Volume 137, Issue 3

This article offers an analysis of the punctuation theory of Jakob Brücker, published in his ›Teutsche Grammatic‹ (1620). It is shown that this is the first German theory which adds semantic and syntactic conditions to the theory of the period developed within the framework of classical rhetoric. It is likely that Brücker’s approach is, directly or indirectly, indebted to the theory of Aldus Manutius, the Younger (1566). Furthermore, this article deals with the question to what extent Brücker’s theory influenced later approaches (by Gueintz, Harsdörffer, Schottel, Bödiker).

During the millenium of medieval Christian culture the pagan mythology of Ovide’s ›Metamorphoses‹ was a matter of permanent controversy. It was not before the 14 th century that a broader consensus was established about the value and merits of this Ovidian work in diverse fields of society. By now his epic poem was adapted in different literary genres, languages and media. This article analyzes the theoretical legitimization and practical use of the pagan myth in this period within a larger concept of pagan-christian acculturation (especially in Dante’s ›Commedia‹, Bersuire’s ›Ovidius moralizatus‹, Boccaccio’s ›Genealogia deorum gentilium‹).

At the beginning of the 14 th century, religious poverty constituted a central topic of theological controversy. Endorsed as a practical ideal especially by the Franciscan order it soon fostered a conflict with the papacy that revealed severe contradictions in such concepts of external poverty. This article argues that the Dominican Meister Eckhart surpassed these problems by construing poverty as an intellectual and hence internal posture. Such a notion of spiritual poverty leads to the idea of a ›life without a why‹ which abandons even the striving for god and thus transgresses the practice of religion itself: following that concept, it becomes impossible to use oneʼs actions to reach religious perfection.

The courtly culture of the Middle Ages integrates Christian values into the ethics of a feudal warrior society. It establishes a hierarchy of norms of behaviour with caritas in the top. Courtly love challenges this harmonious order: On the one hand it is the highest ideal for a courtly knight ennobling him in the service of his lady and discipling his sexual desire, on the other hand it is still dangerous passion, out of the institution of marriage and threatened by corruption and death. The ›Herzmaere‹ of Konrad von Würzburg stresses these contradictory tendencies in a story of an ideal love the symbolic consummation of which is approached to the eucharist and simultaneously denounced it as an act of anthrophagy leading to death. Love even if proved inferior to the Christian order is at the same time affirmed as summum bonum in the courtly world. Die folgenden vier Beiträge gehen auf Vorträge zurück, die anlässlich eines von Andreas Kablitz und Jan-Dirk Müller in Wien am IFK veranstalteten Interdisziplinären Kolloquiums mit dem Titel »Wie christlich ist das Mittelalter?« (vom 02.–04.4.2014) gehalten wurden.

The following paper argues for a revision of the notion of ›edification‹ in the Middle Ages. By comparing exemplary texts (including the ›Exercitia spiritualia‹, which are attributed to Gertrude the Great), it shows the ramifications, tensions and textual productivity in the medieval usage of the term ›edification‹ and in its implementation. In addition to the subsequent essay by Burkhard Hasebrink, this paper attempts to describe the different, yet similarly contradictory claims of ›edification‹ in the tension between (self)disciplining and transgression.