1. Is the so-called "Praefatio" with the "Versus" to be taken as referring to our Heliand and to be used as a reliable source of information, especially in regard to the personality of the author and to the connection of Louis the Pious with his work? As this problem has been treated by me at length in a contribution to the Journal of English and Germanic Philology (April and July, 1922), there is no need here to resume the question, since my answer, after renewed investigation, remains the same, namely, a decided "No," in spite of all objections. This negative answer is based primarily on the discrepancy between the real Heliand and its characterization in the "Praefatio." 5 5 Praefatio in Librum Antiquum Lingua Saxonica Conscriptum: Praecepit (Ludouuicus piissimus Augustus) namque cuidam viro de gente Saxonum, qui apud suos non ignobilis vates habebatur ut vetus ac novum Testamentum in Germanicam linguam poetice transferre studeret, quatenus non solum literatis, verum etiam illiteratis, sacra divinorum praeceptorum lectio panderetur. Qui iussis Imperialibus libenter obtemperans nimirum eo facilius, quo desuper admonitus est prius, ad tam difficile tanque arduum se statim contulit opus, potius tamen confidens de adiutorio obtemperantiae, quam de suae ingenio parvitatis. Igitur a mundi creatione initium capiens, iuxta historiae veritatem queque excellentiora summatim decerpens, interdum quaedam ubi commodum duxit, mystico sensu depingens, ad finem totius veteris ac novi Testamenti interpretando more poetico satis faceta eloquentia perduxit. Quod opus tam lucide tamque eleganter iuxta idioma illius linguae composuit, ut audientibus ac intelligentibus non minimam sui decoris dulcedinem praestet. Iuxta morem vero illius poëmatis omne opus per vitteas distinxit, quae nos lectiones vel sententias possumus apellare. Ferunt eundem Vatem dum adhuc artis huius penitus esset ignarus, in somnis esse admonitum, ut Sacrae legis praecepta ad cantilenam propriae linguae congrua modulatione coaptaret. Quam admonitionem nemo veram esse ambigit, qui huius carminis notitiam studiumque eius compositoris atque desiderii anhelationem habuerit. Tanta namque copia verborum, tantaque excellentia sensuum resplendet, ut cuncta Theudisca poëmata suo vincat decore. Clare quidem pronunciatione, sed clarius intellectu lucet. Sic nimirum omnis divina agit scriptura, ut quanto quis eam ardentius appetat, tanto magis cor inquirentis quadam dulcedinis suavitate demulceat. Ut uero studiosi lectoris intentio facilius quaeque ut gesta sunt possit invenire, singulis sententiis, iuxta quod ratio huius operis postularat, capitula annotata sunt. Versus de poeta et interprete huius codicis. 1 Fortunam studiumque viri laetosque labores, carmine privatam delectat promere vitam 2. Was the author of the Heliand a layman, that is, a scop, professional singer, as the “ Praefatio" states, or an illiterate peasant, as the "Versus" tell us, or a learned clergyman? 3. Is the Heliand to be characterized as an epic and its hero as a German king? 4. Where is the home of the poet and that of his addressees to be located? One reason why, in regard to this last problem, no noticeable progress has been made, lies in the fact that there rarely has been made a sufficiently clear distinction between the two homes, namely, that of the poet, that is, the monastery where he composed qui dudum impresso terram vertebat aratro, securus latam scindebat vomere terram 15 Spemque suam in modico totam statuebat agello. o quid agis Vates, cur cantus tempora perdis ? 25 incipe divinas recitare ex ordine leges, transferre in propriam clarissima dogmata linguam." qui prius agricola, mox et fuit ille poeta: the Heliand, and that of his addressees, that is, of the people for whom he wrote. In the above-named contribution to the Journal of English and Germanic Philology the whole discussion has been based upon this distinction, and an attempt was made to locate the home of the addressees in the lowlands along the coast of the North Sea, including Nordalbingia and possibly Denmark. The result has been obtained without entering the long and lively conflict of the Germanists on the linguistic problem of localization of the dialect used in the MSS.," purely on the basis of the internal evidences in the Heliand. This most difficult problem will be taken up in § V of the October installment, and appproached from still another point of view, the historical. Because of these open questions a statement concerning what we really know about the Heliand and what is generally agreed upon, must naturally be very meagre. All we can say is: The Heliand is a composition of about 6000 alliterative verses, written by an Old Saxon devout Christian, in all probability between the years 825 and 840, with the purpose of relating the story of Christ's birth, life, death and resurrection, as well as his teachings, in a manner adapted to the understanding and needs of recently converted Low Germans, in order to endear to them the divine Savior and His Church. It cannot be denied that there are some facts connected with the Heliand which render its study exceedingly difficult for any scholar who attempts it. 1. While Otfrid's Krist has been handed down to posterity by the author's own two manuscripts, P and V, corrected by himself in a most careful manner peculiar to him, there is extant of the Heliand neither the original manuscript nor even, as the philologists assert, any direct copy from the original text. The two manuscripts, fortunately saved, now in München and London, are second copies, and the two others, in Rome and Prague, are only very short fragments. Thus fact alone shows the almost insurmountable obstacles in the way of defining the "Home of the Heliand" by purely linguistic A rather bewildering list of "Homes," each of them sponsored by one or several prominent Germanists, is included in the contribution to The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, April-July, 1922. methods. And if we add to that the other fact that all those manuscripts may have been copied by men who did not understand the dialect of the original, or in monasteries where the immediate inhabitants of the surrounding country used a dialect different from that spoken by the monks-as doubtless happened in many places or from that used in the copy, one cannot help but wonder how any scholar could believe that, by discovering a territory where the dialect of one of the four MSS. was used by the natives, the "Home of the Heliand was found. A second handicap is presented by the fact that the Heliand is the only literary monument preserved for posterity in the Old Saxon dialect. While the student of the Krist can find other works written in the same dialect of the Old High German language, or in very similar dialects, and is thereby enabled to compare and to solve many problems by drawing on contemporaneous literature, the Heliand student is confined to this one work in Old Saxon. To make the solution of the Heliand problems still more difficult, there is not, and probably never will be, any direct testimony or outside evidence, nor even any allusion in the Heliand itself, in regard to the author's personality, name, home or except for the unreliable 'Praefatio "--time, as we are fortunate enough to have abundantly for Otfrid and his Krist. 2. In addition to the obstacles arising from the actual state of matters, there seem to exist psychological or subjective impediments in connection with the peculiar character of the Heliand, involving, among others, problems of philology and theology, philosophy and history. The first and most pernicious is the lack of a spirit of coöperation among the scholars who are, or ought to be, interested in the Heliand, namely: those historians whose special field is the medieval epoch of Western Europe; those theologians who specialize in Church history, development of the dogma, progress of Christian culture and literature, particularly of religious poetry; those students of law who are concerned with the history of ecclesiastical laws and customs; those philosophers and psychologists who are interested in the nationalization and popularization of religion; even sociologists who study the unfolding of social ideas in the literatures of different nations, as was done for German literature by Kuno Francke in his instructive book, Social Forces in German Literature. To all of them the Heliand offers splendid and various opportunities for fruitful investigations. But how many, or rather, how few of those scholars have thought the Heliand worthy of an exhaustive study? And where is to be found a real coöperation with the literary investigators on the part of the historians or theologians? To be sure, several prominent members of the two latter classes did show interest in the Heliand, but it was more or less sporadic. In view of the unsolved problems which ought to be felt as so many challenges to scholars in whose fields they lie there should be made unceasing attempts to combine all the forces available for the attack on these problems, until all of them, or at least some of them, are solved. Instead of this effective coöperation, we see the scholars satisfied with half-hearted single attempts, too weak to surmount the material obstacles, too detached to secure the desired results. And even when individual historians or theologians have taken up the challenge, there were apparent psychological impediments which made their attempts rather ineffective. Theologians, for example, allowed themselves to be influenced by denominational bias. An illustration we find in the endeavors of Dr. J. R. Köne, a Münsterländer (Westfalian) historian and Catholic schoolman, who, in his voluminous edition (612 pp.) of the Heliand "mit nebenstehender Übersetzung, nebst Anmerkungen und einem Wortverzeichnisse " of the year 1855, not only repeats again and again: "this proves that the author must have been a Münsterländer,” but also treats the words of the Heliand as though they were divinely inspired and written to corroborate the Catholic viewpoint about Christ and His church. And his antipode, Vilmar, the Lutheran author of an immensely popular Geschichte der deutschen Nationalliteratur (27th edition, Marburg, 1911) and of Deutsche Altertümer in Heliand (Marburg, 1845), betrays the strong influence of his Protestant and Hessian-German principles and conceptions undeniably in his otherwise very valuable and inspiring contributions to the study. Similar denominational influences are noticeable in Rettberg's "Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands," Ebrard's "Die Iroschottische Missionskirche," in general, and more particularly in Dr. Karl Schulze's "Die Parabeln Jesu im Krist und Heliand " (School Program, Lippstadt, 1881; pp. 23-26) and Dr. F. Grünhagen's "Otfrid und Heliand" (Dissertation, Breslau, 1855, cf. pp. 9 and 11), who endeavor to prove the Protestant character of the Heliand and seem to view its author almost as a forerunner of Luther (cf. Rettberg, I 251). |