Jans der Enikel
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Jans der Enikel (Template:Literal translation), or Jans der Jansen Enikel (Template:Literal translation), was a Viennese chronicler and narrative poet of the late 13th century.Template:Sfnm He wrote a Weltchronik (Template:Literal translation) and a Fürstenbuch (Template:Literal translation, a history of Vienna), both in Middle High German verse.
Name and biography
In his own works, he identifies himself as Jans, the grandson of Jans: enikel is simply the Middle High German word for "grandson" (modern German: Enkel).Template:EfnTemplate:Efn The exact form of the name varies, partly because of variant spellings in the manuscripts. The 19th-century editor, Philipp Strauch, called the chronicler Jansen Enikel, intending "Jansen" as a genitive referring to the grandfather,Template:Sfn but forms with a definite article (e.g. Jansen der Eninkel or Jansen der Enenkel) are also found in 19th-century scholarship.Template:Sfn From the mid-20th century, Jans Enikel became common, but this raised the danger of misconstruing "Enikel" as a surname: the second edition of the Verfasserlexikon, for example, erroneously listed him as "Enikel, Jans".Template:Sfn Since the name itself is simply Jans, and Enikel is an identifier comparable with "Jans junior", the chronicler should always be alphabetized under J, not E.Template:Sfn More recent scholarship has either returned to the definite article "Jans der Enikel", adopted a new suggestion "Jans von Wien" (Template:Literal translation), or simply used "Jans" with no extension at all.Template:Sfn
In the same passages in which he gives us his name, Jans claims to be a citizen of Vienna with full patrician rights.Template:Sfn Elsewhere he mentions that a Herrn Jansen sun, presumably his father, was honoured by the duke in 1239, and that as a child he had seen the army marching off to the Battle of the Leitha River, which means he could not have been born much after 1240.Template:Sfn From other sources we know that he was a member of one of the highest patrician families of Vienna, and his name appears in Viennese council records for the years 1271–1302.Template:Sfn In these records he appears as "Jans der Schreiber" (Template:Literal translation), so it is likely he was secretary to the city council (Template:Langx).Template:Sfn These sources suggest that his father was the city judge Konrad, and his mother belonged to the powerful Paltram family. There are also references to his son (Konrad) and son-in-law (Jörg). We even know his address, in Wildwerkerstraße, modern Wipplingerstraße.Template:Sfn This makes him one of the best attested of all medieval German poets.Template:Sfn
Weltchronik
The Weltchronik tells the history of the world in around 30,000 lines of verse, starting even before the six-day creation by telling of Satan's rebellion, and relating the Biblical stories of the Old Testament,Template:Sfnm then continuing with Alexander the GreatTemplate:Sfn and other classical Greek and Roman material, and on down the list of emperors through Charles the GreatTemplate:Sfnm to Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor.Template:Sfnm
Jans is known for the free-and-easy approach he takes to his material, altering details casually for their entertainment value and incorporating motifs from the most diverse sources, for which reason 19th century writers were extremely disparaging about him: Strauch, for example, wrote him off as a "rhyme-smith" (Reimschmied).Template:Sfn One interesting feature is the unusually large amount of Jewish material he borrows.Template:Sfn Jans is the first writer in the German language to recount the legend of Pope Joan.Template:Sfn
The style is anecdotal, with many fun tales inserted into what might otherwise be sober history. For example, the reign of Frederick II is interrupted to tell an entirely fictional story of a nobleman named Friedrich von Antfurt. This Friedrich approaches a duchess with the intent to seduce, to the point where she thinks up a ruse to get rid of him. She promises to give him what he wants (the poet doesn't hide that he only wants her lîp, her body) provided he takes part in a joust wearing her chemise (underdress) instead of his armour. She is of course counting on him being killed, but he survives, and there has to be a reckoning: when the duchess still refuses to submit to him, he vindictively exacts a humiliating revenge by forcing her to wear the torn and bloody chemise to church.Template:Sfn
Other scurrilous tales include a story of Noah's son visiting his wife's bedroom on the ark in violation of a strict prohibition;Template:Sfn of Noah discovering wine when his goat became drunk;Template:Sfn of how the Emperor Nero gave birth to a toad;Template:Sfn and of the enchantment that led Charles the Great to commit necrophilia.Template:Sfn
From the 14th century, the text of the Weltchronik was reused in compilation manuscripts, which have a very complicated history. The earliest are combinations with the Christherre-Chronik known as the Enikel-Christherre-Mischtext, which in turn was developed into the so-called Erweiterte Christherre-Chronik.Template:Sfn There are also compilation manuscripts that combine parts of Jans' Weltchronik with excerpts from Rudolf von Ems and Heinrich von München.Template:Sfn In all, some 50 manuscripts contain text of Jans' Weltchronik, either "pure text" or compilations. Fragments are still occasionally being discovered.Template:Sfn
The earliest manuscripts of the Weltchronik were copiously illustrated with coloured miniatures, and the original cycle of miniatures was so well integrated with the text that it was clearly part of the author's programme.Template:Sfnm Many of Jans' miniatures were also taken into the compilations. However, from the 15th century the manuscripts are gradually less well laid out, and the illustrations are no longer copied.
Fürstenbuch
The Fürstenbuch (Template:Translation) is the earliest known history of the City of Vienna, and indeed it is probably the first town chronicle in the German language.Template:Sfn It is shorter than the Weltchronik and has received far less scholarly attention, but it is an important historical source for the development of patrician society.Template:Sfnm
For English-speaking readers, the Fürstenbuch is interesting for giving an Austrian perspective on the imprisonment of Richard Lionheart in Austria in 1193. Jans tells how Richard, travelling incognito, seeks shelter in Duke Leopold's kitchen, where he is put to work turning a goose on a spit over a fire. When he is recognized and captured, he is mocked as an edele[r] brâtaer, a "noble goose-roaster".Template:Sfn
The account of the Austrian Duke Frederick II, the Quarrelsome contains a fictitious account of his conflict with the emperor at the Diet of Verona (1245), which nevertheless is understood as presenting a pro-Austrian slant on political reality. When the emperor invites the duke to dinner, the duke declines, claiming he has enough money to buy his own dinner. The Emperor responds by forbidding any citizen to sell him firewood for his kitchen, but the Duke outwits him by burning walnuts.Template:Sfn
Critical text and translations
- Critical edition: Philipp Strauch (ed.), Jansen Enikels Werke (MGH, Scriptores 8: Deutsche Chroniken und andere Geschichtsbücher des Mittelalters, Vol. 3), Hanover & Leipzig 1891–1900, Template:OCLC; Reprint Munich 1980 Template:In lang
- Excerpts with English translations: Graeme Dunphy (ed.), History as Literature: German World Chronicles of the Thirteenth Century in Verse. Kalamazoo 2003.
- English translation of the Virgil section: Jan M. Ziolkowski and Michael C. J. Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years, 2008, 928–930
- Text and bibliography on dunphy.de Template:In lang
See also
Notes
References
Sources
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