the Green Knight and has seen his own blood on the snow:

Þe scharp schrank to Þe flesche Þur3 Þe schyre grece, Þat Þe schene blod ouer his schulderes schot to Þe erÞe; And quen Þe burne se3 Þe blode blenk on Þe snawe, He sprit forth spenne-fote more Þen a spere lenÞe" (2313-16)

[The blade bit into the body through the bare flesh, So that shiny blood over his shooulders shot to the earth; And when Gawain glanced at the blood gleaming on the snow, He speedily sprang forth more than a spear's length,]

the color red meeting the color white, exactly as in the case of Parzival in Wolf­ ram's eponymous romance. The spilled blood symbolizes then, as we might say, his sacrifice to the old life which secures him the new one. In this sense, Gawain's experience of winter proves to be highly symbolic, cer­ tainly similar as in all the cases we have discussed above. Facing snow and cold rep­ resents the ultimate human approach to and struggle with death, and yet also the hope for a fundamental change, which surely arrives once the appropriate sacrifice, in the form of suffering, has been granted. This finds an intriguing expression in the medico- theological discourse contained in the contemporary Lumen anime: Sic spiritus sancti gracia in frigore percipitur et in tribulacione varia, non autem in calore et concupis-

42 See, for example, Robert J. Blanch and Julian N. Wasserman, From Pearl to Gawain: Forme to Fynisment (Gainesville, Tallahassee, et al.: University Press of Florida, 1995), 135-47. Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 149 cencia vana uel praua." Accordingly, Pope Celestine is said to have preached: "'Non quidem estus corporis, sed virtus et puritas interioris hominis spiritus sancti suscep- tiua est gracie et dulcoris.'"43 Consequently, to conclude our analysis, we may safely argue that the experience of winter offered medieval writers and poets many different possibilities to explore the symbolism of snow and cold, particularly because of their threat to human life. This result does not come as a surprise, of course, considering that medieval literature was predominantly determined by multiple levels of meaning, each one structured by tropology, allegories, and ultimately anagogy. But it deserves noticing that winter as a most peculiar season in the year can be found in a surprisingly large number of texts throughout the Middle Ages in all languages and genres. It would be impossible to identify winter and snow according to one category only, as the hugely different functionalization of both in Dante's Inferno and in the fabliau and mare demonstrate so powerfully. Snow could serve as a canvas for a spiritual epistemology, or it could create tracks that reveal the protagonist's secret. And we also know of courtly poems in which the joys of winter find good expression (Neidhart). Nevertheless, winter was mostly regarded with dislike, especially when a protagonist is exposed to its ferocious forces outside of the court. The Christmas season, however, also provided much joy and happiness. We would go beyond the range of possible meanings of winter saying that it con­ stituted a central icon of the medieval world. Likewise, however, it now proves to be incorrect to claim that the medieval chronotope did not know of winter and ignored it entirely in favor of spring and summer, the characteristic seasons of courtly love. The vast corpus of medieval spring poems would have lost much of their intensity and de­ light if the past experience of winter had not been incorporated. But winter, ice, snow, and cold weather as concrete narrative elements found, as I have demonstrated, a rich response because they served surprisingly well to structure the respective literary ac­ counts and provided symbolic imagery for the themes of personal fear, life threaten­ ing experiences, challenges, mockery, and the need to go on a quest for spiritual re­ newal. Winter could also provide the framework for didactic approaches to illustrate the woes of old age when the younger generation disregards the older, making them suffer from the cold without providing sufficient clothing, as in the Middle High German verse narrative "Die halbe Decke" by Heinrich Kaufringer (ca. 1400).44 In fact, the more we explore the rich repertoire of medieval literature, the more dimen­

43 The Light of the Soul, § 349, 292. 44 Heinrich Kaufringer, Werke, ed. Paul Sappler. Vol. 1: Texte (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1972), No. 21, 224-27; Marga Stede, Schreiben in der Krise: Die Texte des Heinrich Kaufringer. Literatur - Imagination - Realität. Anglistische, germanistische, romanistische Studien, 5 (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1993); for the topic of old age, see Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 2 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2007), 65, 205, 244-47. 150 Mediaevistik 24 ■ 2011 sions related to winter come to light, as the famous poet Walther von der Vogelweide (ca. 1190-ca. 1220) illustrates with his reflective, nostalgic poem "Diu welt was gelf, rot unde bla" (The World was Yellow, Red, and Blue), where he laments the passing of the warm season and the deadly force of winter: "der ougenweide ist da niht me. / da wir schapel brachen e, / da lit nu rif unde sne" (75, 35-37; there is no more joys for the eyes. Where we once picked flowers for wreaths, there now lies ice and snow).45 In fact, the theme of winter emerges as a remarkable aspect in a wide variety of ro­ mances, short verse narratives, and lyrical poems and obviously served a considerable epistemological function, challenging and changing the heroes of medieval romances, and transforming their external existence to which they have, by default, to adapt in order to survive.46

45 Walther von der Vogelweide, Leich, Lieder, Sangsprüche. 14., völlig neubearbeitete Auf­ lage der Ausgabe Karl Lachmanns, ed. Christoph Cormeau (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1996), 169. 46 Hence it might be rather questionable how Bakhtin, in Pam Morris's words, defines the epic: "the epic world inhabits a timeless past. In the epic, the hero cannot change; the mea­ ning of his character and life are fixed and unquestionable" (The Bakhtin Reader, 180). For him, the "adventure novel of everyday life," under which the medieval romance can be grouped as well, "unites adventure time with everyday temporality; central to it is the theme of metamorphosis or transformation. . . . This chronotope structures time around moments of biographical crisis which show how an individual becomes other than what he was. However, because the hero's relation to his spatial world remains fortuitous and external, change is confined within his individual life, unrelated to any sense of historical time." (181) MEDIAEVISTIK Internationale Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung

begründet von Prof. Dr. Peter Dinzelbacher herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Albrecht Classen

STYLE SHEET

Die Zitierweise ist, insoweit sie üblichen wissenschaftlichen Gepflogenheiten folgt, Sache des Autors. Das Erscheinungsjahr einer Zeitschrift z.B. kann also sowohl in Klammern gesetzt werden als auch zwischen Kommata, etc. Zitate stehen zwischen doppelten Anführungsstrichen (" "). Sie sind nicht in kleinerem Schriftgrad zu setzen! Majuskeln werden bei bibliographischen Angaben nicht verwendet. Leerzeilen stehen nicht vor jedem Absatz, sondern nur bei Beginn eines neuen Sinnabschnittes. Absätze beginnen mit Einzug. Anmerkungen erscheinen als Fußnoten; auf sie wird durch Hochzahlen verwiesen. Bei unklarer oder ungewöhnlicher Zitierweise bitte sich an untenstehenden Beispielen zu orientieren. Bitte bei bibliographischen Angaben grundsätzlich keine Abkürzungen verwenden oder diese j edenfalls bei der ersten Verwendung vollständig aufschlüsseln! Z.B.: LexMA = Lexikon des Mittelalters, München, Zürich 1977ff.

Provided the author keeps to international norms she/he can use any principle adapted in quotations according to her/his preference. So the year of publication can either be put in brackets or between commas, etc. Quotations must be placed between double inverted commas (" "). They are not to be set in a smaller type size. Capital lettering is not to be used in bibliographical information. White lines are used only before paragraphs dealing with a new subject, not between different paragraphs generally. New paragraphs are indented. Annotations will be positioned as footnotes; they will be marked in the text by superscript numbers. For unusual or difficult quotations please follow examples below. Please do not use any abbreviations at all within bibliographical information, or at least give full information at first mention, e.g.: LexMA - Lexikon des Mittelalters, München, Zürich 1977ff

QUELLEN / SOURCES Saga Heidreks Konungs ins Vitra 6, ed. Chr. Tolkien, London 1960, 25. Gertrud von Helfta, Legatus divinae pietatis 5, 25, 1, ed. J.-M. Clément u.a., Sources Chrétiennes 331, Paris 1986, 206. Hermann von Sachsenheim, Die Mörin 4560-4617, hg. v. H.D. Schlosser (Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelalters, Neue Folge 3), Wiesbaden 1974, 197-199.

SEKUNDÄRLITERATUR / SECONDARY SOURCES Henri Focillon, L'art des sculpteurs romans, Paris 31982. Mario Sanfilippo, Archeologia, Medioevo e manualistica, Quaderni medievali 23, 1987, 241-248. Francis Rapp, Zur Spiritualität in elsässischen Frauenklöstern am Ende des Mittelalters, in: Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, hg. v. P. Dinzelbacher, D. Bauer, Ostfildern 1985, 347-365.