Volume 18, Issue 2 - Utopie im Mittelalter. Begriff - Formen - Funktionen. Hrsg. von Heiko Hartmann und Werner Röcke

Roman culture apparently did not produce utopian literature in the strict sense. Even in the political and moral crisis of the period of civil wars, authors like Livy primarily focused on the Roman past to redress the catastrophic present. But around 40 B. C. Vergil and Horace can be seen adapting Greek utopian motifs to reflect upon the plight of the Roman people and their imminent future. Whereas Horace seems to look for a imaginative “Isle of the Blessed” in sharp contrast to actual Roman politics, Vergil innovatively sketches a renewed Golden Age to take place precisely in Italy. But unlike Greek utopian writers he does not claim to offer a structural alternative to the present state of affairs. In the ‘Aeneid’, Augustus is said to bring back an implicitly utopian reign of justice and peace. This is not a simple piece of propaganda, but a sophisticated yardstick to assess the new political system that came to life by brute force and uncanny mastery of Roman politics.

Utopian traditions in Islam are connected with the idea of a messianic figure, the Mahdî. There is no hint on the Mahdî in the Quran, but descriptions of paradise have an imprint on a Muslim utopia under the rule of the Mahdî. Mahdist propaganda was an important impetus of the Abbaside revolution against Omayyade rule in the young Muslim empire. Abbaside activists using Shiite Mahdist tradition were successful against the Omayyades. Consequently they continued with Mahdist propaganda using regnal titles with Mahdist aspects until Hârûn al-Rashîd. With the coincidence of the Muslim year 200 and the internal strife between the caliphs al-Amîn and al-Ma’mûn, the sons of Hârûn al-Rashîd, there rose another idea of the advent of the Mahdî, especially among Shiite populace of Mesopotamia, in combination with apocalyptic expectations. Zusammenfassung Islamische Heilserwartungsvorstellungen und damit verbundene, konkrete, diesseitige utopistische Erwartungen lassen sich erst im Kontext der Prophetentraditionen, die im 9. Jahrhundert kanonisiert wurden, feststellen. Dabei ergeben sich immer wieder Gemeinsamkeiten mit apokalyptischen Erwartungshaltungen. Sie werden vor allem von den verschiedenen schiitischen Konfessionen lebhaft aufgenommen, wirken aber auch im sunnitischen Kontext, wenn politische oder ökonomische Katastrophen die Bevölkerung besonders belasten. Es bleibt die Aufgabe, in den islamischen Traditionen vorhandene utopische Überlieferungen zu sammeln und in einem entsprechenden politischen Kontext zu interpretieren.

Neither is beauty an aesthetic category only nor is the appreciation of nature solely a secular concept. Just as ugliness is often associated with the devil, in the Middle Ages natural beauty can stand in for paradise and paradise shaped an utopian relation towards nature in reverse. Long before Petrarch’s famous description of his mountain climbing, Augustine had recommended praising God by enjoying nature’s pleasures. Beauty here points to utopia, freed from earthly pain, and so God’s people are called upon to write the book of nature. The 9 th century architect of the lofty palace on Monte Naranco near Oviedo, the crusader Gui de Bazoches in his travelling notes, or the German humanist Paulus Niavis in ‘Iudicium Iovis’, a cornerstone of theological ecology - they all worked towards a kingdom of God in the midst of them, a heaven on earth, all convinced that paradise would be as beautiful as where they were. It was in this frame that an utopian beauty of landscape was reflected long before modernity reportedly ‘invented’ this attitude.

The analysis in comparison with contemporary literature, especially with Albertis ‘De re aedificatoria’, proves that Filarete’s treatise, as it was conceived, was apt to be a reasonable guide for Francesco Sforza’s policy of renewal of Milan in the pragmatic spirit of the Renaissance. Though it is often regarded as highly fantastic, the unreal contemporary city of Sforzinda reflects the conditions in Milan at the time, only idealized in the way that was common in eulogies of cities. The description of the unreal ancient city of Plusiapolis instead contains unrealistic utopian traits: Filarete presents a new type of criminal punishment replacing the death penalty by a workhouse, and a new education system in which the elementary school, craft apprenticeship and university merge into a unique institution. The idea of the workhouse would later prove to be feasible, but it also returns in Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’. Filarete’s new proposals were not based on ideal models of philosophers. The concept of the workhouse seems to be related to Francesco Sforza’s reform of social welfare for the needy and is based on the historical accounts of Diodorus Siculus. The concept of comprehensive schooling is modelled to some extent on the gymnasium of Vitorino da Feltre.

Against the background of the concept of utopia which Thomas More relates to the term ‘Utopia’, the meaning of utopian thinking in the Middle Ages is examined. On the one hand this is achieved by the comparison of the relevant philosophical and historical assessments from the perspective of medieval studies and others. On the other hand utopian thinking is dealt with in regard to Christine de Pizan’s ‘Livre de la Cité des Dames’. Insofar the concept of utopia as emphasized by Thomas More functions methodically as an example for utopian thinking by which it is appraised in how far medieval thinking in general and the thinking of the mentioned author in particular can be referred to as utopian thinking. As a result the question arises if utopian thinking in the Middle Ages is actually of functional nature; moreover the difference of utopian thinking of Christine de Pizan and Thomas More concerns the difference between the understanding of reason as a human possibility and of reason in general.

The article discusses some opportunities and challenges of medieval utopian studies, taking the late 13 th century ‘Alexander’ appendix by Ulrich von Etzenbach as its main example, but also commenting on other heterotopic or utopian passages in the medieval German Alexander tradition (Gymnosophists, Flower Maidens, and the Earthly Paradise) as well in Gottfried von Straßburg’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’. The centrepiece of the article is a reading of the ‘Alexander’ appendix, which designs a free republic of scholars and black magicians that bears certain utopian features: Elements of an ‘other’ system of government are combined with elements of an ‘other’ system of education, creating a chimera of an urban ordering of society that has at its disposal means to pull itself away, to be utopian and to exist freely in collective selfdetermination and self-rule. The article closes with a number of conclusions regarding the methodology of medieval utopian studies, which would especially benefit from including narratological methods.

This article investigates utopian elements in accounts of journeys to the East that circulated in the German-speaking areas in the fourteenth century. The travelogues studied are German translations of the reports of Odoric of Pordenone, Marco Polo and John Mandeville. The paper begins by elaborating on a notion of utopia that can serve as a genre-specific analytical tool for tracing characteristics of early modern utopias in medieval travel literature. At the centre of this notion lies a social structure which significantly differs from the social structure known to the western traveller. Further characteristics complement this concept, particularly those concerning the literary form employed in these descriptions of utopian societies. The second part of this article will specifically examine the social conditions in the utopian societies presented in the travelogues studied. In addition it will deal with the aesthetic strategies employed by the texts to create specific places, in which kingdoms and other communities with utopian traits are situated in medieval travel literature.

The “desire for rooms” (“Wunschräume”) and the “desire for times” (“Wunschzeiten”) of medieval times are part of the divine order. They are not planned or created by humans, but are always already there and emphasize the miracles of god’s creation. During the 16th century, a double paradigm change takes place in this regard. On the one hand, utopias are now thought of as planned and created by humans. On the other side, this is accompanied by a critical reflection about the possibilities of their practical feasibility. This scepticism towards the future viability of utopian societal ideas finds very different expressions in 16th century literature. In this paper the ‘Lalebuch’ (1597) is discussed as a form of parodistic-comical inversion of Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ that follows the rules of the ideal state and thereby ridicules it; and the island period in Jörg Wickram’s ‘Roman von guten und bösen Nachbarn’ as alternative draft to an early form of civil work ethic that proves oneself in assiduity and zeal, not in the regalement of paradisiacal insouciance.

Under the influence of Ernst Bloch and Karl Mannheim it is often considered as a matter of course that Thomas Müntzer’s political thinking is part of the utopian tradition since Plato und Thomes More. This assignment is characterized by regarding Chiliasm as Utopia and Utopia as a departure to revolution. But where are the proofs for these identifications? The author compares in his essay the political writings of Thomas Müntzer during the peasant revolt in Germany in the 16th century with Thomas Mores ‘Utopia’, published 1516, in order to solve this problem. His investigation comes to the conclusion that the difference between both approaches is so serious that an identification between Chiliasm (Müntzer) and Utopia (Morus) cannot be justified