Mobility in the Sixteenth Century: Narrative Evidence about Travel and the Discovery of the World in Early Modern German Literature

Year 2024, , 1 - 16, 26.12.2024

Albrecht Classen

https://doi.org/10.26650/sdsl2024-1487982

Abstract

The topic of mobility contributes in multiple ways to a deeper understanding of cultural history. The degree of mobility has much to say about the development of any society, both in the past and in the present. This paper examines the situation in sixteenth-century Europe through the lens of literary documents in which we can find comments on travel, mobility, and world perspectives. While it might not be possible to identify explicit documents from that period reflecting on mobility itself (technologies, modes of transportation, hospitality, healthcare, finances, etc.), many authors actually included valuable references to this phenomenon, if we only look more closely. The literary narrative thus emerges as an important source of information about social, emotional, economic, religious, and also travel aspects, such as shipping, use of a coach, a horse, or mule, staying in early-modern ‘hotels,’ roads, and bridges. As the analysis will demonstrate, early modern society was highly mobile, with representatives of many different social classes on the move for a wide range of reasons. Whereas the authors consulted here did not specifically signal their interest in reflecting on mobility as such, they commonly reveal that the narrative framework mirrors events on the road, on a ship, or at meetings where many people attended, such as a Church council, an imperial diet, and the like. The need to travel grew tremendously in the sixteenth century, and this for many different reasons. One of the consequences was that poets increasingly engaged with a highly mobile society.

Keywords

Mobility in the sixteenth century, Fortunatus, Johannes Pauli, Jörg Wickram, popular literature

References

• Asher, J A (Ed.) (1962). Rudolf von Ems. Derguote Gerhart. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 56. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. google scholar
• Bleuler, A.K. & Klingbeil, A.M. (Eds.) (2016). Welterfahrung und Welterschliefiung in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Interdisziplinare Beitrage zu Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, 5. Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag Winter. google scholar
• Bolte, J. (1924/1972). Johannes Pauli. Schimpf und Ernst. Rpt. Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms. google scholar
• Bork, R. & Kann, A. (Eds.) (2008). The Art, Science, and Technology of Medieval Travel. Avista Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art, 6. Aldershot: Ashgate. google scholar
• Brant, S. (1986). Das Narrenschiff, ed. Manfred Lemmer. 3rd, expanded ed. Neudrucke deutscher Literaturwerke. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. google scholar
• Carey, D & Jowitt, C. (Eds). 2012. Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe. Hakluyt Society: Extra Series, 47. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. google scholar
• Classen, A. (Forthcoming). “Mobility in the Middle Ages - Literary Evidence as a Mental Map for Travel Imaginations: A Critical Reconsideration of Modern Myths about the Past,” to appear in Quidditas google scholar
• Classen, A, (trans.) (2024). A Translation of Johannes Pauli’s Didactic Tales: Lessons from the Past for Our Future. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. google scholar
• Classen, A. (2020) Sea Voyages in Medieval Romances as Symbolic Trails Through Life: Existential Experiences and Female Suffering on the Water, In: Critical Literary Studies: Academic Journal (University of Kurdistan) 2.2. Series 4: 27-46. http://cls.uok.ac.ir/article_61567.html; or: DOI 10.34785/J014.2020.367. google scholar
• Classen, A. (Ed.) (2018). Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Explorations of Worldly Perceptions and Processes of Identity Formation, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 22. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter. google scholar
• Classen, A. (trans.) (2016). An English Translation of Rudolf von Ems’s Der guote Gerthart. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. google scholar
• Classen, A. (trans.) (2014/2019). Love, Life, and Lust in Heinrich Kaufringer’s Verse Narratives. Rev. and expanded 2nd ed. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 467. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies. google scholar
• Classen, A. (2014). Storms, Shipwrecks, and Life-Changing Experiences in Late Medieval German Literature. From Oswald von Wolkenstein to Emperor Maximilian, In: Oxford German Studies 43.3: 212-28. google scholar
• Classen, A. (1995) (reissued in 1999). The German Volksbuch. A CriticalHistory of a Late-Medieval Genre. In: Studies in German Language and Literature, 15. Lewiston, NY, Queenston, and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press. google scholar
• Classen, A. (1994). “The Perception of America in Early Modern German Literature: From Sebastian Brant to Lohenstein,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen XCV.3: 337-52. google scholar
• Cristini, L.S. & Durand, M.N. (2013) . I Lanzichenecchi: le milizie germaniche fra fine 400 e 500 = The Landsknechts: German Militiamen from Late XV and XVI Century. Zanica, Italy: Soldiershop Publishing. google scholar
• Dinzelbacher, P. (Ed.) 1993/2008. Europaische Mentalitatsgeschichte: Hauptthemen in Einzeldarstellungen. 2nd rev. and expanded ed. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag. google scholar
• Dobek, P. (2023). The Diplomat and the Public House: loannes Dantiscus (1485-1548) and His Use of the Inns, Taverns, and Alehouses of Europe. In: Globalism in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: Innovative Approaches and Perspectives, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 27. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 485-508. google scholar
• Elmarsafy, Z. & Bernard, A. & Attwell, D. (Eds). (2013). Debating Orientalism. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
• Fort, G. (2018). Make a Pilgrimage for Me: The Role of Place in Late Medieval Proxy Pilgrimage. In: Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Explorations of Worldly Perceptions and Processes of Identity Formation, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 22. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 424-45. google scholar
• Ghobrial, J.P. (Ed.) (2019). Global History and Microhistory. Past&Present. Supplement, New series, 14. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. google scholar
• Ginzburg, C. (1977). Il formaggio e i vermi: il cosmo di un mugnaio del ’500. 2nd ed. Turin: Einaudi. google scholar
• Goodson, C. (2021). Cultivating the City in Early Medieval Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
• Gotzkowsky, B. (1991). “Volksbücher”: Prosaromane, Renaissancenovellen, Versdichtungen und Schwankbücher. Bibliographie der deutschen Drucke. PartI: Drucke des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Bibliotheca Bibliographica Aureliana, CXXV. Baden-Baden: Verlag Valentin Koerner. google scholar
• Gruber, D. (2022). On the Way to the “(Un)Kown”?: The Ottoman Empire in Travelogues (c. 1450-1900). Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter. google scholar
• Hallaq, Wael. 2018. Restating Orientalism: A Critique of Modern Knowledge. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. google scholar
• Hörmann, T. & Taxis, J. (2023). Angepasst oder selbstbestimmt? Zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte spatmittelalterlicher Fürstinnen im Herzogtum Österreichs und in der Grafschaft Tirol im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert. In: Mitteilungen des Institutsfür Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Erganzungsband 67. Vienna and Cologne: Böhlau. google scholar
• Holy, M. & Hruba, M. & Sterneck, T. (Eds). (2018). Die frühneuzeitliche Stadt als Knotenpunikt der Kommunikation. Geschichte - Forschung und Wissenschaft, 57. Berlin and Münster: LIT. google scholar
• Hsia, R. P. (Ed.) (2004/2006). A Companion to the Reformation World. Blackwell Companions to European History. Malden, MA, Oxford, and Carlton, Victoria: Blackwell. google scholar
• Jungmayer, J. (1981). “Bibliographie.” Hans-Gert Roloff, ed., Fortunatus: Studienausgabe nach der Editio Princeps von 1509. Stuttgart: Phillip Reclam jun., 323-50. google scholar
• Kastner, H. (1990). Fortunatus - Peregrinator mundi: Welterfahrung und Selbsterkenntnis im ersten deutschen Prosaroman der Neuzeit. Rombach Wissenschaft - Reihe Litterae. Freiburg i. Br.: Verlag Rombach. google scholar
• Küble, M. & Gerlach, H. (trans.) (2014). Augenzeuge des Konstanzer Konzils: Die Chronik des Ulrich Richental. Die Konstanzer Handschrift ins Neuhochdeutsche übersetzt. Darmstadt: Theiss. google scholar
• Khvalkov, E. (2018). The Colonies of Geno in the Black Sea Region: Evolution and Transformation. Routledge Research in Medieval Studies, 11. New York and London: Routledge. google scholar
• Kleinschmidt, E. (1993). “Jörg Wickram,” Deutsche Dichter der frühen Neuzeit (1450-1600): Ihr Leben und Werk, ed. Stephan Füssel. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 494-511. google scholar
• Lazzarini, I. (Ed.) (2021). The Later Middle Ages. The Short Oxford History of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. google scholar
• Müller, J.D. (Ed.) (1990). Romane des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Bibliothek der frühen Neuzeit, 1. Frankfurt a. M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag. google scholar
• Pearsall, A.E. (1994). Johannes Pauli (1450-1520): On the Church and Clergy. Medieval and Renaissance Series, 11. Lewiston, Queenston, and Lempeter: Edwin Mellen Press. google scholar
• Roloff, H.G. (Ed.) (1973). Georg Wickram. Das Rollwagenbüchlein. Samtliche Werke, 7. Ausgaben deutscher Literatur des XV. bis XVIII. Jahrhunderts. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. google scholar
• Der Stricker. (1994). Der Pfaffe Amis. Mittelhochdeutsch / Neuhochdeutsch, ed., trans., and commentary by Michael Schilling. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. google scholar
• Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. google scholar
• Solbach, A. (2007). Early Modern German Narrative Prose. In: Early Modern German Literatüre 1350-1700, ed. Max Reinhart. The Camden House History of German Literatüre, 4. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 467-508. google scholar
• Staable, P. & Baatsen, I. (2018). At Home and on the Road: Comparing Food Cultures in the Medieval Low Countries. In: A. Classen (Ed.) Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Explorations of Worldly Perceptions and Processes of Identity Formation, Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 22. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 331-58. google scholar
• Treue, W. (2014). Abenteuer und Anerkennung: Reisende und Gereiste in Spatmittelalter und Frühneuzeit (1400-1700). Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. google scholar
• Van Cleve, J. (1991). The Problem of Wealth in the Literature of Luther’s Germany. In: Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture, 55. Columbia, SC: Camden House. google scholar
• van Dülmen, R. (1990, 1992, 1994). Kultur und Alltag in der Frühen Neuzeit. 3 vols. Munich: C. H. Beck. google scholar
• Xenakis, S. (2015). Gewalt und Gemeinschaft: Kriegsknechte um 1500. Paderborn : Ferdinand Schöningh. google scholar