Читать книгу Die dänischen Eufemiaviser und die Rezeption höfischer Kultur im spätmittelalterlichen Dänemark – The Eufemiaviser and the Reception of Courtly Culture in Late Medieval Denmark - Группа авторов - Страница 23

Although the empirical focus of this study is on the Danish material, the topic requires a Scandinavian context since the textual cultures of each respective language area are connected in different ways. For the whole of the fifteenth century, Scandinavia was a political union; there were strong internal tensions, especially between Denmark and Sweden, but there was still a continuous interaction between its different parts. The languages were so close that translation of texts probably was not called for in many cases. An example of this inter-Scandinavian readership could be brought in from the early modern era, when Danish printed books seem to have been commonly read in Sweden (Richter 2009: 19–21). Still, ʻtranslationsʼ were carried out during the Middle Ages of texts from different parts of Scandinavia, even if the linguistic shifts between the source text and target text can be so small that it challenges the concept of translation.1

Denmark and Sweden share an important part of their history of romance literature through the three Swedish chivalric verse translations from the early fourteenth century, the EufemiavisorEufemiavisor (schwed.). The Eufemiavisor were probably commissioned by the Norwegian Queen EufemiaEufemia, Königin von Norwegen (d. 1312) for her daughter Ingeborg and her future son-in-law, the Swedish Prince and Duke Erik Magnusson. Later, perhaps in the fifteenth century, they were translated into Danish.2

The EufemiavisorEufemiavisor (schwed.) consist of, first, Herr IvanIvan lejonriddaren (schwed.) (ʻLord Ivanʼ), a verse translation of Chrétien’s de Troyes YvainYvain ou le Chevalier au lion ou le Chevalier au lion, which also made use of the West Nordic translation Ívens sagaÍvens saga as a source; second, Hertig FredrikHertig Fredrik af Normandie (schwed.) av Normandie (ʻDuke Fredrik of Normandyʼ), which describes itself as a translation of a German translation of a French original, of which there are no traces; and finally, FloresFlores og Blanseflor (dän.) och BlanzeflorFlores och Blanzeflor (schwed.), a translation that probably made use of a Norwegian translation of a Floire et BlanchefleurFloire et Blanchefleur text.3 According to the colophons, they were translated in 1303, 1308 and, most likely, 1311/1312, respectively (Degnbol 2014: 87). Unlike the West Nordic prose translations, the Eufemiavisor were written in knittel verse, an end-rhymed metre that was popular on the continent and remained dominant in Swedish secular narratives into the early modern era.

These three texts form the core of Swedish romance literature and influenced other works outside the romance genre, e.g. the Swedish royal chronicle ErikskrönikanErikskrönikan (the ʻEric Chronicleʼ) believed to be from the second quarter of the fourteenth century (Ferrari 2008: 55). There were no other romances translated in this early phase, but there are other works related to courtly culture that seem to stem from this period, such as the satire Herr abboten (ʻThe Lord Abbottʼ), the King’s mirror Um styrilse konunga ok höfdinga (ʻOn the Rule of Kings and Chieftainsʼ), and also the Old Swedish Pentateuch translation (known from the edition Medeltidens bibelarbeten 1, ʻMedieval Bible Works 1ʼ).4 From the last part of the fourteenth century stems a verse translation of the Alexander matter in Historia de Preliis, called Konung AlexanderKonung Alexander (ʻKing Alexanderʼ), which was partly adapted to the format of courtly literature (Bampi 2015). Later in the fifteenth century, some new texts appear to which we shall return after examining the romance manuscripts.

The manuscript evidence of the Old Swedish EufemiavisorEufemiavisor (schwed.) romances is limited. From the fourteenth century, only a fragment of a manuscript containing FloresFlores og Blanseflor (dän.) och BlanzeflorFlores och Blanzeflor (schwed.) is preserved. In addition, an inventory from the royal castle of Bohus, in modern western Sweden, mentions one book with Herr IvanIvan lejonriddaren (schwed.) and another with Hertig FredrikHertig Fredrik af Normandie (schwed.); however, there are no other traces of these manuscripts.5

Manuscript	SDHKnr 5311b	R III	D 4	D 4a	D3	AM 191	E 9013	K 45	D 2
Time of MS productiona	b. 1346	c. 1350	1410–1430	c. 1448	1488	1492	c. 1500	c. 1500	–1523c

Table 1: Old Swedish medieval manuscripts containing the Eufemiavisor romances.6 a: The approximate dates are suggestions, while the exact years are dates from the respective manuscripts; b: SDHKnr 5311 is not a manuscript but a charter containing a list of books that were kept at the royal castle of Bohus in modern western Sweden, which mentioned two of the Eufemiavisor romances, see footnote 13; c: The first text in the manuscript was written in 1470–1480. The other parts are from the first decades of the sixteenth century, with one text dated to 1523.

As can be seen in Table 1, there is a growing number of preserved manuscripts containing romance texts in the final decades of the Middle Ages. Although such an increase in numbers cannot be taken as proof of a growing interest – the actual number of manuscripts is low and older manuscripts have probably been lost to a greater extent than later ones – the material does at least avoid giving the impression there was vanishing interest in this literary category at the end of the fifteenth century. There are also other indications of an interest in secular narratives at large during the century through the translation of new texts into Swedish from both the continental and other Scandinavian languages. These fifteenth-century texts were, for instance, Namnlös och ValentinNamnlös och Valentin (‘Nameless and Valentin’ of the Valentin et Orson tradition), Riddar Paris och jungfru ViennaRiddar Paris och jungfru Vienna (‘Knight Paris and Virgin Vienna’ of the Paris et Vienne tradition) and Sju vise mästareSju vise mästare (schwed.) (‘The seven sages’ of the Septem sapientesSeptem sapientes tradition). All three are translations of German sources and examples of late medieval narratives that were widely popular in Europe.7 Also, the West Nordic Karlamagnús sagaKarlamagnús saga (‘The Saga of Charlemagneʼ) and Þiðreks saga af BernÞiðreks saga af Bern (‘The Saga of Theoderic of Bernʼ) were translated into Swedish, which add to the impression of an interest in narrative texts in the vernacular. There seems thus to be a firm interest in secular narratives in the vernacular in late medieval Sweden, and the EufemiavisorEufemiavisor (schwed.) romances from the beginning of the fourteenth century were part of that interest.

The social provenance of the manuscripts is uncertain in most cases, but in some cases there is information concerning owners and scribes. When it comes to ownership, the information we have points in the direction of the aristocracy (including the royal family).8 All three EufemiavisorEufemiavisor (schwed.) are assumed to have been prepared for Princess Ingeborg and Duke Erik (Degnbol 2014: 87–88), and the inventory in the charter from 1346 places manuscripts of two of the texts in the royal family, although one is noted to have been given to the Justiciar Erling Vidkunsson of Norway (see footnote 13). Of the fifteenth-century manuscripts, two, namely D 4Codex Holmiensis D 4 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket)aCodex Holmiensis D 4a (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, Codex Verelianus / Fru Märetas bok) and D 3, were produced for and owned by a mother and her daughter in the high nobility within the landowning aristocracy (Backman 2017: 27–32). These examples clearly show that this kind of literature was part of an aristocratic reading culture. In two cases we know that the manuscripts were produced by scribes connected to different religious institutions, and it is possible that they could have been meant to be used within these institutions. This pertains to MS AM 191 fol.AM 191 fol. (Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, Kopenhagen), which was written and owned by the chaplain of Askaby Cistercian nunnery, and MS D 2, which was written by the scribe of a bishop in Linköping in central Sweden.9 In the case of AM 191, some redactional choices seem to be have been motivated by considerations regarding a female audience, which could be explained with an intention to use the manuscript at the Cistercian convent where the chaplain was active (Bampi 2017). The connection to the nobility is, however, still relevant in this case, as the sisters were in all probability of aristocratic lineage. The remaining manuscripts – the fragment R III, and MSS D 4, E 9013Ms. E 9013 (Stockholm, Riksarkivet) and K 4Codex Holmiensis K 4 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket)5 – carry no clear or explicit information on ownership.

What we see in Sweden is thus a sudden outburst of romance and other texts connected to the courtly culture in the beginning of the fourteenth century. These were likely inspired partly by the Norwegian literary culture and partly by the continental, probably German, one. In the fifteenth century, the EufemiavisorEufemiavisor (schwed.) continued to attract interest, as we find them in manuscripts, and there was moreover a production of new texts. These new texts did not resemble the old Eufemiavisor as they were written in prose and also departed from the traditional romance material. The manuscripts show that the texts circulated among the aristocracy and that some of them were possibly read within religious institutions.

If we turn to Denmark, the history is even more difficult to grasp, as the preserved texts and manuscripts are late and even rarer than in Sweden. There are no known courtly literary texts in Old Danish from the fourteenth century, although we might assume the existence of ballads and other orally transmitted texts, perhaps already in the thirteenth century (Dahlerup 1998: 151–154). Only two manuscripts with romances are preserved from the fifteenth century, namely Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, K 4Codex Holmiensis K 4 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket) from the latter half of the fifteenth century and Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, K 47Codex Holmiensis K 47 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket) from around 1500.10 There might well have been a larger number of texts and manuscripts, also of greater age, that were lost in the 1728 Copenhagen fire, but it is also possible that a vernacular literary culture in Danish did not emerge before the fifteenth century.11

Old Danish chivalric texts	Pages in MS K 47	Old Swedish source texts
Ivan løveridder	222		Herr Ivan
Hertug Frederik af Normandi	83		Hertig Fredrik av Normandie
Dværgekongen Laurin	32		–
Persenober og Konstantianobis	54		–
Den kyske dronning	23		–
Flores og Blanseflor	74		Flores och Blanzeflor

Table 2: Romances in Danish medieval manuscripts in the order they appear in MS Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, K 4Codex Holmiensis K 4 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket)7Codex Holmiensis K 47 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket).

A complete library of all known Danish medieval chivalric texts can be found in MS K 4Codex Holmiensis K 4 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket)7Codex Holmiensis K 47 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket), and its contents are shown in Table 2. It includes translations of the three Old Swedish EufemiavisorEufemiavisor (schwed.) and the three chivalric tales only known in Danish: Den kyske dronningDen kyske dronning (ʻThe Chaste Queenʼ), Dværgekongen LaurinDværgekongen Laurin (ʻThe Dwarf King Laurinʼ, built upon sources about Didrik of Bern) and Persenober og KonstantianobisPersenober oc Constantianobis (ʻPersenober and Konstantianobisʼ of the Partonopeus de Blois tradition). Den kyske dronning has been suggested as a possible original work in Danish that relied on themes that were used in other texts.12 K 47 is thought to stem from around 1500.13

Slightly older is the manuscript MS K 4Codex Holmiensis K 4 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket), dated from around 1480, which contains Ivan løveridderIvan løveridder (dän.), the Danish translation of Herr IvanIvan lejonriddaren (schwed.), together with other works of piety, among them a large number of legendary texts (Layer 2015: 278; Bullitta 2017: 5–8).

According to information in the texts themselves, Den kyske dronningDen kyske dronning was created in 1483 by an otherwise unknown Jep Jensen, and Persenober og KonstantianobisPersenober oc Constantianobis was written in 1484.14 The third of the Danish romances, Dværgekongen LaurinDværgekongen Laurin, carries no similar dating, and, as already mentioned, there is no information about the translation of the three EufemiavisorEufemiavisor (schwed.).15

The social provenance of the two manuscripts can only be hypothesised, but there are some interesting details that indicate female audiences in both cases. Bullitta (2017) has pointed out that the MS K 4Codex Holmiensis K 4 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket) legendary material mainly consists of female saints, and in one occurrence the text addresses its audience as “sisters”. In MS K 47Codex Holmiensis K 47 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket), Hertug Fredrik and Flores og BlanseflorFlores og Blanseflor (dän.) carry the interesting note in the colophon that they were penned by a female writer, and in the texts of both Ivan løveridderIvan løveridder (dän.) and Hertug Fredrik there are some deviations from other text witnesses, which seem to be motivated by an adaption to a female audience.16 No changes with a similar intent have so far been suggested concerning Flores og Blanseflor. Nevertheless, adaptation to a female audience might possibly be the explanation for why one of the three sons of Blanseflor and Flores in the Swedish original was exchanged for a daughter in the Danish text, a rewriting that is described and discussed in Richter (2018/2019: 47–48). This exchange probably was meant to connect the story dynastically to the history of Charlemagne, as Charlemagne’s mother Berthe is described as the daughter of the couple in the continental tradition of Floire et BlanchefleurFloire et Blanchefleur. Still, to bring forth a historically important female heir, is a detail that could be seen in the light of the rewriting tendency in the other two Eufemiavisor in K 47, but the text needs further analysis before any conclusions might be drawn.17 In summary, we find one manuscript connected to the religious sphere and one with no such obvious religious connections, but both of them were probably made for a female audience.

Compared to the literature of other European central cultures in the late Middle Ages, the Swedish and Danish romance literature is minute, but what matters here is the fact that there was a certain interest in this kind of literature as part of a more general interest in secular narratives in the latest phase of the medieval manuscript culture. Each manuscript was an expensive economic investment, and obviously there was enough interest to translate and create new texts as well.

The possible connection to religious contexts also deserves some further comments, as it is not self-evident why romances appear in otherwise religious manuscripts. Bampi (2019: 227–230) discusses two such Scandinavian cases, the already mentioned Danish MS K 4Codex Holmiensis K 4 (Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket) and the Norwegian MS Stockholm, Riksarkivet, E 8822. These manuscripts have similar content structures, namely Ivan løveridderIvan løveridder (dän.)/Herr IvanIvan lejonriddaren (schwed.) as a single romance text among other religious, edifying texts, and from that pattern and with support from previous research, Bampi argues that the romance could have been open to a religious reading and interpretation. A similar interaction between romance and works of piety has been reported in other parts of Europe, for instance, in English late medieval manuscripts.

The compatibility of romance with piety […] is endorsed by the evidence of manuscripts and readership. The compilers of late medieval miscellanies, increasing numbers of them middle-class townsmen (such as the Leicester burgess Rate or the London mercer Johan Colyns) or gentry (such as the Yorkshire Robert Thorton), generously confirm the tendency in earlier collections […] to mix romances with works of orthodox piety […]. (Cooper 1999: 696–697)

Considering how deeply religious medieval society was, it is not surprising that works of piety are found together with ʻsecularʼ ones in lay manuscripts. However, it is perhaps a little more conspicuous when single ʻsecularʼ narratives are brought into manuscripts with mainly religious texts. In a discussion on the Middle English romance, Adams (1998: 291) argues that surrounding a romance with religious works even could be understood as a neutralisation of the morally problematic character of romance. The traditional genre had been criticised for its amoral themes, and probably as a response to that, Middle English romance tended to be influenced by the genre of Saints’ lives. In several ways there came to be a relationship between romance and the religious genres, and the two Scandinavian manuscripts seem to fit into that picture.

In one important aspect, the situation in Scandinavia differs from Cooper’s description of late medieval England in the quotation above. The reading culture among the lay, urban classes in England has no known counterpart in medieval Scandinavia, as no Scandinavian medieval manuscripts are clearly linked to burghers or townspeople (if we do not count the secular clergy). We must be careful about drawing conclusions e silentio, but as far as the material allows us any conclusions, the romances and secular narratives seem to have been a matter of concern for aristocratic readers, perhaps to some extent in religious settings.18