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Table of contents :
Cover
Table of Contents
Introduction
Kirsi-Maria Nummila
Preface
Part I. The Reception of Luther’s Ideas and their Influence for the Development of Written Languages
1. ‘quae pestis unquam tam perniciosa invasit gregem christi?’
The Role of the Book in the Reception of Lutheranism in England
John L. Flood
2. Linguistic Ideas of the Lutheran Reformation in the Genesis of Literary Estonian
Kristiina Ross
3. The Impact of Lutheran Thought on the Polish Literary Language in the 16th Century
Izabela Winiarska-Górska
Part II
Part II. Effects of Bible Translations on the Evolution of Written Language
4. The Czech Language in Confessional Clashes of the 16th Century
Robert Dittmann
5. The Swedish Bible Translations and the Transition from Old Swedish to Early Modern Swedish
Jonatan Pettersson
Part III
Part III. Reuse of (Catholic) Texts after the Reformation
6. The Infant Jesus and his Mother in Late Mediaeval and Early Modern Scandinavian Book Culture
Elise Kleivane and Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir
7. Frühneuzeitliche Summarien
Erbauliche, laienexegetische Bibelberichte als polemische Plattformen im beginnenden Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung – Ein Vergleich zwischen Stephan Rodts Übertragung der neutestamentlichen Summarien Johannes Bugenhagens mit denen Veit Dietrichs sowie
Sebastian Seyferth
8. Early Finnish Translations of the Hymn Te Deum laudamus
Tanja Toropainen
Part IV
Part IV. Language Contacts and Loanwords
9. Traces of Low German Influence in the Finnish Texts of Mikael Agricola?
Mikko Bentlin
10. Polyglossia and Nativization
The Translation of Zoonyms in Early Dutch Bibles
Merlijn de Smit
11. Medical Discourse in the Oldest Lithuanian Lutheran Texts
Dainora Pociūtė
12. German Influence on the Christian Discourse of Early Written Latvian
Pēteris Vanags
Index
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
Figure 1 Title page of Luther’s De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae. Wittenberg: Melchior Lotter the Younger, 1520
Figure 2 Gospel of John in Tyndale’s New Testament, Worms: Peter Schöffer the Younger, 1526 (STC 2824; VD16 B4570). Photo: British Library
Figure 3 Gospel of Matthew – the front page (Murzynowski 1551, handwritten comments – Jan Sandecki-Malecki)
Figure 4 Gospel of Matthew – the Pater Noster, fol. 23r (Murzynowski 1551, handwritten comments – Jan Sandecki-Malecki)
Figure 5 Gospel of Matthew – signs of textual criticism (Murzynowski 1551)
Figure 6 Roof painting from Ål stave church (detail), now in the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, Norway. Photo: Nina Aldin Thune
Figure 7 Prose version 1. Michael Agricola’s Rucouskiria, 1544. Photo: The National Library of Finland
Figure 8 Rhymed version. Songbook from Urjala. Photo: Jorma Hannikainen
Figure 9 Ta Swehta Grahmata Jeb Deewa Swehtais Wahrds. (Riga, Wilcken, 1689). Original in the National Library of Latvia
Figure 10 Enchiridion, Der kleine Catechismus. D. Martin. Luther. Nun aber aus dem Deudschen ins vndeudsche gebracht. Königsperg 1586. Original in the National Library of Latvia
Tables
Table 1 Lutheran parishes in the end of the 16th century against the background of other denominations
Table 2 Overview of translations of parts of the Bible into Swedish during the Middle Ages and early modern era
CROSSING BOUNDARIES
Edited by Mikko Kauko, Miika Norro, Kirsi-Maria Nummila, Tanja Toropainen, and Tuomo Fonsén
Languages in the Lutheran Reformation Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas
Languages in the Lutheran Reformation
Crossing Boundaries Turku Medieval and Early Modern Studies The series from the Turku Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (TUCEMEMS) publishes monographs and collective volumes placed at the intersection of disciplinary boundaries, introducing fresh connections between established fields of study. The series especially welcomes research combining or juxtaposing different kinds of primary sources and new methodological solutions to deal with problems presented by them. Encouraged themes and approaches include, but are not limited to, identity formation in medieval/early modern communities, and the analysis of texts and other cultural products as a communicative process comprising shared symbols and meanings. Series Editor Matti Peikola, University of Turku, Finland
Languages in the Lutheran Reformation Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas
Edited by Mikko Kauko, Miika Norro, Kirsi-Maria Nummila, Tanja Toropainen, and Tuomo Fonsén
Amsterdam University Press
Cover illustration: Image from Mikael Agricola’s New Testament, 1548. Original copy in the Turku University Library Photo: Tanja Toropainen Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 155 3 e-isbn 978 90 4853 121 9 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462981553 nur 685 © Mikko Kauko, Miika Norro, Kirsi-Maria Nummila, Tanja Toropainen & Tuomo Fonsén / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.
Table of Contents
Preface 9 Introduction 11 Kirsi-Maria Nummila
Part I The Reception of Luther’s Ideas and their Influence for the Development of Written Languages 1 ‘quae pestis unquam tam perniciosa invasit gregem christi?’ 33 The Role of the Book in the Reception of Lutheranism in England John L. Flood
2 Linguistic Ideas of the Lutheran Reformationin the Genesis of Literary Estonian 57 Kristiina Ross
3 The Impact of Lutheran Thought on the Polish Literary Language in the 16th Century Izabela Winiarska-Górska
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Part II Effects of Bible Translations on the Evolution of Written Language 4 The Czech Language in Confessional Clashes of the 16th Century 105 Robert Dittmann
5 The Swedish Bible Translationsand the Transition from Old Swedish to Early Modern Swedish Jonatan Pettersson
129
Part III Reuse of (Catholic) Texts after the Reformation 6 The Infant Jesus and his Motherin Late Mediaeval and Early Modern Scandinavian Book Culture
151
7 Frühneuzeitliche Summarien
173
8 Early Finnish Translations of the Hymn Te Deum laudamus
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Elise Kleivane and Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir
Erbauliche, laienexegetische Bibelberichte als polemische Plattformen im beginnenden Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung – Ein Vergleich zwischen Stephan Rodts Übertragung der neutestamentlichen Summarien Johannes Bugenhagens mit denen Veit Dietrichs sowie Johann Dietenbergers Sebastian Seyferth
Tanja Toropainen
Part IV Language Contacts and Loanwords 9 Traces of Low German Influence in the Finnish Texts of Mikael Agricola? 217 Mikko Bentlin
10 Polyglossia and Nativization
231
11 Medical Discourse in the Oldest Lithuanian Lutheran Texts
253
The Translation of Zoonyms in Early Dutch Bibles Merlijn de Smit
Dainora Pociūtė
12 German Influence on the Christian Discourse of Early Written Latvian 273 Pēteris Vanags
Index 303
List of Figures and Tables Figures Figure 1
Title page of Luther’s De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae. Wittenberg: Melchior Lotter the Younger, 1520 36 Figure 2 Gospel of John in Tyndale’s New Testament, Worms: Peter Schöffer the Younger, 1526 (STC 2824; VD16 B4570). Photo: British Library 41 Figure 3 Gospel of Matthew – the front page (Murzynowski 1551, handwritten comments – Jan Sandecki-Malecki) 91 Figure 4 Gospel of Matthew – the Pater Noster, fol. 23r (Murzynowski 1551, handwritten comments – Jan SandeckiMalecki) 93 Figure 5 Gospel of Matthew – signs of textual criticism (Murzynowski 1551) 99 Figure 6 Roof painting from Ål stave church (detail), now in the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, Norway. Photo: Nina Aldin Thune 156 Figure 7 Prose version 1. Mikael Agricola’s Rucouskiria, 1544. Photo: The National Library of Finland 199 Figure 8 Rhymed version. Songbook from Urjala. Photo: Jorma Hannikainen 208 Figure 9 Ta Swehta Grahmata Jeb Deewa Swehtais Wahrds. (Riga, Wilcken, 1689). Original in the National Library of Latvia 283 Figure 10 Enchiridion, Der kleine Catechismus. D. Martin Luther. Nun aber aus dem Deudschen ins vndeudsche gebracht. Königsperg 1586. Original in the National Library of Latvia 286 Tables Table 1 Table 2
Lutheran parishes in the end of the 16th century against the background of other denominations Overview of translations of parts of the Bible into Swedish during the Middle Ages and early modern era
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Preface In 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation was celebrated in several countries. In connection with the jubilee year, a lot of new research on the Lutheran Reformation was done, for example by theologians, historians – and linguists. The jubilee year was also commemorated by TUCEMEMS (the Turku Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies) – a multidisciplinary centre funded by the University of Turku with a focus on interdisciplinary and cross-cultural topics from late Antiquity to the 1700s. In October 2015, a two-day cross-lingual seminar was arranged by the linguistics working committee of TUCEMEMS in Turku with the title Languages in the Lutheran Reformation. The working committee was convoked by Adjunct Prof. Tuomo Fonsén. The present members of the committee are Prof. Emerita Irmeli Helin, Prof. Emerita Kaisa Häkkinen, M.A. Ruut Kataisto, Dr. Mikko Kauko, M.A. Miika Norro, Adjunct Prof. Kirsi-Maria Nummila, Prof. Matti Peikola, Lic. Minna Sandelin, and Dr. Tanja Toropainen. The seminar was international, with invited guests from several countries. The program consisted of discussions and talks that were given mainly in English, partly in German. Researchers from different countries had the opportunity to meet each other and comment on each other’s contributions. The seminar talks led to this collection of articles. In Protestant countries, the Lutheran Reformation had an important effect on languages: several languages that had hardly been written previously became literary when biblical and religious texts were translated into them (e.g., Estonian and Finnish). The Reformation also affected those languages which already had a literary tradition, for instance German and Swedish. Baltic and Slavic languages were also affected in a similar way. However, experts on Scandinavian languages, for example, do not know much about the history of Baltic languages and vice versa, even though they have much in common and have shared fields of interest. This book brings together the different fields of study. Internal developments of individual languages are often well known, but scholars have seldom focused on influences between these languages. By concentrating on these influences, this book offers a novel approach to the Reformation. Central fields of interest include mobility, networks, textual influences, dissemination of texts, exchange of ideas, language use, language culture, and translation activities.
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L anguages in the Luther an Reformation
We wish to thank Amsterdam University Press for kind cooperation and TUCEMEMS for important support. We are also grateful for the support of the editor of the series Crossing Boundaries, Prof. Matti Peikola. We wish to thank M. Phil. Damon Tringham for checking the language of the volume. We cordially thank all the contributors and the referees who have read the chapters and commented upon them. Mikko Kauko, Miika Norro, Kirsi-Maria Nummila, and Tanja Toropainen Turku, February 2018
Introduction Kirsi-Maria Nummila The inspiration for writing and publishing the current work, Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas, arose from the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. The Reformation was an extremely powerful influence for many of the languages and the literalization processes that took place in the Baltic Sea region. Consequently, the language forms and texts written during the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period have been of interest to linguists and philologists for decades. The ideas of the Lutheran Reformation were spread, above all, by means of texts and as a result of translation into vernaculars. The circulation of Reformation ideas could be seen as textual networks that extended to the Baltic Sea region and partly beyond, serving to unite the Lutheran world. In this volume, the central theme is not specific languages and their development but the interrelationships between languages and the ways in which different linguistic and literary influences have been passed from one language to another. The current work offers the perspectives of individual languages on the common cultural phenomenon of the Reformation, which itself affected different languages and in many ways served to link them. The chapters in this volume focus on northern Europe in the 16th to 17th centuries, more specifically on the Baltic Sea region and its sphere of influence. As is still the case today, many different languages were spoken in the region at that time. They include representatives of many language groups – Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, and Baltic-Finnic languages. This work deals with a large number of languages, and all the language groups are represented, including German (Low and High German), Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Dutch, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, and English. During the period under study, it was typical that many languages were spoken in the same administrative area. Also, individual speakers were quite often multilingual, especially in towns. Everyday contacts between
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/intro
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the languages were a significant factor in facilitating the relatively rapid spread of influences from one language to another. The 16th century was an eventful period in northern Europe, and it is impossible to give more than a brief account of the events that were most significant historically. In the following review, however, I will attempt to describe the broad outlines of the period and shed light on the social and historical context that forms the background for the internal and external phenomena and interconnections of the languages discussed in the current work.
The cultural context of the Baltic Sea region This volume examines the area into which Lutheranism had spread early in the Reformation. In this case, it is not a strictly defined geographical area or one that followed national borders. The centre from which the expansion of Lutheranism began was Germany,1 from where the phenomenon spread elsewhere in the Baltic Sea area, comprising the entirety of its northern, eastern, southern, and western areas and extending from the present Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland) and the present Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland) to the Netherlands and England. In my text, I use the concepts of the Baltic Sea region and northern Europe in a broad sense, covering all the above-mentioned areas. Although common factors can be seen in the history and societal conditions of northern Europe during the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, it must be noted that the region is extensive and that sociocultural conditions within it differed. However, during the period under study, as also before and after it, the Baltic Sea region formed a cultural area in which the history of the peoples had gone through many similar stages, and their cultures had many significant features in common. More specifically, the towns and their common Germanic urban culture were factors that united the region. In the Baltic Sea area, a significant proportion of the town dwellers were German, and typically, for instance, the same laws applied as in the North German towns. The towns in fact played a very important role in the course of development during this time, as it was through the towns that new ideas, beliefs, political views, and other ideologies spread (see, e.g., Morris 1998: 66-67; Kasekamp 2010: 36-37, 39). 1 In the 16th century, the German Empire consisted, roughly speaking, of the present Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, and the areas of what are now the other Baltic States.
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In the history of the period signif icant for the region under study, a dominant role was played by the Hanseatic League, which governed trading in the area. In its Golden Age, in the 15th century, some 200 towns belonged to the trading alliance, most of them in North Germany, though in the east the area extended to Livonia and in the west to the Low Countries. In the 16th century, however, the importance of the Hanseatic League declined as the role of Dutch trading companies in the Baltic Sea region grew (Müller 2002: 76-77). The period following the Hanseatic League was marked by radical political changes, administrative reorganization, and wars. Significant events occurring during the period and widely affecting the region included issues concerning the government of Livonia and the disintegration of the Kalmar Union, a union of the Nordic countries that had lasted for more than 120 years (see, e.g., Kirby 1990). All in all, the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period were very unsettled as regards the power relations of region. Even though folk beliefs still had their place in the 16th and 17th centuries northern Europe, Christianity was often part of everyday life, and the Church played a role at different stages of life. It offered stability and support for people whose lives were typically marked by hard conditions, poverty, and war. The Roman Catholic Church was a dominant organization in the late Middle Ages and was a significant influence in society, having a considerable income and enormous wealth (from tithes, land ownership, and donations). The Church used its revenue and the donations received to, among other things, provide care for the poor and the sick and also for education. In addition to Catholicism, important movements that marked the era in Europe included both the Renaissance and the cultural ideals of humanism that arose from it. Indeed humanism was a crucial influence in the literary culture of the Reformation period and thus also in translations of the Bible. The principles of humanism included, for example, recognition of the value of original texts. Other ideals that sprang from humanism include the concept of man as an individual and the idea of a personal belief. Those who headed the movement for religious reformation were typically advocates of humanism (Ozment 1980: 290-317; Müller 2002: 91). At the beginning of the 16th century, Latin played a crucial role in the Baltic Sea region. It was above all the language of the Church and of literature, since books, whether printed or in manuscript, were mainly written in Latin before the Reformation. Although it was the lingua franca of mediaeval (Western) Europe, Latin was a language known only to the learned and educated members of society (Janson 2002; Burke 2004: 43-60).
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The world at the turn from the Middle Ages to the early modern era is often described as multilingual, but in the countryside, people typically spoke only one and the same language, the local vernacular. The towns, however, were genuinely multilingual. In addition to the vernaculars and Latin, Low German was an important language in the Baltic Sea region. Despite being a vernacular, Middle Low German achieved the status of a lingua franca for trade during the period when the Hanseatic League was at its height (Pettersson 2005: 134-36; Peters 2008: 1418; see also Tiisala 1996; and Ross, Bentlin, and Vanags in this volume). In many areas there was also an administrative language, as was the case of Swedish in Finland, for example. In the area and era reviewed, different languages typically had specialized functions and contexts of usage.
The birth and development of the Lutheran Reformation The Lutheran Reformation is considered to have begun when Wittenberg University Professor of Theology Martin Luther nailed his list of 95 theses to the door of the church at Wittenburg Castle in the year 1517. Luther’s action was intended to protest against abuses committed by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1520, Luther burned the papal bull received from the pope and publicly cut off his relations with Rome. The fundamental themes of Luther’s Reformation were opposition to the sale of indulgences, bringing personal faith to the people, and promoting the view that man was saved by grace alone. Lutheranism spread very rapidly to the towns of northern Germany and beyond, especially to the towns of the Baltic Sea region and among the bourgeoisie. It reached the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, and England very early; in many towns, such as Riga, Tartu, Tallinn, Copenhagen, Turku, and Stockholm, Lutheran doctrine was preached as early as in the 1520s. The adoption of the new teachings was promoted above all by the spread of Germanic culture and through German citizens who settled in the towns (Klinge 1995: 53). The concrete routes and distribution channels through which the ideas, texts, and works were transferred played an important role in the creation of the networks of the Lutheran Reformation. At the nodal points of these networks were the important expansion centres of Lutheranism, such as the churches, congregations, printing presses, and booksellers. Particularly important centres for the spread of Lutheranism were the universities of the large towns, such as Königsberg University in Prussia and Cambridge in England.
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However, Lutheranism was not accepted so rapidly everywhere in the Baltic Sea region, and in Lithuania, for example, the doctrines only gained a foothold in the 1550s (Kasekamp 2010: 39). The Reformation also began slowly in some parts of the Low Countries; for example, the former Roman Catholic Church of the Province of Utrecht did not accept the Reformation until the year 1578 (Prak 2005: 201-10). While many areas went over to Lutheranism during the 16th century, Poland and Lithuania remained mainly Catholic. An important exception was Danzig, which followed the example of many other Baltic Sea area towns and turned for the most part to Lutheranism (Kłoczowski 2000; see also Kirby 1990: 88). In all, the influence of Lutheranism affected religious life and society widely throughout the Baltic Sea region. Putting the new teachings into practice required the renewal and updating of many cultural conventions to meet the new demands (see, e.g., Lehtonen and Kaljundi 2016). Outside Germany, the Reformation was typically dictated by the ruler, and the factors influencing the reform were generally other than religious. In northern Europe, the Reformation saw the decline of the Church’s power. This development was made possible by the Lutheran view that the Church and the clergy should be subject to the ruler’s will in all but matters of faith. The power to decide on earthly matters had been bestowed on the ruler by God. In many cases this meant that the property of the Church was transferred to the ruler and the nation. A further development was the closing of the monasteries, which also affected the lives of common people; there were more beggars, schools fell into disrepair, and the numbers of pupils decreased. Thus it was a question not simply of the Roman Catholic Church losing its power but of the disintegration of the entire social structure built up by the Church (Hentilä et al. 2002: 60, 65-67). All in all, the distribution of power and wealth in society underwent many significant changes in northern Europe as a result of the Reformation. In the 16th century, the time was ripe for a reform of the Church and for profound changes. However, doubts had already been cast on the Christian faith and on the doctrines of the Church in Europe even before Luther. Important names in this context are John Wycliffe (d. 1384), who was influential in 14th-century England and at the beginning of the 15th century, and Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415), the Czech martyr to the faith. Opposition to the Roman Catholic Church and to the pope was dangerous, and the fate of the first reformers was usually death and burning at the stake (see, e.g., Atwood 2015; Kłoczowski 2000: 92-93; also de Smit in the current work). In Switzerland, Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) preached Protestant views at the same time as Luther. The spread of Zwingli’s ideas was continued by
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the French-born reformer Jean Calvin (1509–1564), after whom the widely spread Protestant movement, Calvinism, was named. In part of Europe this movement, known as the second wave of the Reformation, took place in the 1540s, when the Reformation spread to many areas in the specifically Calvinistic form. Examples of Calvinistic areas are Switzerland, the Low Countries, and Scotland, as well as the eastern areas of Poland and Lithuania (see, e.g., Ozment 1980: 318-39, 352-80; Morris 1998: 69-83).
The Reformation and spreading the word of God in the vernacular One of the fundamental ideas of the Reformation was that people should be able to read God’s word in their own language. In practice, this meant translating biblical texts into the vernacular, and this led to Latin being replaced by local languages in literary usage. There are languages in which, in concrete terms, the Reformation led to the birth of a literary language. This was the case with Finnish and Estonian, for example. In those languages, too, which already had a literary culture, the literature that sprung from the Reformation helped to establish and standardize the written language.2 The birth and development of new literary languages also played a key role in spreading literacy to all parts of northern Europe during the following centuries (see Burns 1989; Kasekamp 2010: 40). Whereas texts copied by hand had been used previously, in the 15th century the printing press was invented in Europe (see Steinberg 2001). Thanks to the new technology, the written word could be spread effectively and widely. In fact, printing skills and the production of books played an important role in the rapid spread of the Protestant Reformation to a wide area (e.g., Morris 1998: 61; Kasekamp 2010: 40). The churchmen and humanists understood the power of the written word and published a great many works, both in Latin and in the vernacular. A good example of this is that by the year 1500, almost 100 printed editions of the Latin Bible translation, the Vulgate, had appeared. The most important literary models in Europe were the Bible in its original languages and the most influential Latin translations (particularly the 2 It must be noted, however, that as far as Low German was concerned, the development was in fact the opposite; with the publishing of Reformation literature in High German, Low German, which in the 16th century had still been a highly developed written language, lost its status and became a mere dialect (see, e.g., Bentlin 2008: 51; also Bentlin in this work).
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Greek-language Septuaginta and the Latin translation Versio Vulgata). Erasmus of Rotterdam translated the New Testament again from Greek into Latin in 1516, and this work had a great influence on other translations of the Reformation era. Luther’s translation of the New Testament into High German in 1522, which was based on Erasmus’s 1519 edition of the Greek New Testament, and of the entire Bible in 1534, the Old Testament having been translated from Hebrew, were of special significance as a model for the other texts.3 In practice, this led to the decline of Low German, which had spread widely throughout the Baltic Sea region. There were also Low German editions of biblical texts in the 16th century, the most important being the entire Bible by Johannes Bugenhagen, printed in 1533. Bugenhagen’s work was translated into Low German from Luther’s High German Bible (for more about Bugenhagen, see Seyferth and Bentlin in this work). Luther was a prolific writer; his most significant works in addition to biblical texts were postils and other religious books such as a prayer book, a text of the Mass, many printed sermons, and a catechism (see, e.g., Manns and Loose 1982), all of which served as models for works published in the vernacular around the Baltic Sea area. It must be noted, however, that the German translations of the biblical texts and other religious literature had a remarkably long tradition even before the Reformation. For example, the first Bible in German was printed in 1466, and altogether some 20 Bibles in High and Low German had been printed before Luther’s New Testament (see, e.g., Rupprich 1994: 342-47; see also Flood in this volume). Biblical texts and some other central religious works translated into Swedish have been preserved since the Middle Ages, from the 14th and 15th centuries. The Swedish New Testament of the Reformation era also appeared relatively early, in 1526. The new revised edition was published together with the first entire Bible (the Gustaf Vasa’s Bible) in 1541 (see Pettersson in this volume). The known translators of the Reformation era Swedish biblical texts were Laurentius Andrae and Olaus Petri (Bergman 1984: 86-87). The 16th century also saw the other most important religious texts translated into Swedish. Finland was under Swedish rule and adopted Lutheranism along with Sweden. The first known Finnish religious texts are manuscript fragments from the 1530s and 1540s (see Toropainen in this volume). The key works of church life and at the same time the first printed works in Finnish were published in Stockholm in the 1540s and 1550s, translated by Mikael 3 In fact, the first translation of the entire Bible to German after 1517 following humanistic and evangelical ideas was not Luther’s Bible but the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli’s Bible, widely known by the name Zürich Bible (1531).
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Agricola. The first Finnish translation of the New Testament was printed in 1548 (see Häkkinen 2015: 28-30, 53-75; see also Bentlin in the current work). The first entire Bible was printed in Finnish in 1642. Biblical texts in Danish are also known from the Middle Ages, from the 15th century (for more detail, see, e.g., Molde 1949: 55-56). The first Danish translation of the New Testament was published as a cooperative effort by the translators Hans Mikkelsen, Henrik Smith, and Christian Vinther in Holland in 1524. The New Testament was translated again by Christiern Pedersen in 1529 in Antwerp in Flanders (there were also later translations from the 16th century; see Molde 1949: 56-57). The first translation of the entire Bible into Danish was edited by Pedersen and printed in 1550 (Christian III’s Bible; the second Danish Bible translation was printed in 1589; see, e.g., Luby and Grell 1995: 129). The same work was also in use in Norway. The history of Icelandic literary culture is remarkably old, but printed literature was born as a result of the influence of the Reformation. Iceland, which, like Norway, belonged to Denmark, saw its own first New Testament translation published in 1540. The translator was Oddur Gottskálksson, and it was printed in Roskilde. The complete Bible translation was published by Guðbrandur Þorláksson and printed in Hólar, Iceland, in 1584 (see, e.g., Eggertsdóttir 2006: 177; for more about the written Scandinavian languages and their literature in the 16th and 17th century, see Kleivane and Óskarsdóttir in this work). Biblical texts translated into Polish are known from as early as the 13th century. In the 16th century, Poland was enjoying a period of flourishing culture, and this was also to be seen in publishing activity. The first New Testament that appeared in Polish was Protestant, translated by Stanisław Murzynowski and edited by Jan Seklucjan in Königsberg in Prussia in 1551 and 1552, and the complete Protestant Bible was printed in Polish in 1563 (Biblia Brzeska, the Brest Bible).4 Other translations also appeared in the 16th century (see Kłoczowski 2000 for more detail on Polish Bible translations; Pietkiewicz 2016; see Winiarska-Górska in the current work about influence of the Lutheran Reformation in written Polish). The first book in Lithuanian, a catechism by Martinus Mosvidius, also printed in Königsberg, appeared as result of the Reformation, in 1547 (e.g., Kasekamp 2010: 40, 202). It was followed during the 16th century by other religious works. Translations of the Bible were longer in coming, although the first translation of the Bible into Lithuanian by Jonas Bretkūnas was completed in 1579–1580 but never printed. Samuel Bogusław Chyliński’s translation was completed in 4 The first entire Bible printed in Polish was Catholic, the so-called Leopolita’s Bible, published in 1561.
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the mid-17th century, and in 1660 the first Old Testament in Lithuanian was printed in Oxford. The New Testament was published in 1701; the first Lithuanian language translation of the whole Bible was not printed until 1735 (for more about early Lithuanian literature, see Pociūtė in this volume). The written form of the Estonian language was born as a result of the Lutheran Reformation. Even in the 16th century there was little writing or translation using Estonian. However, the first catechism appeared in Wittenberg in 1535; other 16th-century catechisms were also known. The oldest known New Testament texts in manuscript date to the middle of the 17th century. The earliest printed versions were published around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries (see Ross 2007). The first entire Bible was printed in Estonian in 1739 (see, e.g., Ehasalu et al. 1997; Kivimäe 2000; for more about the early Estonian literature, see Ross in this volume). Written Latvian also came into being as a result of the Reformation. The first biblical texts were translated into the Latvian language already in the 16th century, and these pericope texts were also printed. Also other texts, such as catechisms from the 16th century (the Lutheran version in 1586), are known (e.g., Talve 2004: 104). The complete Bible was translated into Latvian in the 17th century, and the first Bible was published in the years 1685–1694 (for more, see Vanags in the current work; for the historical ancestry of the Estonian and the Latvian literature, see Ross and Vanags in this volume). In the area of the present Czech Republic (until the early 20th century known as Bohemia), the literary culture is rather old. In the Middle Ages many biblical texts had already been translated into Czech, and in the 14th century the Bible had been translated in its entirety. The first Bible in Czech, the Prague Bible, was printed in 1488, and subsequent entire Bibles in Czech were printed in 1489 and 1506. The first New Testament translated from a non-Vulgate source dates from 1533, and there was also a translation of the entire Bible, mainly from the original languages, from the years 1579–1594 (Bible kralická, the Kralice Bible ‘the Bible of Kralice’) (see, e.g., Pánek 2009: 215-18; Voit et al. 2014; for more about the Czech Bible translations, see Dittmann in the current work). Translations of Christian texts in the vernacular have a long tradition also in the Low Countries. The oldest texts in Dutch date back to the Middle Ages; for example, translations of the New Testament Gospels were already known in the 14th century, while the Old Testament appeared in 1477 (Delft Bijbel). The first New Testament translations of the Reformation period were printed in the 1520s, and the entire Bible appeared in a translation by Jacob van Liesvelt in 1526 and by Willem Vorsterman in 1528 (see, e.g., Pleij 2009; see also de Smit in this work). The vast majority of the Dutch translations
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of the Reformation era were printed at an important printing centre of the time, Antwerp, in present-day Belgium, as were also many versions in other languages (see, e.g., Arblaster 2004: 9-11, 13-24). In England, as in many other countries, the influences that led to the Reformation were primarily anything but religious. Translating the Bible into the vernacular was not among the most important issues to be addressed. In fact, the ruler was opposed to this as well as to many other changes in religious doctrine and ecclesiastical life. All in all, the Protestant Church reached the shores of England through a long, complex, and bloody process. The Reformation (as the Church of England) only became established in the latter half of the 16th century. There is, however, a long history of biblical texts in the vernacular in England, going as far back as the turn of the 7th and 8th centuries. Worthy of mention here are the first Bible entirely in English, translated by the early reformer John Wycliffe or his followers, dating back to the 1370s/1380s, and then, during the Reformation period in the 16th century, William Tyndale’s translations of the New Testament (1525, 1526) and the complete Bible (the Great Bible, 1539), which comprises Tyndale’s translations but also texts by other translators (see, e.g., Newcombe 1995: 11-14; Morris 1998: 171-76; see also Flood in this volume). The importance of Bible translations in the vernacular for the spread of the Reformation cannot be overestimated. In practice, however, the word of God in the vernacular reached the people often by word of mouth. As the common people were largely illiterate, they became familiar with the teachings by listening to the priests. Preaching in the vernacular was in fact a fundamental cornerstone of the Lutheran Reformation. Compared with earlier practices, the change was more significant in some areas than in others. In some areas, even before the Reformation, priests had taught and preached in the local languages. However, even after the Reformation, not everyone had the opportunity to follow the church service in their mother tongue. For example, in Norway, under the rule of Denmark, Danish was the language used in the Church following the Reformation, not the local language (Hentilä et al. 2002: 66-67; Talve 2004: 95; see also Ross and Vanags in this volume).
The influence of the Reformation on languages As the Bible represented the highest literary authority, it served as an example for other literature and literary language. Bible translations were also typically rendered into the target language with great care. In the early
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stages of the Reformation, Bibles in the vernacular were the models for several literary and standard languages in the Baltic Sea area. The printing of Bibles and other religious books also helped significantly to establish the written languages (see, e.g., Burke 2004: 89-110). Throughout the ages, translation has been the route through which many linguistic changes and innovations have found their way into languages. In fact, it is one of the most important phenomena regarding contacts between languages.5 The ideal in translating the Bible had for centuries been to reproduce the word of God as exactly as possible. The Lutheran ideal of translation differed from the mediaeval tradition in that it stressed the production of a natural and easily understandable language, avoiding complex, obscure expressions. Nevertheless, translators in the Reformation age often translated word for word, copying the structures of the source text. This may have partly been done subconsciously, but it may also have been due to their lack of practical language skills (see, e.g., Ross in this volume). The difference compared with former Catholic practices was that the source texts used were often other translations in the vernacular, especially Luther’s German translations. As a result, new kinds of influences were passed from one language to another (for more about differences between traditional and Protestant translation methods, see de Smit in the current work). Due to the translation of biblical and other religious texts in the 16th century, foreign syntactic structures, morphological elements, concepts, and vocabulary were borrowed and used in the target texts. The source languages also left their mark on word order and orthography. In addition to linguistic elements, new text genres were also adopted (see, e.g., Vanags 1995; Eggertsdóttir 2006: 178; Häkkinen 2015: 108-11, 126). Borrowing from one language to another affected languages belonging to different language groups but also related languages. For example, German has had a considerable effect on the structures and vocabulary of literary Swedish. Likewise, German has influenced Estonian and Latvian, while Swedish has influenced Finnish. Even though the languages spoken in the Baltic Sea region belong to different language groups and differ in many aspects, they have still been in close contact for a very long time and have come closer to one another in many ways, perhaps even to the degree that we can even speak of a 5 It is not always easy to distinguish the influence of translation on languages from those changes caused by other contacts between languages since translation and other language contacts can lead to corresponding innovations. The combined effect of various types of contacts is most probably the explanation for contact-based changes and variations that affect languages (Kolehmainen 2013: 452-53).
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hypothetical Baltic Sea linguistic area (the Baltic Europe), within which the languages have certain features in common (Raukko and Östman 1994: 1). In the above, the way in which languages have come closer to one another through literary culture and translation has been discussed. A similar process might also take place within a single language, as different dialects acquired similar features through standardization of the written language. However, the literary culture can also have the effect of differentiating languages. For example, while Swedish and Danish formerly formed a continuum of dialects, the birth of literary languages brought with it a clear differentiation between the languages. In the same way, the literary culture emphasized the differences between Finnish and Estonian, Karelian, and the Veps language, and in the same way between German and Danish and Dutch (Klinge 1995: 63).
Contributions This volume examines the impact of the Lutheran Reformation on the languages of the Baltic Sea region from several different perspectives. The book contains twelve chapters written by experts in the old written Baltic Sea region languages. The chapters of the book deal with the events related to the translations of the Bible texts, but genres other than biblical are also discussed. A few of the most central themes of the chapters are: how the ideologies and other ideas related to Lutheranism were adapted to the new areas, new languages, and new contexts during the Reformation period in the 16th and 17th centuries; and how the Lutheran Reformation affected the standardization of the literary languages. The current volume is divided into four parts. Part I, ‘The Reception of Luther’s Ideas and their Influence for the Development of Written Languages’, examines how Lutheran ideals were expressed in writing in the translations and other texts of the Reformation period. Although the ideals were common, the external world of the languages and the different social and linguistic conditions prevailing in the different regions affected how they were understood and put into practice. The opening chapter, by John L. Flood, discusses how the ideals of the Lutheran Reformation were received in 16th-century England. Firstly, the chapter examines the disagreements between King Henry VIII and Martin Luther regarding the sacraments; secondly, it deals with William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament (1525, 1526) and how it was received. Tyndale’s translation is considered extremely significant for
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the development of the written English language, and the language itself has been praised as being, among other things, natural, clear, rich, and easily understandable. However, the chapter stresses that the merits of Tyndale’s work should be seen in the light of Luther’s New Testament (1522) and Luther’s ideals regarding translation. It is indeed clear that Luther was a model for Tyndale, not only in terms of ideology but also linguistically. English was Tyndale’s mother tongue, and written English had long traditions, so the starting point for putting Luther’s visions into effect can be considered excellent. The second chapter, by Kristiina Ross, deals with the question of how the ideals of the Lutheran Reformation regarding language usage and translation were put into practice in written Estonian. The chapter focuses on the confrontation between ideals and practical reality. The role of the German language was very strong in the area of contemporary Estonia at the early modern time; the elite were German speaking, and this also applied to the Lutheran clergy and those who did the actual translation work. According to the Lutheran ideal, the translation should aim at a language that was understandable to the common people and was clear and expressive. The aims were challenging when the text was translated into a new language that was still in the process of developing and when the translators were non-native speakers who only had a basic knowledge of the language. The chapter deals with these perspectives from the development of written Estonian over a 200-year period, from the early 16th century, at the beginning of the Lutheran era, to the publishing of the first complete Bible in Estonian in 1739. The third chapter, by Izabela Winiarska-Górska, sheds light on the influence of the Lutheran Reformation on the history of written Polish. The focus is above all on the 16th century, when the ideas of Lutheranism also reached Prussia and Poland. The chapter discusses how Lutheranism was reflected both in the standard language and in religious discourse. The cultural context differs from that prevailing in many of the other areas of the Baltic Sea region, among other reasons because Catholicism never lost its predominant position in the area. Naturally, political factors and changes in administrative areas, as well as the local and marginal nature of Lutheranism, affected the importance of Lutheran literature as a channel of influence. In spite of this, Lutheran literature can be seen above all as having promoted the development of the written language and literature of the region during the Reformation period. Part II of the book, ‘Effects of Bible Translations on the Evolution of Written Language’, examines the linguistic influence of the Lutheran source texts. Generally speaking, the Reformation was of considerable importance for the
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development and establishment of the written languages of the Baltic Sea region. However, these influences varied for different languages, which was partly due to social factors and partly depended on how old, how far developed, and how well established the written language was. Regarding the stage of development, it is also relevant to consider the relationship between significant historical events and periods and the actual development of the language. In the fourth chapter, Robert Dittmann discusses the influence of the Lutheran Reformation period on written Czech. The Bible was translated into Czech as early as the 14th century, and by the time of the Reformation, the language was a rich, highly developed and well-established written language based on the mediaeval tradition of biblical language. Protestant views had long traditions in Czech lands,6 and Luther’s ideas also reached the area early. All in all, the religious situation in Czech lands was very confused in the 16th century, and although Luther’s texts were translated, neither his Bible nor his New Testament were ever translated into Czech. Thus, ultimately, his influence on Bible translation and the development of the written Czech was not particularly significant. Instead of the Lutheran Bible, the new model for written Czech was offered by the Bible as translated mainly directly from the original languages from the end of the 16th century. The fifth chapter, by Jonatan Pettersson, deals with the development of written Swedish in the light of early Bible translation work. The focus is on the translation of the New Testament (1526) in the Reformation period, which in the history of written Swedish has been seen as a special milestone in the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern age, and from Old Swedish to Early Modern Swedish. Even though the work contains linguistic innovations and has had a powerful influence on establishing the written language, it also serves as a document of mediaeval linguistic usage. From the perspective of written Swedish, the 16th century, the Reformation period, and the early modern age appear to be a time of further development of late mediaeval phenomena and changes rather than the beginning or end of any period of development. Part III of the book, ‘Reuse of (Catholic) Texts after the Reformation’, discusses the use of old texts from the time of the Roman Catholic Church in the Lutheran context. The adoption of Lutheran views changed the cultural contexts of interpretation and use in several ways. The themes discussed here include the suitability of the subjects and text genres and their adaptation to the context, as well as changes relating to the use of the texts. 6 The area here called the Czech Lands consisted of the areas of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia (see Dittmann in the current volume).
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The sixth chapter, by Elise Kleivane and Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, deals with the appearance of stories about the child Jesus and his mother Mary in late mediaeval and early modern Nordic literature. It is an old apocryphal subject that in Catholic times was very popular in Europe, when the worship of saints played an important role. These texts telling the story of the child Jesus and the mother Mary were also known in Nordic countries, and they seem to have only increased in popularity in the centuries following the Reformation. The chapter focuses on the use of the texts and how they were spread, especially to the areas of Norway and Iceland. The texts were adapted to the new context and are excellent proof that an old popular theme could survive reforms by adapting to the changed expectations. The seventh chapter of the book, by Sebastian Seyferth, concerns the New Testament summaries compiled by the 16th-century Low German reformers, such as Johannes Bugenhagen and Veit Dietrich. The summaries were précis-like texts, introducing readers to the books of the Bible and explaining the biblical texts. The chapter examines the textual and other linguistic means by which the biblical texts are referred to in the summaries, and links are created between the texts. The questions focused on are: How far did the New Testament summaries of the Reformation period serve purely as introductions to and synopses of the actual texts of the Bible, to what extent did they deal with the ideas of Reformation, and to what extent was the function of the summaries to explain and give theological interpretations of the texts? These questions are interesting, particularly against the background that, according to the principles of the Reformation, the Bible should be in the vernacular and presented in such a clear and easily understandable way that it could function alone as a guideline for life and religious belief, without the explanatory texts inherited from Catholic times. In Chapter 8, Tanja Toropainen compares early Finnish translations of the Latin hymn Te Deum laudamus. The hymn, dating from the time of the mediaeval Roman Catholic Church, has been translated into Finnish several times; these texts include both prose-type versions and a rhymed version of the hymn. From these versions we can see the change that took place when the Catholic choral singing tradition was replaced, in accordance with the Lutheran ideal, by the practice of chanting the hymn together as a congregation. The chapter examines the relationship between the versions and considers the influence of the Latin, Swedish, and German versions on the Finnish translations. Part IV, ‘Language Contacts and Loanwords’, discusses the traces left by contacts and recorded in texts as a result of translation – for example, cultural words, terminology, and other structures adopted from one language
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into another. The language and texts are also examined more widely from the perspective of discourse: how the contacts created by the Reformation influenced the way in which people talked about certain things and the language they used to describe the world around them. In the ninth chapter, Mikko Bentlin looks into the traces left by Low German on early Finnish translations from the Reformation era. It is well known that Mikael Agricola, Finland’s most important reformer and a powerful influence in creating the written Finnish language, used Luther’s High German texts as his source texts. This chapter complements earlier research by establishing the extent to which the influence of Middle Low German source texts is to be seen in the Finnish translations. Interesting potential source texts are, for example, Johannes Bugenhagen’s Low German texts from the same period. The chapter also considers the reasons why the influence of Low German language and Low German texts seems to have remained surprisingly scant in Agricola’s work. The tenth chapter, by Merlijn de Smit, deals with the influence of Luther’s texts as source texts on 16th-century Dutch Bible translations. The initial situation was an interesting starting point, as during that time both Protestant and Catholic translations were produced in the vernacular. The chapter examines how different translation ideologies and strategies were applied in the texts. The focus is on translations of the names of exotic animals in the Old Testament. The Catholic translation principle dating from mediaeval times can be described as relying on source texts, whereas the Protestant principle was more concerned with adapting the text to the target language. The study shows, for example, that the Protestant translations do, in fact, generally use more target language vocabulary, while in the Catholic vernacular translations the tendency is to rely on loan words. The eleventh chapter, by Dainora Pociūtė, focuses on medical terminology and discourse in 16th-century texts, which are the oldest texts in the Lithuanian language. A central theme of the study is how the early Lutheran texts influenced the development of Lithuanian medical terminology and the understanding of diseases in the early modern age. The chapter is concerned with the interface between folk medicine and the Lutheran concept of disease and medicine. The early Lutheran texts in Lithuanian show that those who composed and translated them created a foundation for Lithuanian medical terminology going beyond that of the vernacular and Latin. In the last chapter, Pēteris Vanags discusses the influence of German on early written Latvian. The focus is on Christian discourse. The background for the themes dealt with is formed by loan-based cultural phenomena (the
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Christian religion and the Lutheran Reformation) and the loan-based texts (above all biblical texts) relating to the phenomena and their translation. The chapter examines the vocabulary and idioms of Christian discourse in the early 16th and 17th centuries, and also the morphological and syntactic structures, in terms of their origin. Early written Latvian was in practice a language translated from German, which was clearly reflected in the difference between the written and the spoken language. The influence of German on the written language was even more pronounced because the writers either spoke German as their mother tongue or they had a very good command of German. The influence of German and the resulting obscurity of the texts remained characteristic features of the language of Christianity until in the 19th century. The present volume has been produced as the result of cooperation between leading language researchers in their special fields. It offers interesting points of view and thought-provoking observations on the usage of the written language, the literary models, and the spread and adoption of ideas and practices into new languages and new societies in the Reformation era. The work deals with the Reformation from the perspective of language and linguistic research, while offering not only information of general interest but also significant research knowledge for the use of many other scientific fields, such as church history, history, cultural history, and other cultural research fields. This book is the first work to examine the influence of the Lutheran Reformation, and the use of 16th- and 17th-century language in writing and its literary usage, from the perspective of different languages. As many as twelve languages of the Baltic Sea area or languages in its immediate sphere of influence are given a voice in this work. All the literary languages discussed here are still flourishing today, and we wish them all an excellent 500 years to come!
Bibliography Arblaster, Paul. 2004. ‘Totius mundi emporium’: Antwerp as a Centre for Vernacular Bible Translations 1523–1545. In Low Countries as a Crossroads of Religious Beliefs, ed. by Arie-Jan Gelderblom, Jan L. de Jong, and Marc van Vaeck, 9-32. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. Atwood, Craig D. 2015. Czech Reformation and Hussite Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bentlin, Mikko. 2008. Niederdeutsch-finnische Sprachkontakte. Der lexikalische Einfluß des Niederdeutscen auf die finnische Sprache während des Mittelalters
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und der frühen Neuzeit. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia 256. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. Bergman, Gösta. 1984. Kortfattad svensk språkhistoria. Stockholm: Bokförlaget Prisma. Burke, Peter. 2004. Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burns, Alfred. 1989. The Power of the Written Word: The Role of Literacy in the History of Western Civilization. New York: Peter Lang. Eggertsdóttir, Margrét. 2006. From Reformation to Enlightenment. In A History of Icelandic Literature, ed. by Daisy L. Neijmann, 174-250. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Ehasalu, Epp, Külli Habicht, Valve-Liivi Kingisepp, and Jaak Peebo. 1997. Eesti keele vanimad tekstid ja sõnastik. Tartu Ülikooli eesti keele õppetooli toimetised 6. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool. Häkkinen, Kaisa. 2015. Spreading the Written Word: Mikael Agricola and the Birth of Literary Finnish, trans. by Leonard Pearl. Studia Fennica Linguistica 19. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Hentilä, Seppo, Christian Krötzl, and Panu Pulma. 2002. Pohjoismaiden historia. Helsinki: Edita. Janson, Tore. 2002. Latin: kulturen, historien, språket. Stockholm: Wahlström & Wahlström. Kasekamp, Andres. 2010. A History of the Baltic States. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kirby, David. 1990. Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period: The Baltic World, 1492–1772. London: Longman. Kivimäe, Jüri. 2000. Über den estnischen Druck anno 1525. In Die ältesten estnischen Bücher in Tallinn (Reval), ed. by Lea Kõiv and Mare Luuk, trans. by Kaja Altof-Telschow, 36-61. Tallinn: Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu, Eesti Akadeemiline Raamatukogu, Tallinna Linnaarhiiv. Klinge, Matti. 1995. Itämeren maailma. Helsinki: Otava. Kłoczowski, Jerzy. 2000. A History of Polish Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kolehmainen, Leena. 2013. Käännöstiede ja kontaktilingvistiikka kohtaavat. In Kielten vertailun metodiikka, ed. by Leena Kolehmainen, Matti Miestamo, and Taru Nordlund, 420-60. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Toimituksia 1387. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Lehtonen, Tuomas M.S., and Linda Kaljundi. 2016. Re-forming Texts, Music, and Church Art in the Early Modern North, ed. by Tuomas M.S. Lehtonen and Linda Kaljundi. Crossing Boundaries. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Luby, Thorkild, and Ole Peter Grell. 1995. The Consolidation of Lutheranism in Denmark and Norway. In The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical
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Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, ed. by Ole Peter Grell, 114-43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Manns, Peter, and Helmut Nils Loose. 1982. Martin Luther. Glauben, Leben, Wirkung. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. Molde, Bertil. 1949. Källorna till Christian II: s Bibel 1550. Textfilologiska Studier i Reformationstidens Danska Bibelöversättningar. Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup. Morris, Terence Alan. 1998. Europe and England in the Sixteenth Century. London: Routledge. Müller, Helmut M. 2002. Schlaglichter der deutschen geschichte. 2. Auflage. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Newcombe, D.G. 1995. Henry VIII and the English Reformation. London: Routledge. Ozment, Steven. 1980. The Age of Reform 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press. Pánek, Jaroslav. 2009. The Czech Estates in the Habsburg Monarchy (1526–1620). In A History of the Czech lands, ed. by Jaroslav Pánek and Oldrich Tuma, 189-230. Prague: Karolinum Press, Charles University. Peters, Robert. 2008. Soziokulturelle Voraussetzungen und Sprachraum des Mittelniederdeutchen. In Sprachgeschichte. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung 2, ed. by Werner Besch et al., 1409-22. Berlin: De Gruyter. Pettersson, Gertrud. 2005. Svenska språket under sjuhundra år. En historia om svenskan och dess utforskande. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Pietkiewicz, Rajmund. 2016. Biblia Polonorum. Historia Biblii w języku polskim, vol. 1: Od początku do 1638. Poznań: Pallotinum. Pleij, Herman. 2009. The Late Middle Ages and the Age of the Rhetoricians, 1400–1560. In A Literary History of the Low Countries, ed. by Theo Hermans, 63-152. Rochester: Camden House. Prak, Maarten. 2005. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century: The Golden Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Prażmowska, Anita J. 2004. A History of Poland. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Raukko, Jarno, and Jan-Ola Östman. 1994. Pragmaattinen näkökulma Itämeren kielialueeseen. Helsinki: Department of General Linguistics, University of Helsinki. Ross, Kristiina. 2007. Põhjaeestikeelsed Uue Testamendi tõlked 1680–1705. Luuka evangeelium, Apostolite teod, ed. by Heiki Reila, Kristiina Ross, and Kai Tafenau. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Instituut. Rupprich, Hans. 1994. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur. Das Ausgehende Mittelalter, Humanismus und Renaissance 1370–1520. 2. Neubearbeitete Auflage. Munich: C.H. Beck.
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Steinberg, Sigfrid Henry. 2001. Five Hundred Years of Printing, rev. by John Trevitt. London: Oak Knoll Press and the British Library. Talve, Ilmar. 2004. Eesti kultuurilugu. Keskaja algusest Eesti iseseisvuseni. Tartu: Ilmamaa. Tiisala, Seija. 1996. Mellan latin och lågtyska. Svenskans ställning i hansatidens Sverige-Finland. In Svenskans beskrivning 21, ed. by Ann-Marie Ivars et al., 287-83. Lund: Lund University Press. Vanags, Pēteris. 1995. Der Einfluß des Niederdeutchen auf die lettiche Schriftsprache des XVI Jahrhunderts. In Läänemere rahvaste kirjakeelte ajaloost, ed. by Jaak Peebo, 222-33. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Eesti keele õppetool. Voit, Petr, Mikuláš Klaudyán, and Mladá Boleslav. 2014. Bohemia and Moravia I: The Reception of Antiquity in Bohemian Book Culture from the Beginning of Printing until 1547. Turnhout: Brepols. 146-56.
About the author Dr. Kirsi-Maria Nummila is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Turku. Her research focuses on old written Finnish, language contacts in the early modern period, and historical linguistics.
Part I The Reception of Luther’s Ideas and their Influence for the Development of Written Languages
1 ‘quae pestis unquam tam perniciosa invasit gregem christi?’ The Role of the Book in the Reception of Lutheranism in England John L. Flood
Abstract This essay discusses how the ideals of the Lutheran Reformation were received in 16th-century England. Firstly, the essay examines the disagreements between King Henry VIII and Martin Luther regarding the sacraments; secondly, it deals with William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament (1525, 1526) and how it was received. Tyndale’s translation is considered extremely significant for the development of the written English language, and the language itself has been praised as being, among other things, natural, clear, rich, and easily understandable. However, the essay stresses that the merits of Tyndale’s work should be seen in the light of Luther’s New Testament (1522) and Luther’s ideals regarding translation. It is indeed clear that Luther was a model for Tyndale, not only in terms of ideology but also linguistically. English was Tyndale’s mother tongue, and written English had long traditions, so the starting point for transmitting Luther’s ideas can be considered excellent. Keywords: Henry VIII, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, Bible translation
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch01
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Henry VIII and Luther ‘What plague so pernicious did ever invade the Flock of Christ? What Serpent so venomous has crept in, as he who writ of the Babylonian Captivity of the Church?’ – thus (supposedly) the reaction of King Henry VIII on reading Martin Luther’s De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae.1 When on 21 May 1521 Henry responded with his Assertio septem sacramentorum, England – at least in German eyes – emerged from relative obscurity on the edge of Europe to become one of the first powers to oppose Luther’s teachings, with Henry championing the old faith against the little Wittenberg professor. The ‘pernicious plague’ had, of course, been spread by printing, the importance of which the Reformers had soon recognized and embraced. Within a year, Luther’s Babylonian Captivity, published at Wittenberg on 6 October 1520, had been disseminated widely throughout Europe. This attack on the Church’s teachings on the sacraments was so vehement that Luther later admitted he should have pitied the ‘Papists’ (WA 10, 2: 223). Jean Glapion, Emperor Charles V’s confessor, who had originally regarded Luther as ‘a noble new plant from which the Church could harvest useful fruits’, admitted that when he read it he would not have been more shaken if he had been scourged from head to foot (WA 6: 493). Johannes Bugenhagen too felt as though he had been horsewhipped when he first read it, and he threw the book away in dismay, though he later felt it had opened his eyes and attracted him to Wittenberg in 1521. The treatise’s impact was intensified through becoming known precisely in the weeks when the papal bull Exsurge Domine of 15 June 1520, threatening Luther with excommunication, was issued. Henry VIII’s intervention in publishing the Assertio placed the affair in the spotlight of international politics. His démarche against Luther has to be seen as linked with the ambition of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c. 1475–1530) to become pope. Wolsey opposed everything schismatic and heretical, and Henry’s attack on Luther reflected his own views. Henry despatched agents to Germany to ensure that he was kept abreast of events. Writing from Worms in January 1521, Cuthbert Tunstall (1474–1559) sent Wolsey an outline of the content of the Babylonian Captivity, adding: ‘They say ther is moch moo strange opinions in hit nere to the opinions off boheme. I pray god kep that boke out off englond’ (Sturge 1938: 361-62). ‘Boheme’ means Bohemia and refers to the teachings of Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415), who, influenced by the Oxford theologian John Wyclif (1338–1384) and the Lollard movement in 1 O’Donovan 1908: 188-89. On the authorship of the Assertio, see ibid. 53-93. Luther for his part believed Henry himself had but a small hand in it (WA 10, 2: 180ff).
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England, had been condemned at the Council of Constance in 1415. Wyclif’s teachings were considered dangerous in Germany, too. Wyclif and Hus play a role behind the scenes in Henry’s quarrel with Luther (whom Johannes Eck termed the ‘Saxon Hus’). A Bohemian manuscript from 1572 shows Wyclif striking the spark, Hus holding a candle, and Luther brandishing a burning torch (Dickens 1989: 13). Not surprisingly, Tunstall advised Wolsey to ban the importation and translation of Lutheran writings into English ‘lest therby myght ensue grete troble to the realme and church off englond’ (Sturge 1938: 361-62). He also sent Wolsey Luther’s Adversus execrabilem Antichristi bullam (1520) (WA 6: 596), his defence of burning the papal bull. When Leo X demanded that Luther’s writings be burned in England, Wolsey obediently complied: on Sunday, 12 May 1521, the cardinal, foreign ambassadors, and other dignitaries witnessed a bonfire of the books outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (LP, III, nos. 1273, 1274). In a two-hour sermon – the first anti-Lutheran text to be printed in English (STC 10894) – John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, denounced Luther, defended papal authority, read out Leo’s condemnation, and referred to Henry’s as yet unfinished tract against Luther. Wolsey had advised the king that it would be a pious act and a deed becoming his learning to respond to Luther’s diatribe. Like Wolsey, Henry had political aims too: disappointed that the pope had not yet granted him an honorific title commensurable with those sported by the ‘Most Christian King’ of France and the ‘Catholic King’ of Spain, he hoped that by attacking Luther he might engineer a decision in his favour (LP, II, nos. 967, 1450, 1928). He prepared his Assertio septem sacramentorum in the spring of 1521 (at about the same time as Luther was being interrogated at Worms); it appeared in print in London already in July 1521 (STC 13078). Henry despatched a fine hand-written copy to the pope, who rewarded him with the title ‘Fidei Defensor’ and, in a Bull of 11 October 1521, promised readers of Henry’s tract an indulgence of ten years and ten times 40 days. Between 1521 and 1523, eleven editions of the Assertio were published, three in London, two in Antwerp, and one each in Rome, Paris, Mainz, Strasbourg, Wittenberg, and Cologne. Two German translations appeared: one made by the Franciscan Thomas Murner (1475–1537), the other by Hieronymus Emser (1477–1527), secretary to Duke George of Saxony, at the latter’s behest. Luther, provoked by Emser’s translation, retaliated with his Antwort deutsch auf König Heinrichs von England Buch (WA 10, 2: 227-72) around 1 August 1522, the more demanding Latin version for theologically more sophisticated readers, Contra Henricum Regem Angliae (WA 10, 2: 180-222) following in late September. No English version appeared, though the third
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Figure 1 Title page of Luther’s De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae. Wittenberg: Melchior Lotter the Younger, 1520
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Latin edition issued at Deventer in March 1523 was possibly intended for the English market. The tone of Luther’s tract is as sharp as that of his opponent. Alluding to Henry’s title Defensor fidei, he begs God to save him from being in a church protected by the King of England. He refers to Henry – or ‘Heyntz’, as he usually calls him – as ‘von gotis vngnaden könig von Engellandt’ (‘by the ungrace of God king of England’), and calls him ‘lügenkönig’ (‘liar king’) (fol. B3v). Even Luther’s friends, such as Georg Spalatin, were appalled by the vehemence of his attack. While Henry himself had no wish to be seen taking on a renegade monk, he felt his royal honour impugned. On 20 January 1523 he urged the Saxon princes to suppress Luther and his New Testament translation (published in September 1522, VD16 B4318). George of Saxony responded positively, and the exchange of letters between him and Henry was published in Latin by Emser and later in German by Thomas Murner. Murner was one of Henry’s most ardent supporters, publishing his diatribe Ob der König aus England ein Lügner sei, oder der Luther (November 1522, VD16 M7047), prompted by Luther’s charging Henry with mendacity. In a curious turn of events, Murner allowed someone to convince him that Henry wished to grant him an audience. In 1523 he travelled to London, where he was shocked to discover that the whole thing was a hoax: the king had not invited him at all. But Henry took pity on him and, recognizing Murner as one of Luther’s fiercest opponents, rewarded him – to the envy of Erasmus – with the enormous sum of 100 pounds and a letter of recommendation for the magistracy of Strasbourg (LP, III, no. 3270). Murner returned to Germany accompanying the English delegation to the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg. On 4 October 1523 the English ambassador, Lord Morley, wrote to the king, saying that he now rather doubted whether the Lutheran movement could be stopped; Luther’s books were to be found everywhere, his adherents were mocking the pope and the cardinals, and furthermore ‘abominable pictures’ were being widely circulated, one of which he was sending the king ‘which I think your highness will laugh at’ as it depicted ‘Dr Morener [= Murner], your frear [i.e., friar] and our guide’ (LP, III, no. 3270).2 English theologians supporting the king included John Fisher, author of Defensio Regiae assertionis contra Babylonicam captivitatem (1523) and other pamphlets; Edward Powell, whose chief work branded Luther a Wycliffite: Propugnaculum summi sacerdotii evangelici […] adversus Martinum Lutherum fratrem famosum et Wicliefistam insignem; and Thomas More, whose pseudonymous work Eruditissimi viri Guilielmi Rossei opus elegans, doctum, festiuum, pium, quo pulcherrime retegit, ac refellit insanas Lutheri 2
The cartoon in question was perhaps the one reproduced in Scribner 1981, fig. 51.
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calumnias quibus […] Angliae regem Henricum […] insectatur (1523) dismissed Luther’s Babylonian Captivity as ‘nothing but a farrago of scurrilous words’. In Germany the debate was continued by Johannes Eck, Johann Dietenberger, and Johannes Cochlæus.3 At this point, early in 1525, the exiled Danish king Christian II somehow gave the Saxon court to understand that Henry was increasingly inclined to favour the evangelical side. So, in May 1525, Luther drafted a humble letter of apology to Henry, which, against Spalatin’s advice, he sent, naively believing he would win Henry’s support. Regretting his intemperate attack, he claimed he had not realized that the Assertio published under Henry’s name was really the work of deceitful men led by the monstrous Cardinal Wolsey. Henry was outraged: in a single stroke Luther had criticized his book and insulted his minister Wolsey. Henry rejected Luther’s apology, responding in August 1526 with a still more intemperate treatise, the Exemplum (STC 13084), of which at least a dozen editions were published, not only in London but also in Catholic strongholds such as Rome, Cologne, Dresden, and Ingolstadt; it was also translated into High German, Low German, and English. Henry accused Luther of unleashing the Peasants’ War and of fornication with a nun (Luther had in the meantime married Katharina von Bora); moreover, he attacks two basic pillars of Luther’s theology: justification by faith, and rejection of free will, which convinced Luther that Erasmus was somehow involved. Luther only reacted once Emser had translated Henry’s pamphlet into German in 1527 and had implied that Luther was ready to recant: he mounted a massive attack on Henry in Auf des Königs zu England Lästerschrift Titel, Martin Luthers Antwort (WA 23: 17), which was translated into Latin with a commentary by Cochlæus but was not widely disseminated. Henry himself did not take up his pen again but was pleased when Erasmus, in the second part of his Hyperaspites (1527), fiercely attacked Luther for his quarrel with the king. Henry avenged himself by cruelly suppressing the adherents of Lutheranism in England. At a court feast at Martinmas (10 November 1527, Luther’s 44th birthday!) he had court jesters play Luther and his wife (LP, IV, no. 3564). The feud between Henry and Luther, essentially waged with printed pamphlets, led in Germany to an increasing awareness of England and, in England, to greater awareness of Luther and his ideas. The pamphlets were mainly written in Latin and, in part on the German side, in German. In England the ‘common man’ was largely excluded, and Luther’s voice was effectively silenced, though Henry’s copious quotations from Luther, 3
For details, see Flood 1996.
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intended to expose his errors, to some extent helped publicize the reformer’s views. Nevertheless, the role of printing and the book trade was crucial. However, even as late as 1529, printing shops were few in England – they were to be found chiefly in London and Oxford, with just a handful of books being produced elsewhere – while in Germany printing had by then been introduced into more than 100 towns. In London the book trade was firmly in the hands of the king, all the tracts dealing with the controversy being published by Richard Pynson, the King’s Printer. Yet, despite the constraints, Lutheran ideas were still rapidly attracting interest in England. In 1520 books by Luther were burned outside Great St. Mary’s church in Cambridge, a town where several young Cambridge theologians – including Thomas Bilney, Hugh Latimer, and Robert Barnes, a group known as ‘Little Germany’ – regularly met in the White Horse tavern to discuss Luther’s ideas (Haigh 1993: 58-63). On 12 October 1524 Cuthbert Tunstall, now Bishop of London, forbade the printing of ‘heretical’ books, but 40 Protestant books by English authors were printed in London between 1525 and 1533 nevertheless. There was a lively trade in Lutheran books imported from the Continent, sometimes through Hanseatic merchants based at the London Steelyard4 or through other ports on the east coast of England, or smuggled in by travellers through Sandwich and Dover. As early as February 1519, the Basel printer Johann Froben reported that hundreds of copies of Luther’s Resolutiones disputationum de virtute indulgentiarum (October 1518; VD16 L3407) had been sent to France, Spain, Brabant, and England. The Oxford bookseller John Dorne, a German, sold thirteen books by Luther in 1520, including his Opera (Basel: Cratander, March 1520; VD16 L3410). Similarly the Dutchman Garrett Godfrey supplied Lutheran books at Cambridge (Leedham-Green 1992; 2010: 31, 34). Some of these books were printed specially for the English market. One example, imported from Antwerp, is the possibly pseudonymous Hermannus Bodius’s Unio Dissidentium, a collection of excerpts from patristic writings that appear to underpin Lutheran principles. In 1528 the curate in Kensington, a village then outside London, was dismissed from his post for possessing the Unio Dissidentium and William Tyndale’s New Testament translation (Haigh 1993: 65). Such books circulated through a well-functioning network of middlemen, including Dr. Robert Forman, rector of All Hallows, Honey Lane, London, and president of Queens’ College, Cambridge (Hope 2014: 276).5 4 In 1526 Thomas More visited the Steelyard and forbade the merchants to import Lutheran writings (Doernberg 1961: 11, 127, note 12). 5 On the trade in Lutheran books, see Da Costa 2014, especially 411-13.
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Luther and Tyndale’s New Testament The most significant book of all, imported from the Continent, was Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament. Printing stimulated a desire for translations of the Bible, with Germany leading the way: the first German Bible, the first vernacular Bible ever printed, had been issued by Johann Mentelin at Strasbourg before 27 June 1466 – seventeen years before Luther’s birth. The authorities became concerned by such developments, but it was already too late: by the time Berthold von Henneberg, Archbishop of Mainz, forbade the printing of vernacular Bibles in March 1485, ten High German and two Low German Bibles were already in circulation. When Luther’s New Testament translation appeared, in September 1522, fourteen High German (all deriving directly or indirectly from Mentelin’s 1466 edition) and four Low German editions had appeared. But all these older Vulgate-based Bibles were swept from the market by the resounding success of Luther’s version. Between 1522 and Luther’s death in 1546, 21 editions appeared in Wittenberg alone, and (including unauthorized ones) some 105 altogether in 24 years.6 Today, perhaps, it is difficult to appreciate the thrill that direct access to the Bible in a readable, vernacular translation must have given 16th-century readers. Cochlæus claimed (probably with some exaggeration) that Luther’s New Testament was so widely available ‘that even tailors and cobblers, even women and other simple folk who had only learnt to read a little German in their lives, were reading it most avidly as though it were the fount of all truth, while others carried it around, pressed to their bosom, and learned it by heart’ (Cochlæus 1549: 55).7 Luther’s translation was innovative, indeed provocative, in that it was based on Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, first published in 1516 but known to Luther in the second edition of 1519. Despite its faults, Erasmus’s Greek text launched an intellectual revolution that provided the basis for 16th-century Protestant biblical culture. For the Old Testament and Apocrypha, on which he worked from 1522 to 1532, Luther used the Hebrew text, availing himself when necessary of help from Philipp Melanchthon and Matthaeus Aurogallus (Goldhahn), respectively professors of Greek and Hebrew at Wittenberg. The Catholic Church’s continuing insistence on the authority of the Vulgate, later confirmed by the Council of Trent, was designed to counter the dual threats posed by Greek and Hebrew studies on the one hand and by vernacular translations on the other. 6 For details, see Benzing and Claus 1994: 291-345. 7 Neddermeyer 1998: 530 estimates that half a million people (approx. 2.5 per cent of the population) of Germany could then read.
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Figure 2 Gospel of John in Tyndale’s New Testament, Worms: Peter Schöffer the Younger, 1526 (STC 2824; VD16 B4570). Photo: British Library
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In England the excitement engendered by Erasmus’s work on the Greek New Testament and Luther’s German translation must have planted the idea in the head of William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536) to bring out an English version. Tyndale seems to have been the f irst to translate any work of Erasmus’s – his Enchiridion militis Christiani – into English. Perhaps in the spring of 1523, Tyndale presented his translation to his first significant patron in London, the merchant Humphrey Monmouth, who would later be arrested for possessing heretical books and would claim that, having heard the Bishop of London preach against Tyndale, he burnt everything that remained in his possession of Tyndale’s (Daniell 1994: 74). Tyndale’s Enchiridion translation probably formed the basis of John Byddell’s edition, printed by Wynkyn de Worde at London in 1533.8 Byddell published a number of reformist texts around that date, including a translation of Luther’s De Libertate Christiana, which may also have been among Monmouth’s manuscripts. In 1523 Tyndale approached Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London since 1522, thinking he would be the ideal patron for his plan for an English Bible, imagining that, as a classical scholar who had helped Erasmus collate manuscripts for his 1516 Greek New Testament, he would favour reverting to the original texts. Tunstall, however, felt constrained to follow the Church’s teaching and adhere to the Vulgate – after all, in 1408 Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, wanting to suppress the translation associated with the name of John Wyclif, had declared it heresy to translate the Scriptures or possess any English version unless both the owner and the translation were formally approved by a bishop. Tyndale, recognizing that it was impossible to print an English Bible in England without official patronage, went to Germany, disillusioned. Cochlæus takes up the story, relating how, in 1525, ‘two apostates from England’ (unnamed, but doubtless Tyndale and his amanuensis William Roye, a Cambridge student who had been a Franciscan at Greenwich) who, ‘having been taught the German language at Wittenberg, had translated Luther’s New Testament into the English tongue’, aiming to turn the whole population of England Lutheran against the will of the king.9 Wittenberg, then the focus for biblical scholarship, was a natural destination, and Tyndale seems to have spent ten months there in 1524–1525, notwithstanding Inglis’s recent dismissal of the notion 8 A manuscript copy of Tyndale’s translation was acquired by the British Library in 2015, now Add. MS 89149. 9 Cochlæus 1533: ‘Etenim ante annos octo [i.e., 1525], duo ex Anglia Apostatae, qui Vuittenbergae Teuthonicam edocti linguam, Lutheri nouum testamentum in linguam Anglicanam uerterant’.
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as ‘fanciful’.10 Belief that Tyndale was in Wittenberg rests on an entry in the university’s matriculation register which records Guilhelmus Daltin de Anglia as enrolling on 27 May 1524. Mozley (1937: 52-53) suggested that this was a cover name for William Tyndale in these dangerous times – Daltin being the two syllables Tin – dal reversed.11 Daniell (1994: 300) is sceptical, but I am less so, not only because William Roye is certainly attested as enrolling there on 10 June 1525 but also because there is at least one other contemporary example of an Englishman registering there under an assumed name to conceal his true identity: the Reformer Robert Barnes, recorded on 20 June 1533 as D[octor] Anthonius Anglus oxoniensis, his true identity apparently being assured by none other than Melanchthon, who wrote the name Robertus Barns next to the entry in the register (Förstemann 1841: 149, col. b.). If this identification is really correct, then Barnes not only called himself Anthonius, rather than Robertus, but also concealed his real academic origin, for he was a graduate of Cambridge, not of Oxford. Barnes’s activities in Germany under various pseudonyms are fairly well attested (Flood 2001). By the time Tyndale arrived in Germany, Luther’s New Testament was already available in several editions, some printed at Wittenberg but most of them issued at Basel or Augsburg. Given Tyndale’s burning ambition to publish an English New Testament, it is entirely reasonable to suppose that he studied Luther’s translation – after all, Luther was a figure of international significance, and his translation was currently a sensation on the book market. It became the model for all subsequent Protestant Bibles. As Bluhm (1984: 114) says, it is ‘unthinkable’ that Tyndale would not have consulted it; Wansbrough (2001: 129) says he ‘certainly used’ it; and even Daniell (1994: 142) concedes that ‘it is safe to assume’ that he referred to it – even going as far as to imagine Tyndale and his amanuensis sitting in a well-equipped study ‘with Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, with its new parallel Latin, in front of them, with Luther’s “September Bible”, also its second and third editions, and the Vulgate, also open, and Greek, Latin and German dictionaries to hand’. Gruber believed that Tyndale consulted Luther’s translation in the third Wittenberg edition, printed by Melchior and Michael Lotter in 1524 (VD16 B4349), rather than the September 1522 edition itself or one of the 10 Neil Inglis, in his editorial to The Tyndale Society Journal, 39 (Autumn 2010), 25. On the question of Tyndale in Wittenberg, see Gruber 1917: 21-30. 11 Similarly, Latimer was anagrammatized as ‘Merlat’ and Nicholas Shaxton, Bishop of Salisbury, as ‘Tonshax’ (Craig 1991). In his will of 9 August 1556, Shaxton made a bequest to his son Thomas ‘Dratsab’ (= bastard) (Susan Wabuda, personal communication).
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more than two dozen unauthorized reprints that appeared before 1525.12 While this suggestion seems eminently plausible, the whole question does need to be revisited, if only because I note that in Mark 15: 37 Tyndale renders the Greek ἐξέπνευσεν (‘expires’) with gave vppe the gooste, which parallels Luther’s gab den geyst auff, found only in the September 1522 and the Zurich 1524 (VD16 B4353) editions. The December 1522 and the 1524 Wittenberg editions read simply verschied. According to Cochlæus, in 1525 Tyndale and Roye planned to smuggle into England a translation of Luther’s New Testament, published at Cologne. The printer was Peter Quentel, who was probably financed by English merchants (possibly including Humphrey Monmouth) and the Birckmann family at Cologne, who already had extensive interests in the English book market (Hope 2014: 275). Cochlæus said they originally wanted to print 6000 copies, but, since the printers deemed this ill-advised, an initial print run of 3000 was agreed. Cochlæus, learning of these plans when the printers had completed the first ten quarto sheets, reported them to Herman Rinck, a Cologne patrician, who investigated the matter and, finding it to be true, informed the city council, who put a stop to it.13 Thereupon, Cochlæus said, the ‘two renegade English monks’ fled up the Rhine, taking the printed sheets with them to Worms ‘where, alas, the common man has taken up the Lutheran gospel with great lack of sense’. The first printed English New Testament (STC 2824; VD16 B4570), now an octavo of 348 leaves, was completed by Peter Schöffer the Younger at Worms in February 1526.14 Luther’s friend Spalatin recorded in his diary on 11 August 1526: ‘At Worms six thousand copies of the New Testament in English have been published. This text had been translated by an Englishman who is staying there with two other British citizens’ (Popp 1999: 137, note 1). Meanwhile, Rinck had reported the matter to Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, and John Fisher. Though a watch was kept on English ports to intercept the book, it could be obtained through Robert Barnes at the Augustinian friary in London (Hope 2014: 277). The Archbishop of Canterbury having declared Tyndale’s translation to contain 12 Gruber 1917: 38, 53-63; also François 2010: 10. There are c. 500 substantive textual differences between the September and December 1522 editions alone, but, given that Tyndale was primarily translating from Greek and apparently only occasionally consulting Luther’s text, few of them can help to clarify which edition he knew. 13 Just eight sheets of this 1525 edition survive (British Library: G.12179) (VD16 B4569). 14 Diekamp 2015: 20-22 suggests that Quentel may have put Tyndale in touch with Schöffer, a man with Protestant sympathies. The fact that Schöffer also printed Wyclif’s Dialogorum libri quattuor [Worms, 1525] (British Library: 688.e.2; G.12063 [1]) shows how well attuned he was to Reformist ideas.
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‘heretical pravity’ on 3 November 1526,15 Bishop Tunstall, finding ‘more than two thousand heretical errors’ in it, had copies publicly burned at St. Paul’s Cross in London – he even had them bought up in bulk on the Continent for immediate destruction. Today only one complete copy (in Stuttgart, originally acquired by Ottheinrich for the Bibliotheca Palatina at Heidelberg; Diekamp 2015: 6), an incomplete copy (now in the British Library), and a fragment in the library of St. Paul’s Cathedral survive. In 1530 Henry VIII prohibited acquisition and possession of the Bible in English. Meanwhile Tyndale had gone to Antwerp, where, having published his translation of the Pentateuch (1530) and a revised New Testament (1534), he was betrayed to the authorities and imprisoned in 1535 and executed at Vilvoorde Castle, near Brussels, in October 1536. His last words are said to have been, ‘Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes’. His unfinished Old Testament translation was completed by Miles Coverdale, who published the first printed complete Bible in English in 1535, ‘faithfully and truly translated out of Douche and Latyn’.16 A few months later Henry VIII permitted publication of the first official translation of the Bible into English, the so-called ‘Matthew Bible’ (published in 1537 under the pseudonym ‘Thomas Matthew’, perhaps to conceal from the king Tyndale’s involvement in the translation). In 1538 Henry’s adviser Thomas Cromwell required all parishes to obtain a copy of the complete Bible in English.
Luther’s translation technique and Tyndale Luther plays a central role in the broader context of translation theory and practice of his day (see Ross in this volume). Whereas some late 15thcentury German humanists believed that the quality of German writing could only be improved through imitation of Latin, especially Cicero’s, and others considered the overriding aim to be to render the sense of the original accurately while the style was incidental if not immaterial, Luther struck a happy balance between these approaches: for him, fidelity to the sense of the original was paramount, most especially in the case of Holy Scripture, and furthermore it was essential to render it in clear, natural,
15 See LP, IV, no. 2607, with details of further books prohibited. Tyndale’s New Testament featured in the first printed list of banned books (London 1529; STC 7772). 16 Douche = ‘Deutsch’. Though Coverdale may have translated from the Zurich Bible of 1524-1529, this was essentially a reprint of Luther’s text (Bluhm 1984: 116).
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idiomatic German.17 Despite their pettifogging criticisms, even Catholics secretly admired Luther’s translation: the ‘Catholicized’ version that Emser published at Dresden in 1527 was, as Luther immediately recognized (WA 30, 2: 634), really nothing but his own translation with Emser’s name on the title page and a few minor changes to the text. For all that Emser firmly believed that reading the Bible was not for the laity but should be reserved for scholars, the pass had been sold: the German Bible, Luther’s Bible, was here to stay. Its popular success was due not to its being based on the Hebrew and Greek sources instead of the Vulgate but, rather, to its user-friendly presentation – with pictures, commentaries, and marginal notes – and, above all, its accessible, seemingly ‘homely’ language. Compared with Luther, Tyndale tells us little about his own approach to translation. The title page of his Worms New Testament (reproduced by Diekamp 2015: 4) reads: ‘The newe Testame[n]t as it was written / and caused to be writte[n] / by them whiche herde yt. To whom also oure saveoure Christ Jesus commaunded that they shulde preache it vnto al creatures’. This formulation manifestly proclaims that it has been translated from the original Greek sources and rejects the Catholic Church’s assertion that interpreting the Bible should be reserved to the clergy. The brief note ‘To the Reader’ at the end of the book assures us of his ‘pure entent’ and expresses the hope that ‘the rudnes off the worke’ should not offend. We should ‘consyder howe I had no man to counterfet [i.e., he had no model] / nether was holpe with englysshe of eny that had interpreted the same / or soche lyke thinge in the scriptures before tyme’ (fol. Tt2r). Various difficulties ‘caused that many thynges are lackynge’, hence it was a provisional rather than a finished translation; however, he hopes in due course to be able to ‘geve lyght where it is requyred / and to seke in certayne places more proper englysshe’ as well as to supply a table ‘to expounde the wordes which are nott commenly vsed / and shewe howe the scripture vseth many wordes which are wotherwyse vnderstonde of the commen people; and to helpe with a declaracion where one tonge taketh nott another’ (fol. Tt2v). Thus this epilogue, couched in the form of a traditional humility formula, acknowledges the translation’s imperfections and addresses the needs of ‘the commen people’. Indeed, Tyndale’s English translation reflects ‘the language spoken in the Vale of Berkeley by his parents, brothers, friends, neighbours, by officials and labourers, priests and ploughboys’ (Daniell 1994: 18) and thus, in effect, appeals to the English reader as Luther’s translation appeals to the German.
17 See especially his Sendbrief von Dolmetschen (1530; WA 30, 2: 628ff.).
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In recent years, Tyndale’s New Testament has become a kind of national icon in Britain whose status one criticizes at one’s peril. Daniell’s formulation (2005) ‘No Tyndale, no Shakespeare’ has almost become a war-cry, idolizing Tyndale while largely ignoring the influence of Luther. Just as Luther, however inaccurately, has often been considered ‘the father of the German language’, so Tyndale has been hailed as the maker of English (cf. Mikael Agricola’s role in Finland; see Bentlin in this volume). Thus Daniell – who has been charged with hero-worship18 – says he ‘made a language for England’ (1994: 3), ‘gave England a Bible language supreme above all other nations (a matter of hard fact, not chauvinism)’ (1998: 20-21), and describes Tyndale’s Bible as ‘England’s greatest contribution to the world for nearly five hundred years’ (1994: 280). Similarly, Robert Runcie, former Archbishop of Canterbury, asserted: ‘Tyndall simply determined, in a famous phrase, to create a Bible that a ploughboy would understand. Ironically, his desire that his Bible should be popular and not literary in the classical sense created a simple dialect which by its immediacy, clarity and vigour has shaped our culture as no other book or subsequent revision’ (1996: 9).19 In Bragg’s opinion, ‘It is impossible to over-praise the quality of Tyndale’s writing. Its rhythmical beauty, its simplicity of phrase, its crystal clarity have penetrated deep into the bedrock of English today wherever it is spoken’ (2003: 103). Daniell, again, praises him for writing ‘in the language people spoke, not as the scholars wrote. At a time when English was struggling to find a form that was neither Latin nor French, Tyndale gave the nation a Bible language that was English in words, word-order, and lilt’ (1994: 3). Yet while there is much truth in these assessments, it was Luther’s example that arguably had shown Tyndale the way. ‘What Tyndale found in Luther was a way of reaching the popular mind’ (Trinterud 1962: 42). The naturalness of Luther’s language deserves particular emphasis, given the tendency to idolize Tyndale; Zwink (1999: 19) accuses those who deny the influence of Luther of xenophobic nationalism: Über die sprachliche Abhängigkeit Tyndales von Luther könnte man viel sagen. Das ist brisant, weil es die Engländer nicht hören wollen. […] Nun darf man sich die Abhängigkeiten nicht zu einfach erklären. Nach meiner Einschätzung ist das Problem so vielschichtig, dass es weder mit 18 In Powell 1994. 19 Also Wansbrough 2001. The ploughboy reference shows how attuned Tyndale was to Erasmus who, in the preface to the Novum instrumentum (1516), hoped that one day the Scriptures would be accessible to all: ‘Vtinam hinc ad stiuam aliquid decantet agricola, hinc nonnihil ad radios suos moduletur textor, huiusmodi fabulis itineris tædium leuet viator’ (fol. aaa4v).
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den Instrumenten des englischen Nationalismus, noch mit deutscher Überheblichkeit und Stolz auf den überragenden Luther, sondern nur durch akribische Textvergleiche […] zu bewerkstelligen ist.
Rarely does one find as blunt an acknowledgement of Tyndale’s debt to Luther as MacGregor’s assessment (2014: 109): ‘William Tyndale, one of Luther’s great admirers, was executed […] for producing an English translation of the Bible that relied heavily on Luther’s’. The meticulous textual comparison that Zwink (1999) called for is indeed necessary; much of what has been done so far is piecemeal, and much more extensive work is required. Whether or not Tyndale met Luther in person, he certainly knew his New Testament, for his book is clearly modelled on Luther’s. He followed Luther in placing the two Epistles General of Peter and the three of John before Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation, thus separating off these last four books because of their non-apostolic authorship.20 Moreover, Tyndale (or his printer) followed Luther in printing the text in a single column to facilitate accommodating notes and comments in the wider margins. Another significant feature, at least of Tyndale’s 1534 Antwerp New Testament (though not of the smaller format 1526 edition), is that he followed Luther’s practice of supplying prefaces to each of the Pauline Epistles and marginal notes and glosses to the text, the wording of which frequently shows Luther’s influence. Particularly noteworthy is the lengthy preface to Romans, which, albeit modified to express a theology distinct from Luther’s and involving a certain transformation of Lutheran emphases, is largely a translation of his text and which acquainted English readers with the concept of justification by faith for the first time.21 The most famous textual crux in Luther’s translation is Romans 3: 28, arbitramur enim iustificari hominem per fidem sine operibus legis in the Vulgate, rendered as So halten wyrs nu, das der mensch gerechtfertiget werde, on zuthun der werck des gesetzs, alleyn durch den glawben. Though admitting that neither the Latin nor Erasmus’s Greek text had a word corresponding to alleyn, he argued that the word was implicit in the context. ‘Justification by faith alone’ thus became the watchword of Lutheranism. Tyndale, circumspectly, translated it: ‘We suppose therfore that a man is iustified by fayth without the dedes of 20 The KJV restored the Vulgate order (which Erasmus retained), while Lutheran Bibles still retain Luther’s arrangement. 21 Trueman and Euler 2010: 64-68. Peter Schöffer printed a shorter version of this preface for Tyndale as A compendious introduccion, prologe or preface vn to the pistle off Paul to the Romayns (1526; STC 24438); see Diekamp 2015: 10-11.
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the lawe’. However, in his 1534 edition he added a significant, if still timid, marginal note: ‘Fayth iustifieth’. It was left to Myles Coverdale to be more explicit: his marginal note read: ‘Some reade “By faith onely”’.22 What use did Tyndale make of Luther’s translation? How good was his German and how did he acquire it?23 Campbell calls Tyndale an ‘excellent linguist’ (2010: 10), recalling Spalatin’s report that he was ‘so well versed in seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, French that, in whichever language he speaks, you would think him to be native to it’.24 Richardson (1993: 46) notes that this list did not include ‘the German and Flemish he certainly knew and the Welsh he possibly knew’. Given his background, however, it seems very unlikely he knew much High or even Low German before arriving in Germany. With German theologians he would have spoken Latin anyway. English would have been unknown in Wittenberg. We should recall Cochlæus’s claim that Tyndale learned German at Wittenberg. We must assume, therefore, that Tyndale was a quick learner, that he studied Luther’s New Testament, and perhaps that he had some assistance. He may even have used Luther’s translation as his German primer (there were as yet no printed grammars of German). Tyndale exhibits some evidence of Lutheran turns of phrase.25 One clear instance of Tyndale following Luther is in Romans 10: 3 where τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ Θεοῦ οὐχ ὑπετάγησαν (‘they were not subjected to the righteousness of God’), corresponding to the Vulgate’s iustitiae Dei non sunt subiecti, is rendered by Luther as vnd sind also der gerechtickeyt die fur Gott gilt / nicht vnterthan and by Tyndale as and therefore are not obedient vnto the rightewesnes which is of value before god, where is of value plainly reflects German gelten (‘to be of value’).26 Tyndale’s admirers often credit him with remarkable inventiveness in introducing certain striking phrases into English, such as the salt of the earth (Matt. 5: 13), the signs of the times (Matt. 16: 3), and the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. 15: 52), yet these are all paralleled in Luther (das Saltz der Erde, die Zeichen dieser Zeit, plötzlich in einem Augenblick) and are in any case foreshadowed in the Greek (τὸ ἅλας τῆς γῆς, τἀ σημεῖα τῶν καιρῶν, ἐν ῥιπῇ ὀϕθαλμοῦ). Sometimes, 22 ‘Some’ meaning Luther and also the Zurich Bible based on him (Bluhm 1984: 118-19). 23 Diekamp 2015: 20 speculates that Tyndale may have become aware of Luther’s 1522 New Testament already through contacts with German merchants in London. 24 For Spalatin’s diary, see Popp 1999: 137, note 1; Richardson 1993: 46. 25 On the assumption that Gruber was correct in believing that Tyndale knew the third Wittenberg edition of Luther’s translation (1524), quotations from Luther will follow that edition. On Tyndale and Luther generally, see Wansbrough 2001: 128-32. 26 I am indebted to Tuomo Fonsén for alerting me to this passage.
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of course, Luther and Tyndale may simply have reached the same conclusions independently, but can it, for instance, be a coincidence that in 1 Corinthians 2: 14, Greek ψυχικὀς (‘belonging to the soul’) is rendered by Luther as naturlich and by Tyndale as natural? (The Vulgate has animalis ‘sensual’.) And again, in the Lord’s Prayer, in Matthew 6: 10 where Luther and Tyndale mention earth before heaven (auff erden wie ym hymel, as well in erth as hit ys in heven) whereas the Vulgate and the Greek put heaven before earth (sicut in caelo ut in terra, ὡς ἐν οὺρανὧ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς); Wyclif likewise had as in heuen and in erthe. Wherever the Greek colour-term κοκκίνος occurs, Tyndale parallels Luther exactly: in Revelation 17: 3-4 Luther has rosynfarben, Tyndale rose colored (Wyclif had reed); in Revelation 18: 12 and 16 Luther has scharlacken, Tyndale scarlett (Wyclif: purpur and reed scarlet); in Matthew 27: 28 Luther has purpurn, Tyndale purpyll (Wyclif: reed). Tyndale’s shewebreed (‘show-bread’) for the Vulgate’s panes propositionis, meaning (‘loaves of bread displayed (on the table of the Lord)’) – occurring in Exodus 25: 30, Matthew 12: 4, Mark 2: 26, Luke 6: 4, and Hebrews 9: 2 – is evidently a calque on Schawbrot, apparently Luther’s coinage (though not specified as such in Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, VIII, col. 2302). Tyndale speaks of hallowed loaves in Matthew, Mark, and Luke but of the shewebreed in Hebrews 9: 2. Similarly, Tyndale’s silverling, previously not attested in English, is clearly cognate with Luther’s Silberling, denoting the 30 pieces of silver Judas receives for betraying Jesus (Matt. 26: 15, 27: 3, 5, 6, and 9).27 Wyclif read thretti pans of silver, and though Tyndale has pieces of silver or plates of silver here, he reads fifty thousand silverlings in Acts 19: 19 with an explanatory note. Luther’s influence is also evident in Romans 3: 25 where the Vulgate has the word propitiatio, corresponding to Greek ὶλαστἠριον. Luther in 1522 and 1524 reads gnade stuel, said in Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, IV, i, pt. 5, col. 591, to be Luther’s coinage. Tyndale likewise refers to Christ Jesu, whom God hath made a seate of mercy; Wyclif had had whom God ordeynede foryyver [i.e., ‘forgiver’].28 Tyndale sometimes reveals his dependence on Luther through the errors he makes. Most striking is 1 Corinthians 12: 7, where Luther reads Inn eynem yglichen erzeygen sich die gaben des geysts zum gemeynen nutz. Tyndale writes: The giftes off the sprete [i.e., ‘spirit’] are geven to every man to proffit the congregacion, misconstruing the adjective gemein (‘common’) as the noun gemeine (Modern German Gemeinde) (‘congregation’). In Acts 1: 13, 27 Though found in Old High German, silberling is not attested in Middle High German. Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, X, i, col. 1022-1023, suggests that the word may have become firmly established through Luther. 28 See Popp 1999: 147-49, opposing Daniell 1994: 315. See also Hooker 1997: 135-36.
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Luther in 1522 and 1524 writes Judas Jacobi son (following Erasmus 1519) where the correct reading should be Judas Jacobi bruder; Tyndale likewise has Judas James sonne (instead of brother). Sometimes, as Popp (1999) has shown, Tyndale might have done better to follow Luther more closely. In Tyndale, the last of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death, rides a grene horsse (Rev. 6: 8); Luther has ein falh (1524: falb) pferd (‘a pale horse’). The Vulgate had equus pallidus, while Greek reads ἳππος χλωρός. The Greek adjective means both ‘grass-green’ (as in Rev. 8: 7 and 9: 4) and ‘pale, pallid’ – surely the context implies deathly pallor. While these examples clearly demonstrate Tyndale’s familiarity with Luther’s translation, it is not so much the echoes of particular words and phrases that are important as Luther’s example, which served Tyndale as a model. Luther’s German was based on living speech, not on written literary style. ‘Die buchstaben sind todte wörter, die mundliche rede sind lebendige wörter’, he famously said (WA 54: 74), and he is known to have spoken his translation aloud to test its qualities. Natural idiom, homely proverbial expressions, alliterative phrases, and above all the outstanding rhythmic quality and the fluency of narration make his Bible language what it is. What Luther did for German, Tyndale later did for the English Bible too. Daniell delights in pointing to examples of Tyndale’s natural, homely, mellifluous English, as in Luke 16: 22: And it fortuned that the beggar died,and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried, declaring that Tyndale’s use of native Saxon, not Latin, vocabulary, was ‘unusual for high language in 1526 (‘beggar’, not mendicant, ‘died’, not deceased, ‘carried’, not transported)’ and praising the ‘Greek-like finite verbs, not Latin-like nouns (not ‘After the death of the rich man, and his burial’, but ‘The rich man died and was buried’)’. True though this may be, Tyndale’s style parallels, emulates, even imitates exactly Luther: Es begab sich aber/ das der arme starb / und wart getragen von den Engelen in Abrahams schosz / der reyche aber starb auch / vnd wart ynn die helle begraben. Zwink (1999) likewise stresses such close correspondence. Citing Matthew 26: 41, he says of Tyndale’s Watche and praye, that ye fall not into temptacion. The spirite is willynge/ but the flesshe is weeke that it corresponds virtually letter by letter to Luther’s Wachet und betet, auf dass ihr nicht in Anfechtung fallet. Der Geist ist willig, aber das Fleisch ist schwach and adds that the phrases in Anfechtung fallen – fall into temptation and willig – willing are by no means obvious translations of the Greek – but Popp (1999: 152) is doubtless right to say that to assume Tyndale’s deliberate emulation of Luther here is ‘too close to call’. The centrality of the word, as represented in the vernacular book, is nowhere more evident than in Luther’s and Tyndale’s translations of the Bible. Both
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have exerted a strong influence on their respective literary languages. Though Tyndale is not as generally well known in the English-speaking world as Luther is in the German, his legacy is nevertheless substantial, for his translation fed into successive 16th-century English Bibles from Coverdale onwards through to the King James Version of 1611 and beyond (Nielson and Skousen 1998).
Bibliography Primary sources Cochlæus, Johannes. 1533. An expediat laicis legere noui Testamenti libros lingua vernacula, Augsburg: Weissenhorn. Cochlæus, Johannes. 1549. Commentaria […] de actis et scriptis Martini Lutheri Saxonis […]. Mainz: F. Behem. KJV = The Holy Bible (King James Version). London: Barker, 1611. LP = Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII. 1862–1932. Ed. by John Sherren Brewer. 21 vols. London: Longman. [Repr. Vaduz: Kraus. 1965]. O’Donovan, Louis (ed.). 1908. Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, or Defence of the Seven Sacraments, by Henry VIII, King of England. New York: Benziger Bros. STC = A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475–1640. 1976–1991. Compiled by A.W. Pollard and G.R. Redgrave. 2nd edition. 3 vols. London: The Bibliographical Society. Tyndale, William. 1871 [1525]. The First Printed English New Testament translated by William Tyndale, ed. by Edward Arber. London: Selwood. Tyndale, William. 2008 [1526]. The New Testament: A Facsimile of the 1526 Edition translated by William Tyndale. Introduction by David Daniell. London: British Library. VD16 = Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des XVI. Jahrhunderts. 1983–2000. Redaktion Irmgard Bezzel. Stuttgart: Hiersemann. WA = D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. [Weimarer Ausgabe]. 1883–2009. 136 vols. Weimar: Böhlau.
Secondary sources Benzing, Josef, and Helmut Claus. 1994. Lutherbibliographie. Verzeichnis der gedruckten Schriften Martin Luthers bis zu dessen Tod. Bd. II. Mit Anhang: Bibel und Bibelteile in Luthers Übersetzung 1522–1546. Baden-Baden: Koerner. Bluhm, Heinz. 1984. Martin Luther and the English Bible: Tyndale and Coverdale. Michigan Germanic Studies 10: 110-25.
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Bragg, Melvyn. 2003. The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Campbell, Gordon. 2010. Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611–2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Craig, John S. 1991. The Marginalia of Dr. Rowland Taylor. Historical Research 64: 411-20. Da Costa, Alexandra. 2014. ʻFunctional Ambiguity’: Negotiating Censorship in the 1530s. The Library, 7th series, 15: 410-23. Daniell, David. 1994. William Tyndale: A Biography. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Daniell, David. 1998. William Tyndale and the Making of the English Churches. The Tyndale Society Journal 9: 19-37. Daniell, David. 2005. No Tyndale, No Shakespeare. The Tyndale Society Journal 29: 8-22. Dickens, Arthur Geoffrey. 1989. The English Reformation. 2nd, rev. edition. London: Batsford. Diekamp, Busso. 2015. The newe Testament, Worms 1526: William Tyndale and his Printer Peter Schöffer the Younger Revisited. Reformation 20, no. 1: 3-25. [Originally published in German in Der Wormsgau 30 (2013): 107-58.] Doernberg, Erwin. 1961. Henry VIII and Luther: An Account of Their Personal Relations. London: Barrie and Rockliff. Flood, John L. 1996. Heinrich VIII. und Martin Luther. Ein europäischer Streit und dessen Niederschlag in Literatur und Publizistik. In Spannungen und Konflikte menschlichen Zusammenlebens in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, ed. by Kurt Gärtner, Ingrid Kasten, and Frank Shaw, 3-32. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Flood, John L. 2001. Ein englischer Reformator als Nothelfer in Lübeck? In Vulpis Adolatio. Festschrift für Hubertus Menke zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. by Robert Peters, Horst P. Pütz, and Ulrich Weber, 239-48. Heidelberg: Winter. Förstemann, Karl Eduard. 1841. Album Academiae Vitebergensis, ältere Reihe 1501–1602. Leipzig: Tauchnitz. François, Wim. 2010. The Antwerp Printers Christoffel and Hans (I) van Ruremond, Their Dutch and English Bibles and the Intervention of the Authorities in the 1520s and 1530s. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 101: 7-28. Gruber, L. Franklin. 1917. The Truth about the so called ‘Luther’s Testament in English’ – Tyndale’s New Testament. St. Paul, Minnesota: Ernst Mussgang. Ha, Polly, and Patrick Collinson (eds). 2010. The Reception of Continental Reformation in Britain. Proceedings of the British Academy 164. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haigh, Christopher. 1993. English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Hooker, Morna D. 1997. Tyndale’s ‘Heretical’ Translation. Reformation 2: 127-42. Hope, Andrew. 2014. The Printed Book Trade in Response to Luther. In A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain 1476–1558, ed. by Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell, 272-89. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. Inglis, Neil. 2010. Tyndale and Servetus. The Tyndale Society Journal 39: 25. Leedham-Green, Elisabeth, D.E. Rhodes, and F.H. Stubbings (eds). 1992. Garrett Godfrey’s Accounts c.1527–1533. Cambridge: Bibliographical Society. Leedham-Green, Elisabeth. 2010. Unreliable Witnesses. In The Reception of Continental Reformation in Britain, ed. by Polly Ha and Patrick Collinson, 23-38. Proceedings of the British Academy 164. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MacGregor, Neil. 2014. Germany: Memories of a Nation. London: Allen Lane. Mozley, J.F. 1937. Life of William Tyndale. London: S.P.C.K. Neddermeyer, Uwe. 1998. Von der Handschrift zum gedruckten Buch. Schriftlichkeit und Leseinteresse im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit. Quantitative und qualitative Aspekte. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Nielson, Jon, and Royal Skousen. 1998. How much of the King James Bible is William Tyndale’s? An Estimation Based on Sampling. Reformation 3: 49-74. Popp, Margret. 1999. The Green Horse, or was Tyndale’s Bible translation an independent humanistic achievement? In Anglistentag 1998 Erfurt. Proceedings, ed. by Fritz-Wilhelm Neumann and Sabine Schülting, 137-57. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag. Powell, Enoch. 1994. Review of Daniell, William Tyndale. In Times Higher 23. September 1994. Richardson, Anne. 1993. A Chapter in the History of the English Reformation. Fides et Historia, 25, 3: 46-65. Runcie, Robert. 1996. Commemorative Sermon: William Tyndall, 6 October 1994, St. Paul’s Cathedral. Reformation 1: 7-10. Scribner, Robert William. 1981. For the Sake of Simple Folk, Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sturge, Charles. 1938. Cuthbert Tunstall. London: Longmans, Green. Trinterud, Leonard J. 1962. A Reappraisal of William Tyndale’s Debt to Martin Luther. Church History 31: 24-45. Trueman, Carl R., and Carrie Euler. 2010. The Reception of Martin Luther in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England. In The Reception of Continental Reformation in Britain, ed. by Polly Ha and Patrick Collinson, 63-81. Proceedings of the British Academy, 164. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wansbrough, Henry. 2001. Tyndale. In The Bible in the Renaissance, ed. by Richard Griffiths, 116-32. Aldershot: Ashgate. Zwink, Eberhard. 1998. Confusion about Tyndale: The Stuttgart Copy of the 1526 New Testament in English. Reformation 3: 29-48.
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Zwink, Eberhard. 1999. Verwirrspiel um eine Bibel. Die Entdeckung des einzigen vollständigen Exemplars des Erstdrucks von William Tyndales New Testament (1526) in der Württembergischen Landesbibliothek Stuttgart. https://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/fileadmin/user_upload/sammlungen/bibeln/ Tyndale__NT_1526_WLB.pdf [accessed 23.11.2006].
About the author John L. Flood is a Professor Emeritus at the University of London. His research interests include the history of the book in Germany in the early modern period as well as humanism and the Reformation period.
2
Linguistic Ideas of the Lutheran Reformationin the Genesis of Literary Estonian Kristiina Ross
Abstract This essay deals with the question of how the ideals of the Lutheran Reformation regarding language usage and translation were put into practice in written Estonian. It focuses on the confrontation between ideals and practical reality. The role of the German language was very strong in the area of contemporary Estonia in early modern times; the elite were German speaking, and this also applied to the Lutheran clergy and those who did the actual translation work. According to the Lutheran ideal, the translation should aim at a language that was understandable to the common people, clear, and expressive. The aims were challenging when the text was translated into a new language that was still in the process of developing – and when the translators were non-native speakers who only had a basic knowledge of the language. The essay deals with these perspectives from the development of written Estonian over a 200-year period, from the early 16th century, at the beginning of the Lutheran era, to the publishing of the first complete Bible in Estonian in 1739. Keywords: Literary Estonian, Bible and hymn translations
Literary Estonian was born during the two post-Reformation centuries in the process of translating catechisms, pericopes (i.e., sections of the New Testament required for the divine services of the liturgical year), hymns and, most importantly, the Bible. It was purposefully created for written ecclesiastical translation. Some elements of standard ecclesiastical Estonian – the principal terms and formulae of Christian discourse – had probably
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch02
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already taken shape in the Middle Ages in the process of oral communication. However, literary mediaeval Estonian as a written variety did not exist (see also Toropainen in this volume). The first literary standards for written texts in Estonian were created by Lutheran pastors, and, in a relatively short post-Reformation period, a considerable number of written translations were produced. As a result, in the period between the publication of the first book including an Estonian text in 1525, which is not extant but is supposed to have been a Lutheran mass book (Kivimäe 2000), and the publication of the first full Estonian Bible in 1739, linguistic standards for literary Estonian suitable for Bible translation were established. At the same time, the entire process of generating literary Estonian could be described in terms of colonial linguistics, insofar as Estonians themselves did not participate actively in this process. From the 13th century to the 19th, Estonians (as well as their southern neighbours, Latvians) constituted the lowest social stratum of the population in their territory and had no native-speaking elite. The mother tongue of the local political, social, and intellectual elite until the end of the 16th century was Low German, which from the beginning of the 17th century was then gradually replaced by High German (Ariste 1981). Although from the 16th century the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea ceased to be a German colony in a political sense and was incorporated first into the Swedish Empire and later into tsarist Russia, the local German elite maintained its position (Eesti ajalugu III 2013: 227; Eesti ajalugu IV 2003: 45-46; Eesti ajalugu V 2010: 41). Under these circumstances, the German-speaking Lutheran pastors had no choice but to develop literary Estonian themselves. Considering that Standard Estonian emerged thanks to the Lutheran Reformation as an achievement of German pastors, one might presume that the Estonian Bible translation, which was finally published in 1739 and established the linguistic models and literary standards for the following one and a half centuries, must be close to Martin Luther’s German translation regarding its linguistic ideas and translation method. However, that is not the case. The Estonian translation of 1739 differs from Luther’s translation in all aspects. During the two centuries between the two translations, linguistic ideas and views on translation in Germany had changed significantly. These changes are reflected in the development of literary Estonian. In the following, manifestations of Lutheran linguistic ideas as well as of the main trends in 17th-century linguistic thought will be analyzed in the four phases of literary Estonian, denominated (somewhat conventionally) as early Protestant, Baroque, pre-Pietist and Pietist Estonian. The analysis is based on Estonian Bible and hymn translations, both manuscript and
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printed, from the first preserved manuscript (1600) to the first printed full Bible (1739).1
Linguistic views of Martin Luther and Estonian Martin Luther’s linguistic views were essentially pragmatic and entirely derived from the need to bring his theological ideas to his target group as clearly and convincingly as possible. For him, the communicative aspect was the most important (Gardt 1999: 77-88). In order to enable each person to reach the Word of God, services had to be held in the mother tongue of the congregation, and the Bible had to be translated into different vernaculars. To ensure that the message could truly get to the target group and address every listener and reader, the language had to be understandable for everybody but at the same time expressive, eloquent, and powerful. Luther explained his linguistic views in connection with discussions on Bible translation. His ideas on translating and using the vernacular are probably most clearly stated in his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen. According to this, one must translate from the original languages and not from the Latin version used by the Roman Catholic Church; translators must mediate the meaning of the text, not the words; and the translation has to be easily comprehensible by the common people. The essence of his ideas is summed up in the often repeated quotation: den man mus nicht die buchstaben inn der lateinischen sprachen fragen, wie man sol Deutsch reden, wie diese esel thun, sondern, man mus die mutter jhm hause, die kinder auff der gassen, den gemeinen man auff dem marckt drumb fragen, und den selbigen auff das maul sehen, wie sie reden, und darnach dolmetzschen, so verstehen sie es den und mercken, das man Deutsch mit jn redet. (Luther 1909 [1530]: 637) (‘we do not have to ask the literal Latin how we are to speak German, as these donkeys do. Rather we must ask the mother in the home, the children on the street, the common man in the marketplace. We must “look to their mouth” and do our translating accordingly. Then they will understand it and recognize that we are speaking German to them’.) 1 This essay was supported by personal research grant PUT550 from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies).
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In the case of Estonian, the proclamation was particularly significant. In Luther’s time the elite in the territory inhabited by Estonians was entirely German speaking, and Estonian was a language spoken only by ‘common men’. Thus Luther’s claim that the Bible ought to be translated into a language variety understood and recognized by common people in a sense enabled literary Estonian to emerge in the first place. His proclamation urged German pastors to learn Estonian thoroughly in order to develop the literary standard. Certainly, under the circumstances where the generators of the literary standard did not know the language themselves as their mother tongue, it was very difficult to keep to Luther’s translation principles and to create really fluent and expressive texts. In theory, all the pastors who participated in the process of developing literary Estonian loyally adhered to Luther’s views,2 but in practice no variety of Estonian really corresponding to Luther’s proclamation or to the German language of his Bible translation was accomplished by them during the two centuries under consideration. The earliest authors may have had a sincere wish to create such a language, but later novel linguistic and cultural movements deflected the translators’ interests towards other aspects. In addition to Bible translation, a significant role in the development of literary Estonian belonged to translations of Lutheran hymns. In the early phase of the Reformation, congregational singing became a sign of solidarity among Lutherans and a source of identity for the neonate Lutheran community (Hess 2007: 405-06). Although Lutheran congregational singing was an essentially new phenomenon, its impact on literary German was moderate (at least in the 16th century), since with regard to its formal aspects it grew out of old Catholic church songs, popular folk songs, and the Meistergesang tradition (Rupprich 1973: 252). In the development of literary Estonian, the role of hymns was more crucial. Since the middle of the 17th century we can even speak about a special language variety of hymns in contrast to 2 Different authors even used the same Lutheran wording when they described their linguistic activities, e.g., the Lutheran expression ‘the mouth of common people’ was used in the foreword of the first Estonian Grammar book (1637) as well as in the foreword of the Grammar published by the pietist Bible translators about a century later (1732). In the foreword to the first Grammar, the author proclaimed that he had paid considerable attention ‘to the mouth of peasants’ and that the vocabulary added to the grammar book contained not a single word which did not come from them: Ich bin dessen versichert / das ich den Bawren gnugsame acht auff jhr Maul gegeben / und nichtes gesetzet / was nicht von jhnen gewiß gebrauchet wird (Stahl 1637a [2000]: [10-11]). The editor of the later Grammar also asserted that the Vocabulary added to the book contained not a single word which was not heard from the mouth of Estonians themselves: Von dem Vocabulario kann man versichern, daß nicht ein Wort in demselben zu finden, welches nicht aus der Ehsten ihrem eigenen Munde gehöret worden (Gutsleff 2006 [1732]: 8).
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that of Bible translations. To that date, hymns had been translated in prose, and there had been no differences between the target languages of prose and poetic translations. However, from the middle of the 17th century, hymns were translated in versified versions according to the poetic rules of Martin Opitz’s Buch von der deutschen Poeterey (1624). From that point, the poetic Estonian of hymns translations can be regarded as a specific language variety. From the 18th century on, the language of hymns had a great impact on the development of literary standards and more widely on the entire mentality of Estonian-speaking peasants (Paul 2002). In the following, the reflections of Lutheran and later linguistic ideas in the development of literary Estonian will be analyzed on the basis of these two types of ecclesiastical literature of the time: the translations of the Bible (or pericopes) and Lutheran hymns.
Early Protestant Estonian (1520s–1630s) The Reformation reached Estonia relatively early, thanks to close contacts between the German population of local towns with the Hansa towns of North Germany (Eesti ajalugu II 2012: 289). The first probably Lutheran book that included texts in Estonian was the aforementioned Mass book published in 1525. The first partially extant book is a German-Estonian bilingual catechism dating from 1535. On the basis of indirect evidence, it is presumed that by the middle of the century, at the latest, a certain number of pericopes and hymns had been translated into Estonian (Johansen 1935). Unfortunately, most of the early Protestant texts in Estonian have been lost. From the 16th century, only the above-mentioned catechism fragments are preserved (a total of merely 843 Estonian words or parts of a word) (Ehasalu et al. 1997: 30-31, 65-76). Therefore, in order to make any generalizations about the possible linguistic strategies in the 16th century, we have to rely on the texts preserved from the beginning of the 17th century. From this period three significant text corpora are available: the sermons of Georg Müller and the publications of Joachim Rossihnius and Heinrich Stahl. Georg Müller (d. 1608) was pastor of the Estonian congregation of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Tallinn whose 39 sermons delivered between 1600 and 1606 have been preserved in manuscript and later published twice (Müller 1891, 2007). In these sermons several Bible quotations are used, and nine hymns are quoted and discussed. Joachim Rossihnius (c. 1600–1645), pastor of several congregations in South Estonia, published two church manuals (1632). Heinrich Stahl (?–1657) was a pastor and an influential
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ecclesiastical figure who published the first Estonian Grammar (1637), a bilingual German-Estonian church manual in four volumes (1632–1638), and a bilingual book of sermons (1641–1649) (Lotman 2014). The second part of Stahl’s church manual comprises the hymnal, while the third part includes translations of pericopes. It is presumed that Stahl’s publications represent written Estonian from different periods and different authors (Habicht 2001: 18-23). Some translations that he used might have originated in the 16th century. On the basis of these three text corpora, Early Protestant Estonian can be characterized by its heterogeneity. In its general outlines it is strongly German-biased. A great part of the text is a verbatim or altogether morpheme-for-morpheme translation from German, even if the respective German texts do not exist in a written form – as in the case of Müller’s sermons, where we can presume that the author first outlined the text in his mind in German and then translated it into Estonian. For example, the periphrastic future was used by Müller according to the Low German model with the help of the auxiliary pidama (‘must’) and by Stahl according to the High German model with the help of the auxiliary saama (‘to become’), although in genuine Estonian no future tense is used. For example, Isaiah 7: 15 Woyd ninck Mett piddab tæma söhma (Müller 2007: 174); cf. He schal ethen bottere vnde honich (Kölner Bibel 1971 [1478]: 533), Woid ninck Met sahp temma söhma (Stahl 1638: 45; cf. Luther 1960 [1545]: 43 Butter und honig wird er essen). In modern Estonian it would read Ta sööb võid ja mett (cf. KJV Butter and honey shall he eat). Alongside verbatim German constructions, which dominate the Early Protestant Estonian, fragments of free translation and distinctively pure Estonian phrases can be found in the texts. From the occasional use of genuine Estonian phraseology in Müller’s sermons some researchers have even found additional support for their hypothesis that Müller must have been a native Estonian (e.g., Masing 1999 [1975]). Rossihnius’s and Stahl’s language is generally more German-biased, but it also reveals occasional treats that cannot originate from verbatim translation of the German source text (Habicht 2001: 35-40). One might regard such Estonianisms as evidence of a possible contribution by native Estonians in the process of translating in the early Protestant period. In any case, they bear witness to a different strategy of translation. In this period, hymns were translated in prose; neither rhythm nor rhyme were taken into consideration. The language usage in the translations of pericopes and hymns is consequently quite similar. The heterogeneous translation strategy of the first period can be illustrated by the translation of
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the fifth and sixth verses of the first stanza of Luther’s hymn Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott in Stahl’s hymnal: Der alte böse Feind / mit ernst ers jetz meynt – se wanna weehane wainlane / weggiwast temma ommat asjat hajap (Stahl 1637b: 137). In the first line (‘the old, angry enemy’), all German words, including the definite article Der, have an exact Estonian equivalent, although Estonian has no need for articles. At the same time, in the second line an idiomatic expression is used (‘mightily he his things makes’ [= mightily he operates, does his business]), which does not correspond word-for-word at all to the German original. Neither Müller nor Rossihnius nor Stahl was probably much concerned about theoretical linguistic aspects of the Estonian language used. Rather, their concerns were pragmatic. Müller had to deliver sermons to his Estonian congregation. Rossihnius and Stahl published the translations in order to provide their colleagues with the materials they needed to hold services in Estonian (Lotman 2014: 180-82). The fact that the Estonian language of the early period in most cases strictly followed the model of German phrases and even word forms can partly be explained by the insufficient knowledge of Estonian of the German translators. In the case of Bible quotations and pericopes, the high prestige of the Lutheran text certainly played an important role. The few fragments of free translation with distinctively Estonian word forms and phrases unfamiliar in German can be interpreted as evidence of possible native Estonian co-translators and/or as an echo of Luther’s appeal to translate the meaning of the text, not the words, and to use the language of the common people.
Baroque Estonian (1640s–1670s) In the baroque mentality of 17th-century Europe as a whole, the French absolutist approach based on strict hierarchy, order, and clarity dominated. In accordance with the general attitude, linguistic ideas in France reflected the ideal of hierarchy, rationality, and regularity. The most valuable characteristic of literary French was clarity. ‘Royal’ French, which had very high prestige in France, was the language of communication in other European countries as well, including Germany. However, to counterbalance the general hegemony of the French mentality in Germany, the movement of cultural patriotism came into being. Ideas valuing local German peculiarities were widely discussed in the linguistic societies of the 17th century, with the main aim of developing German into a high style literary language. One of the significant axes in the linguistic debates of the time was the opposition
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of analogistic and anomalistic approaches towards the standardization of a literary language. Adherents of the analogistic approach valued (in accor dance with the general mentality of the century) regularity and rationality; adherents of the anomalistic approach relied on the actual usage (Gardt 1999: 128-35). The development of literary Estonian in the 17th century can also be described as a struggle between these two approaches. When making the choice in favour of one side or the other, under local circumstances the knowledge of Estonian possessed by any particular pastor certainly played an important role. Insufficient language skills induced a person to prefer the analogistic approach and to value rational and regular rules based on analogy, which could then be applied in order to compose a written text without knowing the actual spoken language. At the same time, proficiency in Estonian encouraged others to rely on language usage. An additional factor that influenced the linguistic views of a pastor was the geographical location of the parish where he served. Parishes on the territory where North Estonian dialects were spoken constituted the area of administration of the Consistory of Estonia, whereas parishes on the territory where South Estonian dialects were spoken belonged to the area of administration of the Consistory of Livonia. At times there was rivalry and disagreement between the two consistories, which developed two different literary standards: the North Estonian language and the South Estonian language. The present essay mostly omits the details concerning the rivalry of the two consistories (see more in Laanekask and Ross 2008). The most important figures of the mid-17th century in the history of literary Estonian were Johannes Gutslaff (d. 1657), who developed the South Estonian literary language, and Heinrich Göseken (1612–1681), who developed the North Estonian literary language. Both were born in Germany, arrived in Estonia at the end of the 1630s after studies in German universities (Gutslaff in Greifswald and Leipzig, Göseken in Rostock and Königsberg), and thus started to learn Estonian only at an adult age. Both clearly represent the analogistic approach, although the particular language varieties they developed were quite different. Johannes Gutslaff published the first Grammar book of South Estonian (1648) and translated almost the entire Bible into South Estonian, although his translation remained in manuscript and was partly published only in 2013. The variety Gutslaff describes in his Grammar and the target language of his Bible translation differ from each other slightly, but the analogistic approach valuing regularity is clearly reflected in both variants. Although Gutslaff knew the local dialect surprisingly well, he quite freely combined
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elements of the spoken vernacular with each other whilst following the example of German or classical patterns. The resultant literary language is an interesting artificial compilation of foreign constructions and authentic elements. For example, in the phrase Matthew 3: 13 eth t[emma] sahhes temmast kastatuts (Gutslaff 2013: 222) (cf. KJV to be baptized of him), two analogistic units have been used, which were probably unknown in the spoken vernacular. On the analogy of the German passive voice, the passive construction sahhes kastatuts has been built with an ending tuts, which has been put together from the North-Estonian participle ending tut and a specific South-Estonian case marker s. The same phrase also illustrates Gutslaff’s inventiveness in term formation. By the time of Gutslaff, the Estonian verb ristima (‘to baptize’) and its derivatives had long ago been established as equivalents of the Greek verb βαπτίζω and its derivatives. The Estonian term had been probably borrowed from Old Slavonic before the 13th century (cf. Russian крестить). The semantic field of the Estonian term (‘to Christianize’) does not correspond to the semantic field of the Greek word or its German equivalent taufen (‘to dip’) (Ross and Soosaar 2007). Because of the semantic discrepancy, Gutslaff in his Bible translation uses the verb kastma (‘to dip’) as an equivalent for βαπτίζω and its derivatives. All in all, the artificially constructed expression sahhes kastatuts was probably totally incomprehensible both to native Estonians and Gutslaff’s German colleagues. Heinrich Göseken was the author of the second grammar book of North Estonian (1660), a Bible translator, and one of the authors of the first versified hymnal (1656). In his Grammar Göseken clearly declares his preference for Latin and German models over the actual usage of Estonian peasants. For example, the part on syntax in Göseken’s grammar book begins with the statement: ‘Die meisten Regulen kommen mit den Lateinischen und Teutschen über ein. Doch nimmet der Baur allemahl den Syntaxin nicht in acht’ (‘Most of the rules [of Estonian syntax] come from Latin and German. But peasants often do not follow them’) (Göseken 2010 [1660]: 218-19). The language of Göseken’s Bible translation is strongly German-biased. He used Luther’s German translation as the source text and transferred German constructions word-for-word into Estonian. The artif icial nature of the Estonian language of Göseken and his sympathizers is most evident in the first versified hymnal. The hymns were translated by Göseken and three of his elderly colleagues – Georg Salemann, Martin Gilläus, and Reiner Brockmann – according to the strict rules of Martin Opitz’s ‘German Poetry’ into faultlessly regular iambic or trochaic verses with pure end rhymes. The strict accentual-syllabic system
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of versification and end rhymes had been introduced into Estonian poetry in an occasional poem in 1637 by one of the four translators of the hymnal, Reiner Brockmann (1609–1647), professor of Greek in the Gymnasium of Tallinn and later pastor in northeastern Estonia. Brockmann was probably inspired by Paul Fleming, the devoted disciple of Opitz, who visited Tallinn several times in the 1630s. Fleming’s visits to Tallinn initiated a real boom in occasional poetry (mostly in Latin and Greek but also in German, Swedish, and, as a kind of curiosity, Estonian) among local intellectuals. Now the same system of versification was applied to hymns. The translators were very proud of their achievement (Masing and Soosaar 1999 [1956]) and claimed in the foreword that their translations were even better than German originals, where rhymes were not so pure and iambic and trochaic feet were often mixed together (Neu Ehstnisches Gesangbuch 1656: [30-31]). The metrical form of the translations is, indeed, remarkably fluent, but this fluency was gained at the price of the natural structure of Estonian. While the Estonian prose texts of Göseken and his colleagues were shaped according to the grammatical patterns of German and Latin, the Estonian language of their versification was totally subordinated to the demands of meter and rhyme. A great part of these translations was probably not understandable to the peasants. Nevertheless, thanks to the fluency of the verse, they might have been easily learned by heart. The hymnal was widely used in North Estonia until the end of the century and was twice re-published (1673 and 1693). In order to obtain metrical exactness and good rhymes, Göseken and his co-translators distorted the phonetic shape of word-forms and even invented new words. For example, to get a pure rhyme for the Estonian verb form on (‘is’), either Georg Salemann or Heinrich Göseken invented a new synonym for the devil: põrgukonn (‘frog of Hell’). The new synonym was used six times in the hymnal, including the above-quoted hymn by Luther (in Salemann’s translation): Se wanna Pörgko-Konn / Ni töis sest Weehast on (‘the old hell-frog / so full of anger is’) (Neu Ehstnisches Gesangbuch 1656: 339). This artificial neologism obviously sounded a bit funny and had comic rather than severe connotations. Critics of the hymnal greatly mocked this word, and since the 18th century it has no longer been used in ecclesiastical Estonian. The analogistic, highly artificial approach towards the standardization of literary Estonian dominated among the members of the Consistory of Estonia developing the North Estonian literary standard until the end of the century. This baroque variety deviated significantly from the spoken vernacular and moved literary Estonian far from the Lutheran example.
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Pre-Pietist Estonian (1680s–the Great Northern War) At the end of the 17th century, a crucial turn in the dominating linguistic view determining the development of literary Estonian took place. The analogistic approach was replaced by a linguistic practice that relied on the actual language usage of Estonians. In the penultimate decade of the century, fierce linguistic disputes broke out in the course of translating the Bible between the representatives of the Consistory of Estonia in Tallinn, who supported Göseken’s Estonian and his method of translation, and the young intellectuals who had gathered around the superintendent of the Consistory of Livonia in Riga, Johann Fischer (1633 or 1636–1705). Highly educated Fischer – who had studied in Rostock, Helmstedt, Altdorf, and Leiden and had had personal contacts with many contemporary intellectuals, including Philipp Jakob Spener – came to Livonia in 1673 and brought with him new ideas from Germany. In the discussion about whether literary language should be developed according to scholarly rules or the actual usage of local common people, Fischer clearly positioned himself on the side of those who preferred to rely on the local usage (Põldvee 2009: 654-58), but he did not know the local languages himself. In debates concerning particular linguistic details he had to rely on local experts. The most outstanding and talented of the young translators protected by Fischer were Johann Hornung (c. 1660–1715) and Adrian Virginius (1663–1706). Both were born in Estonia as sons of local pastors and probably spoke Estonian fluently from an early age. Little is known about the biography of Johann Hornung. His exceptionally high proficiency in Estonian was admired by one of the most significant experts of literary Estonian in the 19th century, Eduard Ahrens, who stated that Hornung had already learned it perfectly as a child from speaking with local people and must have been particularly talented in languages (Ahrens 2003 [1845]: 32). In his autobiography Adrian Virginius describes how he liked to play pastor as a little boy and give sermons in German and Estonian to his friends (Tafenau 2009a: 849). Neither had reached particularly far in their academic studies, and their theoretical linguistic attitudes were probably strongly influenced by Fischer. In the disputes on linguistic aspects of Bible translation, their main advantage over the elderly pastors representing the analogist approach was their good knowledge of Estonian. Following the example of the vernacular spoken by local peasants, they initiated a real reform in literary Estonian. Johann Hornung composed an innovative Estonian grammar book (1693), translated the New Testament into North Estonian (in manuscript), and participated in the preparation of several
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innovative publications, including the new hymnal in North Estonian (Reila 2007). Adrian Virginius took part in the publication of the first New Testament in South Estonian (1686) and several other ecclesiastical books, including the hymnal, and in cooperation with his father he is supposedly one of the translators of an anonymous manuscript of the Old Testament in North Estonian (Virginius and Virginius 2003). The language of the translations by Hornung and Virginius is notably fluent in comparison with other translations of the 17th century. The theoretical attitudes of the young authors are vividly expressed in a manuscript of critical analyses that was carried out at the request of Johann Fischer concerning the translations of the opposite party (Tafenau 2011) and in their correspondence (Pahtma and Tafenau 2003). Their attitudes are especially evident in their criticism of the hymnal of Göseken and his colleagues and in their own hymn translations. Their translations follow the accentual-syllabic versification system with end rhymes with the same accuracy as their forerunners, but they try to avoid breaking the natural phrase patterns of Estonian. The result is indeed more natural, and their Estonian text is easy to understand. At the same time, their hymn translations may be criticized for a sort of dullness and for lacking the vivid figurativeness of the baroque forerunners. For example, in their translation of the previously quoted hymn Ein feste Burg, they have given up the artificial neologism invented by their predecessors and use a vernacular equivalent (paharett) instead, although the rhyme paharett–teed is not perfect: Se wanna Pahharät / Ke näitis Patto Teed (‘the old hobgoblin / who showed the way of sin’) (Ma Kele Laulo 1694: 127). As for the Estonian language of prose translations by Hornung and Virginius, it can be described as very good without reservations. Their linguistic activities in general helped to bring the literary standard of Estonian much closer to the spoken vernacular and thereby also closer to Martin Luther’s principles considering the ways in which the vernacular should be used in the process of Bible translation. At the same time, it must be pointed out that as for translation strategy, the connections between Hornung’s and Virginius’s Bible translations on the one hand and Luther’s Bible on the other are more complicated. Luther had stated that the Bible had to be translated from the original languages instead of from the Latin Vulgate. Nevertheless, by the end of the 17th century, Luther’s own translation had become a new canon. In addition to purely linguistic details, one of the main issues in the debates on Estonian Bible translation at the end of the century was the question of source text: whether the Estonian translation should be done according to the original
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texts or according to Luther’s German translation. Johannes Gutslaff, one of the mid-century representatives of the analogist approach, relied both on the original texts and on Luther’s version. The other analogist, Heinrich Göseken, translated from Luther’s translation, and at the end of the century, adherents of the analogist approach generally were of the mind that the source text of the translation should be Luther’s version. Johann Fischer, however, argued that the source text should be in the original languages but that, at the same time, translators should take Luther’s version into consideration. Analyses of the translations of Hornung and Virginius have demonstrated that the translations were actually made after Luther’s text, although the original versions were also utilized (Ross 2008: 245-47). The resultant versions are closer to Luther’s translation than any other text in the entire history of Estonian Bible translation. Exegetically and syntactically the translators followed Luther’s text quite consistently, and at the same time their target language corresponds better to the linguistic precepts set down by Luther than the language of other 17th- or 18th-century translations.
Pietist Estonian (1720s–1739) In the 17th century neither of the two consistories developing Estonian literary standards managed to publish the full Bible in translation, although both Lutheran neighbours on the northern and southern sides of Estonia had their translations by the end of the century: the Finnish Bible was published in 1642; and the Latvian Bible has on its title page the year 1689, although it was actually published in 1694 (Šiško 1999: 68). One reason among several others for the delay in the Estonian translation certainly lay in the incompatibility of the two different approaches towards constructing the literary standard, which made it impossible to unite the forces of different teams. By the end of the century, the supporters of language planning on the basis of actual usage prevailed, but they did not manage to take the last step to establish the literary standard, viz., publishing the full Bible. The South Estonian New Testament had been published in 1686, and the North Estonian New Testament was nearly ready when the Great Northern War broke out in 1700, and the work was suspended for some more years. During the war editing was completed, and the North Estonian translation of the New Testament by Johann Hornung was published in 1715. As the result of the Great Northern War, the Swedish Empire lost Estonia to tsarist Russia. Although the local German nobility and clergy maintained their position, the new political situation had an impact on the development
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of literary Estonian (Eesti ajalugu IV 2003: 217, 225). Johann Fischer had already introduced Pietist influences, although under Swedish power these ideas could not take root in 17th-century Estonia. Pietism became influential after the war, and the immense task of translation of the entire Bible was successfully brought to a conclusion by a group of Pietist translators. The war had a particularly devastating effect on the southern part of the Estonian-speaking area administered by Johann Fischer. Nevertheless, pastorates in northern Estonia were also in a rather poor state after the capitulation of Tallinn in 1710, and in the entire territory only fifteen pastors had survived (Põldmäe 1939: 37). However, relatively soon the clergy started increasing in numbers again, mainly due to an influx of pastors influenced by Halle Pietism. By the end of the second decade of the 18th century, the Pietist pastors of Tallinn and its surroundings gathered together into an efficient grouping and set out to develop the Estonian spiritual word (Põldmäe 1939: 45-56). In 1724 the Tallinn Cathedral received a new head pastor from Halle – Christoph Friedrich Mickwitz (1696–1748) – who was also assessor of the Consistory of Estonia and, from 1726, director of the Synod (Kõpp 1926: 321). From this point on, the developing of Estonian Bible translation and the entirety of literary Estonian can be regarded as a Pietist enterprise (Põldmäe 1939: 58-59). The main task of this grouping was to publish the full Bible in Estonian (1739). First they published a new church manual (1721), which included a new revised and supplemented hymnal, and before starting to translate the Old Testament, the translation of the New Testament was thoroughly revised (1729). The leading figure of the new grouping, who acted as a sort of editor-inchief and probably established the final form of the literary Estonian used in the Pietists’ publications, was Anton Thor Helle, pastor of Jüri. Another significant contributor was Heinrich Gutslaff, pastor of Kullamaa, but the circle of actual translators was considerably wider. The hymnal included former and new translations by other pastors (Põldmäe 1939: 46), and more than a dozen pastors participated in the process of translating the Old Testament (Ross 2002; Tafenau 2009b). On the whole, Pietists took over the North Estonian variety created by Hornung and Adrian Virginius in the previous century. In any case, in their prose translations they unified morphological forms more systematically (Kilgi 2011) and codified morphosyntactic constructions in a slightly more rigid way than their predecessors, moving the entire literary standard slightly backwards in the analogistic direction. In Lutheran German-speaking areas, Luther’s Bible translation had been the indisputable authority until the end of the 17th century. Only the Pietists
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began to underline the importance of the original text, thus paving the way to revising Luther’s version and new independent translations. Much attention was paid to the mediation of every nuance of every original word. New translations of the 18th century were generally verbatim and concordant (Köster 2011). In the translation of the Old Testament, Pietist Estonian translators also focused on creating as exact a communication of the original text as possible. It is probable that they had the most recent Pietist exegetical materials at hand, as becomes evident from the comparison of the Estonian translation with contemporary German translations. Most interesting are some exegetical coincidences in the Estonian translation, with explanations given in the commentary of the so-called Berleburg translation (1726–1742). The verb form še-galešu in Song of Songs 4: 1 (and 6: 5), for example, which Luther had translated as die beschoren sind, was rendered by the Estonian translators with a longer phrase: kes warra hommiko […] mahhalähhäwad joma (‘who early morning go down to drink’) (Piibli Ramat 1739: 664). The translation corresponds word for word to the explanation of the Berleburg Bible, according to which some researchers thought that the meaning of the verb galaš was des morgens früh zur Tränck herabkommen (‘to go down to drink early in the morning’) (see in detail Ross 1995). The ambition of the translators to communicate all the undertones of every single word of the original text, together with their more rigid attitude towards codification and concordance, resulted in a majestic but slightly ponderous language variety. The language of the Bible translation set the literary standards for the whole century. Nevertheless, for peasants who constituted the absolute majority of the Estonian community of the time, this variety was probably a bit too difficult to follow. The language of the Pietists’ hymn translations is different. There was no need to hold on so strictly to the original text here, all the more so that in order to follow metrical and rhyme patterns changes were obligatory anyway. In their hymn translations, Pietists focused on the comprehensibility of the general meaning of the text, taking into account the presumed mental abilities of the target group. The entire wording was simplified, and overly sophisticated figures of speech were omitted or replaced by clearer ones. At the same time, in hymn translations some interesting idiomatic expressions were used, which are not registered in other texts of the time and were probably, in accordance with Luther’s advice, picked up from the ‘mouth of the common people’. The evident tendency to simplify the text whilst simultaneously using vivid expressions from the local oral speech can be illustrated by the translation of the beginning of the fifth stanza of Laurentius Laurenti’s hymn Es sind schon die letzten Zeiten: Weil
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der feigenbaum ausschläget, / Und anlegt sein hoffnungs-kleid, Wigi puud, kui pakkatawad, / Lähwad hire körwule (Eesti-Ma-Rahwa 1727: 10). The first verse (‘when the fig-trees bud’) is mediated almost word-for-word, but the high style literary figure hoffnungs-kleid (‘robe of expectation’) of the second verse is ignored and instead the specific Estonian expression hiirekõrvule minema (‘to leaf’) (literally ‘to go on mouse’s ears’) has been introduced, which had not been registered in earlier written sources. Against the background of contemporary written Estonian, the translation makes a surprisingly fresh impression. In the context of the present essay, such replacements can be regarded as evidence of a translation method nicely corresponding to Luther’s expressed attitude.
Conclusion The genesis of written Estonian was triggered by the Lutheran Reformation. In the course of the two post-Reformation centuries, literary standards were created in the process of translating ecclesiastical literature, which resulted in the publication of the full Bible in 1739. Martin Luther claimed that the Word of God had to reach everyone in his or her mother tongue and that the language of the Bible translation must be expressive but at the same time understandable for everybody, including common people. In the case of Estonian, the proclamation was particularly significant. The language of communication of local elite at that time was German, and Estonian was spoken only by ‘common people’. Luther’s claim motivated German pastors to develop literary Estonian. In the early Protestant phase, pastors focused on translating catechisms, hymns, and pericopes. The language of the translations was heterogeneous. In its general outlines it was strongly German-biased due to the lack of sufficient competence in Estonian of the translators on the one hand and, in the case of Bible quotations and pericopes, to the high prestige of Lutheran text on the other. Alongside verbatim German constructions, which dominate Early Protestant Estonian, fragments of free translation and distinctively pure Estonian phrases can be found in the texts. These Estonianisms can be interpreted as evidence of possible native Estonian co-translators and/ or as an echo of Luther’s appeal to translate the meaning of the text, not the words, and to use the language of the common people. The development of literary Estonian in the 17th century can be described as a struggle between two approaches towards the standardization of literary language then being discussed in linguistic debates in Germany: adherents of
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one party valued analogistic standardization and regularity whilst adherents of the other party relied on the actual usage. In the case of Estonian, the decision for one or another side was certainly influenced by any particular pastor’s knowledge of Estonian. In mid-17th-century literary Estonian, the analogistic approach dominated, represented by two prominent figures: Johannes Gutslaff and Heinrich Göseken. Gutslaff knew the local dialect quite well, but he combined elements of the spoken vernacular arbitrarily, following the example of German or classical patterns. His artificially constructed language was probably incomprehensible to both native Estonians and his German colleagues. The language of Göseken’s Bible translation is strongly German-biased; the text has been translated word for word from Luther’s German version. The factitious nature of the Estonian language of Göseken and his sympathizers is most evident in the first versified hymnal. In general, the entire baroque variety deviated significantly from the spoken vernacular and moved literary Estonian far from the Lutheran example. At the end of the 17th century, a crucial turn in the dominating linguistic views took place, and the analogistic approach was replaced by a linguistic practice that relied on the actual language usage of peasant Estonians. The key figure of this turn was the superintendent of Livonia, Johann Fischer, who favoured the linguistic activities of young talented pastors with good skills in Estonian, particularly Adrian Virginius and Johann Hornung. The Estonian language used by Virginius and Hornung in their Bible translations corresponds to the linguistic precepts of Luther better than the language of any other 17th- or 18th-century Bible translations. As the result of the Great Northern War, Estonia was separated from the Swedish Empire and became a part of tsarist Russia. Although the local German nobility and clergy maintained their position, the new political situation had an impact on the development of literary Estonian. In the new situation, Pietism became influential, and the immense task of Bible translation was carried to its conclusion by a group of Pietist translators who also published a new hymnbook. On the whole, Pietists took over the North Estonian variety created by Johann Hornung and Adrian Virginius in the previous century. In their prose translations they used a more strictly unified and codified system of morphological forms and morphosyntactic constructions, moving the entire literary standard slightly back in the analogistic direction. In translating the Bible they followed the views of Pietist exegetes and focused on the communication of the exact meaning of every single word of the original text. In their hymn translations, by contrast, Pietist translators focused on the comprehension of the general
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meaning of the text, taking into account the presumed mental abilities of the target group. The most literate figurative expressions were omitted or sometimes replaced by genuine Estonian idioms that had not been registered in other written sources of the time. In their hymn translations, the Pietists came close to achieving a variety corresponding to Luther’s idea of a target language, understood by the common man in the marketplace.
Bibliography Primary sources Eesti-Ma-Rahwa. 1727. Eesti-Ma-Rahwa Laulo-Ramat. Tallinn: J. Köler. Göseken, Heinrich. 2010 [1660]. Manuductio ad linguam Oesthonicam. Anführung zur Öhstnischen Sprache. Heinrich Gösekeni grammatika. In Heinrich Gösekeni grammatika ja sõnastik 350, ed. by Valve-Liivi Kingisepp, Kristel Ress, and Kai Tafenau, 38-300. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli eesti ja üldkeeleteaduse instituut. 38-300. Gutslaff, Johannes. 2013 [1647–1657]. Johannes Gutslaffi piiblitõlge 1647–1657, ed. by Maeve Leivo, Ahti Lohk, Kristiina Ross, and Kai Tafenau. (Eesti Keele Instituut.) Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus. Gutsleff, Eberhard. 2006 [1732]. Zuversichtliche Ansprache des Editoris. In Kurtzgefaβte Anweisung Zur Ehstnischen Sprache, ed. by Annika Kilgi and Kristiina Ross, 4-12. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus. KJV = King James Version. http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Isaiah-Chapter-7/. Kölner Bibel. 1971 [1478]. Die niederdeutschen Bibelfrühdrucke, ed. by von Gerhard Ising. Band IV. Hiob-Jesaja. Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters LIV/IV. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Luther, Martin. 1909 [1530]. Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen. In D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 30, part II, pages 627-46. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger. Luther, Martin. 1960 [1545]. D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Die Deutsche Bibel, vol. 11, Part I. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger. Ma Kele Laulo. 1694. Ma Kele Laulo Ramat. Riga: Johann Georg Wilcken. Müller, Georg. 1891. Neununddreiβig Estnische Predigten von Georg Müller aus den Jahren 1600–1606. Foreword by Wilhelm Reiman. Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat 15. Dorpat [Tartu]: Gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft bei der Universität Dorpat. Müller, Georg. 2007 [1600–1607]. Jutluseraamat, ed. by Külli Habicht, Kai Tafenau, and Siiri Ombler. Tartu: Ilmamaa. Neu Ehstnisches Gesangbuch. 1656. Reval: Adolph Simon.
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Piibli Ramat. 1739. Tallinn: Jakob Joan Köler. Stahl, Heinrich. 2000 [1637a]. Anführung zu der Esthnischen Sprach. Tartu: Maarjamaa Publications. Stahl, Heinrich. 1637b. Hand- und Hauszbuches Für die Pfarherren und Hauszväter Esthnischen Fürstenthumbs, Ander Theil. Darinnen das Gesangbuch. Revall: Christoff Reusner der älter. Stahl, Heinrich. 1638. Hand- und Hauszbuches Für die Pfarherren und Hausz-Väter Esthnischen Fürstenthumbs, Dritter Theil, Darinnen die gewöhnliche Evangelia und Episteln durchs gantze Jahr. Revall: Chr. Reusners Sel. Nachgelassener Widwen Drückerey. Virginius, Andreas, and Adrian Virginius. 2003 [1687–1690]. Esimene Moosese raamat. Iiobi raamat. Tõlkinud 1687–1690 Andreas ja Adrian Virginius, ed. by Kristiina Ross. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Instituut, Eesti Keele Sihtasutus.
Secondary sources Ahrens, Eduard. 2003 [1845]. Johann Hornung, meie eesti kirikukeele looja. Johann Hornung, der Schöpfer unserer Ehstnischen Kirchensprache. In Uue ajastu misjonilingvist. Eduard Ahrens 200, ed. by Kristiina Ross, 25-73. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus, Eesti Keele Instituut. Ariste, Paul. 1981. Saksa laensõnad Georg Mülleril ja Heinrich Stahlil. In Paul Ariste, Keelekontaktid: Eesti keele kontakte teiste keeltega, 109-47. Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia, Emakeele seltsi toimetised 14. Tallinn: Valgus. Eesti ajalugu II. 2012. Eesti ajalugu II. Eesti keskaeg, ed. by Anti Selart. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli ajaloo ja arheoloogia instituut. Eesti ajalugu III. 2013. Eesti ajalugu III. Vene-Liivimaa sõjast Põhjasõjani, ed. by Enn Küng and Marten Seppel. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli ajaloo ja arheoloogia instituut. Eesti ajalugu IV. 2003. Eesti ajalugu IV. Põhjasõjast pärisorjuse kaotamiseni, ed. by Sulev Vahtre and Mati Laur. Tartu: Ilmamaa. Eesti ajalugu V. 2010. Eesti ajalugu V. Pärisorjuse kaotamisest Vabadussõjani, ed. by Sulev Vahtre, Toomas Karjahärm, and Tiit Rosenberg. Tartu: Ilmamaa. Ehasalu, Epp, Külli Habicht, Valve-Liivi Kingisepp, and Jaak Peebo. 1997. Eesti keele vanimad tekstid ja sõnastik. Tartu Ülikooli eesti keele õppetooli toimetised 6. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool. Gardt, Andreas. 1999. Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft in Deutschland. Vom Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Habicht, Külli. 2001. Eesti vanema kirjakeele leksikaalsest ja morfosüntaktilisest arengust ning Heinrich Stahli keele eripärast selle taustal. Dissertationes philologiae estonicae universitatis Tartuensis 10. Tartu: Tartu University Press.
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Hess, Peter. 2007. Poetry in Germany, 1450–1700. In Early Modern German Literature 1350–1700, ed. by Max Reinhart, 395-465. Rochester, New York: Camden House. Johansen, Paul. 1935. Wanradt–Koelli katekismuse senitundmatuist järglasist. Eesti Kirjandus 10: 433-36. Kilgi, Annika. 2011. Anton Thor Helle toimetajakäekiri: kuidas Thor Helle Vana Testamendi verbimorfoloogiat redigeeris. Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat 56: 91-108. Kivimäe, Jüri. 2000. Über den estnischen Druck anno 1525. In Die ältesten estni schen Bücher in Tallinn (Reval), ed. by Lea Kõiv and Mare Luuk, trans. by Kaja Altof-Telschow, 36-61. Tallinn: Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu, Eesti Akadeemiline Raamatukogu, Tallinna Linnaarhiiv. Kõpp, Johann. 1926. Mickwitz, Christoph Friedrich. In Eesti biograafiline leksikon, 321. Akadeemilise Ajaloo-Seltsi toimetused II. Tartu: Loodus. Köster, Beate. 2011. Pietismus und Bibelübersetzung. In Übersetzung. Translation. Traduction. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Übersetzungsforschung, ed. by Harald Kittel, Armin Paul Frank, Norbert Greiner, Theo Hermans, Werner Koller, José Lambert, and Fritz Paul, vol. 3, 2396-2400. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Laanekask, Heli, and Kristiina Ross. 2008. The Language of Tartu and Tallinn in 17th-Century Livonia. In Common Roots of the Latvian and Estonian Literary Languages, ed. by Kristiina Ross and Pēteris Vanags, 199-210. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Lotman, Piret. 2014. Heinrich Stahli elu ja looming. Tallinn: Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu. Masing, Uku. 1999 [1975]. Terminoloogia kujunemisest XVII sajandil. In Eesti vanema kirjakeele lood, ed. by Anti Lääts and Jaak Peebo, 40-58. Tartu: Ilmamaa. Masing, Uku, and Albert Soosaar. 1999 [1956]. Kolme sajandi eest värsistatud lauluraamat. In Eesti vanema kirjakeele lood, ed. by Anti Lääts and Jaak Peebo, 59-90. Tartu: Ilmamaa. Pahtma, Leino, and Kai Tafenau. 2003. Bibelkonferenzen und Sprachstreitigkeiten. Quellen zur Geschichte der Übersetzung der Bibel ins Revalestnische (1686–1690), ed. by Leino Pahtma and Kai Tafenau with the help of Jürgen Beyer. Ex fontibus archivi historici Estoniae. Tartu: Estnisches Historisches Archiv. Paul, Toomas. 2002. Kirikulaulust, mentaliteedist ja matusekommetest. Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat 47: 46-62. Põldmäe, Rudolf. 1939. Anton Thor Helle: esimese eesti piibli tõlkija. In Vana Tallinn, vol. 4, 35-74. Tallinn: Tallinna Ajaloo Selts. Põldvee, Aivar. 2009. Eesti ‘tähesõja’ taust ja retoorika. Keel ja Kirjandus 8-9: 642-67. Reila, Heiki. 2007. Müncheni käsikirjast ja selle seostest Johann Hornungi tõlkega: keelelisi tähelepanekuid. In Põhjaeestikeelsed Uue Testamendi tõlked 1680–1705, ed. by Heiki Reila, Kristiina Ross, and Kai Tafenau, 553-63. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus, Eesti Keele Instituut.
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Ross, Kristiina. 1995. Ülemlaulu tõlkest esimeses eestikeelses Piiblis. Akadeemia 1: 3-29. Ross, Kristiina. 2002. Esialgseid täiendusi Vana Testamendi tõlkeloole. Keel ja Kirjandus 2: 73-87. Ross, Kristiina. 2008. Estonian Bible Translations. In Common Roots of the Latvian and Estonian Literary Languages, ed. by Kristiina Ross and Pēteris Vanags, 235-52. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Ross, Kristiina, and Sven-Erik Soosaar. 2007. Eesti vaimuliku kultuuri sõnavara kujunemisest: veel kord ristimisest. Keel ja Kirjandus 10: 769-82. Rupprich, Hans 1973. Die deutsche Literatur vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Barock. Zweiter Teil. Das Zeitalter der Reformation 1520–1570. Munich: C.H. Beck. Šiško, Silvija 1999. Die älteren Drucke in Lettischer Sprache 1525–1855. General catalog ed. by an author group under the direction of Silvija Šiško, scientific editor Alekseja Apīnis. Riga: Nationalbibliothek Lettlands. Tafenau, Kai 2009a. Adrian Virginiuse eluloost. Keel ja Kirjandus 11: 847-55. Tafenau, Kai 2009b. Veel täiendusi Vana Testamendi tõlkeloole. Keel ja Kirjandus 8-9: 688-708. Tafenau, Kai 2011. Ex ignorantia linguae ridiculus sensus. Eestikeelsete tekstide kriitikast 17. sajandi lõpul. In Lugemise kunst, ed. by Piret Lotman, 123-50. Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu toimetised 13. Tallinn: Rahvusraamatukogu.
About the author Dr. Kristiina Ross is a Lead Research Fellow at the Institute of the Estonian Language (Tallinn). Her research interests include the history of the Estonian Bible translation in the 17th and 18th centuries.
3
The Impact of Lutheran Thought on the Polish Literary Languagein the 16th Century Izabela Winiarska-Górska
Abstract This study sheds light on the influence of the Lutheran Reformation on the history of written Polish. The focus is, above all, on the 16th century, when the ideas of the Lutheranism also reached Prussia and Poland. The study discusses how Lutheranism was reflected both in the standard language and in religious discourse. The cultural context differs from that prevailing in many of the other areas of the Baltic Sea region, among other reasons because Catholicism never lost its predominant position in the area. Naturally, political factors and changes in administrative areas, as well as the local and marginal nature of Lutheranism, affected the importance of Lutheran literature as a channel of influence. In spite of this, Lutheran literature can be seen as, above all, having promoted the development of the written language and literature of the region during the Reformation period. Keywords: Duchy of Prussia, secularization, Lutherans in Poland, New Testament translations, formative genres of religious writing, Polish literary language, Middle Polish normative polemics
Introduction and purpose of the chapter This essay examines sociolinguistic aspects of Lutheran thought in Poland in the 16th century. Based on the analysis of texts recognized by historians of the Polish language as representative for the epoch, it concentrates on the influences of the Lutheran discourse on the Polish literary language in
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch03
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its standard and religious registers. The considerations are contextualized in the problem of whether or not Lutheranism, as a denomination of a minority (often using German as the main language of parishes’ life), stimulated the Polish literary (i.e., standard) language of the Golden Age.1 A positive response seems almost self-evident, as the inception of the Polish literary language coincided with the spread of humanist and reformative ideas in Poland. However, it can also be easily answered in the negative when we recall the words of Janusz Tazbir, a Polish historian, to whom we owe the concept of Poland as a ‘state without stakes’.2 He argued that: [The] outbreak of the Lutheran Reformation in Germany, however, had only a limited effect in Poland. Indeed, the Lutherans’ greatest impact was on the moribund Teutonic Order which, in agreement with the Polish king, secularized its lands and accepted the reformed faith in 1525. Königsberg, the capital of Ducal Prussia, became an important centre for Lutheran teaching. (Tazbir 1973 [1967]: 198)
According to historians, the Lutheran influence was rather transitional; the Reformation did not successfully challenge the religious supremacy of Roman Catholicism, but the Lutheran Reformation did give rise to a process of development of the Polish literary language. It is difficult to indicate precisely the impact of Protestantism upon the Polish language because – we have to admit – the modernization of religious and humanistic discourse, which was set in motion by the Reformation, merged with evolutionary changes stimulated by other factors. Since the representatives of Polish elites, both clerical and secular, were closely bound to the ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam, religious thought from Germany coincided with the general tendencies of the Lutheran Reformation, as well as state reform and the introduction of the national church. The most relevant demand made by the two latter issues concerned access to the Bible in vernacular languages. Initially, the Reformation was secretly favoured by the Church dignitaries too.
1 As a matter of fact, Middle Polish includes the period between the beginning of 16th century and the mid-18th century. Although that language variety began to develop in the Middle Ages (as Old Polish), it was still maturing during the 16th and 17th centuries (as Middle Polish). 2 The phrase ‘country without stakes’ has become a concept of religious toleration in Poland in the past. Actually, it is the title of Janusz Tazbir’s book (1973 [1967]), which had many re-editions.
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As Polish Protestant theologian Janusz Maciuszko (2012) noticed, the history of Lutheran literature in Poland cannot be presented in a continuous and linear way. Rather, we must deal with dispersed historic images, based on impulses that are also differentiated regionally and temporally. In his opinion, the Lutheran popular writings – such as hymnbooks, catechisms, or postils – remain conservative as far as their genres or other stylistic and lingual indicators are concerned. This is due – in the theologian’s opinion – to the long-lasting religious isolation of Polish Lutherans. We have to partly agree with Maciuszko’s arguments, but it is worth noticing that the religious register in principle is more conservative in comparison with the common language of any epoch. There is no doubt, however, that Polish Lutherans had long inhabited the peripheral parts of the Polish language area. The main centres of Lutheranism were located in Masuria (Prussia) and Silesia, while the smaller ones were situated on the eastern borders of Pomerania. These territories either did not belong to Poland at that time or remained fiefdoms of the Kingdom of Poland. Apart from one historical monograph devoted to the Polish language in the Lutheran Church from the 16th to the 19th century in the Duchy of Pomerania (Szultka 1991)3 and the research into the Kashubian regional language of a dialectological character, the heritage of Polish Lutherans (not the Lutherans in Poland) was not the object of broader studies in Poland after World War II. Certainly there is no synthetic linguistic elaboration of this problem. Some interesting examples of direct and indirect influences are related to the Lutheranization of Prussia and hence must be taken into account. The borderline – 1551 (actually 1551–1553) – is symbolic, as it is determined by the first significant Polish translation of the Protestant New Testament, namely the Königsberg New Testament, which was carried out for the purposes of the Lutheran Church in the Duchy of Prussia.
3 According to Zygmunt Szultka (1991), who researches the Lutheran population in the Duchy of Pomerania using Slavonic dialects, promoting literary German in the role of the national language reduced the scope of use of all vernacular dialects in education and religious communication. Slavonic dialects were limited to occasional liturgical services and prayers or rudimentary literature (e.g., the Small Catechism of Martin Luther for the common believers and postils). These works were published in Polish and were linguistically dependent on this literary language. In Prussia, however, the tradition of using the local language in multilingual environments was – at least on the declaration level – cultivated with regard to the first Lutheran ruler of Ducal Prussia. In the larger territory of Silesia, the status of Polish-speaking Lutherans depended upon the local authorities.
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Methodological approach The theoretical umbrella of the considerations is provided by the concepts of historical linguistics, which undertakes studies of a given language in its historical aspects. My interpretations merge both lingual and historical data, which seems appropriate because the problem undertaken seems multi-faceted and thus must be approached using multiple methodological frameworks. The spread of Lutheranism can be treated as a sort of ‘cultural import’; therefore, the assumptions of linguistic borrowing theory suitably support our considerations. Furthermore, we pay attention to genres and models of text organization. The phenomenon of borrowings in the case of the Lutheran heritage should be extended to pragmatic problems of discourse organization as well as to the development of specific didactic (formative) genres, such as catechism, cantional (‘personal hymnbook and formative book’), 4 hymnbook, prayer book, and postil. The Lutheran writings are dominantly of educational character, engaged in teaching both hermeneutics and rhetoric. From this perspective, even translations of Holy Writing should be treated as a specific kind of commentary, that is, hermeneutic explanations of baseline texts in a vernacular language. They manifest the Protestant method of interpretation, fitting into conceptions of religious rhetoric established by the 16th-century reformers of the Christian teaching. In addition to the above approaches, the socio-linguistic approach appears helpful, as the uneven impact of Lutheran thought upon the Polish language results from its official status on the one hand and the declining position of this denomination on the Polish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries on the other. This is closely linked to the traditional subject matter of historical linguistics, concerning the progress of languages and their standardization. In this context we can ask whether the social position of the Lutherans in Poland predisposed them to have any broader impact upon the Polish language. Another problem that arises with regard to the subject matter is the coexistence of the Lutheran Church (with German as the predominant language) in bilingual or multilingual environments. In this chapter, the socio-linguistic data is presented as evidence of the uneven impact of the Lutheran thought upon the Polish language, a result of the official status of this denomination in Poland and, eventually, the declining size of the denomination on its territory. 4 The term cantional refers mainly to a hymnbook; in older Polish texts it was extended to mean a hymnbook, prayer book, catechism, and frequently also a church service agenda collected in one volume.
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Lutheranism in Poland nowadays and in the past – the main sociolinguistic data Poland today is described as a mono-confessional and mono-ethnic country. As far as Lutheranism is concerned, there are only 133 parishes, 123 branches (filial churches), 187 churches, 169 clergymen, and 71,000 believers.5 Although this confession is the third biggest in the country, considering the number of its followers, the difference between the Lutheran Church and the Catholic – the largest in Poland, with almost 34 million believers – is enormous.6 The faithful from historical Protestant centres in Masuria or Silesia – as local patriots and loyal citizens of the German state – were persecuted after World War II. That is why most of those who survived (especially in Masuria) left post-war Poland. Admittedly, the Catholic religion also dominated in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland in the 16th and 17th centuries, but at that time, denominational, ethnic, and linguistic bounds looked different to today’s Poland.7 As Jerzy Łukowski and Hubert Zawadzki state: Exponents of the Reformation could be found virtually anywhere from the Silesian border to the depths of Ukraine. Attempts to form a common front foundered on doctrinal differences between Calvinists and Lutherans 5 The statistics have been taken from the official website of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland and the Central Statistical Off ice of Poland (Główny Urząd Statystyczny 2011: 92-93). 6 Currently, larger Lutheran communities can be found in Silesia (63 parishes), in central Poland (e.g., in Lodz and Warsaw, 21) and in Poznan Province together with Pomerania (18), Wrocław (16), and Olsztyn (Masuria, 15). The largest population lives in Cieszyn, Silesia (nearly half of 71,000 Polish Lutherans). Smaller communities live in Upper Silesia and Masuria. The Lutheran parishes in the rest of the Poland’s territory are located in larger cities. The number of members varies from just a few to a few thousand. 7 Referring to historical periods, we have to distinguish between two terms – ‘Polish language territory’ and ‘territories under the political domination of Polish kings’ – as their scopes do not coincide. The popular outline histories of Poland available in English offer essential information about this problem. See, e.g., Łukowski and Zawadzki (2006); Koyama (2007). It is assumed that in the 16th century (for the year 1580) there were about 7.5 million inhabitants of all territories under the political control of the Polish king (Kubiczek 2003: 102). This data does not take into account the language factor. Perhaps only around 3 million people spoke Polish (including Polonized Lithuanian noblemen and part of the German bourgeoisie). It is also assumed that about 100,000 Polish-speaking people lived in Ducal Prussia, a fiefdom of Poland in 1525–1657 (data for the 16th century), but the demographic situation in Prussia was systematically changing. The Polish-dialect-speaking population lived in Silesia and the eastern peripheries of the Duchy of Pomerania, which at that time were not part of Poland. Polish territories were multi-confessional (Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Orthodox, Jewish, Arian, Mennonite, and even Muslim), but Trident Catholicism quickly began to dominate.
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on the one side and the antitrinitarians, or Aryans, as they came to be called, on the other. The last two Jagiellonians8 tolerated religious diversity (which, after all, sprang from the very bones of the lands they ruled) out of necessity and good sense. The alternative, Sigmund II recognised, was probably internal disintegration, as in France or Germany. While he showed a proper humanist interest in the new doctrines, he had no intention of abandoning Catholicism. (Łukowski and Zawadzki 2006: 77)
In the 16th century, the teachings of Martin Luther first reached Greater Poland, that is, the western parts of the kingdom, directly neighbouring the German Reich. With regard to secularization of Teutonic Prussia, after 1525, when its ruler, Albert, converted to Protestantism, Lutheranism gained the status of state religion, and thus the first Lutheran state in Europe conforming to the Reformation currents emerged. In that area there emerged what is known as Prussian humanism. Inculcating its ideas into the Prussian society occurred via cultural import, ‘[expressed] on the one hand in the appearance in Prussia of a sizeable group of humanists from the Reich, and on the other in the full acceptance of humanism by a considerable proportion of students from Prussia studying at foreign universities’ (Małłek 2013: 254). Protestant thought also appeared quickly in Royal Prussia (later Polish land), where Martin Luther’s teaching found its adherents in the large and wealthy cities: Gdansk, Torun, and Elblag. These cities could literally afford to buy religious liberties from the Polish king and became centres supporting Protestantism in Poland as far as education and religious literature were concerned. The ideas of the Lutheran Reformation were also spreading within the Polish Crown lands, especially in towns populated in great numbers by Germans (see Pettersson and Ross in this volume). In Poznan, Cracow, and other places in 1518–1520, the preaching was delivered in the Lutheran spirit, and Reformation books began to be imported. The royal edicts (1520, 1522, 1523, 1525) forbidding the distribution of these writings under the threat of confiscation of possessions and burning the books in public were not obeyed. As was mentioned, Lutheran ideas met the general conceptions of the Christian Reformation, although the Polish intellectual elites of that time were under the influence of the teaching of Erasmus of Rotterdam and his conceptions of changes within Western Christianity. It is hard to reckon the exact number of Lutheran parishes in the past. The approximate statistics against the background of other denominations have 8
Sigmunt I the Old (1507–1548) and Sigmunt II August (1548–1573).
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The Impac t of Luther an Thought on the Polish Liter ary L anguage
Table 1 Lutheran parishes in the end of the 16th century against the background of other denominations Lutheran parishes
Greater Poland Lesser Poland Grand Duchy of Lithuania Royal Prussia (Polish Prussia) Ducal Prussia (Polish fief)
120 (about 100 German) 20 8 162 (both German and Polish) 258 (both German and Polish) 147 Polish
Reformated parishes
Czech Brethren
Polish Brethren (Arians)
Catholic parishes
50+15
50/64?
4
1510
251
20
20
940
?
?
?
162a
–
258 (147 using Polish language)
191 ?
–
?
?
been presented in Table 1 (note that not all the data are known) (Chojnacki 1956; Merczyng 1905: 136-41; Wijaczka 2012: 13-88). When considering the impact of Lutheranism upon the Polish language, not only is the geographical location of the Protestant communities important but also the official status of this denomination should be taken into account. At first, the Lutheran reforms were supported by the burghers, and later, particularly since the 1620s, the Polish and German noblemen dwelling in Poland also adopted these ideas. The Polish noblemen were initially sympathetic to the Lutheran cause and acted as patrons for Lutheran parishes, but the majority of them converted to the Reformed denomination, thus reducing the number of Polish Lutheran parishes (especially in Greater and Lesser Poland). It was the same in Lithuania: in the middle of the 16th century, Mikołaj Radziwiłł the Black, along with his closest entourage, remained under the influence of Luther’s teaching. As we know, after 1553 he became a declared protector of Calvinism in Poland and in Lithuania and possibly inclined towards the Polish Brethren too. This is of particular significance because in Poland it was noblemen, and not the king, who were patrons of the Reformation. The patrons’ conversions and re-conversions were one of the most important reasons for the gradual diminishing of the Reformation in Poland. In Ducal Prussia (a Polish fief of particular importance for the Polish language), due to the secularization, the legal patronage of the Lutheran
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Church was held by the state. In this Church, the German language dominated all over Prussia, and also in neighbouring Royal Prussia.9 Luther’s teaching therefore received support from Ducal Prussia. In other parts of Poland too, mainly German parishes survived;10 nonetheless, the Catholic Church systematically strengthened its position in Polish Prussia, which was to be a counterbalance to Protestantism. Although after the Warsaw Confederation in 1572 (providing religious freedom at a higher level than the Augsburger Religionsfrieden from 1555) Polish Protestants cherished religious freedom, Catholic propaganda all over Poland successfully made use of the stereotype of friend and foe. Thereby, a long-lasting common opinion arose identifying Lutheranism as the ‘German confession,’ presented in polemical contexts as an alien denomination, in comparison with the prevailing Catholicism as the ‘Polish religion.’ In the 17th century there were popular woodcut engravings picturing the Devil as a Lutheran wearing German apparel. Wars with Sweden helped perpetuate the stereotype of Lutheranism as an alien denomination.
Polish literary language and the secularization of Ducal Prussia – the modernization of religious discourse As was mentioned, the best examples of the stimulating impact of Lutheran teaching on Polish, perceived as the country’s standard language, are to be encountered in Ducal Prussia during Albrecht Hohenzollern’s rule (1490–1568). In 1525, after the secularization of the Teutonic Order, the initial ostracism by the rest of Europe made the Duke look for support from the Polish king’s side. At the same time, Königsberg became a centre of Lutheran education; strongly based on humanistic ideas, the local university was founded in 1544 (Małłek 2013: 253). The Duke established 24 scholarships, seven of which were dedicated to the Poles. Among the first professors there were the Polish-speaking Lithuanians Abraham Kulwieć and Stanisław Rafajłowicz. The student lists contain the names of outstanding Polish poets, writers, and 9 It was Polish property then. Later, this region was known as Western Prussia. 10 However, as the studies of Chojnacki (1956) prove, many of the Polish language parishes constituted in Ducal Prussia in the 16th and 17th centuries survived to the end of World War II, some of them even longer. Thus the original idea of Albrecht Hohenzollern to provide the liturgical service in vernacular languages was also vital at least until 1945. In some parishes with Polish-speaking minorities, the liturgy in Polish was still delivered only once or twice a year.
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scholars. Most of them continued their education in Wittenberg, as it was a popular destination for Polish students in the middle of the 16th century. The education of the Lutheran elite with a multilingual background was an important part of the Duke’s plan to secularize his lands. His son, Albert Frederick, spoke Polish fluently. The Duke’s ambition was to first of all equip every parish with books indispensable for priests and, thanks to Church teaching, prepare the heads of the house (ojcowie domów ‘fathers of families’) to run the institution of the so-called ‘domestic Church’ (Kościół domowy). Catechisms and cantionals were to be available in German, Polish, and Lithuanian, whilst the literature printed under the auspices of the Duke should be both comprehensible and useful. It comprised either texts newly translated from German, Czech, or Latin or the revised older Polish religious literature. In the Lutheran Church, the systematic Church teaching included regular interpretation and teaching of the Bible, translated sincerely, as it was claimed, into the vernacular language. It was Martin Luther who first suggested that the Duke of Prussia convince his subjects to convert on the basis of the ‘Pure Word of God’ as he put it, followed by their gradual introduction to worship. In 1525 Duke Albrecht promulgated Articles of Ceremonies, the following passage of which answers the common requests to access the Bible in translation: Above all, in compliance with the principle of sola scriptura, instead of reading only small fragments of the Holy Scriptures during mass as in the Catholic Church, it was recommended to read, in the native language, whole passages systematically, so that they would become known in full to the faithful. Services were, then, to take place in German, the language used in Königsberg and in many other towns. However, Latin was allowed in some places in the liturgy, both word and song, so as not to decrease the interest of young people in this language. It was explained by the fact that the country had many non-Germans and in order for them to be able to take an active part the services, a little Latin had to be left. (Małłek 2013: 293)
The first article of the Prussian Ustawa (Agenda of the Church) from 1525 follows this reasoning, ordering that the people should learn the Bible directly and accurately. The Church introduced two modes of teaching the Pure Word of God: the customary mode, that is, readings of periscopes,11 11 The term pericope refers to sections of the Gospels required for the services of the liturgical year.
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epistles, lessons, the psalter according to the liturgical calendar; and the new one, consisting of systematic reading of and commenting on the chapters of the Bible (the Old and the New Testaments separately). In the 17th century, the Protestant liturgical Agenda (Agenda 1637: 247) conf irmed these practices. The f irst mode of reading was called po sztuczce ( frustulatim ‘with exceptions’); the other one was porządne czytanie (‘reading continuo, according to chapters’). Both modes of the Church teaching were practised; the latter mode was to follow the patterns of the Ancient Church readings, but it was not common in Poland (as the Agenda stated).12 The Church inspectors obliged pastors to deliver Church services in a comprehensible language, as well as to use proper books, that is, catechisms, hymnbooks, postils, and the New Testament in an adequate translation. In the Lutheran Agenda, there was the special institution of a translator (Tolken, Tolcken) appointed for the non-German speaking population. Such a person was to take his place near the altar and translate the sermon from German into a given language: Prussian, Lithuanian, or Polish (Małłek 2013: 294). The development of the formative literature gave people broad access to religious texts written in the vernacular language. The authorities accepted older religious literature in Polish, which was to be revised and reshaped according to Lutheran ideas using the critical apparatus and commentaries. As a result, in the modern Lutheran texts, archaic grammar forms no longer used in the common language could be encountered. An example of such forms, appearing in the Gospel of Matthew (1551; see Murzynowki 1551), is a rare particle le (‘but’) used instead of ale (‘but’). Its meaning did not change, only the form. The new one was a compound word consisting of the conjunction a (‘and’) and the former participle le (‘but’). The archaic form le can be met occasionally in the New Testament (1551–1553), which was printed in haste (Rospond 1949: 179). The translator did not correct it, and the printer, who was Czech, did not notice it either. Another interesting example, which occurs not only in the Lutheran texts of that period, is the past continuous tense (3 sg. and pl.) that was 12 The following considerations are based on the author’s studies, to be published soon. The exemplif ication is excerpted from the website of the Szesnastowieczne przekłady Ewangelii project (16th-century translations of the Gospel), www.ewangelie.uw.edu.pl (Szesnastowieczne 2013). The site also includes a full characterization of translations constituting the basis of the edition. More information of Polish Bible translations available in English are offered by David Frick’s (1989) monograph devoted to Holy Scripture in Polish printed between 1551 and 1632, during the age of confessional debate.
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regressive at that time. Those forms appeared mainly in translations from Latin as equivalence of verba deponentia and semideponentia, for example: zstało się jest – Latin factum est wzeszła jest – Latin orta est nie jest umarła – Latin non est mortua naśladowała jest – Latin secuta est wypełniły sie są – Latin impleti sunt
In historical linguistic considerations, the term literary language refers to a standard, usually national, language variety that is used in broader areas than vernacular dialects, which usually refer to predominantly spoken communication (Dubisz 2002: 191-92). The fact that literary languages are developed primarily in written forms contributes essentially to the stabilizing of both grammatical norms and spelling. They are characterized by limited variations, elevated grammatical rules, and richer vocabulary through which various contents (e.g., administrative, academic, artistic, religious) including abstract and sophisticated notions can manifest themselves. The Lutheran literature printed in Prussia provides some crucial examples that there existed theoretical normative reflection upon the Polish language in the 16th century. The New Testament translation is a good example of the search for a stylistic pattern of translations into Polish using a vernacular language. This tendency manifested itself in the first normative polemics between a publisher (Jan Seklucjan), a translator (Stanisław Murzynowski), and an editor (Jan Sandecki-Malecki), all three working in Königsberg, as far as printing catechisms (1544–1548) and the New Testament (1551–1553) is concerned. Their rivalry is rightly considered to be a symptom of the growing awareness and linguistic culture of Polish intellectuals. In 1544 Jan Seklucjan, a preacher who had converted to Lutheranism, then a Protestant publisher and writer, printed his own text of Wyznanie wiary chrześcijańskiej (‘Confession of Christian faith’), modelled upon the Western Protestant Confessions. The following year he edited the catechism Katechizmu tekst prosty dla prostego ludu (‘Simple text of the catechism for the common people’). These publications gained a wide response and were re-edited and distributed all over Prussia and also in Poland (Rospond 1949; Warmiński 1906). After Jan Seklucjan’s publications, similar editions appeared made by the esteemed editor from Cracow, Jan Sandecki-Malecki, who converted to Lutheranism and settled down in Prussian Ełk as a Lutheran minister. Like
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other printers, he hoped to run his own printing house. He criticized the spelling of all Seklucjan’s publications, as well as his annotations attached to the Gospel of Matthew (1551–1553), made at the request of Albrecht Hohenzollern. This began a long-lasting debate concerning linguistic, spelling, and theological issues. It is known as the first normative polemic about Polish language standards. The most important points of this debate concerned the following questions: – new conventions for spelling (e.g., one-word and separate spelling of prepositional phrases, as well as enclitic and proclitic clusters) – modernization of vocabulary relying upon the common language without respect to the established literary forms inherited from the Middle Ages – syntax (over-long periods and colons, improper segmentation that lead to misunderstandings) – grammar (using innovative forms) – style of translation (meticulousness, unnecessary critical apparatus of the New Testament translation). As far as spelling is concerned, Jan Sandecki-Malecki condemned not only the instructions of Jan Seklucjan’s catechisms (1547, 1548) but also rather extensively the ‘primitive’ implementation of the rules that had very little to do with the standards worked out in Cracow at that time. On that basis he disapproved of the one-word spelling of prepositional phrases, as well as enclitic and proclitic clusters. The main points of the debate concerned an almost phonetic spelling and the annoying lack of any correction. The explanation for that was easy for Jan Seklucjan. He accused the German printers, who did not speak Polish, of spoiling the text. This is certainly true; the typesetters were initially German and unacquainted with Polish spelling. The subject matter of the debate was using such words as dufać, ufać (‘trust’, ‘faith’) and zbór, kościół, cerkiew (‘church’, ‘congregation’) in religious texts. The terms dufać and zbór, which were adopted by other Protestant groups and gained inter-confessional Protestant status at that time, prove that the Lutheran writers were seeking Polish equivalents of basic Protestant concepts. The term minister, which had a 16th-century origin, was later replaced in the 18th century by the word pastor. In the same way, the older term zbór has subsequently been substituted with a new one, namely kircha.13 13 The words pastor and kircha appeared in the 18th century. They reflected the new situation of the Lutheran Church in Polish-speaking territory, i.e., the German language domination as far as terminology is concerned. At the same time, in order to neutralize religious differences
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Figure 3 Gospel of Matthew – the front page (Murzynowski 1551, handwritten comments – Jan Sandecki-Malecki)
Today it has almost gone out of use as it is seen by the Protestants to be offensive. The pragmatic aspect related to stigmatization using words is one of the factors causing vocabulary changes or decline in Polish. Referring to the other points of the normative polemic, it is worth presenting the title page of the Lutheran version of the Gospel of Matthew (1551) translated by Stanisław Murzynowski (and edited by Jan Seklucjan; between Churches, a contemporary Protestant avoids the use of such words as pastor, zbór, or kircha. The only term Polish Protestants refuse to adopt is msza (‘holy mass’); they still use the word nabożeństwo (‘service’).
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see Figure 3). It was no accident that information about the Greek source of the translation, which was a novelty itself, and the type of translation (literal) have been shown there. Information about the didactic function of the commentary book, interpreting and clarifying the text, can also be found on the title page: Ewanjelija święta Pana Jesusa Christusa wedle Matheusza Świętego, z Greckiego Języka na Polski przełożona. I wykładem krotkim a ku inszem Ewanjelistum potrzebnem, na wielu mieścach objaśniona. (1551) (‘Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew, translated from the Greek language into Polish: with a short comment to other needful Evangelists, explained in many places’.)
The handwritten marginalia in Latin written by Jan Sandecki-Malecki for Albrecht Hohenzollern (the copy was offered to the Duke himself) indicated the negative attitude of the Cracowian writer towards the modernization of the Bible. He preferred the model of moderately accommodating traditional Latin texts. He wrote: Dicit se ex Gręco Matheum in linguam polonicam transtulisse. Atque utinam non ex gręce, sed ex latino translationem Matthei ueram ex verbis propriis Tue [?]14 usitatis, iuxta latinam compositionem, quae cum polonica conuenit, fecisset; equidem pro Polonis satis esset. (Murzynowski 1551: the front page) (‘He claims to have translated Matthew from Greek into the Polish language. But it would be better if he had prepared an indefectible translation from Latin; using proper and accustomed words, according to the Latin syntax that corresponds well with Polish [syntax]. That would be sufficient for the Poles’.)
He also rejected the modernization of the Pater Noster undertaken by the translator according to current spoken forms (see Figure 4). He wrote: ‘O quam ineptissima est versio vestra precationis dominicę: et rustici ipsi reprehendent vos’ (‘How absurd is your translation of Lord’s Prayer: even peasants will condemn you’) (Murzynowski 1551: fol. 23r). In the following passage: Ojcze nasz, ktoryś jest w niebiesiéch, Niecháj będzie święcono imię twoje, Niecháj przyjdzie królestwo twoje, Niech się dzieje wolá twoja […] (‘Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy 14 An unknown word.
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Figure 4 Gospel of Matthew – the Pater Noster, fol. 23r (Murzynowski 1551, handwritten comments – Jan Sandecki-Malecki)
name, Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done’) (Murzynowski 1551: fol. 23r), the translator applied the pronoun który (‘which’) instead of the Old Polish literal form, taken from the Czech – jen ( jenżeś) (Rospond 1949: 187). A more radical change involved imperatives. In the Latin, as well as in the Greek version, there were conjunctive clauses used in this passage. Since the Polish language does not use conjunctives, the best equivalent for the Greek and Latin forms was the synthetic form of the 3 sg. of the imperative (that is formally the same as 2 sg.), which in the current language of that time was replaced by the analytic forms (niechaj or niech będzie). The translator used the analytic forms in his edition, and they have been condemned. The synthetic forms have survived only in the Pater Noster and in a few phrases. However, the proposition to modernize the prayer was partly successful. Subsequent translations introduced a pronoun, który. Poles of all denominations today use the modernized form który(ś)
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and keep all the archaic grammar forms of the 3 sg. imp.: święć się, przyjdź, bądź (most users of the Polish language are unaware of the grammatical complexity of this passage).
Survey of genres and styles of Old Polish Lutheran writing It must be emphasized that since the 1640s, the formative genres, such as cantional or catechism, were flourishing (see, e.g., Kocot and Poźniak 2012). The Lutheran catechisms were formed as collections of indispensable texts, which also included the tables of duties and usually spelling instructions.15 In many cases, prayer books also comprized the essential liturgical agendas and, later, even the Holy Writing translations. Such formative books were addressed to ministers (pastors), but also to the common people, especially masters and ladies of the house, with regard to the ‘common priesthood of all believers’. As far as using this kind of writing is concerned, the Protestants in Poland surpassed the Catholics. In that period, the genres mentioned were perceived as modern with regard to their contents, formal structure, language, and comprehensible style. Translators followed Martin Luther’s and Philipp Melanchthon’s advice to teach the Christian doctrine in brief, plain, and simple forms. Catechisms put together with cantionals were a kind of a compendium, as opposed to a hortulus animae or a breviary, which were popular in Poland. In the Protestant texts, especially prefaces, the latter were described as regressive literary forms.16 The catechism was characterized by both features: the contents comprising of institutional rudiments of the Church teaching;17 and the stable form, 15 The table of duties (German Haustafeln) was not translated into Polish. Jan Seklucjan entitled that chapter Ekonomija (‘economy’) which was related to the Greek term οἶκος (‘house’). In the first Lutheran catechisms, this part was initially called oeconomija (‘economies’). Later on, the parenetic excerpts from the Bible were known as Napominania and Upomnienia, both of which are the semantic equivalents of the Greek παραίνεσις. This form of moral instruction was not published in the Catholic prayer books in Poland. 16 Breviaries and hortulus animae belonged to popular literature. Printed in large numbers in Cracow, they were disapproved of by the Protestants in prefaces of their catechisms and cantionals. 17 The order of elements depended on the basic catechism, i.e., the source of a given translation. The most popular was Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, which was translated into Polish eleven times in the 16th century. The first Polish edition of the Small Catechism of Doctor Luther (1529) appeared in 1530/1531. It did not survive, but we know its critical elaboration made by Liboriusz Schadlika. He was probably its next translator. Among the editors of the Small Catechism, we
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that is, questions and answers as well as brief explanations and comments. In the Protestant catechisms put together with cantionals, there was no iconographic programme typical of the hortulus animae. Since they represented a didactic genre, such a function determined their stylistic features: comprehensible language; logical and reasoned argumentation; and not a figurative, picturesque style. These features become particularly vivid when we compare the catechisms with the 17th and 18th-century Catholic formative books full of baroque f igures of speech and emblems, etc. The severe, rational, and comprehensible style of the Protestant personal cantionals remains a stable feature of the formative literature for common believers. The language of these Protestant texts in Polish – especially the postils, tables of duties, newly translated hymns, and even the New Testament translation – reveal a fusion of modernity loaned from the West with sustaining Polish linguistic or textual heritage that breaks through the modern forms. Thanks to the possibility of printing, Evangelical catechisms, cantionals, and books of Psalms, despite their references to the forms and genres deeply rooted in Christianity, were a breakthrough in the growth of popular religious literature, symbols of the Reformation, and prototypes of a modern formative book. This form could be described as the ‘genre in the form of a collection’, as the Polish linguist Maria Wojtak (2011) put it. The collection of genres resembles the composition of a tickler file or a silva rerum, but contrary to silvas and tickler files, the collection comprises sets of mono-functional genres co-existing permanently and possessing a compositional (structural) apex. Typical examples of the collection are catechisms/cantionals, put together in one book, frequently supplemented with liturgical service agendas, private prayer books called the ‘domestic Church’, tables of duties, etc. The Gdansk Bible too represents a typical collection of formative genres, since it was composed in such a way – it is a kind of a compendium of texts for the complete Protestant formation. can find the acknowledged Cracow editor Jan Sandecki-Malecki, who converted to Lutheranism and moved to Prussia, as well as Jan Seklucjan, a young enterprising publisher (Rospond 1949; Warmiński 1906). There were also other catechisms translated in Poland, e.g., Mikołaj Rey’s catechism (1543) printed in Cracow; as Janusz Maciuszko states (2002: 83-121), it was an adaptation of Urban Regius’s text. Another was Iohannes Benz’s catechism (1528), translated from Latin by Eustachy Trepka in 1556, bespoke of Albrecht Hohenzollern. It was a 270-page comprehensive book with an arrangement of contents different to that of Luther’s Small Catechism (the sacrament of christening was presented first) (Korzo 2007). Polish editions of the Small Catechism are formal adaptations; translators used older Polish texts. For example, Jan Seklucjan added the Angelic Salutation, indicating though that it should not be treated as part of the devotion.
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Collections of texts were easy and convenient in use, thanks to the clear delimitation of content sections. They were diverse in structure and genre, consisting of ‘registers’, notes, quotations, and well-defined biblical support as well as different kinds of fonts and typefaces. Thanks to technical achievements, the catechisms received an appropriate structural apex, as a result of which they became a new form, or actually a genre, within the collection form. Much like Maria Wojtak (2011: 22-25), I regard the following items as the structural determinants of a prayer book within the collection form: – a clear and communicative textual frame (title, subtitle) that precisely defines the character of the text, table of contents, and other paratextual elements – for instance, publishing house, preface etc. – a silva rerum or tickler-like composition, collections or genre microcollections (catechism, sacramental rites, liturgies, cantional, etc.) in a defined arrangement, and a separate section of Psalms, the so-called ‘domestic Church’ with the established repertoire of prayers for the everyday situations of a Protestant family, and parenetic 18 tablice domowe (‘tables of duties’) etc. – the co-occurrence of many forms of religious statements as well as commentaries and briefing acts; these elements build together a textual silva with a conventional structural crown – a global prophetic function concerning salvation and living in accordance with the principles of the faith – a style typical of religious language that uses appropriate formulas, patterns, and liturgical forms. The catechisms and Psalm books from the last quarter of the 16th century and the 17th, much like present-day prayer books, can be treated as a separate genre. The evangelical formation book rather quickly developed the main compositional axis of the silva model. The genre interpreted in such a way became part of the authors’ (message senders’) awareness. It functioned as a set of rules to be observed or modified, contrary to pre-Reformation forms of religious literature for believers. The text structure, as well as some paratextual items, played their role not only in bringing a book to a close but also in shaping texts in the form of particular genres. The national language popular editions became hybrids in terms of genre. For example, the Holy Bible translation published in a specific sequence contained guidelines allowing for text transformations, 18 The term parenetic means ‘hortatory, encouraging, persuasive’.
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in a manner similar to presenting the Holy Bible segmented into Gospels and epistles or evangeliaries.19 Such relationships are made apparent by the secondary segmentation, superimposed on the continuous division according to chapters. In first editions of the Holy Bible, the registers with incipits (i.e., ‘here begins’) and the explicits (i.e., ‘here ends’) helped transform the text into a postil or an evangeliary or, rather, facilitated use of the text as an evangeliary. The secondary segmentation according to pericopes was signed by specific liturgical notes at the margins, informing which day the reading was taken. The end was signalled by a picture of a hand with a pointing finger. Typographic elements (page header, tables of contents suggesting the text segmentation, book division consistent with the canon, depending on the source text, and even errata and spelling corrections in printings from Königsberg) bound the text together into one whole. The thorough concept of the Lutheran catechism stood behind the internal book arrangement, as did their names and titles. It is also difficult to overlook the supportive role of arguments, summae, and additional text segmentation according to liturgical readings. Typographic elements helped directly organize reading and made it possible to activate the proper style and mode of reading. For example, ordinary reading without the philological apparatus was possible (it was so-called goły tekst ‘bare text’), but more difficult reading, activating elements of textual criticism (philological and hermeneutic reading), was also available. Another mode in which the text was used can be described as ‘pastoral’, that is, based on the liturgical calendar system. The New Testament translation was designed as polyfunctional help for both pastors and common believers. The first Polish printed New Testament translation replicated the model of humanistic editions and applied the philological apparatus to the national language in order to enable hermeneutic interpretation. Murzynowski’s translation refers to the Greek edition of the New Testament made by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1522) (he used Nikolas Brylinger’s 1543 edition). The Protestant biblical hermeneutic background can be noticed here on many text levels. In the light of the hermeneutical assumption that the translation itself is an interpretation, the work of Stanisław Murzynowski is characterized by significant intertextuality. The main task is to show the relationship between the Polish version of the New Testament and the Greek original. The reader can see the possibility 19 The term evangeliary refers to a liturgical book containing those portions of the four Gospels which are read during services.
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of multiple explanations. In Murzynowski’s hermeneutics the system of textual criticism seems to be particularly important. From the linguistic perspective it is absolutely worth noticing the signs of grammatical differences between Polish and Greek, indicated by the clover (trefoil) symbol ♣ and square brackets [ ] (see Figure 5). They relate to specific languages. The clover indicates the system differences between translation languages, mainly these of the conjunction i (‘and’), prepositions, pronouns, for instance on (‘he’). A trefoil inserted in the text indicates a word that appears in the original version but is not required by the Polish language. Square brackets around a word, for instance [i], also signal system differences, such as when the Polish translation introduces a word that has not been used in the original. The word or the words marked with the asterisk in the left and the square bracket in the right (* ]) are connected with the glosses in the margins, where other equivalent Polish forms or verbal Greek translations of the words are tabbed in the main text by the * ], for example: *odda] – *odpłaci (‘will pay back’), and *jawności] – *jawiu (‘apparently’): A ociec twój ktory to [i] w skrytości widzi ♣ *oddá] tobie na *jawności]. in the margin: ♣ on, *odpłáci,20 *jawiu. (Murzynowski 1551: fol. 22v)
We have to admit that the translator Stanisław Murzynowski started his work with some ‘nonchalance’ as Sandecki-Malecki complained, perhaps that specific to young people (he was then 26 years old). Sandecki-Malecki pointed out his immaturity and reproached Murzynowski for using linguistic innovations. In passing, it is also worth discussing the question of linguistic innovation in this translation as the basis for the polemic between SandeckiMalecki and Seklucjan. It is known that the dispute developed before the New Testament publication and inevitably, due to the text’s importance, this matter has been severely treated by the experienced editor: ‘[Y]ou translators would like to come across as so diligent that you have filled the margins with more variants than necessary and often for no reason’ (Haereses, manuscript). Parallel comparison of the printed Polish translations of the Bible published in the second half of the 16th century prove that the Bible, like catechisms and cantionals addressed to the faithful, substantially stimulated the development of the literary language. It is the Brest Bible that is significant for the Polish Evangelical and Reformed Church. Nevertheless,
20 The spelling odpálci is improper; it should be odpłáci (‘pay back’).
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Figure 5 Gospel of Matthew – signs of textual criticism (Murzynowski 1551)
although its representatives use the all-Protestant Gdansk Bible (1632), the Lutherans still highly appreciate the first humanist translation (1551–1553). The problem is that in many cases the Protestant vocabulary used in the Middle Polish texts consists of long, periphrastic constructions, auxiliary descriptions and notion explanations, yet according to our contemporary theory, many terms are not, in fact, the terminology sensu stricto. The aim of the Lutheran writing was not to create new terminology, but to explain the ideas of the Reformation in plain words and using comprehensible language. Lutheran confessions from the first half of the 16th century, that is, two translations of the Augsburg Confession from Latin (of 1561 by A. Radomski and M. Kwiatkowski and of 1594, by E. Gliczner), introduce the Protestant issues and topics. To sum up, we have to underscore that the Lutheran writing heritage is dispersed and broadly unknown nowadays in Poland. As far as religious terminology is concerned, only a few terms commonly perceived as Protestant are widely understood, for example that is, pastor (‘pastor’),21 zbór (‘congregation’, ‘parish’, ‘church’), or gmina wyznaniowa (polonized German Gemeinde), and kircha (‘church’) (polonized German Kirche). The last two examples were not used in the 16th and 17th centuries; they appeared later. Today, however, they are used mainly by the older generation, the Protestants themselves feel that they are stigmatizing. For historians of the Polish language, it is striking that recognizable Protestant terms, used until now in solemn situations, such as zbór (‘church, parish, congregation’), ufanie or dufanie Bogu (‘trust’, ‘reliance’), cantional, derive from 16th century Polish. Polish Protestants feel themselves to be successors of the 16th century tradition, or, as they called it, the Golden Age. 21 The word pastor as a description of the Protestant clergyman has a twofold origin in the Polish language. Initially, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the word was rooted in Latin texts; it was taken directly from Latin pastor (‘shepherd, herder, herdsman’). The Latin form was used together with its Polish equivalent pasterz referred to Jesus; it was also a solemn description of clergymen, especially bishops. The stylistically neutral name of a Protestant clergyman was minister (polonized as a noun in Polish Latin adjective minister ‘servant’). In the 18th century, when Polish Protestantism was under the influence of German, the term minister was replaced by the German term pastor (Winiarska 2004: 67, 289-94).
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In my opinion as far as the influence of Lutheran thought on the Polish language is concerned, there was no one stable tendency. We can observe mutually contradictory trends – stimulating and promoting Polish as the country’s language at the beginning of the Reformation storm, while being indifferent, or even narrowing down the role of Protestantism later on, during its systematic decline, and the increase of the Counter-Reformation. It is also impossible to generalize as the situation of the Polish language in the Lutheran Church was locally differentiated and changing over time with regard to the different stages of ‘die Konfessionsbildung’. Although Protestant religious discourse is not currently prevalent in Poland, it nonetheless has its historical significance. It was particularly evident in the Polish language of the early modern era as proves the described above long-lasting emulation of translators and editors in Prussia concerning linguistic, spelling, and theological issues which became the first normative polemic about Polish language standards. All the Polish Protestants contributed to the development of the religious literature and especially in developing special genres of formative texts such as cantionals, catechisms, postils and even Bible translations. Most of them could be described as the ‘genre in the form of a collection’. Thanks to the possibility of printing, Evangelical catechisms, cantionals, and books of Psalms, despite their references to the forms and genres deeply rooted in Christianity, were a breakthrough in the growth of popular religious literature. They stimulated the development of both the literary language and its religious register as well.
Bibliography Primary sources Manuscripts
Haereses et errores in Commentario Joannis Secluciani in Mattaeum per Joannem Maletium Ministrum ecclesiaeLlycensis collari et confutat, manuscript, XX. HA, Hs 28, scans obtained from Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
Printed and edited sources
Agenda albo Forma Porządku usługi świętej w zborach ewangelickich koronnych i Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego. Na wieczną cześć i chwałę Ojcu, Synowi i Duchu S. Bogu w Trójcy jedynemu za zgodną zborów wszystkich uchwałą teraz nowo przejźrzana y wydana we Gdańsku. 1637. Gdańsk: Andrzej Hünefeld.
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Murzynowski, Stanisław (trans.). 1551. Ewangelia Swieta Pana Iesvsa Christvsa wedle Mateusza svietego z Greckiego Iezyka na polski przełożona [przez Stanisława Murzynowskiego] i objaśniona […] przydana. 1551. [S. Murzynowskiego Ortographia Polska to iest] nauka czytania i pisania ięzyka polskiego, ku tym Ksiegam i inszem pozyteczna […]. Królewiec: Jan Seklucjan.
Secondary sources Chojnacki, Władysław. 1956. ‘Zbory polsko-ewangelickie w byłych Prusach Wschodnich’. Reformacja w Polsce 12. 303-412. Dubisz, Stanisław. 2002. Język – Historia – Kultura. Warsaw: Wydział Polonistyki UW. Frick, David A. 1989. Polish Sacred Philology in the Reformation and the CounterReformation. Chapters in the History of Controversies (1551–1632). Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. Główny Urząd Statystyczny, Struktura narodowo-etniczna, językowa i wyznaniowa ludności Polski. 2011. Warsaw. http://stat.gov.pl/files/gfx/portalinformacyjny/ pl/defaultaktualnosci/5670/22/1/1/struktura_narodowo-etniczna.pdf [accessed 19.4.2018]. Kocot, Anna, and Piotr Poźniak. 2012. Hymns from Jan Seklucjan’s Collections (1547, 1550, 1559) and from Various Prints ca. 1554–ca. 1607. Cracow: Musica Iagellonica. Korzo (Корзо), М. 2007. Украинская и белорусская катехетическая традиция конца XVI-XVIII вв.: становление, эволюция и проблема заимствований. Moscow: Канон+РООИ ‘Реабилитация’. Koyama, Satoshi. 2007. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a Political Space: Its Unity and Complexity. In Regions in Central and Eastern Europe: Past and Present, ed. by Tadayuki Hayashi and Hiroshi Fakuda,137-153 . Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University. Kubiczek, Franciszek. 2003. Zarys historii Polski w liczbach, vol. 1. Warsaw: Główny Urząd Statystyczny. Łukowski, Jerzy, and Hubert Zawadzki. 2006 [2001]. A Concise History of Poland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maciuszko, Janusz. 2002. Mikołaj Rej. Zapomniany teolog ewangelicki z XVI w. Warsaw: Chrześcijańska Akademia Teologiczna. Maciuszko, Janusz. 2012. Socjohistoryczne przesłanki rozwoju piśmiennictwa ewangelickiego w Polsce XVI–XVIII w. In Kościoły luterańskie na ziemiach polskich (XVI–XX w.), ed. by J. Kłaczkow, vol. 1, 223-44. Torun: Adam Marszałek. Małłek, Janusz. 2013. Opera Selecta 2: Poland and Prussia in the Baltic Area from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Torun: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK.
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Merczyng, Henryk. 1905. Zbory i senatorowie protestanccy w dawnej Polsce. Przyczynki do dziejów terytorialnego i chronologicznego rozwoju i upadku reformacji w Rzeczypospolitej. Warsaw: Druk Aleksandra Ginsa. Rospond, Stanisław. 1949. Studia nad językiem polskim XVI wieku (Jan Seklucjan, Stanisław Murzynowski, Jan Sandecki-Malecki, Grzegorz Orszak). Wrocław: Nakładem Wrocławskiego Towarzystwa Naukowego. Szesnastowieczne przekłady Ewangelii. 2013. Sixteenth-century translations of the Gospel, ed. by Izabela Winiarska-Górska. Warsaw. www.ewangelie.uw.edu.pl [accessed 19.4.2018]. Szultka, Zygmunt. 1991. Język polski w Kościele ewangelicko-augsburskim na Pomorzu Zachodnim od XVI do XIX wieku. Wrocław, Warsaw, and Cracow: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich. Tazbir, Janusz. 1973 [1967]. A State without Stakes: Polish Religious Toleration in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New York: Kościuszko Foundation. Warmiński, Ignacy. 1906. Andrzej Samuel i Jan Seklucjan. Poznań: Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk w Poznaniu. Wijaczka, Jacek. 2012. ‘Luteranie w Koronie od 1517 do 1795 r.’ In Kościoły luterańskie na ziemiach polskich (XVI–XIX w.), ed. by Jarosław Kłaczkow, vol. 1, 13-33. Torun: Adam Marszałek. Winiarska, Izabela. 2004. Słownictwo religijne polskiego kalwinizmu od XVI do XVIII wieku na tle terminologii katolickiej. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper. Wojtak, Maria. 2011. Współczesne modlitewniki w oczach językoznawcy. Studium genologiczne. Tarnów: Wydawnictwo Diecezji Tarnowskiej Biblo.
About the author Dr. Izabela Winiarska-Górska is a Senior Specialist at the University of Warsaw. Her research focuses on the history of the Polish language.
Part II Effects of Bible Translations on the Evolution of Written Language
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The Czech Language in Confessional Clashes of the 16th Century Robert Dittmann
Abstract This essay discusses the influence of the Reformation period on Standard Czech. The Bible was translated into Czech as early as the mid-14th century, and by the time of the Reformation the language was rich, highly developed, and well-established. Protestant views had its Hussite predecessors in Bohemian Lands, and Luther’s ideas also reached the area early. All in all, the religious situation in Czech lands was very confused in the 16th century, and although Luther’s texts were translated, neither his Bible nor his New Testament were ever translated into Czech. Ultimately, therefore, his direct influence on Bible translation and the development of the written Czech was limited. Instead of the Lutheran Bible, a different model for written prestigious Czech was offered by the Brethren Bible, translated at the end of the 16th century. Keywords: Middle Czech, confessionalization, biblical translations
Introduction The situation in the Czech Lands1 of the 16th century made these territories a peculiar confessional and linguistic laboratory.2 This was due to the unique 1 The Czech Lands consisted of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia. We shall restrict our focus in this study to Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of Silesia, following the actual area of the present-day Czech Republic. 2 This essay originated due to the support of the project Program rozvoje vědních oblastí na Univerzitě Karlově č. P12 Historie v interdisciplinární perspektivě, podprogram Společnost, kultura a komunikace v českých dějinách. The author also benefited from support of Charles University in winter semester 2015.
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch04
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configuration of both language-related and historical conditions and is reflected in the development of the Czech used in biblical translations, i.e., the most prestigious layer of language, and in confessional life generally. Exploring this in greater detail through comparison of attitudes to language and confession-bound Czech vocabulary with respect to the Lutheran Reformation will be the main focus of this chapter. I argue that the conditions for growing confessionalization generally improved, especially from the 1580s, with the climax coming in the 1610s, and that it is most visible in the case of the Unity of the Brethren, which, after a certain attraction to Lutheranism in the first half of the 16th century, gradually approximated Calvinism in the remaining decades before 1620. Quite paradoxically, the orthography of this tiny Protestant minority, confessionally an original Bohemian product, asserted itself as the model for all prints with prestigious functions for the next two centuries, as did its language, best represented by their Six-Volume Kralice Bible translation. Coming about a century after the Hussite Wars, the Lutheran Reformation brought further division in confessional terms. Although the idea that Lutheranism was straightforwardly and immediately embraced by the population is oversimplified and inadequate (Eberhard 1992: 104), geographical proximity to Lutheran areas meant early and intensive penetration of Lutheran ideas into the Czech Lands and eventually led to a situation in which most of the Czech-speaking inhabitants inclined to the movement or its modifications. Even so, its confessionalizing impact on the Czech language was rather small compared to the language variants influenced by denominational affiliation that developed in Slovak, Lusatian Sorbian, or Slovenian (Vykypělová 2013: 136).3 In the case of Czech Bible printing, it was the confessionally neutral line which showed itself to be the most viable for the longest time (cf. Voit 2013b: 375, 2017: 268).
The tradition of Standard Czech The singular position of Czech among Slavonic languages at the beginning of the 16th century resulted from the fact that Old Czech had been the only living and well-developed standard Slavonic language in the Middle Ages (Havránek 1936: 44). This was apparent not only in its long-standardized 3 The political life in Bohemia and Moravia was confessionalized much more slowly than, for instance, in the neighbouring dukedoms in the German Lands, in Lusatia, and Silesia; cf. Vorel 2008: 151, 153.
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tradition and rich vocabulary but also, perhaps most tellingly, in the translation of the Bible, the central text of the Christian Middle Ages. The complete Bible was translated into Czech in the mid-14th century. This makes it the third complete translation in Europe after the French and Italian versions (or possibly the fourth after German, which was completed possibly around the mid-14th century). We must not forget that as early as the first half of the 13th century, mediaeval masterpieces such as the world-famous Latin Codex Gigas (the largest preserved manuscript in the world) and parts of the Hebrew-language gem called Or Zarua of a comparable length had originated in the Czech Lands. The oral tradition of Old Church Slavonic with its religious terminology probably paved the way for the emergence of the standard written Czech at the dawn of the 14th century. The leading position of Czech among the living Slavonic languages was confirmed by the incomparable richness of its mediaeval tradition. The almost 30 more-or-less-complete mediaeval manuscript Bibles (three of which are now destroyed or missing and one preserved only partially) that survived even the devastating Hussite wars and the Thirty Years’ War account for about one-half of all mediaeval manuscripts of whole Bibles preserved in today’s Germany (Rothe 1996: 243). The first Czech incunabula Bible published in Prague as early as 1488 assigned to Czech fifth place among European living languages and, again, first among the Slavic tongues. The authority of the Czech Bible is further attested by its far-reaching influence on other Slavic translations of the Bible, especially on the Polish ones but later also on those in Lusatian Sorbian and, to a limited degree, in Ruthenian and even Russian, not to speak of Slovak, where Czech remained the model up to the mid-19th century. In the 16th century the first grammar of Czech was issued in 1533, again the first among Slavs. It is not surprising that all authors of surviving Czech grammars of the 16th century had a connection with Bible translation, the first two grammars being closely linked to translation of the New Testament (see Ross in this volume). The Czech Lands have therefore rightly been called the ‘Bible Land’ (Bibellandschaft) by Rothe (1996: 245), a German Slavist: ‘Böhmen war nicht nur das Land der Bibeln, sondern auch das Land der Bibel und dadurch die erste europäische Bibellandschaft geworden. Dadurch wurde es unverwechselbar in Europa’. Moreover, ‘biblicity’ (Biblizität) – that is, a strong relationship to and influence from the Bible – was identified as a major characteristic of early Czech grammatography by a colleague of his (Keipert 2015: 18-19). To summarize, we encounter a long, stabilized, rich tradition of the standard language manifested best in the most extensive works, the Bibles.
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Confessional splitting in the Czech Lands The Czech Lands had a peculiar position within Europe even in terms of religious history. As mentioned above, we will limit ourselves here to Bohemia, Moravia, and a smaller part of Silesia, omitting Lusatia and most regions of Silesia, which are not parts of the present-day Czech Republic territory. First, the Czech Lands experienced confessional splitting very early, in the f irst half of the 15th century, as a consequence of the preReformation Hussite movement. This Reformation before the Reformation led to proto-confessionalization (late mediaeval confessional splitting before the 16th-century Reformation; cf. Ohlidal 2003: 26), which did not, however, prove unbridgeable. In fact, the two confessions, the Catholics and the so-called Utraquists, that is, moderate post-Hussite followers, remained very close to each other, and some Utraquists actually felt themselves to be a part of the Roman Church. In Bohemia the Kutná Hora Peace Treaty of 1485 legalized ‒ for the first time anywhere in European history (Válka 2005 [1988]: 242) ‒ the existence of two Christian confessions in one territory; and a little later the same happened in Moravia. The Catholics and the Utraquists became equal in rights, and this unity in duality constituted an extraordinary situation in the Western Church of the period. Even though we have only limited data, we can safely say that Utraquists were already substantially more numerous than Catholics in the population in the preLutheran period at the beginning of the 16th century (Eberhard 1992: 104; Mikulec 2013: 205). The confessional splitting was further complicated by the emergence in the middle of the 15th century of the special Czech religious community nowadays known as the Unity of the Brethren. It was a peripheral minority with strong sectarian features in the first decades, prosecuted by the official authorities for much of the time, and only slowly acquiring a positive attitude to higher education. It remained illegal until 1609 (Bůžek et al. 2010: 313) and was again banned in the post-1620 period. Nonetheless it played an important role, since it began to attract influential noblemen and in the second half of the 16th century attained an excellent level of education gained at prestigious reformational universities abroad. With the penetration of the Lutheran Reformation already having occurred in the 1510s ‒ the quickest among the European countries (Zlámal 2008: 209) ‒ the confessional situation in Bohemia and Moravia became more and more complex, especially since the Lutheran Reformation itself did not stay united for long. The estimates for the end of the 16th century suggest that an absolute majority was formed by the so-called Neo-Utraquists, that
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is, by adherents to the 16th-century Reformation movements, especially to the Lutheran Reformation (Čechura 2008: 309; Janiš 2013: 321). The traditional Catholics represented only about 10 or at most 15 per cent4 (even though an important part of the nobility and the Habsburg ruler himself were part of it),5 and the illegal Unity of the Brethren’s followers formed probably a little more than 1 per cent in Bohemia and around 3 per cent in Moravia.6 As a consequence, more than 80 per cent of the population of the Czech Lands were Protestants. We leave aside the German-speaking areas of the Czech Lands, where the Lutheran Reformation was understandably spreading very rapidly. Keeping to the Czech-speaking Christians, it is evident that there was one dominant current, even though further differentiation is easily discernible if we look more closely. Indeed, further splitting within the Reformation soon took place hand in hand with decentralization (cf. Just 2009a: 17). It is sometimes adduced that apart from Utraquists, Catholics, Czech Brethren, and German-speaking Anabaptists, 18 sects existed in Moravia in the pre-1620 period (Válka 2005 [1988]: 244) and that there were at least 40 different movements among the Anabaptists alone (Zlámal 2008: 232). The development resulted in a mixture of confessions possibly best illustrated by a period saying recorded in the Grammar of Bishop Jan Blahoslav finished in 1571 (fol. 300r): ‘Kolik mlynářů tolik měr, kolik farářů tolik věr’ (‘There are as many measures as millers, as many faiths as priests’).7 Particularly in the first half of the 16th century, the confessional borderlines were far from clear-cut and led to what has been called interconfessional Christianity (Čechura 2008: 308), typical for the noblemen in particular, whose confession cannot be determined in many cases, and also regionally for Moravia (Janiš 2013: 315, 319; Mikulec 2013: 206; Válka 2005 [1988]: 244; Vorel 1999: 170-71). This confessional mixing led to considerable confusion for most of the believers: given that priests, who were moreover often undereducated, formed only 0.3 per cent of the population 4 Cf. Čechura 2009: 342. Some period estimations say that in Bohemia the proportion of Catholics at the end of the 16th century was between one-seventh and one-thirtieth; cf. Vorel 2008: 395. 5 Around 1600, about one-seventh of the nobility was Catholic. However, this figure increased due to numerous conversions, of which the most famous protagonists were Charles of Liechtenstein and Albert of Wallenstein; see Čechura 2009: 345. 6 Just 2009a: 11. In Moravia, as seen from the situation around 1550, the noblemen were deciding about religious questions much more (and practically fully) independently, so that even the ban on the activities of the Unity did not exist there; cf. Vorel 2008: 256-57. 7 Čejka et al. 1991: 316. The spread of this saying is evidenced by other occurrences in Blahoslav’s writings: in his Grammar on fol. 61a and in his Vitia concionatorum on fol. 35a; cf. Blahoslav 2013: 184.
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of Bohemia (Čechura 2009: 242), it may be reasonably concluded that most people, typically those in the countryside, were not even able to distinguish between various confessions and were also reluctant to do so.8 Sometimes historians speak of the Melanchthonian, Calvinist, or Lutheran colouring of the religious belief, a lack of clarity in the situation, and a broad range of religious attitudes (Čechura 2008: 302; Čechura 2009: 353, 359; Just 2009a: 10; Mikulec 2013: 205), which was indeed noted in period testimonies such as that of the Utraquist priest Václav Rosa (Just 2009b: 73-74): Mistrných sekt pikartských, luterských, novokřtěnských, saducejských, cvildenských, mikulašenských, ariánských a kacířstva, čeho se [Čechové] doptati mohli, všelikého užívali. Každý jak chtěl […]. (‘Elaborate sects of Picards, Lutherians, Anabaptists, Sadduccees, Zwinglians, Nicolaitans, Arians and heresies, which they [Czechs] could find, they used all of them. Each as they liked […]’.)
There are examples of individuals and even denominations changing their theological positions over time, and various conversions of the leading representatives of nobility and clergy. For example, the dissident Unity of the Brethren developed some affinities with Lutheranism and direct contacts with Luther in Wittenberg in the first half of the 16th century, as did also the Utraquists (Eberhard 2002: 39; Kadlec 1991: 13), in two phases (up to 1528, i.e., the year of Bishop Lukáš’s death, and 1542).9 The Unity was Lutheranized to a high degree at the beginning of the second half of the 16th century, certainly under the influence of such personalities as Matěj Červenka. He, like another bishop of the Unity, Jan Blahoslav, studied in Wittenberg (Vorel 2008: 258). Luther himself wrote an introduction to a Brethren Latin confession published in Wittenberg in 1538 (Říčan 1957: 159). Nonetheless, the Unity treasured its special character, only to give way finally to Calvinist inspirations later in the second half of that century, especially after 1580 (Kadlec 1991: 26). The Polish branch of the Unitas Fratrum even coalesced with Calvinists, and the same might have happened to the Czech branch too, since some – like Charles the Elder of Žerotín, who in 1608 became the 8 Čechura 2008: 305; Just 2009a: 19; Vorel 2008: 388. Similar uncertainties and overlaps of denominational identity occur sometimes in case of manuscripts or prints; cf. an old note in the Kolín hymnbook (c. 1512–1517) reading ‘Dílem katolickej, dílem husitský a dílem pikhardytský kancionál’ (‘a partly Catholic, partly Hussite, and partly Picard hymn book’); see Baťová 2014: 298, 300. 9 Cf. in detail Rohde 2007: 106-07, 147, who speaks more about the Czech to German direction of influence before 1528, whereas the opposite direction prevails in the latter phase.
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most powerful nobleman in Moravia – made attempts in that direction (cf. Zlámal 2008: 228-29). The last of the Rosenberg noble dynasty, the renowned Peter Vok of Rosenberg, converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism and ended up as a supporter of the Unity of the Brethren (Čechura 2008: 301). The clergymen Dr. Hoe and Abraham Scultetus shifted from Calvinism to Lutheranism and vice versa, respectively, and the Olomouc Catholic Bishop Martin Göschl became a Lutheran (Čechura 2009: 359; Zlámal 2008: 230). Inter-confessionalism was respected in the Czech Confession (Confessio Bohemica) of 1575, the Protestant formulation of the theological Credo covering all major non-Catholic confessional currents in Bohemia and based on the Augustana (Just 2009a: 14), but the ruler accepted it only orally (Kadlec 1991: 56). Even after 1618 the non-Catholic movements were not strictly distinguishable one from another (Vorel 1999: 177). The situation was to a certain degree different in towns, where confessional polemics and division often occurred. This situation of coexistence and tolerance changed radically in the course of the latter half of the 16th century, deteriorating ever more rapidly from the mid-1580s, and the confessional hardening and conflict culminated between 1609 and 1620 (Eberhard 1999: 100; Ohlidal 2003: 25). The arrival of the Catholic Counter-Reformation was signalled by several important events: in 1556 the Jesuits came to Prague; and in 1561 the Prague archbishop was enthroned after a 130-year-long sedis vacatio. Re-Catholicization increased its pace when in 1583 the Habsburg Emperor Rudolph II transferred his seat to Prague. From 1584 close collaboration between radicalized post-Tridentine nobility, the papal nuncio, the Spanish envoy, the archbishop, and the Jesuit Order with its university institutions for clerics (unparalleled by non-Catholic confessions in the Czech Lands; cf. Vorel 2008: 393) began to bear fruit in Bohemia. This was even more evident in Moravia, where the continuity of the Olomouc bishopric had not been interrupted by the Hussite wars, where Utraquism was weaker, and where 1599 saw the politically skilful Francis of Dietrichstein become bishop. He would soon, before reaching the age of 30, become a cardinal and would serve for 37 years. The gradual recovery of the Roman Church may be illustrated by the belated implementation of the Tridentine reforms at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries (Eberhard 1999: 100). In 1599 the Catholic Zdeněk Vojtěch Popel of Lobkovice was named the highest chancellor; in 1602 the Unity of the Brethren was banned ‒ which had happened repeatedly with usually only a small degree of success ‒ and its building in Mladá Boleslav (Jungbunzlau) was closed. The confessionalization of the Protestant estates also intensified between 1575 and 1620, and this had a more profound impact on politics than anywhere
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else in East Central Europe (Eberhard 1999: 99). In 1609 Rudolph II was forced to issue the Letter of Majesty in which he legalized and gave equality to all non-Catholic confessions, representing ‘[d]ie große europäische Alternative zum konfessionell uniformen monarchischen Zentralismus’ (Eberhard 1992: 116). In 1618 the non-Catholic estates attempted to seize all power in the state in an uprising which began the Thirty Years’ War. For a short period of time, the Calvinist ruler Frederick I, in Czech known as Fridrich Falcký, became king. After the defeat of the uprising in 1620, the rule cuius regio, eius religio was applied, and Catholicism became the only faith permitted. To conclude this section, we can say in summary that confessionalization of the main religious currents grew stronger from the 1550s, and especially the 1580s, reaching its peak between 1609 and 1620. This is the only period of legal existence for the Unity of the Brethren, which cultivated and protected its exclusivity. Due to its compactness, well-organized structure, endurance, prevailingly Czech character, and later the support of an affluent nobility that enabled it to produce a large number of prints and organize the education of future clergy, it is in this small fraternitas that confessionalization is most striking (cf. Vykypělová 2013: 240). Confessionalization is possibly best reflected in orthography as shown also by the linguistic term ‘bratrský pravopis’ (Brethren orthography; cf. Vykypělová 2013) to denote the orthographical habits applied by the printshop based successively in Ivančice, Kralice, and Leszno.10 There may also have been other features connected to the Brethren biblical usage, such as the Old Czech past tense form called the imperfect (Czech imperfektum, cf. Vykypělová 2013: 86-113), applied in New Testaments printed in Mladá Boleslav in 1518 and 1525,11 even though both these prints aimed at wider audiences (Voit 2017: 270, 373).
10 One of its most typical features, the double l, present already in some previous prints, did not probably have confessional connotations at least until the 1550s; see Voit 2017: 384. 11 The situation is rather complex. The imperfect seems to have become a sign of poetry, e.g., it occurs frequently in political poetry at the dawn of the 16th century (Porák 1987: 30). The 1518 New Testament using the imperfect was explicitly destined especially for Utraquists (‘under the communion of both kinds’, fol. a4v; see Voit 2014: 153, 154, 2017: 269-70), and the imperfect appears also in other manuscripts, prints, and editions of older works. For instance, in Klaudyán’s Knieha kteráž slove Pastýř […] we read imperfects mysléch, bieše (all fol. a2r), čtieše, biechu (a3v), mluvieše, odcházíše (a4r); cf. also Vykypělová 2013: 112. Similarly, imperfects occur in a 1528 printed edition of an Old Czech work (Rada zhovadilých zvieřat …); see Porák 1987: 30. Bishop Lukáš introduced the imperfect also into the Old Testament pericopes attached to the 1525 edition; cf. Ezra 34: 16 což zavrženého bieše (a3v), Ex. 24: 17 bieše tvárnost slávy páně (a4r), Gen. 37: 12 prodléváchu, Gen. 37: 18 rozmlouváchu, Gen. 37: 21 usilováše and pravieše etc. (all b1r).
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The Czech used in biblical translations and in confessional life As intensive and early as the penetration of Lutheran Reformation into Bohemia and Moravia (not to speak of Silesia and Lusatia) was, rather surprisingly it produced little fruit in the context of biblical translation into Czech. Of course Luther was read in German, which was only natural when Czech-speaking students also studied in Wittenberg (between 1502 and 1602 about 950 students from Bohemia and Moravia enrolled at Wittenberg University; cf. Menčík 1897). Translations of his works into Czech form roughly two waves. An early phase of reception between 1520 and 1523 can be identified, with ten translations printed by the promoters of Luther’s teaching Pavel Severin of Kapí Hora, Oldřich Velenský of Mnichov, and Pavel Olivetský. The second wave between 1539 and 1547 produced eight prints. Subsequently the Lutheran current limited itself to strictly defined ecclesiastical prints, such as catechisms (Bohatcová 1974: 160-61). Indeed, despite its numerous adherents and sympathizers the Lutheran Reformation in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia failed to produce a single translation of Luther’s Bible or its New Testament. This is especially striking considering that before 1620 a total of 15 editions of the entire Czech Bible and 27 editions of the New Testament (Bohatcová 1970–1971: 255) were published. It suggests that, despite the number of followers, Lutheranism was not deeply rooted in 16th-century Czech-speaking society (cf. David 2012: 552-55; Vykypělová 2013: 255) and that the Lutheran parishes in the Czech-speaking parts of Bohemia in the pre-1620 period did not share a common ecclesiastical structure and church (Hlaváček 2009: 11; Just 2009b: 68, 73). In fact, as far as is known, only the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus was translated anonymously from Luther’s translation into Czech; it was published twice in Litomyšl in 1537 and 1539, at the seat of the Brethren’s Bishop Jan Augusta, who began to send the Brethren youth to study at Wittenberg University and himself visited Luther six times and propagated his teachings (cf. Rohde 2007: 109). More popular was another translation of Ecclesiasticus from a German version of one of Luther’s friends, Caspar Huberinus, which was done by Tomáš Rešel and first published in 1557. It was republished many times afterwards (Knihopis 2189-2195, 17801). The biblical humanism associated with the Reformation found an early polemical response in Czech in biblical prints of the Bible or New Testament in the 1520s: as early as 1525 the preface to the New Testament, possibly authored by a Brethren Bishop Lukáš Pražský (cf. Kyas 1997: 135) or the printer himself (Voit 2017: 269), criticizes the boldness of those who translate the New Testament anew from the original (he does not specify whether he
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means Erasmus, Luther, or others).12 These ‘innovators in languages’ (nováci v jazyciech; Nový zákon 1525, fol. a4v) are condemned, and Lukáš’s translation by contrast displays rather extreme literalism with respect to the Vulgate. In the New Testament of 1527, the differences between the Czech, Latin, and German translations are noted by a special typographical mark (a trefoil; see Nový zákon 1527, fol. 1iv). In 1529 the first complete Czech Bible since 1506 was published, and in its preface to Psalms indicates that it adheres to the text of the old doctors and not the new ones. The preference for word-forword translation voiced and practised most clearly in the New Testament of 1525 seems to have found an echo in the preface to the translations of the complete Bible that immediately followed, namely, the Severin Bibles of 1529 and 1537: the reader is again reminded of the imperative not to add or omit anything in the Scriptures. Moreover, the effort to keep the basis clear (grunt; see Biblí česká 1537, fol. a1v), to respect the need for correction of previous imperfect editions (gruntovní op[ra]vy potřeboval jest; see Biblí česká 1529, fol. a1r), and to rely on ancient doctors must have resonated in Brethren’s ears with the previous warning against those tempted to depart from the basis of faith (gruntem viery pohybovati ‘shake the basis of faith’; see Nový zákon 1525, fol. a4v). As the preface to the 1537 Bible has it, ‘podlé starobylých, gruntovních Doktorův Svatých vykladu jest napraven, Starý i nový Zákon’ (‘both New and Old Testaments are corrected according to the translation of the ancient, foundational Holy Doctors’) (Biblí česká 1537, fol. a1v). The preface to Psalms in both 1529 and 1537 editions, following partially previous editions, declares a preference for literalism where possible but at the same time defends a certain freedom where this is necessary to ensure the comprehension of specific passages. Considering that in the first edition of 1529 Severin also exceptionally revived the archaic imperfect bíše in the Prologue to the Gospel according to John, as demanded by Lukáš, and put forms of the imperfect more than a dozen times in the marginal notes in this Bible, e.g., Daniel 5: 6 oslabováchu jse and tlučíchu, it is probable that the changes were made to secure the Brethren customers (cf. Kyas 1997: 142). In the 1530s biblical humanism penetrated into the Czech Lands in full: the New Testament of 1533 was a translation of Erasmus’s Latin New Testament, and in this decade we find the first serious signs of acceptance of German translations and even direct translations of Luther. In contrast to the conservative 1520s (Lukáš’s New Testament of 1525, its revised version in the Pilsen New Testament of 1527, and a traditional Vulgate-anchored 12 The preface to the New Testament of 1518 praises the German translations from Latin published in Augsburg and Nuremberg for their literality (fol. a4b).
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Severin Bible of 1529), there are now clear and deliberate deviations from the Vulgate in both the New and Old Testaments. In the preface to the Náměšť translation, the authors confess that they had studied the German translations (i německých vykladačů šetřili; see Nový testament 1533, fol. 3v). A quotation in German of Matthew 7: 18 appears at the end of the Náměšť print. What is even more important, a different attitude to the biblical style is proposed in the Náměšť New Testament of 1533. The Náměšť translation and the grammar produced there in the same year manifest an obvious effort to bring the literary biblical language closer to spoken Czech and a wide audience ‒ an aim that may have been inspired by Luther’s translation and is in line with his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen of 1530 (cf. Kyas 1952: 148). However, the Náměšť translation itself was only a half-success. It combined spoken-language features with some harsh Latinisms and has never been reprinted, but it did have an influence, to various extents, on many subsequent Czech versions of the New Testament, including that of Jan Blahoslav and also Polish Lutheran translations of the 1550s. In Severin’s Bible of 1537, reprinted with minor changes in Nuremberg three years later, non-Vulgate readings appear even in the Old Testament, at least at its beginning and in sparse marginal notes.13 The quite radical Náměšť solution did not find direct followers. As early as in 1534 and 1538, a Czech New Testament was published in Nuremberg that returned to the Pilsen version of 1527, while other prints used Severin’s mainstream version with some modifications. The only official, and the most widely disseminated, Czech whole-Bible editions of the second half of the 16th century were the Melantrich Bibles. These Bibles, which have still not attracted sufficient linguistic research, were printed six times in the pre-1620 period: for the first time in 1549 in a collaboration between Jiří Melantrich and the Catholic Bartoloměj Netolický, and for the last time in 1613 in the print shop of Samuel Adam of Veleslavín. These Bibles absorbed the main current of Czech tradition. They influenced the Polish Leopolita Bible of 1561, for example, and the Russian Ostrog Bible of 1580 (the preface of the 1577 edition voices the ambition that the Bible may serve also abroad among those nations: ‘kteříž slavného jazyku slovanského […] užívají’ [‘who use the famous Slavic language’]; Bohatcová 1970–1971: 267). They represented the Czech translation in Hutter’s polyglot and were basically acceptable even to the counter-reformationary censors. 13 We leave aside the case of Psalms, where non-Vulgate readings had penetrated into the Czech translations much earlier, as is openly admitted in prints: for instance, the preface to Psalms in the Czech Bibles of 1488 and 1506 declares that it took some readings from the Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos.
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Just like the Severin Bibles, they served all confessions including Catholics and probably also the Unity of the Brethren (at least the Old Testament) until the Unitas completed its own translations. Shortly after the uprising of the Czech estates against Ferdinand I in 1547 and its defeat, printing was limited to the only official printer Netolický, and the text had to be in line with the Tridentine proclamation in 1546 about the primacy of the Vulgate. Nevertheless, Melantrich and the learned humanist Sixt of Ottersdorf changed the text slightly in a reformationary direction. No influence from Luther’s Bible has yet been safely identified because matches in readings are mostly explicable in terms of translations into humanistic Latin. It is also unclear whether and how Luther was used by Brethren Bishop Jan Blahoslav in his translations of the New Testament (1564, 1568), although Blahoslav had listened to Luther’s homilies and quotes his works. The few matches will have to be re-examined by comparison with important humanistic translations and Czech tradition. The presence of nineteen items of Luther’s works in a list from Kralice library shows that the Unitas was well informed about his teaching, but as far as biblical style is concerned, the Unity of the Brethren followed its Bishop Blahoslav, who profoundly challenged Luther’s opinions on style (Just 2008). Unlike Luther, Blahoslav declares that the biblical language must differ from usual speech: it should be a more exalted, dignified, mildly archaic high-style form with aesthetic qualities, even at some cost to understandability, although this otherwise remained one of the main purposes of the undertaking. In his grammar (fol. 117r) Blahoslav claims: Hanba tě tak jaks besedařsky a jako krčemně, Zákona Páně řeči formovati, kteréž s velikou vážností, by pak i nebyly rozumíny, čteny neb slyšány býti mají. (‘It is shameful to form the speeches of the Lord’s Scripture in a common way and as in tavern talk, so that they would not then be read or heard with the great respect that is their due, even if not understood’.) (see Čejka et al. 1991: 123; Just 2016: 77)
Whereas Luther and his colleagues were keeping to the usual everyday speech of ordinary people, ‘looking at their mouth’ (auf das Maul sehen’; cf. Gritsch 2003: 67), Blahoslav argued that the biblical text ‘ne k tomu vyložen jest do češtiny aby jej sobě toliko pohůnkové na pastvišti čtli, v něm sobě obyčejné mluvení majíce’ (‘is not translated so that only herdsmen at the pastures would read it, finding there their usual speech’; see Čejka et al. 1991: 126). Of course some aspects are shared by both translators, such as aesthetic
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values, achieved for instance by alliteration and euphony; rhetorical devices; or interest in proverbs (cf. Arndt and Brandt 1987: 35, 38). Luther’s follower Philipp Melanchthon strongly influenced Jan Blahoslav and for a time was probably generally the most important contact of Czechs in German lands (Burian 1982: 283). Indeed, most Czech-speaking Protestants towards the end of the 16th century adhered to the Philippists (cf. Kadlec 1991: 57).14 Blahoslav’s authority and successful application of his theoretical proposals ‒ collected in a detailed grammar ‒ in his own translation of the New Testament, for which he consistently consulted the Greek original, codified Czech biblical language for centuries to come. His main instructions were followed and respected by translators of the largest humanistic translation into Czech, the famous Six-Volume Kralice Bible (1579–1594), which was the culmination of efforts to apply reformationary biblical studies in a Czech translation and formed ‘einen Höhenpunkt […] in der langen Tradition der Übersetzungen der Heiligen Schrift ins Tschechische’ (Hannick 2010: 45). Quite soon the illegally printed Kralice Bible, despite its limited distribution, was serving, to a certain degree, as a model for high-style written Czech among the elites and in this way was able to cross the confessional boundary. Some of its orthographical features such as double l, j for [i: ] ‒ and later the state of capitalization of common nouns ‒ spread almost instantly to the influential print shop run by Daniel Adam of Veleslavín, himself probably a member of the Unity, and later by his son Samuel Adam of Veleslavín, certainly a Unity member. Daniel’s New Testament (1597) as well as Samuel’s Bible (1613) took over some Kralice Bible readings and other features such as the numbering of verses. The Kralice Bible examples served as a material source for quotations in the first Czech grammar in the modern sense, the grammar of Vavřinec Benedikt of Nudožery printed in 1603 (Benedikt 1999: i, v). It seems that the Lutheran influence was not at that time strong either in the Unity of the Brethren or in the Melantrich Bibles, but the Kralice Bible was soon accepted by the Lutherans and spread among them in the Protestant parts of Slovakia (Upper Hungary), where it continued to be read almost to the present time (Říčan 1957: 284). An edition from Halle of 1722 had a special importance for the development of biblical Czech in Slovakia called bibličtina. For this exile edition Martin Luther’s preface to the Epistle to Romans was translated and placed after the Acts (Nešpor 2005: 241). 14 In German-speaking regions of the Czech Lands in the 1560s, the majority of Lutheran Reformation sympathizers were formed by Flacians, who were strongly opposed to Calvinists (Vorel 2008: 294, 296).
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For an understanding of the development of confessional variants in 16th- and 17th-century Czech, there is one more thing to be taken into account: the penetration of the vernacular language into the Mass, in other words, the most prestigious use that the language could have acquired. It should be remembered that the Bohemian Reformation, which started in the 1410s, gained an overall national character that soon blended with national messianism, co-defined the Czech natio by means of the Czech language, and gave rise to an essentially nationally restricted reform movement (Haberkern 2015: 13-26; Šmahel 2016: 9). With respect to Czech in liturgy, the Utraquists and later Protestant currents in the Czech territory appear to have resulted from the efforts made by Constantine and Methodius to establish Old Church Slavonic as the fourth language of liturgy in the West. The degree of Bohemicization of the liturgy in the 15th century is not precisely known, and the early evidence is rather sparse (the demands of pre-Hussite reformers such as Matěj of Janov and the existence of contemporary Church Slavonic liturgy in the Prague Emauzy monastery are attested; cf. Holeton 2006: 52, 63), but it is clear that Czech was used in this function as early as the beginning of the Czech Reformation (Baťová 2011: 145; cf. Vlhová-Wörner 2005: 122). This made it unique among living national languages in the West, since ‘nowhere else do we find a comparable translation of the Latin liturgical texts until the 16th century’ (Holeton 2006: 50), though some parts remained in Latin. Unsurprisingly, the oldest preserved non-anonymous tractate devoted fully to advocating the Mass in Czech, printed in 1493 (Baťová 2011: 146, 149), supports its demands with references to 1 Corinthians 14, paralleling earlier 14th- and 15th-century references in the anonymous tractate De cantu vulgari and further in works by Tomáš of Štítné, Jakoubek of Stříbro, Jan Rokycana (Baťová 2011: 150), and also Constantine’s argumentation (cf. Vita Constantini). The early attempts at Czech liturgy, preserved best in the Jistebnický kancionál (the Jistebnice Hymnbook), bear no resemblance translatologically to later Czech liturgical texts that began to appear in the second decade of the 16th century (Holeton 2010: 222). More important for the later Czech wording of the Mass liturgy is a manuscript from 1455–1470 stored in Prague (Baťová 2015: 214). The continuity of the Czech Utraquist liturgical texts between the 1510s and the end of that century has been safely proved by textual comparisons (cf. Baťová 2011: 158). The ‘transition from Latin to Czech as the primary liturgical language’, resulting in ‘rapid vernacularization of the liturgy beginning in the second quarter of the 16th century’ may have been accelerated by the influence of Lutheranism, even though it could also be seen as the internal development of Utraquism itself (Holeton 1998:
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120, 124). The 16th-century Utraquists were in fact bilingual in liturgy, some communities preferring Latin, some Czech, and others a mixture (Holeton 2010: 222). Some of the Brethren’s formulas in their liturgical books, for example those for marital vows, changed rapidly in the editions between 1612 and 1620,15 and the later edition was at some places directly influenced by the Lutheran-coloured Agenda česká (Czech Agenda) of 1581 (Landová 2014: 64). As far as can be judged, in the 16th century the periscopes – that is, Scripture passages read during the Holy Mass – were in the non-Catholic milieu often but not always identical with those printed in Bibles and New Testaments; further research is needed. The use of Czech in liturgy was banned in 1621, and in the following year Rome officially withdrew permission for laymen to receive the chalice (Čechura 2009; David 2012: 582; Vorel 2008: 264). Earlier, in the 1560s, it had been explicitly permitted not only for the Czech Lands but also for some other territories by a papal bull of Pius IV (Zlámal 2008: 223; cf. Vorel 2008: 259). After the ban, vernacular worship in Czech continued when several thousand members of the Unity of the Brethren went into exile during the Thirty Years’ War (Atwood 2009: 363). For example, in Leszno, the former centre of the Brethren exiles in today’s Poland, the last Czech Masses were celebrated at the beginning of the 18th century (Bečková 2009: 49; cf. Žbirková 2009: 65). Further scholarly exploration is needed on the liturgical use of Czech, including songs, and its stylistic features, cf. the forms milej (ʻkind’), bejti (ʻto be’), attested in a 1588 manuscript of Utraquist agenda Voltářní knihy Adama Táborského (Altar Book of Adam Táborský; quoted according to Kolář 2014: 234, 236, 239, 240); the prothethic v- attested several times such as in votče, votci, votce (declined forms of ʻfather’) and voči (ʻeyes’) in the Gradual of Sixt of Ottersdorf of 1570 (Šárovcová 2014: 268-76); or the forms všickní (ʻall’), budem (ʻwe will be’), života jejích (ʻof their life’) in the above-mentioned Agenda Česká (Czech Agenda) of 1581.16 In religious terminology we find some denominational preferences; see, for instance, Zbor (vs. Církev ʻcongregation, church assembly’), Hospodin and Bůh silný (vs. Pán ʻthe Lord’, Bůh silný is a translation of Immanuel Tremellius’ Deus fortis for Hebrew’ēl), and specificities such as spolulosní (ʻconsenior’), tatík (ʻbishop-judge’) and mládenec (ʻacolyte’) in Brethren use, and věci podstatné, služebné, případné (ʻthings substantial, serving, additional’, a division based on scholastic theology [see Macek 2001: 309]), byty (ʻkinds of being’), jednobytnost 15 The Czech of these agendas is yet to be examined; cf. nominative-vocative beru tě sobě, Magdaléna (‘I take you, Magdaléna, to be my wedded wife’; see Landová 2014: 387, 449). 16 Agenda Česká […] 1581: 29-31, 38; cf. Landová 2014: 64.
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(ʻconsubstantiality’), and provázek (ʻapostolic succession’) in their theology (cf. Blahoslav 2013: 66; Just 2011: 312-13; Molnár 1948: 96, 1957: 424, 432; Nejedlý et al. 2016 [the entries jednobytnost, provázek]). As Macek (2001: 295) pointed out, the reformational effort was so intensive that it necessitated new terminology, for example zbor for older kostel in the meaning ʻcongregation, church assembly’. Since their first documents the Brethren have named themselves jednota (ʻunity’) (Macek 2001: 296). Another example would be the terms předzvědění (ʻpredestination’) and ospravedlnění (ʻjustification’), frequent in the teachings of the Protestant denominations (cf. Souček 1933: 72-91). Confessional differences are evident in the mutual naming of denominations, cf. papeženec and Říman (ʻadherent to the pope’; cf. Michálek 2004 [1975]: 232), jednuška (ʻCatholic’), pikhart and zborník (ʻmember of the Unity’; cf. Čejka et al. 1991: 187), pseudoevanjeliš / pseudoevanjelík (kališný) (ʻNeoutraquist’; cf. Čejka et al. 1991: 186, 375), viklefenec/viglefenec (ʻWyclifite’) and derogatory neosemanticisms such as biskup (derogatorily ʻnobleman functioning like an ecclesiastical superior’, typical in particular of Brethren polemical treatises; cf. Vorel 2008: 259) or synagoga (derogatorily ʻBrethren congregation’, for instance synagoga litomyšlská (ʻthe Litomyšl congregation’); cf. Čejka et al. 1991: 186). The name of the Unity of the Brethren deserves special attention because of its variability in both the domestic milieu (bratří boleslavští, valdenští, jednota bratrská, pikardi [ʻBoleslav Brethren, Waldensians, Unity of the Brethren, Picards’]) and abroad. For instance, in Poland the Reformed called them konfesyja bracka, braterska, waldeńska, bracia konfesyjej czeskiej, jednota braterska, Jednota Braci Czeskich, jednota braci or bracka, konfesyja czeska etc. (‘Brethren’s confession, Waldensian confession, Brethren of the Czech confession, Unity of the Brethren, Unity of the Czech Brethren, Brethren’s Unity, Czech confession’), whereas the Brethren most often used jednota (ʻUnity’) for themselves (Winiarska 2004: 216, 218, 278). Further research is required on preferences such as evanjelský/evanjelitský (ʻevangelical’), anjel/anděl (ʻangel’; cf. Čejka et al. 1991: 235, 360; Frinta 1918: 1-2), Satan/Šatan/Šatanáš (ʻSatan’), and rarities such as those of the Brethren Bishop Matěj Červenka Čelákovský, e.g., Jehovah (ʻGod’; cf. Dittmann 2016a: 193, 2016b: 200; Wernisch 2005: 373). Despite some differences, for example in past transgressives, the behaviour of the pronoun svůj, the conservative trend in some features in the Kralice Bible (manifest e.g., in deleting the prothetic v- and spreading the initial ú- instead of ou-, general avoidance of ý > ej in contrast to acceptance of aj > ej, printing-p’at and-p’al, reviving ‒ in line with Blahoslav ‒ congruent transgressives including the s-participles etc.), and some mainly inconspicuous Moravianisms, the language of the Melantrich Bibles was quite similar.
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In some respects, the Melantrich Bible was more conservative. For example, in the edition of 1570 it frequently retained the older digraph uo, the biphonematic tautosyllabic sequence aj, genitive plurals in-ův and-uov/-ův in nominatives of possessive adjectives (judging from the Gospel of Matthew), it had some imperatives of the sixth infinitive class ‒ as found in an analysis of the 1577 edition ‒ still with vowel shortness (Matt. 2: 8, 7: 2, 8: 4-44, 20: 31, 24: 18 against Matt. 5: 12-24, 7: 1 etc.) and generally some older religious terms such as Zákoník (ʻpharisee’) and Kníže Kněžské (ʻbishop’) instead of Faryzeus and Biskup, respectively. In some other fields, such as occasional disrespect for congruence of transgressives (e.g., Matt. 20: 20 Matka […] klanějíce se, a prosíce (‘Mother […] kneeling and begging’) for Vulgate mater […] adorans et petens), it was less conservative than the Kralice Bible. All the same, the Six-Volume Kralice Bible and its subsequent modified versions departed profoundly and intentionally from the Vulgate and also accepted Reformed theology. The Kralice Bible was considered an orthographical and linguistic model for Czech by Jesuits in the 17th century, and it has remained a much-admired piece of polished Czech to this day. The role of the Melantrich Bibles tradition has yet to be examined in detail; exploitation of their text is attested in the pre-1620 period also in Lutheran and Catholic writings, and we know that it exerted an influence on the Catholic St. Wenceslas Bible (1677–1715), which, along with its revised versions, co-formed the language consciousness of Catholics until the beginning of the 19th century (cf. Vintr 1997: 224).
Conclusions With respect to biblical prints, publication strategy responded to the problem of the existence of two legal confessions (Utraquists and Catholics), reformational currents, and the non-conformist Unity of the Brethren. A direct knowledge of German sources was not infrequently asserted in 16th-century Czech New Testaments or Bibles, for example in the prefaces to the New Testaments of 1518, 1527, and 1533, to Severin’s Bible of 1537 (in both variants of its foreword; cf. Voit 2006: 1008-1009), and in the synoptic index in the Melantrich Bible of 1556–1557 and the following editions. Printers for the most part adopted a reasonably balanced line as concerns denominational specifics (preference for the Vulgate, for certain linguistic features; illustrations were strongly influenced by German Bibles) so that their products could reach the widest audience possible. For that purpose printers were able to cooperate with Catholic Venice in Italy (Bible of 1506)
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and Protestant Nuremberg abroad (the Bible of 1540 and other prints), and domestic prints remembered at least in their prefaces to offer formulations attracting the other confessions (Voit 2013a: 478-79), an approach also applied in hymn books (Horyna 2013: 77; Voit 2017: 268). For example, Mikuláš Klaudyán did not forget to aim his New Testament of 1518 explicitly also at the Utraquists, while there are clear echoes of the Brethren’s attitudes in the Severin Bibles, and the Melantrich Bibles are likewise confessionally well balanced. The only community to intentionally set itself more apart in crucial biblical prints was the Unity of the Brethren, yet – thanks to the excellent performance of biblical humanism in the second half of the 16th century and a polished slightly conservative style – it was their vast translation, the Six-Volume Kralice Bible, that soon began to serve as a model for orthography and high-style language. Theologically it was a liber prohibitus after the Battle at the White Mountain in 1620, but linguistically it so fascinated the 17th-century Jesuits that its orthography, style guidelines, and even some readings were accepted in the Jesuit counter-reformationary St. Wenceslas Bible of 1677–1715. Given the approach mentioned, paradoxes did occur; for instance, the Czech Bible printed in 1506 in Catholic Venice contains an illustration in which a personified Death swallows the pope (Kyas 1997: 132). Any deeper confessionalization of language in the 16th century and until 1620 was blocked by a very long and elaborate tradition of Standard Czech and by historical events that led to better conditions for confessionalization only over a short period between the 1550s, and even more so from the 1580s, and the year 1620.
Bibliography Primary sources Agenda česká […]. 1581. Lipsko: Jiřík Deffner. Knihopis 79. Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic (hereafter, NLCR): shelf mark I 100239. Bible pražská. 1488. Prague. [The Prague Bible]. Knihopis INC013. Prague, Municipal Library: H 417. http://www.manuscriptorium.com [accessed 1.7.2016]. Biblí česká […]. 1529. Prague: Pavel Severin of Kapí Hora. Knihopis 1098. Olomouc, Scientific Library (hereafter, SLO): III 32051. Biblí česká […]. 1537. Prague: Pavel Severin of Kapí Hora. Knihopis 1099. SLO: III 32053 and III 640.070. Biblí česká […]. 1556/1557. Prague: Jiří Melantrich of Aventin the Elder. Knihopis 1102. SLO: III 32.296.
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Biblí česká […]. 1560/1561. Prague: Jiří Melantrich of Aventin the Elder. Knihopis 1103. SLO: III 32.048. Biblí česká […]. 1570. Prague: Jiří Melantrich of Aventin the Elder. Knihopis 1104. Brno, Moravian Library: ST4–0009.880, A. Biblí česká […]. 1577. Prague: Jiří Melantrich of Aventin the Elder. Knihopis 1105. SLO: III 220903. Biblí česká […]. 1613. Prague: Samuel Adam of Veleslavín. Knihopis 1106. Brno, Moravian Library: ST4–0096.337. Biblí české díl první […] šestý. 1579–1594. [Kralice: print-shop of the Unity of the Brethren]. Knihopis 1107. SLO: II 32.377. Knieha kteráž slove Pastýř […]. 1518. Mladá Boleslav: Mikuláš Klaudyán. Knihopis 2962. NLCR: 54 S 194/adl.3. Nový testament […]. 1533. Náměšť nad Oslavou: Matěj Pytlík of Dvořiště. Knihopis 17099. SLO: 32.197. Nový zákon […]. 1525. Mladá Boleslav: Jiřík Štyrsa. Knihopis 17097. Prague, Library of the Royal Canonry of Praemonstratensians at Strahov: DR IV 17. Nový zákon […]. 1527. Plzeň: Jan Pekk. Knihopis 17098. SLO: 32.108. Zákon Nový […]. 1518. Mladá Boleslav: Mikuláš Klaudyán. Knihopis 17096. Prague, Library of the Royal Canonry of Praemonstratensians at Strahov: DR IV 19; Vienna, Austrian National Library: 185662-B.
Secondary sources Arndt, Erwin, and Gisela Brandt. 1987. Luther und die deutsche Sprache. Wie redet man der Deudsche man jnn solchem fall? Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut. Atwood, Craig D. 2009. The Theology of the Czech Brethren from Hus to Comenius. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press. Baťová, Eliška. 2011. O zpievaní a čtení českém tractat [A Treatise on Reading and Singing in Czech] by Václav Koranda the Younger: A Contribution to the History of Czech Liturgical Language. In The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, vol. 8, ed. by Zdeněk V. David and David Holeton, 148-59. Prague: Filosofia. Baťová, Eliška. 2014. Denominational Identity as Seen from the Structure and Content of Bohemian Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Kancionáls. In The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, vol. 9, ed. by Zdeněk V. David and David R. Holeton, 298-308. Prague: Filosofia. Baťová, Eliška. 2015. A Neglected Source of Utraquist Chant from the Poděbradian Period. In The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, vol. 10, ed. by Zdeněk V. David, David R. Holeton, Martin Dekarli, and Phillip Haberkern, 197-224. Prague: Filosofia.
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Bečková, Marta. 2009. Jednota bratrská v polském exilu. In Unitas Fratrum 1547–2007. Jednota bratrská jako kulturní a duchovní fenomén, ed. by Martin Wernisch, 47-60. Jihlava: Mlýn. Benedikt z Nudožer, Vavřinec. 1999. Grammaticae Bohemicae, ad leges naturalis methodi conformatae, et notis numerisque illustratae ac distinctae, libri duo, ed. by Nancy Susan Smith. Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita, Filozofická fakulta and Tilia. Blahoslav, Jan. 2013. Čtyři menší spisy, ed. by Mirek Čejka. Brno: Host. Bohatcová, Mirjam. 1970–1971. Vydavatelský rámec českých předbělohorských biblí. Strahovská knihovna 5-6: 255-77. Bohatcová, Mirjam. 1974. Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon und Calvin in gedruckten tschechischen Übersetzungen aus dem 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. GutenbergJahrbuch 49: 158-65. Burian, Ilja. 1982. Philipp Melanchthon, die Confessio Augustana und die Tschechischen Länder. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 73: 255-84. Bůžek, Václav, et al. 2010. Společnost českých zemí v raném novověku. Struktury, identity, konflikty. Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny. Čechura, Jaroslav. 2008. České země 1526–1584. První Habsburkové na českém trůně I. Prague: Libri. Čechura, Jaroslav. 2009. České země 1584–1620. První Habsburkové na českém trůně II. Prague: Libri. Čejka, Mirek, Dušan Šlosar, and Jana Nechutová (eds.). 1991. Gramatika česká Jana Blahoslava. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. David, Zdeněk V. 2012. Nalezení střední cesty. Liberální výzva utrakvistů Římu a Lutherovi. Prague: Filosofia. Dittmann, Robert. 2016a. The Czech Bible of Bartoloměj Netolický and Jiří Melantrich (1549) and Its Later Editions. In Europa humanistica. Répertoires et inventaires. Vol. 1: Robert Dittman and Jiří Just, Biblical Humanism in Bohemia and Moravia in the 16th Century, 177-97. Turnhout: Brepols. Dittmann, Robert. 2016b. The Psalter of Matěj Červenka (1562). In Europa humanistica. Répertoires et inventaires. Vol. 1: Robert Dittman and Jiří Just, Biblical Humanism in Bohemia and Moravia in the 16th Century, 198-210. Turnhout: Brepols. Eberhard, Winfried. 1992. Die deutsche Reformation in Böhmen 1520–1620. In Deutsche in den böhmischen Ländern, ed. by Hans Rothe, 103-23. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau. Eberhard, Winfried. 1999. Voraussetzungen und strukturelle Grundlagen der Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa. In Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa, ed. by Joachim Bahlcke, 89-104. Stuttgart: Arno Strohmeyer. Eberhard, Winfried. 2002. Jan Hus a Martin Luther. In Češi a Němci. Dějiny ‒ kultura ‒ politika, ed. by Walter Koschmal, Marek Nekula, and Joachim Rogall, 35-40. Prague and Litomyšl: Paseka.
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Frinta, Antonín. 1918. Náboženské názvosloví československé. Jazykozpytný rozbor s doklady z naší reformační literatury. Prague: Comenius. Gritsch, Eric W. 2003. Luther as Bible Translator. In The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther, ed. by Donald K. McKim, 62-72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haberkern, Phillip. 2015. The Lands of the Bohemian Crown: Conflict, Coexistence, and the Quest for the True Church. In A Companion to the Reformation in Central Europe, ed. by Howard Louthan and Graeme Murdock, 11-39. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Hannick, Christian. 2010. Tschechische Bibelübersetzungen und die Kralitzer Bibel’.Biblia Slavica’. In Referate bei der öffentlichen Präsentation in der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste am 28. November 2008, ed. by Hans Rothe, 45-57. Paderborn: Schöningh. Havránek, Bohuslav. 1936. Vývoj spisovného jazyka českého. In Československá vlastivěda. Řada II. Spisovný jazyk český a slovenský, ed. by Oldřich Hujer, 1-144. Prague: Sfinx, Bohumil Janda. Hlaváček, Petr. 2009. Luteránství jako skrytý fenomén českých duchovních a kulturních dějin. In Luteráni v českých zemích v proměnách staletíí, ed by Jiří Just, Zdeněk R. Nešpor, and Ondrěj Matějka, 9-22. Prague: Lutherova společnost. Holeton, David. 1998. The Evolution of Utraquist Eucharistic Liturgy: A Textual Study. In The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice. Vol. 2: Papers from the XVIIIth World Congress of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences, Brno 1996, ed. by David R. Holeton and Zdeněk V. David, 97-126. Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Holeton, David. 2006. The Role of Jakoubek of Stříbro in the Creation of a Czech Liturgy: Some Further Reflections. In Jakoubek ze Stříbra. Texty a jejich působení, ed. by Ota Halama and Pavel Soukup, 49-86. Prague: Centrum medievistických studií v nakladatelství Filosofia. Holeton, David. 2010. Liturgický život české reformace. In Umění české reformace (1380–1620), ed. by Kateřina Horníčková and Michal Šroněk, 219-33. Prague: Academia. Horyna, Martin. 2013. Hudba v liturgii české reformace. In In puncto religionis. Konfesní dimenze předbělohorské kultury Čech a Moravy, ed. by Kateřina Horníčková and Michal Šroněk, 73-81. Prague: Artefactum. Janiš, Dalibor. 2013. Konfesijní poměry na Moravě a úloha olomouckého biskupství. In Dalibor Janiš, Církev a společnost raného novověku v Čechách a na Moravě. Prague: Historický ústav. 309-62. Just, Jiří (ed.). 2011’.Hned jsem k Vám dnes naschvalí poslíka svého vypravil’, Kněžská korespondence Jednoty bratrské z českých diecézí z let 1610–1618. Prague: Scriptorium. Just, Jiří. 2008. Blahoslavův překlad Nového zákona – inspirace Lutherovou teorií překladu? In Lutheranus 2007/2008, ed. by David Jurech, 97-111. Prague: Lutherova společnost.
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Just, Jiří. 2009a. 9.7.1609. Rudolfův Majestát. Světla a stíny náboženské svobody. Prague: Havran. Just, Jiří. 2009b. Luteráni v našich zemích do Bílé hory. Luteráni v českých zemích v proměnách staletí, ed by Jiří Just, Zdeněk R. Nešpor, and Ondrěj Matějka, 23-126. Prague: Lutherova společnost. Just, Jiří. 2016. The New Testament of Jan Blahoslav. In Europa humanistica. Répertoires et inventaires. Vol. 1: Robert Dittman and Jiří Just, Biblical Humanism in Bohemia and Moravia in the 16th Century, 66-83. Turnhout: Brepols. Kadlec, Jaroslav. 1991. Přehled českých církevních dějin 2. Prague: Zvon. Keipert, Helmut. 2015. Tschechische Bibel(n) und Tschechisch-Grammatik. In Die tschechische Bibel. Ihre Bedeutung in der Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte. Beiträge zum 7. Bohemicum Dresdense 25. Oktober 2013, ed. by Holger Kuße and Hana Kosourová, 17-31. Munich: Otto Sagner. Knihopis = Knihopis ‒ soupis českojazyčných tisků do r. 1800. http://www.knihopis. cz. [accessed 1.7.2016]. Kolář, Pavel. 2014. Witnesses of a New Liturgical Practice: The Ordines missae of Three Utraquist Manuscripts. In The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, vol. 9, ed. by Zdeněk V. David and David R. Holeton, 221-40. Prague: Filosofia. Kyas, Vladimír. 1952. První česká mluvnice a její místo ve vývoji spisovné češtiny. Slovo a slovesnost 13.3-4: 141-49. Kyas, Vladimír. 1997. Česká bible v dějinách národního písemnictví. Prague and Řím: Vyšehrad and Křesťanská akademie. Landová, Tabita. 2014. Liturgie jednoty bratrské (1457–1620). Červený Kostelec: Pavel Mervart. Macek, Josef. 2001. Víra a zbožnost jagellonského věku. Prague: Argo. Menčík, Ferdinand. 1897. Studenti z Čech a Moravy ve Witemberku od r. 1502 až do r. 1602. Časopis Musea Království českého 71: 250-68. Michálek, Emanuel. 2004 [1975]. K jazykovým prostředkům Blahoslavovy Filipiky. In Jan Blahoslav Čapek. Jubilejní sborník 1903–2003, ed. by Jan Štěpán, 231-42. Brno: L. Marek. Mikulec, Jiří. 2013. Náboženství a církev v raném novověku. In Základní problémy studia raného novověku, ed. by Marie Š. Koldinská and Ivo Cerman, 195-229. Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny and Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy. Molnár, Amedeo. 1948. Bratr Lukáš, bohoslovec Jednoty. Prague: Husova československá evangelická fakulta bohoslovecká. Molnár, Amedeo. 1957. O bratrské theologii. In Rudolf Říčan. In Dějiny Jednoty bratrské. S kapitolou o bratrské theologii od ThDr Amedea Molnára, 407-42. Prague: Kalich.
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Nejedlý, Petr, et al. 2016. Lexikální databáze humanistické a barokní češtiny [online]. Prague: Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v. v. i. https: //madla.ujc.cas.cz [accessed 1.4. 2016]. Nešpor, Zdeněk R. 2005. Bible českých exulantů a tajných nekatolíků v 18. století. Religio 13.2: 231-58. Ohlidal, Anna. 2003. Konfessionalisierung: ein Paradigma der historischen Frühneuzeitforschung und die Frage seiner Anwendbarkeit auf Böhmen. Studia Rudolphina 3: 19-28. Porák, Jaroslav. 1987. K stylové diferenciaci ve starší češtině. Slavica Pragensia 16: 29-33. Říčan, Rudolf. 1957. Dějiny Jednoty bratrské. S kapitolou o bratrské theologii od ThDr Amedea Molnára. Prague: Kalich. Rohde, Michael. 2007. Luther und die böhmischen Brüder nach der Quellen. Brno: L. Marek. Rothe, Hans. 1996. Die Länder der Krone Böhmen als Bibellandschaft. Slavia 65.3: 239-53. Šárovcová, Martina. 2014. A Little Known Utraquist Gradual in the British Library in London. In The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, vol. 9, ed. by Zdeněk V. David and David R. Holeton, 250-78. Prague: Filosofia. Šmahel, František. 2016. Was There a Bohemian Reformation? From Hus to Luther: Visual Culture in the Bohemian Reformation (1380–1620), ed. by Kateřina Horníčková and Michal Šroněk, 7-16. Turnhout: Brepols. Souček, Josef Bohumil. 1933. Theologie výkladů kralické šestidílky. Prague: Královská česká společnost nauk. Válka, Josef. 2005 [1988]. Tolerance či koexistence? (K povaze soužití různých náboženských vyznání v českých zemích v 15. až 17. století). In Husitství na Moravě. Náboženská snášenlivost. Jan Amos Komenský, ed. by Josef Válka, 237-48. Brno: Matice moravská. Vintr, Josef. 1997. Bible svatováclavská. In Vladimir Kyas, Česká bible v dějinách národního písemnictví, 211-25. Prague and Řím: Vyšehrad and Křesťanská akademie. Vlhová-Wörner, Hana. 2005. The Jistebnice Kancionál ‒ Its Contents and Liturgy. In Jistebnický kancionál. MS. Praha, Knihovna Národního muzea, II C 7. Kritická edice. 1. svazek. Graduale, ed. by Jaroslav Kolár, Anežka Vidmanová, and Hana Vlhová-Wörner, 107-33. Brno: L. Marek. Voit, Petr. 2006. Encyklopedie knihy. Starší knihtisk a příbuzné obory mezi polovinou 15. a počátkem 19. století. Prague: Libri ve spolupráci s Královskou kanonií premonstrátů na Strahově. Voit, Petr. 2013a. České tištěné Bible 1488–1715 v kontextu domácí knižní kultury. Česká literatura 61.4: 477-501.
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Voit, Petr. 2013b. Český knihtisk mezi pozdní gotikou a renesancí. I. Severinsko-kosořská dynastie 1488–1557. Prague: KLP. Voit, Petr. 2014. Mikuláš Klaudyán (Mladá Boleslav). In Bohemia and Moravia I. The Reception of Antiquity in Bohemian Book Culture from the Beginning of Printing until 1547, ed. Kamil Boldan, Bořek Neškudla, and Petr Voit, 146-56. Turnhout: Brepols. Voit, Petr. 2017. Český knihtisk mezi pozdní gotikou a renesancí. II. Tiskaři pro víru i tiskaři pro obnovení národa 1498–1547. Prague: Academia. Vorel, Petr. 1999. Die Außenbeziehungen der böhmischen Stände um die Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts und das Problem der Konfessionalisierung. In Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa, ed. by Joachim Bahlcke, 169-78. Stuttgart: Arno Strohmeyer. Vorel, Petr. 2008. Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české. Svazek VII. 1526–1618. Prague and Litomyšl: Paseka. Vykypělová, Taťána. 2013. Wege zum Neutschechischen. Studien zur Geschichte der tschechischen Schriftsprache. Hamburg: Dr. Kovač. Wernisch, Martin. 2005. A Sixteenth-Century Monument of Brethren Theology. In The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice. Vol. 5, Part 2: Papers from the Fifth International Symposium on The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice sponsored by The Philosophical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, held at Vila Lanna, Prague 19–22 June 2002, ed. by David V. Zdenek and David R. Holeton, 371-78. Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Main Library. Winiarska, Izabela. 2004. Słownictwo religijne polskiego kalwinizmu od XVI do XVIII wieku na tle terminologii katolickiej. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper. Žbirková, Viera. 2009. Výsledky výskumu o Jednote bratskej na Slovensku koncom 17. a začiatkom 18. storočia. In Unitas Fratrum 1547–2007. Jednota bratrská jako kulturní a duchovní fenomén, ed. by Martin Wernisch, 61-82. Jihlava: Mlýn. Zlámal, Bohumil. 2008. Příručka českých církevních dějin. IV. Doba husitská, českobratrská a protestantská (1400–1550). Doba rekatolizace (1550–1650). Olomouc: Matice cyrilometodějská.
Abouth the author Dr. Robert Dittmann is a researcher at the Charles University in Prague. He is a specialist of the diachronic development of the Czech language and phonological development of Old and Middle Czech.
5
The Swedish Bible Translationsand the Transition from Old Swedish to Early Modern Swedish Jonatan Pettersson
Abstract This essay deals with the development of written Swedish in the light of early Bible translation work. The focus is on the translation of the New Testament (1526), associated with the Reformation period, which, in the history of written Swedish, has been seen as a special milestone in the transition from the Old Swedish of the Middle Ages to Early Modern Swedish. Even though the translation contains linguistic innovations and has had a powerful influence on establishing the modern written Swedish, it relies on late mediaeval linguistic usage, probably originating in urban centres. It is thus argued that it is more relevant to describe the transition between the medieval and early modern linguistic period as the expansion of a late medieval linguistic variety rather that than as a sharp break between the two. Keywords: Swedish Language History, Bible translation history, periodization
In the historiography of the Swedish language, the New Testament translation of 1526 (NT1526) is often used to represent the beginning of the early modern language period. It is, no doubt, the single most important text of the new Early Modern Swedish, a variety which is so close to present-day Swedish that it is still legible for modern readers without too much effort. At the same time, Mediaeval Swedish (ʻOld Swedish’) generally requires of its reader proficiency in that specific language. The transition between these two varieties of Swedish can be described as the most dramatic change in
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch05
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the history of the language, as the entire system was affected, from lexis to syntax, morphology, and phonology.1 There are thus good reasons to speak about two different eras in language history. The traditional border is furthermore stressed by the general historical changes in this period which includes the breakup of the Nordic political union, the establishment of a new regime with an efficient administration, and not least the introduction of the Lutheran Reformation programme. However, among historians there are several different alternative models for understanding how the centuries before and after 1500 relate to each other. Some speak of ʻthe long Middle Ages’, for instance, emphasizing the fact that many cultural features did not change at the beginning of the 16th century but continued to be important in the centuries to come.2 Others, particularly among specialists on the Reformation, recognize a period of its own, comprising parts of the 14th to the 17th centuries.3 This is not the place to go into these discussions in detail; rather, the aim here is to compare and discuss how the history of the Swedish language and the history of Bible translation can be understood in relation to one another during the period 1400–1600 and in relation to the traditional historical periodization. In the survey of the history of Nordic languages in Bandle et al. (2002, 2005), a periodization is used for the Nordic area as a whole that primarily rests on periods of change and periods of stability (Bandle et al. 2002: v-viii). Here I will not go into the debate on these different models but instead seek to approach the question of how the development can be understood, something that I believe is more rarely discussed. The interpretative model I will discuss later comes from sociolinguistics, but to me it also seems to be meaningful for the interpretation of cultural developments other than language change – for instance, Bible translation history. The discussion in this article does not rest on new empirical data in the strict sense, although the history of European and Swedish Bible translation is fairly unknown, but, rather, synthesizes findings in previous research. 4 1 Recent surveys of the development on different linguistic levels can be found in Bandle et al. 2005. 2 A more general discussion and an overview is in Muldoon 2013. 3 For a nuanced and analytical discussion of the discussion on the Reformation history, see Czaika 2013: 15-22. 4 The present study is part of the Nordic collaboration project Retracing the Reformation, f inanced during the period 2014–2016 by NOS-HS (Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences) and by the Åke Wiberg foundation. The main participants are Karl G. Johansson, Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, Elise Kleivane, and Jonatan Pettersson (holding an Åke Wiberg foundation post doctoral scholarship).
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The Swedish language between the 15th and 16th centuries The Swedish language changed fundamentally in the transition from its mediaeval to the early modern variety. Two central aspects of this process concern changes in the use of case marking and the development of the vocabulary. In short, the older case system disappeared, and there was a significant influx of German loanwords, which changed the Swedish lexis. As to nominal inflection, the Nordic languages used a four-case system, comprising the nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative cases, but in Old Swedish the system was already partially weakened both syntagmatically and paradigmatically by around 1300.5 This limited weakening of the system was followed by a period of systemic stability until the mid-15th century, when a fundamental transformation of the four-case and three-gender system began. The new system had only one basic form for subject and object and one single genitive form marked with an -s. Parts of the old system remained for a longer or shorter time, especially in rural dialects, but also in standard Swedish there are still subject and object forms of personal pronouns in modern Swedish, as in English. In the case of lexical development, Swedish has through history been susceptible to loanwords, German being the most important donor language. An investigation of the 6000 most frequent words in modern Swedish texts revealed that approximately 20 per cent have a German origin, not counting words that are shared throughout the Germanic language group but including words and items that are seldom borrowed, such as auxiliary verbs and prefixes and suffixes (Gellerstam 1973; Simensen 2005: 1136-167). Both the influx of loanwords and the great simplification of the case system have generally been explained by the social and linguistic situation in late mediaeval Sweden, when there was a large and important Germanspeaking group in Swedish society, especially in the main Swedish towns (see Ross, Dittmann, and Vanags in this volume). The size of this group is debated, but there is no doubt that their linguistic influence was immense.6 Recently Delsing (2014) has shed light on the origin and spread of the new case-less variety by analyzing a number of mediaeval manuscripts of different age and provenance, and the results speak in favour of the multilingual town as the birthplace of this language change. Despite the source-critical difficulties, the results point strongly towards the conclusion that the old 5 The description of the development of the case system in Swedish follows Delsing 2014. 6 For a Nordic survey, see Ingesman 2005: 1061-63; for a more thorough discussion of the situation in Stockholm, see Mähl 2010; and for a critical discussion, see Gustafsson 2006.
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case system first disappeared in the decades before and around 1450 in the Stockholm area, whereas the same did not happen in other parts of the realm until the 16th century. Stockholm seems to be the origin of this new variety, which later spread across the realm from around the beginning of the 16th century onward. In sum, the lexical and syntactic/morphologic changes that led to the Early Modern Swedish variety probably originated in late mediaeval urban areas, especially Stockholm, while remnants of the Mediaeval Swedish variety remained much longer in rural dialects. Another way of putting it would be that features that were to become significant in Early Modern Swedish had already developed in the late Middle Ages in restricted groups, from where they expanded and embraced the entire realm in the 16th century and after. We will return to this descriptive model after we have discussed the history of Swedish Bible translations.
Swedish Bible translations in the Middle Ages and the early modern era Before we turn to a close examination of the Bible translations and their language, it is useful to present an overview of the Swedish Bible translations in the Middle Ages and the early modern era. In Table 2, the surviving translations are presented in chronological order.7 From Table 2 one can see that the Bible was first translated into Swedish in full in the 16th century with the Bible of King Gustav Vasa, printed in 1541. It was preceded by the complete NT1526, which is the first known Swedish translation of the entire New Testament. Parts of the Bible were translated during different periods in the Middle Ages. Of the New Testament, only two books remain: a translation of Acts of the Apostles from some time before 1385; and a late 15th-century translation of Revelation. There are no clear traces of any other translated New Testament books, except for numerous quotations within, for instance, sermons and church wall paintings. A mediaeval translation of the Pentateuch (in Medeltidens Bibel-arbeten I = MBI) was carried out in the first half of the 14th century in a relatively free, commented translation; and in the second half of the 15th century some Old Testament books were translated (in Medeltidens Bibel-arbeten II = MBII), partly, as it seems, in order to add to the older 7 The following discussion in this chapter relies on Pettersson 2017), which includes more detailed discussions and a Nordic and European perspective.
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Table 2 Overview of translations of parts of the Bible into Swedish during the Middle Ages and early modern era Old Swedish Bible translations Text
Dating
Bible books
Manuscripts
Translator
MBI (Mediaeval Bible Works I) Apostlagärningarna MBII (Mediaeval Bible Works II)
Before 1335
Gen.-Deut. 34
Unknown
Before 1385
Acts
A: 1476-1514, B: 1484, C: Late 15th c.
A: Josh., Judg, B: Jdt., Est., Ruth, 1-2 Macc. C: Rev.
Thott 4, 4to (KB, DK) (1430-1450) A 1 (KB, SE) (1526) A 110 (KB, SE) (before 1385) A-C. A 1 (KB, SE) (1526) 1-2 Macc., also in A 3 (KB, SE) (1502)
Unknown A: Nicolaus Ragvaldi, B: Jöns Budde, C: Debated
Early modern Swedish Bible translations Text
Year of publication
Bible books
Translator
NT1526 Single OT books ‘Gustav Vasas bibel’
1526 1536
New Testament Psalms, Proverbs, Sirach, Wisdom Complete Bible translation
Debated Debated
1541
Debated
Pentateuch translation. In this study we will focus mainly on NT1526 and the late mediaeval translations, and they will therefore be presented in somewhat more detail. All the surviving late mediaeval Swedish Bible translations (Apostlagärningarna and the translations of MBII) are connected to the Swedish Birgittine order, which was founded by Birgitta Birgersdotter and granted papal approval in 1370. Birgitta was born in 1302/1303 of noble birth, died in 1373, and was canonized in 1391. The Birgittine monasteries were double monasteries with male and female sections, both with active scriptoria. The motherhouse of the order stands in Vadstena, in central southern Sweden, and a number of daughter monasteries were founded in the other Nordic countries, on the continent, and in the British Isles. The late mediaeval translations can be divided into four parts. The f irst is the translation of Acts of the Apostles, which is older than the other biblical translations and not transmitted in the same manuscripts. 8 8
The manuscript and the translation are discussed in Ståhle 1940.
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The next is Joshua and Judges, which were translated by the Birgittine Vadstena brother and General Confessor Nicolaus Ragvaldi (1445?–1514) in the last decades of the 15th century.9 Then follows the translations of Ruth, Esther, and Judith and the two Maccabees, all carried out in 1484 by the Birgittine monk Jöns Budde (born 1437 or earlier, died 1491 or later), a brother of the Birgittine monastery of Nådendal, Finland. Finally there is the translation of Revelation, which probably stems from the end of the 15th century and which has been attributed by some scholars to the same Jöns Budde. The mediaeval Bible translations only appear in a very limited number of manuscripts, all connected to the Vadstena monastery.10 Just one manuscript (which only includes the MBI Pentateuch translation), MS Thott 4 quarto, was perhaps made for use outside the monastery. The other two manuscripts were in all probability made for table reading in the nunnery.11 NT1526 was, in contrast to the late mediaeval translations, a project of the state, even if its history is not clear.12 In 1523 the aristocrat Gustav Vasa was elected king of the Swedish realm, and during his reign (d. 1560) a reform movement developed into the Swedish Protestant state church. NT1526 appeared early in this process, but it is unclear how to interpret its ideological position as a translation project, something to which we will return. The translation was officially initiated in the early summer of 1525 through a letter from the archbishop on behalf of the king, which was sent to the Swedish bishops (many of them still loyal to Rome) and some religious institutions, such as Vadstena monastery.13 They were requested to translate one specified part of the New Testament each, and to return it to a committee, which would combine them into a single work. It is unclear, however, whether the addressees participated in the translation; most believe that it was carried out by a reform-minded group around the king, especially the king’s chancellor Laurentius Andreae and the Stockholm 9 The translations are analyzed and discussed in Bengtson 1947. 10 The texts of the manuscript A 110 fol. (KB, SE) is edited in Klemming 1877–1878. The manuscript Thott 4 quarto (KB, DK) is used for the edition of MBI (the Pentateuch translation) in Klemming 1848–1851; manuscript A 1 (KB, SE) is used for MBII (Judith, Esther, Maccabees, and Revelation) in Klemming 1853–1855. MS A 1 also includes the Pentateuch translation (the same piece of work as in Thott 4 quarto), and the text of this manuscript is edited in Thorell 1959. 11 The two manuscripts, Thott 4 quarto and A 1, are discussed in several articles, e.g., Wollin 2003; Johansson 2010; and Faymonville 2017. 12 The process is more thoroughly described and discussed in Collijn 1934–1938: 334-37. 13 The letter is published in Gunneng 2003: 414-16. For other sources, see Collijn 1934–1938: 333-37.
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town secretary and clergyman Olaus Petri.14 It is clear that the translators to some extent made use of a Luther translation (more specifically the 1523 Low German version of Luther’s High German September testament, printed in Wittenberg) but primarily relied on Erasmus of Rotterdam’s Latin translation of a Greek text, probably the third edition of 1522.15 The Swedish translation was printed in the late summer of 1526, and a copy was probably to be sent to each parish church of the realm.16 Later, the 1526 translation might have been used in the production of the 1541 complete Bible translation, but the 1541 New Testament differs so greatly from its precursor that it is more fitting to call it a new translation, in this case more clearly adjusted to Luther’s translations and theology. The use of printing technology for NT1526 and its nature as a statesanctioned project offered an opportunity to create a linguistic standard with the potential of being normative for the written language of the entire realm. This perhaps was not evident to the text producers at the outset, but they seem to have grasped the opportunity during the work and to have established an orthographic and morphologic norm in the later part of NT1526.17 Perhaps the Danish New Testament of 1524, the first Nordic New Testament translation, provided a deterrent example, as its lack of stable orthographic norms as well as interference from Latin and German evoked severe criticism from the contemporary reading audience (Santesson 2002: 414-15). The translators of the NT1526 were at least aware of this translation (Collijn 1934–1938: 335). There were no doubt innovations in the language of NT1526, not least when it comes to the vocabulary. Parts of it appear to have been coined for the translation for the first time, and the author of the preface regrets the lack of Swedish equivalents for many of the words of the source text (NT1526: [7-8]). As in some other New Testament translations from the same period, a word-list with explanations was included. As to orthography, NT1526 included recent innovations such as the grapheme for the phoneme /o/, still used in Modern Swedish. It is clear that NT1526 was an important step in the standardization of the Swedish language and that it launched some linguistic innovations, but in the following we will concentrate on what it owed to its preceding mediaeval period. 14 The scholarly discussion on the identity of translators is presented in Ståhle 1970: 2. A recent survey is in Santesson 2002: 415. 15 For an investigation and discussion of source texts, see Henning 1964. 16 The brief historical presentation of NT1526 here follows Collijn 1934–1938: 337. 17 The tendency towards a normalization in the later parts of the translation was investigated by Lindquist 1918, 1928: 176-81; and the discussion is related in Collijn 1934–1938: 337.
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The transition from the mediaeval to the early modern period from the perspective of the Bible translations At the core of this study is the question of how to understand cultural developments in the transition between the mediaeval and early modern periods. Here we will examine the history of the Swedish biblical language and of the Bible translations during this period more closely. The history of Swedish biblical language An important question in previous research has been whether or not the Swedish 16th-century translations relied or were dependent upon the mediaeval translations and a mediaeval biblical style and vocabulary. The question is complex, and the answer differs between different linguistic levels. For instance, NT1526 seems to have built on Vadstena late mediaeval orthographic conventions in contrast to the very unstable contemporary spelling norm, whereas its morphology has been suggested to be a compromise between the older and newer varieties (Santesson 2002: 416; Ståhle 1970: 31). Here we will restrict the discussion to the vocabulary, as it is of more fundamental relevance to the question of how one translation is related to another.18 Despite some claims for continuity, most agree that NT1526 stands independent of its precursors regarding word choices, both in general and in the case of core religious concepts.19 Such a conclusion strengthens the traditional description that NT1526 actually marks the beginning of a new era. However, it is also necessary consider the character of these lexical differences carefully to be able to relate NT1526 to the overall historical transition process. The general incongruences can be illustrated by quotations from different versions of Acts 12: 1-4, below. The first example derives from the 14th-century translation of Acts in MS A 110 fol., The National Library of Sweden in Stockholm; the other from NT1526, and, for the sake of comparison, the same text from the Vulgate with variants from Erasmus’s edition.20 All sources are supplied with English translations (my own, with 18 Please note that the analysis in this chapter is mainly built on earlier investigations into the vocabulary and their data collections, especially Sjögren 1949 and Ståhle 1970. 19 See Lindqvist 1928, whose analysis is criticized by, e.g., Sjögren 1949: 52-54. Sjögren provides the most ambitious analysis of the vocabulary of NT1526, partly supplied by Ståhle 1970. 20 For the sake of completeness, the text from the 1523 Wittenberg Low German translation of Luther’s High German text, which is assumed to have been used by the translators, reads: Thö der suluigen tydt / leyde Herodes de hende an etlycke / van der ghemeine tho pinigende / he
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the exception of the Douay-Rheims English translation of the Vulgate [Challoner Revision 1752]). Acts 12: 1-4 in MS A 110, from before 1385 [12: 1] I them timanom sände herodes konungir härskap at pinä somlikä män the som crisne varo [12: 2] han drap sanctum iacobum sancti iohannis brodhir mz swärdh [12: 3-4] ok seande at thz thäktis iudhomin lät han gripä sanctum petrum ok kastä j myrkästwo andwardhande han säxtan riddarom at giöma viliande han fram ledhä for folkit ok dräpa äptir paskanä
[12: 1] At this time, King Herod sent a force to torment some men who were Christians. [12: 2] He killed St. James, the brother of St. John, with a sword, [12: 3-4] and seeing that it pleased the Jews, he had St. Peter arrested and thrown into prison, committing the keeping of him to sixteen knights, and intending to bring him before the people and kill him after the Pascha.
Acts 12: 1-4 in NT1526 [12: 1] Påå samma tijdhen toogh konnung Herodes fatt på någhra aff församblingen till ath pina them / [12: 2] och drap han Jacobum Johannis brodher medh swärd/ [12: 3] och thå han sågh ath thet behagadhe Judomen wäl / foor han och effter ath tagha fatt på Petrum / och thet war sötbrödz daghanar / [12: 4] Thå han och fick fatt på honom / satte han honom j fångahwset / antwardandes honom fyra * quaternioner krigszknecter j hender till ath förwara/ actandes effter påscha höghtidhena haffua honom vth för folkit / * quaternioner Quaternion är it taal ther fyra är vthi.
[12: 1] At the same time, King Herod took hold of some from the congregation to torment them [12: 2] and he killed James, the brother of John, with a sword, [12: 3] and when he saw that it pleased the Jews well, he went on to take hold of Peter, and it was in the days of the unleavened bread. [12: 4] When he also took hold of him, he put him into prison, committing the keeping of him to four quaternions of soldiers, intending to bring him before the people after the Pascha celebration. * [printed gloss in the margin] quaternioner Quaternion is a number containing four.
Acts12: 1-4 in the Vulgate with lexical variants from Erasmus’s 1522 edition of the New Testament 12: 1 eodem autem tempore misita Herodes rex manus ut adfligeret quosdam de ecclesia 12: 2 occidit autem Iacobum fratrem Iohannis gladio
[12: 1] And at the same time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands, to afflict some of the church, [12: 2] and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.
leith döden Jacobum Johannis broder / mit deme swerde / vnde also he sach / dat idth den Jöden behagede / Do makede he des mehr / vnde leith ok Petrum vangen / Vnde dat was euen Osteren/ do he one ok greip / leyde he one in de gefenckenisse / vnde ouer anthworde one vier gheuierden kryges knechten/ one tho bewaren / vnde bedachte one naden Osteren / dem volke vor tho bringen.
138 12: 3 videns autem quia placeretb Iudaeis adposuitc adprehendere et Petrum erant autem dies azymorum 12: 4 quem cum adprehendisset misitd in carcerem tradens quattuor quaternionibus militum custodire eume volens post pascha producere eum populo
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[12: 3] And seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also. Now it was in the days of the Azymes. [12: 4] And when he had apprehended him, he cast him into prison, delivering him to four files of soldiers to be kept, intending, after the Pascha, to bring him forth to the people.
a misit] iniecit b quia placeret] quod gratum esset c adposuit adprehendere] perrexit comprehendere d misit] posuit e custodire eum] asseruandum
Of course numerous words are the same in the two Swedish translations – it is, after all, the same language – but there are some notable differences, which together form a pattern: when MS A 110 has somlikä män the som chrisne varo (ʻsome men who were Christians’) in verse 12: 1 for the Latin quosdam de ecclesia (ʻsome from the church’), NT1526 uses församblingen, which still is the word for ʻcongregation’ in Modern Swedish and which is a German loanword first attested in 1471 in Swedish texts (Söderwall 1884–1918: s.v. forsambling). When MS A 110 has thäktis for the Latin placuit (ʻto please’)21 in 12: 3, NT1526 has behagadhe, also a German loanword that appears in Swedish texts from the late 14th century (Söderwall 1884–1918: s.v. behagha). Both are close equivalents to the Latin word, but whereas the verb behaga still is used in Modern Swedish, the old Nordic verb thäkkia was lost in standard Modern Swedish (SAOB s.v. täckas). When MS A 110 has riddare for King Herod’s armed men in 12: 4, NT1526 uses a compound with -knekt (krigszknect); knekt (ʻsoldier’) is also a German loanword, surfacing in 15th-century Swedish texts (Söderwall 1884–1918: s.v. knekt). It is unusual in present-day Swedish in this sense, but it replaced the word riddare in Early Modern Swedish, as riddare continued to refer to the mediaeval knight or sometimes a high-ranked officer, while knekt referred to a soldier. The pattern that emerges, thus, is that NT1526 used German loanwords, which are first attested in late mediaeval Swedish sources, whereas these words do not appear in the mediaeval Swedish Bible translation. The same pattern is valid for the religious concepts in general. A typical example is the word for the Latin misericordia (ʻcompassion’). The most frequent word in Mediaeval Swedish for compassion is miskund, which is common to all Nordic languages. The synonym barmhärtughet, a German loanword, appears in Swedish texts from the late Middle Ages, but in NT1526 21 In Erasmus’s translation placuit is replaced by gratum esset.
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barmhärtighet is predominant and later becomes the standard variant in Modern Swedish, whereas the old miskun disappears. A number of similar cases in the religious vocabulary follow the same pattern.22 NT1526 thus stands independent of its mediaeval precursors when it comes to the character of its vocabulary, but that does not mean that it represents a brand-new variety, which the traditional periodization border might lead us to think. It reflects a language that developed in the late Middle Ages, especially in towns such as Stockholm, through contact with German and that had become natural for the translators to use (Sjögren 1949: 38-39). The late mediaeval translations, in contast, were products of the Birgittine monastic milieu, which probably was not exposed to the German influence to the same extent and which thus probably explains the difference between the translations. As NT1526 no doubt was inspired by the translations of Martin Luther, one might think that these German loanwords originated from that source, but that is only a part of the explanation. It is clear that parts of the vocabulary, especially the culture-specific words of the ancient societies, probably were borrowed via Luther’s text (Sjögren 1949: 48-50). However, the greater part of the vocabulary of German origin had already existed in Swedish from the late Middle Ages, and NT1526 can be seen as an expression of these conditions. The history of Swedish Bible translations in a European context It is evident that the mediaeval translations had very little direct influence on the NT1526 text, if any at all (Henning 1964: 94; Sjögren 1949: 52-54). Nonetheless, to perceive the NT1526 language as disconnected from the late Middle Ages is equally incorrect, as its specific variety developed during this period, albeit in a different social context than its precursors. If we change perspective from the linguistic level to a more cultural level, the question arises of whether NT1526 as a translation project had similar late mediaeval roots or whether it should be understood as something completely new in contrast to the period before its publication. Traditionally, NT1526 has been closely associated with the Reformation, which in turn has often been described as beginning with the actions of Luther in 1517. One cannot question that the translation is a part of a historical process that in retrospect has been described as the Reformation, but it is equally important to recognize the complexity of the situation in the 1520s, the alternatives to the Lutheran position, and also that the success 22 See more examples in Sjögren 1949: 26-30; and Ståhle 1970: 4-8.
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of Luther’s translations was preceded by a remarkably strong interest in vernacular Bibles in the late Middle Ages, especially in the German-speaking part of Europe but in many other parts as well.23 We will examine this in closer detail. As touched upon above, NT1526 is not an unambiguous expression of the Lutheran Reformation in opposition to the Old Church; rather, it seems aimed at consensus and the acceptance of different positions. For one thing, representatives of the Old Church were invited to participate in the translation through the letter from the king and archbishop in 1525, which was described above. In some discussions this invitation has been interpreted as a purposeful and manipulative action of strategic and far-sighted Lutherans. It is equally possible that there was an awareness of the weakness of the Lutheran-minded group and that there were possible solutions other than a mere choice between Luther and the pope in this period, when the confessional borders had not yet stabilized.24 The way NT1526 was carried out points, rather, in the direction of the humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had been extremely influential in the first decades of the 16th century, before the rise of Luther’s fame, and who advocated an internal reform of the Church in contrast to Luther’s confrontational path. By the 1520s Erasmus’s position had weakened, but the Swedish translators were connected in some ways to his programme. They worked from his Latin translation, they rejected Luther’s now and then free rendering of the source and instead followed their source almost literally without burdening it with too much Latin interference, and they used comments and glosses from Erasmus (Olsson 1968: 357). It is altogether clear that they showed a stronger loyalty to the biblical sources than to Luther. They indeed included Luther’s prefaces in the translation, but they never attacked the Old Church overtly, which the translators of the Danish 1524 translation had done (Santesson 2002: 414, 420-21). Instead they argue in their own preface in favour of the vernacular, both with Bible quotations and from a historical analysis of the role of Latin. Even if the text producers connect themselves to the Lutheran rhetoric, they also include the feast days of the saints in its pericope register. Thus,
23 The complexity of the situation in the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern era is very well illustrated and discussed in Czaika 2013. German late mediaeval Bible translation history is discussed in Gow 2005. The late mediaeval vernacular Bible reading has been the object of a growing interest in the last decade; see, for instance, François and den Hollander 2012; Corbellini 2013. 24 For a discussion on the confessionalization process, see Czaika 2013, who also has written extensively on the topic but must be omitted here.
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in paratextual materials, a rather complex position emanates that seems to be aimed at gaining acceptance from the different sides. Whatever the role that NT1526 came to fulfil in the long run, the outcome of the situation in the 1520s was probably highly uncertain, and the translation therefore seems to have been inviting compromise rather than radical confrontation, thereby building a bridge between older structures and ideas and newer currents. As a translation project per se, NT1526 was clearly inspired by Luther’s translation, but the translation as a product included other currents, especially Erasmus’s programme. If we shift perspective to the late mediaeval translations, the first thing to stress is that the history of vernacular Bibles in Europe did not begin with Luther’s translations.25 During the Middle Ages there had been a continuous interest in vernacular Bibles, leading to different kinds of translations, but the printing press made dissemination possible on an unprecedented scale. The most numerous and the largest editions were printed in Germany, with a peak in production in the 1480s. It is estimated that there were around 20,000 copies of printed Germanic Bibles in circulation in the late mediaeval German-speaking area, this figure including only complete Bibles and no other biblical texts and collections (Gow 2005: 180). The dissemination of vernacular Bibles in the late Middle Ages, especially in Germany, was thus very wide, but, judging from the products, they must still have been restricted to limited wealthy groups in the society; the German prints are all folios, decorated with numerous woodcuts, making up very large, and probably very expensive volumes.26 Only an elite could have afforded to buy such pieces, and they were probably a concern for the nobility, wealthy burghers, and religious institutions. Nunneries in particular have been pointed out as owners of vernacular Bibles (Gow 2005: 181-83). The lavish character of these Bible prints is an important difference from Martin Luther’s New Testament translations of the 1520s, which outnumbered the mediaeval editions by far. Many of Luther’s translations (except for the first ones) were printed in relatively simple octavo editions, which could probably attract much wider socio-economic groups of customers than the late mediaeval tomes. Still, the large editions of pre-modern prints testify to a real demand that must be considered for a proper understanding of the history of Bible translation in this period. Gow (2005) even suggests that this demand (in combination with the deficiencies of the late mediaeval material) is a major explanation for the tremendous success of Luther’s translations. 25 The following discussion relies on Gow 2005. 26 The editions are presented in Vogel 1962: 15-20.
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Though no similar increase in vernacular Bible production is known in the Nordic area, the few remaining Swedish translations from this period can still be argued to be part of the same development. As mentioned above, nunneries were one important place where vernacular Bibles were used in late mediaeval Europe, and all the late mediaeval Swedish translations are connected to the Birgittine order in one way or the other. Were these translations an internal Birgittine affair, or did the impulse come from continental Europe? Translations had no doubt played a special role within the Birgittine order. The founder, Saint Birgitta, had written and dictated her revelations in her mother tongue, and they were translated by her Confessor into Latin. The Latin translation was later back-translated into Swedish at least twice, and it was these translations that were in use in the monastery, not the original texts by Birgitta, as far as we know. Such a tradition shows a confidence in translations, and it is furthermore within the Birgittine order that we find the first Swedish translations governed by a similar ideal to that held in modern times, viz., to represent the source text closely, both formally and semantically (Wollin 2005). Further, regarding Bible translation in particular, it is said in the vita of Saint Birgitta that she had the Bible translated for her. Even if there are no certain traces of such a translation, the notion must have encouraged and legitimized translation of the Bible. It is thus not surprising that Bible translations appear within the Birgittine order, and it might have begun there without any specific impulse from the European centres. Nevertheless, the Birgittine order had an active international network and also owned printed Bibles in Latin and probably also in Low German (Bengtson 1947: 29-30, 41); it would therefore have been curious if the European currents had played no part in the decisions of the monastery. In Sweden, the late mediaeval interest in Bible translation only manifests itself in these translations for the sisters, and a relevant question then is why there was no printed Bible in Swedish as there was in many other parts of Europe. There were probably several reasons for this. For one thing, there was no translation ready to print – as far as we know. The value of an alreadypresent translation for the printers is clearly demonstrated by the fact that all the fourteen known late mediaeval High German editions of the Bible reprinted the same translation, albeit in a form revised several times (Volz 1972: 35-40). However, a perhaps more fundamental reason is that the population in Sweden, not least the urban population, was too small to offer any promising market expectations for such a large enterprise. The population of the Swedish towns was probably also, to a great extent, German-speaking or at least had a passive understanding of the language, and to them a German translation might have seemed a good alternative, even a preferable one.
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NT1526 was not related directly to the Swedish late mediaeval translations, but it is clear that the history of Bible translation needs a wider perspective than a mere national scope for a proper understanding of the development. The Birgittine translations could be interpreted as an extension of the continental late mediaeval interest in vernacular Bibles, whereas NT1526 was clearly inspired by Luther’s translations and Erasmus’s humanism. Were these different European currents related to each other? As mentioned earlier, many scholars stress the late mediaeval roots of the Reformation, and in a study on European Bible translation history, Gow (2005) argues strongly that the Reformation actually owed vital parts of its success to the currents of the late Middle Ages. Following Gow’s argument, the Swedish translations of both the Middle Ages and the early modern era would appear to have grown out of separate branches on the same European tree rather than to have been completely disconnected, thus being more cousins than mere neighbours.
Towards a new understanding of the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern era Historical periodization is an interpretative tool to make sense out of series of single events through larger units in the chronology. It is perhaps natural that events that can be connected to major historical changes will attract attention as milestones or borders, as NT1526 has done in the case of Swedish language history. However, it is important to stress that such milestones are not in themselves the process that brought them into being; they are the results or the symptoms of a process that predates them. This is a trivial observation, of course, but as I see it, it points towards a model that I believe offers a way to interpret the morphology of the transition between the Middle Ages and the early modern era. To begin with, it is still relevant to distinguish Early Modern Swedish from Mediaeval Swedish, even if there was considerable variation within both periods and overlaps that blur the border between them. However, when it comes to the language of NT1526, in important aspects it had already been developed in the late Middle Ages, even if its use was not widespread but only within a geographically and socially restricted group, which we assume to be the town of Stockholm. In the case of Bible translation history, there is also a difference between the 16th century, with its explosion of translations and editions in different parts of Europe, and the Middle Ages, but, as we have seen, in late mediaeval Europe there was already a remarkably strong interest
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in vernacular Bibles, especially after the introduction of printing technology. The dissemination of the mediaeval vernacular Bibles seems to have been restricted to wealthy urban people and institutions such as monasteries and nunneries. Thus, in the case of both language and Bible translation history, we see cultural expressions that became characteristic and widespread in the early modern period connected to restricted environments in the late Middle Ages. These observations are not especially new in themselves, but the social character of the settings in which these cultural features appear seem to have not been generally brought forward clearly or integrated into an interpretative framework. To me this ‘social aspect’ is a crucial detail that offers an opportunity to interpret and describe the development between 1400–1600 in a theoretical frame, primarily concerning the history of the Swedish language and the Bible translations of this period. What I am aiming at is the sociolingistic, rather simple model of language change, which assumes that linguistic innovations – for instance, new words or a new pronunciation – appear in restricted subgroups of language speakers from where they might spread if and when this group is assigned a high status by other language speakers who do not belong to this subgroup but who imitate their way of talking (or writing).27 It seems not so far-fetched to suggest that the emergence of the Early Modern Swedish variety could be described with this model. Instead of the traditional break in the 1520s, one would then speak rather of a first phase of innovation and normalization locally in the early 15th century, followed by a second phase of geographical expansion from the late 15th century onward, reinforced by the publication of NT1526. It might be more controversial to suggest that the history of Bible translation could be interpreted using the same model. In its outline the development is similar, but whereas the language change occurs within the system of a single language, the history of Bible translation takes place in a much more complicated setting of cultures and languages, a polysystem, to make use of a major theoretical model within translation studies.28 Still, the idea that dominant cultural features have their origin in smaller settings is almost a logical necessity. What the model suggests in addition is that a driving force behind the expansion phase is social motivation; that a wider group imitates the behaviour of a smaller group because of what is socially valued. Is this the case when it comes to Bible translation? I think one needs 27 A good example of such a process together with a thorough theoretical discussion is given in Maegaard et al. 2013. 28 A polysystem is described by Even-Zohar 1990 as a system of systems, a model that has been highly influential in Translation Studies.
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a very careful, nuanced approach to this question, but I read Gow (2005) as providing support for such an interpretation when he suggests that interest in the Bible of the Lutheran Reformation was caused by the late mediaeval interest in the Bible. To look at it from the other side: the driving force would emanate from the desire among less wealthy and non-Latinate people in the 16th century to identify with the privileged group who already had material access to the vernacular Bible. The commercial success of New Testaments where they were published and sold seems to encourage such an interpretation. Tentatively, I would argue that the sociolinguistic model might also offer valuable interpretative perspectives for cultural features other than language, though certainly not for all. Indeed, as far as we know, the Swedish NT1526 was not the product of popular demand as Christiern Pedersen’s 1528 NT Danish translations seem to have been. Instead, the state took care of the dissemination regardless of the feeling of its citizens, but political decisions can also be a means of diffusion – not least in the case of language. Thus my conclusion would be that the early modern period, or more specifically some aspects of it, could be described as an expansion of cultural phenomena of the late mediaeval culture. This is not to say that the 16th century did not abound with innovations in many fields, but when it comes to the aspects discussed in this article, the traditional border at the brink of the new period could perhaps be better described as the beginning of a wider proliferation of phenomena that originated in the late Middle Ages.
Bibliography Primary sources Manuscripts
A 1 fol., A 110 fol. = Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket (National Library of Sweden), (KB, SE). Thott 4 quarto = København, Det Konglige Bibliotek (The Royal Library, Denmark) (KB, DK).
Printed and edited sources
NT1526 = Thet Nyia Testamentit På Swensko [1526], ed. by Erik Gamby. 1966. Uppsala: Bokgillets förlag. Thorell, Olof (ed.). 1959. Fem Moseböcker på fornsvenska enligt Cod. Holm. A 1. Uppsala: Svenska fornskriftssällskapet.
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Secondary sources Bandle, Oskar, Kurt Braunmüller, Ernst Hakon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann, and Ulf Teleman. 2002. The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of Germanic Languages. Vol. 1. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. Bandle, Oskar, Kurt Braunmüller, Ernst Hakon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann, Ulf Telemann, Lennart Elmevik, and Gun Widmark. 2005. The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of Germanic Languages. Vol. 2. Berlin and NewYork: de Gruyter. Bengtson, Arne. 1947. Nils Ragvaldi, Domareboken och Linköpingslegendariet. En filologisk författarbetstämning och ett bidrag till kännedomen om det senmedeltida vadstenaspråket. Lund: A.-B. Gleerupska univ.-bokhandlen. Collijn, Isak. 1934–1938. Sveriges bibliografi intill år 1600. Band I 1478–1530. Uppsala, Svenska litteratursällskapet. Corbellini, Sarbrina (ed.). 2013. Cultures of Religious Reading in the Late Middle Ages: Instructing the Soul, Feeding the Spirit, and Awakening the Passion. Turnout: Brepols. Czaika, Otfried. 2013. Sveno Jacobi: boksamlaren, biskopen, teologen. En bok- och kyrkohistorisk studie. Stockholm: Kungliga biblioteket. Delsing, Lars-Olof. 2014. Stora katastrofen – med för- och efterskalv. In Studier i svensk språkhistoria 12. Variation och förändring, ed. by Maria Bylin, Cecilia Falk, and Tomas Riad. Stockholm: Institutionen för svenska och flerspråkighet, Stockholms universitet. 27-46. Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1990. Polysystem Studies. Poetics today 11.1: 1-270. Faymonville, Louise. 2017. Om variationen i Codex Thott 4 4to – ett tolkningsförslag. Arkiv för nordisk filologi 132: 153-78. François, Wim, and August Den Hollander (eds.). ʻWading Lambs and Swimming Elephants’: The Bible for the Laity and Theologians in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Era. Leuven, Paris, and Walpole, Massachusetts: Peeters. Gellerstam, Martin. 1973. Etymologiska frekvenser i det centrala ordförrådet. Folkmålsstudier. Meddelanden från Föreningen för nordisk filologi 23: 70-79. Gow, Andrew. 2005. Challenging the Protestant Paradigm: Bible Reading in Lay and Urban Contexts of the Later Middle Ages. In Scripture and Pluralism: Reading the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. by Thomas J. Hefferman and Thomas E. Burman, 161-91. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Gunneng, Hedda (ed.). 2003. Biskop Hans Brasks registratur. Textutgåva med inledning. Uppsala, Svenska fornskriftsällskapet. Gustafsson, Sofia. 2006. Svenska städer i medeltidens Europa. En komparativ studie av stadsorganisation och politisk kultur. Stockholm: Historiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet.
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Henning, Sam. 1964. Vilka ha översatt Nya testamentet år 1526? Nysvenska studier 43: 16-139. Ingesman, Per. 2005. History of Scandinavia and Sociocultural Developments in the Late Middle Ages and in Early Modern Times. In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of Germanic Languages, ed. by Oskar Bandle et al. Vol. 2, 1059-66. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. Johansson, Karl G. 2010. The Birgittines and the Bible: On the Use of the Pentateuch Paraphrase at Vadstena Abbey. In Saint Birgitta, Syon and Vadstena: Papers from a Symposium in Stockholm 4–6 October 2007, ed. by Claes Gejrot, Sara Risberg, and Mia Åkestam, 188-99. Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets akademien. Klemming, Gustaf E. (ed.). 1848–1851. Svenska medeltidens bibel-arbeten. Första bandet. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & söner. Klemming, Gustaf E. (ed.). 1853–1855. Svenska medeltidens bibel-arbeten. Andra bandet. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & söner. Klemming, Gustaf E. (ed.). 1877–1878. Klosterläsning. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & söner. Lindqvist, Nathan. 1918. Studier över Reformationstidens bibelsvenska. Språket i Nya Testamentet 1526 i belysning av de svenska reformatorernas språk. Stockholm: Ivar Häggströms boktryckeri A.B. Lindqvist, Nathan. 1928. Bibelsvenskans medeltida ursprung. In: Nysvenska studier 8: 165-260. Maegaard, Marie, Torben Juel Jensen, Tore Kristiansen, and Jens Normann Jørgensen. 2013. Diffusion of Language Change: Accommodation to a Moving Target. In: Journal of Sociolinguistics 17.1: 3-36. Mähl, Stefan. 2010. Det senmedeltida Stockholm – en språklig och kulturell smältdegel. Stockholm: Sällskapet Runica et Mediævalia. Muldoon, James. 2013. Introduction: Bridging the Medieval-Modern Divide. In Bridging the Medieval-Modern Divide: Medieval Themes in the World of the Reformation, ed. by James Muldoon. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate. Olsson, Birger. 1968. Svenskt bibelöversättningsarbete. En översikt främst med tanke på Nya testamentet. Bilaga A. In Nyöversättning av Nya testamentet. Behov och principer. Betänkande avgivet av 1963 års bibelkommitté, 349-500. Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. Pettersson, Jonatan. 2017. Nordic Bible Translations in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. In Vernacular Bible and Religious Reform in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, ed. by Wim François and August Den Hollander, 107-50. Leuven, Paris and Bristol, CT: Peeters. Santesson, Lillemor. 2002. Nordic Language History and Religion/Ecclesiastical History III: Luther’s Reformation. In The Nordic Languages: An International
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Handbook of the History of Germanic Languages, ed. by Oskar Bandle et al. Vol. 1, 412-24. Berlin and NewYork: de Gruyter. SAOB = Svenska Akademiens Ordbok över Svenska språket. 1893–. Stockholm: Svenska Akademien. Simensen, Erik. 2005. Lexical Developments in the Late Middle Ages. In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of Germanic Languages, ed. by Oskar Bandle et al. Vol. 2, 1161-71. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. Söderwall, Karl F. 1884–1918. Ordbok öfver svenska medeltids-språket 1-2. Stockholm: Norstedts. Sjögren, Gunnar. 1949. Om språket i de svenska bibelöversättningarna 1526–1541. Lund, C.W. K. Gleerup. Ståhle, Carl-Ivar. 1940. Studier i den fornsvenska översättningen av Apostlagärningarna. In: Arkiv för nordisk filologi 55: 5-26. Ståhle, Carl-Ivar. 1970, Svenskt bibelspråk från 1500-tal till 1900-tal. Stockholm: Norstedts. Vogel, Paul Heinz. 1962. Europäische Bibeldrucke des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts in den Volksprachen. Ein Beitrag zur Bibliographie des Bibeldruckes. Baden-Baden: Verlag Heitz GmbH. Volz, Hans. 1972. Die mittelalterlichen deutschen Bibelübersetzungen. D. Martin Luther. Die Ganze heilige Schrifft Deudsch. Wittenberg 1545, ed. by Hans Volz, 33*-41*. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Wollin, Lars. 2003. Swedish and Swedish: On the Origin of diglossia and Social Variation in Swedish Language. In Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History, ed. by Kurt Braunmüller and Gisella Ferraresi, 45-171. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Wollin, Lars. 2005. From Old Nordic to Early Modern Nordic: The Language of the Translations II. Swedish and Danish Translations. In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of Germanic Languages, ed. by Oskar Bandle et al. Vol. 2, 1201-13. Berlin and NewYork: de Gruyter.
About the author Dr. Jonatan Pettersson is a lecturer at the Stockholm University. He is a specialist of the mediaeval Scandinavian texts.
Part III Reuse of (Catholic) Texts after the Reformation
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The Infant Jesus and his Motherin Late Mediaeval and Early Modern Scandinavian Book Culture Elise Kleivane and Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir
Abstract The essay looks at apocryphal stories about the child Jesus and his mother Mary in late mediaeval and early modern Nordic literature. This material has its origins in the f irst centuries of Christianity and became very popular in the Middle Ages as Marian worship gained ground. The stories were known in the Nordic countries, as elsewhere in Europe, in mediaeval times and they seem to have retained their popularity in the centuries following the Reformation. The essay focuses on the use of the texts and how they were spread, especially to the areas of Norway and Iceland. Their dissemination provides an excellent proof of how old popular themes could survive reforms if adapted to a new cultural context and changed expectations. Keywords: Apocryphal New Testament, Jesu Barndoms Bog, Norwegian, Icelandic, Virgin Mary
Introduction As is well known to those familiar with the Bible, the Gospels offer little information about Jesus’s childhood. The story of the Nativity is related in Matthew and Luke; in Matthew we also learn about the Flight to Egypt; while Luke includes two scenes that take place at the Temple in Jerusalem: that of Simeon blessing the infant Jesus; and the discussion the twelve-year-old Jesus has with the elders. Nothing further is written about Jesus’s life until he approaches John the Baptist at Jordan and his brief career as a religious
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch06
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leader begins. There is similarly very little information about Joseph and Mary in the Gospels, and it seems that stories began to circulate early on that were aimed at putting this right by offering some background history of the Holy Family. In the course of time, stories of this kind spread far and wide and proved to have enduring popular appeal, irrespective of any doctrinal issues that may have troubled theologians and church leaders. Doctrinal concerns certainly shaped the reception of these texts, but the continuing demand for stories about the Holy Family meant that the core narratives were transmitted from the Eastern Church to the West and later adopted – and adapted – by Lutherans after the Reformation. In this essay we will describe the introduction of this material into Old Norse literature in mediaeval times before discussing its reintroduction as a chapbook text in Denmark, Norway, and Iceland and the different aspects of its dissemination in these countries. Apocryphal texts about Mary, Joseph, and their child originally spread in the Eastern Church. The earliest one is the so-called Protevangelium of James, a Greek text probably composed in the late 2nd century AD. It explains Mary’s ancestry, describes her birth and childhood, her betrothal to Joseph, and then the events leading up to and including the Nativity, ending with Herod’s pursuit of the newborns (Elliott 1993: 48-67).1 The text became very popular in the Eastern Church, whereas in the West it was superseded by a Latin work based on the Protevangelium but that eventually incorporated material describing various events in Jesus’s childhood. This work is now commonly known as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Psevdo-Matthaei Evangelium.2 Psevdo-Matthaei Evangelium (hereafter PsM) begins with an account of Joachim and Anne and the miraculous conception of their daughter Mary (chaps. 1-3). It tells of Mary’s birth and her upbringing and her betrothal to Joseph (chaps. 4-8). We then learn of the Annunciation and Joseph’s distress at finding Mary pregnant (chaps. 9-12), events leading up to the Nativity (chaps. 13-14) and its aftermath: the Presentation at the Temple (chap. 15), the coming of the Magi (chap. 16), and the Flight to Egypt, including miracles the child Jesus performs on the way (chaps. 17-24). Another Latin work that enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages, not least because of its association with St. Jerome and its inclusion in Jacobus de Voragine’s 1 This essay forms a part of the research project Retracing the Reformation: The Dissemination of the Bible in Medieval Scandinavian Culture, funded by NOS-HS. 2 The title was provided by the 19th-century editor Constantin von Tischendorf. Jan Gijsel, the most recent editor of the work, has for the sake of convenience retained Tischendorf’s title, although it is not particularly apt. In manuscripts the work bears various titles, such as Nativitas sanctae Mariae, Liber (or Libellus) de ortu virginis et infantia salvatoris, or simply Liber (or Libellus) de infantia salvatoris; see Libri de nativitate Mariae 1:98-104.
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Legenda aurea, was a text modelled on PsM, now usually referred to as De Nativitate Mariae.3 It is limited to the narrative of Mary’s birth and her life until she gives birth to the infant Jesus. The circumstances in which PsM was put together are not known. Its most recent editor, Jan Gijsel, believes the text could have been composed sometime between the middle of the 6th century and the end of the 8th century. 4 It became enormously popular in the Middle Ages and survives in around 200 manuscripts, which Gijsel has divided into four groups: A, P, Q, and R. The A and P versions both originated around 800. The Q version, dated to the middle of the 12th century, is a reworking of P; and Q in turn spawned the R version, which originated around 1200.5 One marked characteristic of these two later versions (Q and R) is that their text is expanded to include stories that take place after the Holy Family returns from Egypt and before the twelve-year-old Jesus appears in the Temple of Jerusalem as told by Luke. These stories describe various events in Jesus’s childhood, such as him playing with other children and going to school. This material is derived from a Greek version of the so-called Infancy Gospel of Thomas.6 Its incorporation into the PsM text meant that readers could not only satisfy their curiosity about Mary and her family, her betrothal to Joseph, and events leading up to and including the Nativity as told in the Gospels proper but also follow the child Jesus’s subsequent development and even catch a glimpse of everyday life in the household of Mary and Joseph.
Reception of the Psevdo-Matthaei Evangelium in Scandinavia in the late Middle Ages The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew reached Scandinavia, as is only to be expected of a text so beloved and widely copied. In his edition Gijsel lists five mediaeval manuscripts of the work currently held in Scandinavian libraries: – Copenhagen, Den arnamagnæanske samling AM 76 octavo (15th c.) – Lund, Universitetsbiblioteket, Medeltidshandskrift 30 (15th c.) – Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 76 (14th c.) 3 Edited by Rita Beyers in Libri de nativitate Mariae, vol. 2. See also Elliott 1993: 120. 4 Libri de nativitate Mariae 1:13. 5 Gijsel does not provide a text of the Q and R versions. 6 Elliott 1993: 68-69. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas exists in two Greek versions, a Latin one, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Slavonic ones, as well as in expanded form in Arabic and Armenian. It should not be confused with the Gospel of Thomas discovered in the Nag Hammadi manuscripts. In his edition of PsM, Tischendorf marked the chapters based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas as Pars altera.
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– Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 225 (beginning of 13th c.) – Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 370 (beginning of 14th c.). The oldest manuscript, Upps. C 225, came to Uppsala from Strasbourg in the 17th century and is therefore of no consequence for the mediaeval reception of PsM in Scandinavia (Andersson-Schmitt and Hedlund 1990: 91). Upps. C 76 originated in South Germany but was brought to the monastery at Vadstena (Andersson-Schmitt and Hedlund 1989: 88). Upps. C 370, also believed to have been written in Germany, was in the 15th century in the possession of Nicolaus Lindorm, a priest in Uppland or Sörmland, who gave it to the monk Johannes Olavi in Sigtuna (Andersson-Schmitt and Hedlund 1991: 434). The provenance of AM 76 octavo is uncertain. It contains texts in Danish as well as the Latin text of PsM and was undoubtedly written in Denmark. Scholars have connected it to the mendicant orders and proposed that it could have been some kind of schoolteacher’s manual (En klosterbog, I-III; A Danish Teacher’s Manual 2:9). Gijsel classified the text in AM 76 octavo as an A-text (A1e2), whereas the two Uppsala manuscripts and the Lund manuscript contain a text of the expanded versions Q and R. Only one mediaeval Danish translation of PsM is known. It forms the beginning of a collection of saints’ lives, predominantly of female saints, preserved in a paper manuscript from the 15th century, now Dan. fol. K4 in the Royal Library, Stockholm.7 The text there is partly divided into lectiones. It does not include material from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and must therefore be translated from a manuscript of either the A or the P version of PsM. Marius Kristensen (En klosterbog, ix) argued that the translation could not be later than from around 1300. He pointed out the similarities of the Danish text to the Latin text in AM 76 octavo, but a study of the translation taking Gijsel’s recent classification of the Latin manuscripts into account has not been carried out. In K4 the PsM translation is followed by an account of Christ’s Passion and a text describing the Assumption of the Virgin, also in Danish. That context serves as an example of how PsM was frequently transmitted alongside, or amalgamated with, other texts concerning the life of Jesus and Mary as the veneration of the Virgin gained ground in the High and late Middle Ages. The 12th century has been described as the golden age of Mariology, during which new elements emphasizing the virtues of the Virgin and her role as intercessor were introduced into scriptural exegesis and the liturgy (see Graef 1985: 210-64). The apocryphal texts about Mary 7
It was edited by C.J. Brandt in 1859, see De hellige kvinder.
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and the child were more widely disseminated, and parts of them found their way into hagiographical collections and other books associated with the liturgy (Libri de nativitate Mariae 1:24-25). This went hand in hand with an upsurge in popular devotion. In this Scandinavia is no exception, and the increase in Marian devotion can be seen in the number of churches dedicated to the saint, in iconography, and not least in the composition of the Old Norse Maríu saga, a 13th-century Life of the Virgin. In addition to the saga, Marian miracles accumulated and were transmitted in manuscripts both independent of the saga, and following the saga proper.8 Maríu saga retells the life of Mary, beginning with her parents, Anne and Joachim, before she is born and continuing as far as the assumption of her body. The saga is based on several sources, among them PsM and De nativitate Mariae. The manuscripts of Maríu saga, nineteen in all, reflect the fluidity of the textual tradition: scribes were able to shape the material through additions or cuts (Heizman 1993: 407). We see, for instance, how in a manuscript from the 15th century (Stockholm, Kunglika biblioteket, Isl. perg 4: 0 nr. 1) a scribe has chosen to include material from PsM that is not found in other versions of Maríu saga (Maríu saga, 39-40). This material concerns the miracles performed by the child Jesus on the way to Egypt, and it is introduced in the following way in the manuscript: ‘Enn er svá lesit í einne bók af barndóme vors herra, þá er hann fór til Egiptalands’ (‘In addition, one may read [this] in a book about the childhood of our Lord, when he travelled to Egypt’). It is then described how the Holy Family stops to rest under a palm tree. The infant Jesus commands the tree to lower its branches so that Joseph and Mary may reach its fruit. A well miraculously springs up at the roots of the tree. The text also briefly mentions dragons and a lion, which Jesus renders tame and harmless. This corresponds to Chapters 18 (dragons), 19 (lion), and 20 (palm tree) of PsM, but the order of the miracles is altered in the Maríu saga manuscript. Another reference to these miracle stories is found in the Icelandic manuscript AM 764 quarto (Copenhagen, Den arnamagnæanske samling) (fols. 14v5-30), where they are recounted in the same order as in Maríu saga and introduced in a similar way by mentioning the Latin source: ‘Þat verk er kallast til Egiptalands váttar sú bók er heitir De infantia salvatoris’ (‘A book named De infantia salvatoris attests to the work that is called To Egypt’). AM 764 quarto was written c. 1360–1380, a century earlier than the Maríu saga manuscript, but these sources indicate the continued use of PsM in mediaeval Iceland, 8 The saga and the miracles were edited in 1871 by C.R. Unger. For an overview of the miracle tradition, see Widding 2000.
156 Elise Kleivane and Svanhildur Ósk arsdót tir Figure 6 Roof painting from Ål stave church (detail), now in the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, Norway. Photo: Nina Aldin Thune
independent of the original Maríu saga. The late mediaeval fascination with the Holy Family in Iceland also bore fruit in the Life of St. Anne – Saga heilagrar Önnu – a text translated from Low German in the 16th century.9 The PsM text, or texts, known in Iceland seem to have been without the additions characteristic of the Q and R branches of the tradition – there is no trace of the stories of Jesus’s boyhood from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. It is noteworthy that in AM 764 quarto the apocryphal material is placed in a context of universal history, cataloguing the history of mankind from
9
Edited by Kirsten Wolf (2001).
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the Creation to Judgement day; such context is very common for the late mediaeval transmission of this material in Europe. Maríu saga’s provenance is primarily associated with Iceland, but there are manuscripts of the saga and miracles with a Norwegian mediaeval provenance, such as Oslo, Riksarkivet, NRA 78, and NRA 79, dated to c. 1250–1300 and c. 1350 respectively. None of the vernacular manuscripts preserved indicate that the stories about Jesus’s childhood were known in Norway, but they are referred to elsewhere, for instance in the roof painting from the choir of Ål stave church.10 The roof shows various biblical scenes from the Creation until the Resurrection. In a picture illustrating the Flight to Egypt, Mary is shown sitting on an ass, holding Jesus in her arms. Joseph walks in front and leads the ass. He is looking back, not at Mary and Jesus but, rather, at the tree they are passing, which bends its branches towards Mary and the child. This most likely is a reference to the rest under the palm tree, which is recounted in Chapter 20 of PsM (see Figure 6).
Jesu Barndoms Bog The age-old stories about the Holy Family, including the narratives about Jesus’s childhood, took yet another form in the year 1508 when a small book appeared in Danish with the title Hær begynnes aff Joachim oc / aff sancta Anna oc aff hwat slæct / the ære fødh oc aff theris leffnet / Oc saa aff Jomfrw marie leffnet / oc aff wors herre ihesu barndom (‘Here begins [the story] about Joachim and Sta. Anna and about which family they are born from and about their life. And then about the Virgin Mary’s life and about our Lord Jesus’ childhood’). The story, which was printed by the Dutch printer Gottfred af Ghemen in Copenhagen, was perpetuated in this new guise for 400 years in Denmark and Norway, in manuscript as well as in print. It was edited in volume 1 of Danske folkebøger fra 16. og 17 århundrede (DFb) in 1915 under the title Jesu Barndoms Bog (JBB), which is the title we will use here for the sake of convenience.11
10 The stave church was deconstructed in 1880, and the roof was later reconstructed at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. 11 In the following, references to Jesu Barndoms Bog (JBB) are to the text in the 1508 edition, unless otherwise specified. A reference to Hær begynnes is a reference to the actual 1508 print. It has no page numbering, and references to this artefact are given by quire in the Copenhagen Royal Library ex. 1: (10 quires A–Ki) and folio. The text is reprinted, albeit with some corrections, in DFb 1:29-105, and the pages in this reprint do not correspond to the 1508 print. The Royal
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Jesu Barndoms Bog corresponds in its contents largely to what is told in the expanded versions of PsM (Q and R versions), and PsM is indeed one of its sources but not the only one. The text is based on PsM (chaps. 1-11) in the first part, up until Jesus is born, but the part that concerns the Nativity, the miracles that happened then, and the adoration of the Magi relies mainly on the canonical books of the Bible, as well as the Legenda aurea and the poem Marienleben by the Carthusian brother Philipp of Seitz in Steiermark. The last part, from the Flight to Egypt and onwards, draws its material mainly from Marienleben.12 In addition to the stories that derive from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, this last part includes a physical description of Jesus, which goes back to another well-known apocryphal text usually referred to as the Letter of Lentulus (Elliott 1993: 542-43) and to a conversation between Mary and her son, which can be seen as a short piece of catechism, outlining Christ’s position within the Trinity and the essence of the Salvation. The Marienleben was composed in the early 14th century, most likely before 1316 (Gärtner 1984: 201). It relates the story of the Virgin, beginning with her parents and ending with her assumption and coronation in Heaven. Philip’s main source was a Latin poem on the same subject, Vita Beate Virginis Marie et Salvatoris rhytmica from c. 1230, and he uses it quite freely.13 He rearranges the material in order to create a comprehensive history with a clear narrative strand. This makes Philip’s poem stand out from other contemporary poems about the Virgin Mary: his emphasis is on writing a biblical history, not an ordinary saint’s life. This narrative method made the poem ideal to combine with universal histories, and indeed, a large number of the surviving manuscripts that contain Marienleben preserve the poem as part of the Weltchronik of Heinrich von München (c. 1370–1380). That mode of transmission gave the Marienleben an exceptionally wide diffusion and impact. The poem itself is preserved in more than 100 manuscripts, but it was also turned into prose versions that are preserved in approximately 50 manuscripts and eight early prints (Gärtner 1984: 202-03). The parts of Jesu barndomsbog that are based on Marienleben follow the German poem quite closely, and it seems inevitable that the Danish text was translated from German. Whether it was translated directly from a German Library in Copenhagen has made digital reproductions of both their 1508 exemplars, available online through ProQuest. 12 Cf. verses 2760-5389; see Marienleben, 75-146; DFb 1:xxxi-xxxiv. 13 The Vita has several sources: PsM, the Gospel of Nicodemus, as well as Transitus Mariae and Comestor’s Historia Scholastica; see Gärtner 1984: 202.
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prose text corresponding to the Danish translation, or whether the translator was himself responsible for compiling the text from Marienleben, PsM, and other sources, is difficult to determine, and the editors of DFb refrain from doing so.14 They point out, however, that the manuscript used for the printing may have been somewhat older than 1508 (DFb 1:xxxvi-xxxvii). In his introduction to JBB, J.P. Jacobsen credits the author/translator with adding what he calls a personal touch to the story and also for omitting repetitions and including more sensitivity and a human focus. He argues that although Philip’s Marienleben is ‘warm and vivid’ compared to its sources, the Hær begynnes contains an even better composed text (DFb 1, xxxiv-xxxv). An example of this personal touch, according to Jacobsen, is that the Danish text specifically mentions that Joseph and Mary bring bottles for the Flight to Egypt, so they have something in which to carry water. These bottles are mentioned again in the scene by the palm tree, when the couple refill their bottles from the well that has sprung forth (Hær begynnes q.C, f.7v-8r/DFb 1:55-56). The bottles are not mentioned in Marienleben (Marienleben, 75-76). Another example cited by Jacobsen is the reason the Danish text gives for Joseph’s inability to get to the fruit in the tree: the tree is very tall, while Joseph is very old, and neither he, nor the young boy he has brought with them to look after the animals, dare climb up.15 In Marienleben no reason is given for why he cannot give her the fruit, and PsM merely has Joseph pointing out that the tree was very tall. The 1508 print Hær begynnes became the basis for all later printed versions in Denmark and Norway, and it also spawned manuscript copies. The reprints, however, were not immediate – in fact, the book was not reprinted until much later. The editors of DFb sought the reason for this in the Reformation and the fact that Luther and other prominent church leaders took a dim view of the material, not least the miracles attributed to the child Jesus (DFb 13:210. 1:xxvi n. 2). Granted, not all mediaeval religious literature was banished from the post-Reformation religious experience. In Iceland, for instance, beloved Catholic works of poetry, such as Lilja by Brother Eysteinn, were adapted to the new doctrine (in part by downplaying the role of the Virgin) and printed under the auspices of the Reformed Church (Vísnabók Guðbrands, xvi). In chapbook stories such as the Octavianus and Fortunatus, Catholic elements were edited out as part of the translation process from German to Danish. The story in JBB, however, with its focus 14 P.O. Bäckström reckons that the Danish is translated from German prose text(s); see Svenska folkböcker 2:160. 15 Hær begynnes, q.C, f.8r/DFb 1:56. Cf. Marienleben, 75-76; and Libri de Nativitate Mariae 1:461.
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on Mary and use of apocrypha, made such editing difficult. The story was nevertheless carried forward, through the Reformation, between manuscript and printed versions and between languages, and the text continued to evolve in the course of the transmission. The story became popular within the Danish realm in post-Reformation times, but its distribution followed different routes in different parts of the kingdom.
The dissemination of the 1508 print in Denmark and Norway The way JBB was disseminated in Denmark-Norway on the one hand and in Iceland on the other is closely linked to the respective linguistic situation in these countries in the 16th century and later, to the introduction of the printing press, and to the absolute monarchy of the Danish king. Around 1500 the languages on mainland Scandinavia had undergone changes that had created distinct differences between the three spoken languages as well as the written languages. Most varieties within mainland Scandinavia were mutually intelligible, however, whereas Icelandic presented a different case. Icelandic had changed less from the mediaeval versions, compared to the mainland languages. Icelanders could, generally speaking, still use the mediaeval Old Norse literature but could not easily read Danish without learning it, whereas Norwegians mastered Danish more easily, if not effortlessly. The linguistic influence on Norwegian from Danish became stronger as the Kalmar union ended, and the Reformation added to this. As a result, Norwegian as a written language gradually disappeared from about 1500 onwards, with the exception of some written documents of a more personal kind and more or less sporadic records of curious and rustic words collected by educated ‘antiquarians’.16 The first complete Danish Bible was printed in 1550, and its later redactions and translations became important texts of reference for a written Danish norm, as was the case with Bible translations elsewhere.17 Most Norwegians who had received formal education were trained in Denmark, and the administrative language was Danish. The Bible – and other similarly important texts – were read in Danish in Norway and contributed to the eradication of Norwegian as a written language. 16 There is, for example, Jacob Rasch’s translation of the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans into a southwestern Norwegian dialect (‘jærmål’) in 1698; see Venås (ed.) 1990: 420. Norwegian as a spoken language lived on in all its dialectal varieties. 17 The 1550 Bible was the first complete Bible printed in Danish. There are even earlier translations of parts of the Bible into Danish.
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It was only in the latter half of the 19th century that translations of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Norwegian (Nynorsk and Bokmål) were systematically begun. From 1562 the Danish king instigated censorship in the form of a monopoly for printers in Copenhagen to print books in Danish, unless the books were approved by the University. The objective of this censorship was to prevent people from being influenced by immoral thoughts and to secure the orthodoxy of the realm. It affected mainly those people who could not read languages other than Danish. Those who read Latin, German, or English had freer access to printed texts (Dahl 2011: 3, 23ff.). Another factor that strengthened the position of Danish in Norway is that there was no printing press in operation in Norway until 1643, by which time Norwegian had already lost out to Danish as a written language. In contrast, the first printing press in Iceland had already arrived around 1530, and in 1584 the complete Bible was printed in Icelandic. Thus, when the ability to read and write began to spread more systematically by the regulation of common schooling of all children in 1739, (ideally) every Norwegian learned to read Danish, whereas in Iceland children learned to read Icelandic. Danish thus became a written language common for all Norwegians, and it seems that it was not perceived as a foreign language until the National Romantic ideas about Volksgeist and the need for each Volk to express itself in its own language emerged in the 19th century. The dissemination of Hær begynnes must be seen in relation to these linguistic and administrative factors – and also in relation to the story being printed as what is now referred to as a chapbook. Chapbooks constituted a significant part of the available reading material in the post-Reformation period. Scandinavian chapbooks mainly stem from the German chapbook tradition that flourished in the 15th and the 16th centuries. There is no good definition of chapbook ( folkebog); it can be defined by contents, by being an early print, by being a later and cheap print, by being translated from German, etc. The Danish term folkebog was introduced in the 19th century, and then in a Romantic sense that reveals that they were seen as texts that transmitted ideas and culture from common people, that is the Volksgeist; cf. folkediktning (‘popular poetry/tales’). The earliest Danish chapbooks were produced around 1500 – making JBB among the first to be published. In the first phase, the reading public for this literature was upper-class people. The rather bad reputation that clings to these stories today mainly stems from the 18th and 19th centuries when less wealthy people also had become literary consumers and these stories were popular and made available in cheap prints.
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It is difficult, if not impossible, to estimate how many copies were printed of Hær begynnes. Very few exemplars have survived: only three are known, one of which is defective. The Royal Library in Copenhagen has two exemplars (shelf-mark LN 21 octavo, ex. 1 and ex. 2), and the National Library in Oslo has one defective exemplar (D Pal 5). The Copenhagen exemplar 1 and the Oslo exemplar both came to the Royal Library from Otto Thott’s library in 1795 at the latest. Copenhagen exemplar 2 probably was part of King Frederik III’s royal library established after 1648. No earlier provenance is known. The Oslo exemplar was likely a gift from the Royal Library in Copenhagen in connection with the establishment of a University Library in Norway in the early 19th century.18 Unlike other chapbooks from the 16th and 17th centuries, JBB does not seem to have been reprinted for more than 200 years after the initial printing in 1508. The oldest printed 18th-century exemplar is probably the defective copy, now in Dansk folkemindesamling (‘The Danish folklore collection’), Royal Library, Copenhagen, which lacks its title page. Based on its typography, the editors of DFb judge it to be a print from the second quarter of the 18th century (DFb 13:139). Not even in contemporary auction catalogues or bibliographies are there traces of JBB between 1508 and c. 1750, even though these sources have revealed the existence of other chapbooks otherwise unknown. This is an unusual situation for chapbooks (DFb 13:210-11). Furthermore, there is no evidence for JBB at all in Norway until the middle of the 18th century. If any copy of the Hær begynnes or a manuscript copy thereof did find its way to Norway, it has, to our knowledge, not survived.19 In Denmark, however, a number of manuscript copies of the Hær begynnes survive. The editors of DFb count nine manuscripts from the 16th century to the 18th, and the existence of a few more are presupposed based on references and textual relationships. This manuscript dissemination is also something that sets the JBB apart from other chapbook texts (DFb 13:211-18). Some owners and scribes of these manuscripts are known. One was written in 1584 by Christen Jenssen Ugle and later owned by Bishop Peder Hersleb (who died in 1757; he was also Bishop in Akershus in Norway for a period). Another manuscript was written and owned by Anne Gøe (1609–1681), who 18 Personal communication. Anders Toftgaard, Copenhagen, Royal Library. 19 However, since this text is in Danish and of a kind that would generally not entice Norwegian scholars or collectors in the 20th century to search through archives, it is possible, though perhaps not very likely, that there may be unregistered copies or manuscript copies of the 1508 print from the period in question, hidden somewhere in a Norwegian collection or private home.
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owned a considerable book collection. The lack of reprints and the existence of manuscript copies suggest that JBB was not considered appropriate by the authorities in a newly reformed culture and was therefore not printed. Nonetheless, the manuscript culture, which was less controlled and censored, yields evidence that the story was still desired among the reading public in the Lutheran 16th and 17th centuries.
Later editions of Jesu Barndoms Bog As the 18th century wore on, chapbooks received a wider reading audience, demographically speaking. More people were able to read, and reading was recommended as a pious and rationalistic activity – at least as long as what you read was appropriate.20 When JBB re-emerges in print in the latter half of the 18th century – now by several printers – the possible Catholic influences in the story were no longer considered improper. The previous two centuries had been a period of orthodoxy within the Danish-Norwegian Lutheran church, but as the pious influences became stronger in Scandinavia and the focus was more on praxis pietatis and less on orthodox dogma, texts that treated – however indirectly – controversial topics such as the nature of Christ became less problematic. JBB, for example, repeatedly underlines the human nature of Christ, as well as his godly nature: he is cold and hungry; he gets angry and sad; he plays with other children; while at the same time he has knowledge no man can have and can kill and resurrect by his words alone. The second half of the 18th century is also the period when general literacy spread in Denmark and Norway as a result of common schooling. The increase in prints of JBB also matches an increase in low-price prints generally and can be seen as a response to a growing market for books when more people are able to read. That said, the reintroduction of JBB must also be seen in light of its contents. It is a story about Christ, which should vouch for the book being good reading. It is also a story about a child, and more children than ever knew how to read. The story is even about a child who was obedient to his earthly parents, as is stated several times in the text, even though he himself is God. Judging by some of the advertisements found in 20 The 1726 prohibition in Denmark-Norway on distributing forfængelige Viser og Legender (‘vain songs/ballads and legends’) was aimed at the North – mainly the regions between Finnmark and Trondheim – because the authorities feared that the faith of the then newly converted Saami population could be harmed if they were exposed to the contents of these printed fabrications.
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Norwegian newspapers from the late 18th century onwards, the story was seen as an edifying and devotional text and a text for beginners, perhaps even children.21 In the Nordske Intelligenz-Sedler, no. 9, 26 February 1777, the bookseller A. Diurendahl advertises for sale Jesu Christi Barndoms Bog, tilligemed en liden historisk […], Christian VI’s Bible, several postils and sermons, moral texts, and some entertaining texts. In Trondhiems Kongelige allene privilegerede Adresse-Contoirs Ugentlig Udgivende Efterretninger, no. 8, 1781, JBB is advertised alongside a newspaper for children and a geology book for beginners. On 12 February 1823 the bookseller Hartmann advertises four titles in Morgenbladet, all with a Christian content; JBB is one of them, and two of the others are guides to the teaching of religion. And in Morgenbladet 11 October 1842, Guldberg & Dzwonkowski advertises several titles related to Christian faith, one of which is JBB, under the heading Andagtsbøger for Menigmand (‘Devotional books for the common man’). The numerous printed editions of JBB attest to its popularity. There are more than 30 different editions, printed in several places in both Denmark and Norway (DFb 1:241-52; 13:139-43). In addition, JBB is found in lists of books owned by common people in Norway in the early 19th century, and it is claimed that JBB was in nearly every home in Denmark in the early 20th century (Fet 1995: 324; DFb 1:xl). The reprinted text is generally the same as the Hær begynnes, but with some changes. One change that all reprints have in common is that they lack the original ending. It is clear that the two last leaves were missing of the copy of Hær begynnes that was used. The later printed editions all end with a ‘new’ sentence that has been added where the Hær begynnes text ends – the last line of q.I, f. 6v reads: Jhesus swarede. ieg oc min fader wi (‘Jesus answered: I and my father we’). The two last leaves of Hær begynnes continue the conversation between Mary and Jesus. But all the later editions finish the broken off sentence by: ville være hos eder fra Evighed og til evig Tiid Amen. ENDE (‘will be with You for ever and ever. Amen. The end’) (Vor Herres og Frelsers, 62). This ending is found in a manuscript copy (Copenhagen, Det kongelike bibliotek, Thott 9 octavo) and in the transcripts of this one, probably to mend the abrupt ending that came from a defective printed exemplar (See DFb 13:211-14). This suggests that practically all later printed editions of the JBB depend on a manuscript copy, at least for the ending, and also that very few copies of the Hær begynnes have been available since its original printing. 21 Reidar Aasgaard suggests that even the Infancy Gospel of Thomas could also have served a young audience; see Aasgaard 2009: 192ff.
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Another change that is quite explicit is that the title is changed from Hær begynnes aff Joachim oc aff sancta Anna oc aff hwat slæct the ære fødh oc aff theris leffnet Oc saa aff Jomfrw marie leffnet oc aff wors herre ihesu barndom (‘Here begins (the story) about Joachim and saint Anna and about what lineage they are born and about their lives, and then about the Virgin Mary’s life and about Our Lord Jesus’ childhood’) in 1508 to Vor Herres og Frelsers Jesu Christi Barndoms Bog, tilligemed een liden Historisk Beskrivelse om Joachim og Anna, af hvad Slægt de ere fødde, item om deres Daatter Jomfrue Maria, hendes Barndom og Levnet (‘The book about Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s childhood in addition to a small historical account of Joachim and Anna, of what lineage they are born, also about their daughter the Virgin Mary, her childhood and life’) in 1761 (Oslo University Library exemplar) and most of all the later editions have a similar title. Two editions from 1760 with an unknown printing place, now in Copenhagen Royal Library, have the same title as Hær begynnes, but with the addition En liden Historisk Beskrivelse om at the beginning. Some variation is also found in later versions of the title.22 This change of the order in which the persons are introduced in the title is also a change of focus, according to which the later versions put more emphasis on Christ and less on the other persons than the first version does. The text itself has also been modified, and examples can be found in the part telling about the Flight into Egypt. The young boy who was with them in Hær begynnes is not there in 1761; the bottles are mentioned but only when they are refilled (Vor Herres og Frelsers, 24-25). The whole order of the events in the scene by the tree where they get fruit and water is shuffled in 1761, and the tree has become two trees. They rest by the first tree and realize there is no water, then Mary sits down, tog Barnet i sit Skiød, og stak med sin finger paa Jorden, da sprang der en Kilde op (‘put the child in her lap and pricked with her finger on the ground, then a well sprang up’). The Danish text is ambiguous, since sin could refer to either Mary or the child Jesus, but the structure of the sentence indicates that it is Mary who sticks her finger in the ground and causes the miracle. They fill their bottles and move on. Then they see another tree with fruit, and now the miracle with the tree bending down takes place, but in this version Jesus does not command the tree or talk to it; he allows the tree to bend down and then it rises again seemingly by itself.
22 See DFb 1:241-52 and 13:139-43 for a list of exemplars and their titles.
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The reception of JBB in Iceland The story of Jesus’s childhood was no less popular in post-Reformation Iceland, it seems, than it was in Denmark or Norway, although the manner of its dissemination was vastly different. From the introduction of the printing press in Iceland in the 16th century until 1773, only one press was operating. It was stationed at the episcopal seats, first at Hólar in the north, then at Skálholt in the south, then back at Hólar. The bishops controlled its output, which was essentially material judged to strengthen piety in the homes: hymnbooks, graduals, meditations, and postils for Sunday readings. This meant that demand for other kinds of reading material was to a great extent met by the production of manuscript copies. Texts that in Germany or Denmark would be printed in chapbooks were in Iceland disseminated by copying them out by hand. These included popular romantic stories such as that of Griseldis or the beautiful Magelone, as well as texts based on pseudo-historical or apocryphal material, including Jesu Barndoms Bog (Seelow 1989: 237-50; cf. 51-54). These were translated from German and, increasingly, Danish, and the Icelandic versions often appeared surprisingly rapidly (Overgaard 1991: 207). Thus far, thirteen manuscripts containing an Icelandic version of JBB have been detected, but more may still come to light. Six of these manuscripts are now preserved outside Iceland: in Copenhagen (AM 695 d quarto, AM 83 octavo), Trondheim (DKNVSB 41 octavo), Edinburgh (Adv. MS. 21.8.9.), Cambridge (British and Foreign Bible Society MS 253), and Oxford (MS Boreal. 90). The work bears various titles in the manuscripts and will, for the sake of convenience, be referred to here as Barndómssaga Kristí (BsK). Three of the manuscripts are from the 17th century, five from the 18th, and five from the 19th century, the youngest ones copied around the middle of that century. Of the three 17th-century manuscripts, only the Trondheim one can be dated with certainty; it was written at a farm in the Snæfellsnes peninsula in the west of Iceland in 1671 (Jón Helgason 1975: 345). The other two, both in the Arnamagnæan collection, might be of similar age.23 This means that the text was definitely known in Iceland at least from around the middle of the 17th century, possibly earlier. BsK has never been edited, and it is therefore not clear whether the manuscripts represent more than one translation of the Danish text, as
23 AM 83 octavo had been owned by lawman Sigurður Björnsson (1643–1723) before Árni Magnússon acquired it; AM 695 d quarto may be in the hand of Markús Snæbjörnsson (1619–1697).
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was often the case with this kind of material.24 It is also uncertain whether they all go back to the initial 1508 edition. The 17th-century manuscripts would be expected to do so, since no reprint is known to exist before the middle of the 18th century. Indeed, two of the three oldest manuscripts preserve the part that is missing in subsequent reprints (cf. above), but in the Trondheim manuscript the text has been shortened, omitting the missing part and more besides. Although we have not yet had the opportunity to collate the text of the manuscripts systematically, preliminary research has revealed differences in the treatment of the story. One of the more interesting discrepancies concerns the scene under the fruit tree. In three relatively late manuscripts, Lbs 3013 octavo (Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn), JS 251 quarto (Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn) and JS 432 octavo (Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn) (which all include the ‘missing part’ and therefore must descend from the 1508 edition), we find that, whereas in the earlier 17th century manuscripts the miracle is faithfully described as happening through the Christ Child’s intervention, here the child is not mentioned at all in connection with the event. The text instead simply describes how the tree bends down towards Mary, so that she may reach the fruit (Lbs 3103 octavo, fol. 9v). This is reminiscent of the ambiguity in the 1761 reprint discussed above, where it is possible to interpret the text as inferring that Mary was responsible for the miracle with the water well. Such examples may indicate that, despite Lutheran doctrine, people were reluctant to give up their devotion to the Virgin Mary. In the case of the Icelandic manuscripts of the BsK, this argument is strengthened by the context in which we find the text in the manuscript Lbs 3013 octavo, where it is followed by a Marian office (Maríutíðir), probably late mediaeval, and a younger poem entitled Maríudilla, which is a lullaby spoken by the Virgin. The older manuscripts place the BsK in the context of the Passion and retribution brought upon the Jews on account of the crucifixion: in five manuscripts the text of the BsK is followed by a text describing the fifteen stations of the Passion and then a text on the twelve tribes of Israel and the plagues they endured.25 24 Cf. Mariane Overgaard’s research (1991) into the transmission of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. 25 The manuscripts are AM 83 octavo, AM 695 d quarto, Lbs 714 octavo, Lbs 4270 quarto, and BFBS MS. 253, all from the 17th and 18th centuries. In DKNVSB 41 octavo, BsK is followed by the beginning of the text on the 15 stations, but, due to a lacuna, it is not possible to know whether the text on the twelve plagues would have followed. See Jón Helgason 1975: 346.
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Prose translation was not the only medium for the story of the infant Jesus in Iceland. The priest and poet Guðmundur Erlendsson (c. 1595–1670) composed a set of 10 rímur, rhymed epic poems, based on JBB and dedicated them to a fellow parson, Böðvar Gíslason, who died in 1676. The rímur were probably composed at some point in the 1660s. They remain unedited – like the prose version – but, judging from the number of manuscripts extant, they were hugely popular in the 18th and the 19th centuries. At least 46 manuscripts of the rímur have been preserved, the oldest one from 1722.26 According to Katelin M. Parsons, this makes them ‘not only the most popular and widely distributed of Guðmundur’s rímur but also, arguably, the most popular set of rímur where the subject matter is sacred rather than profane’.27 This is significant in the light of literary politics in early modern Iceland. As was mentioned earlier, the Church had a monopoly on printing before the first secular press was established in 1773. The bishops therefore controlled the output and used the press to support their educational programme. One of the most influential bishops in this respect was Guðbrandur Þorláksson, who was Bishop of Hólar from 1571 until his death in 1627. Not only did he oversee the translation and printing of the entire Bible in Icelandic but he also published a hymnbook in 1589, a Gradual in 1594, and finally, in 1612, a collection of edifying poetry, Ein ný vísnabók (‘A New Book of Verse’), which was designed to counterbalance the wealth of secular, ‘immoral’ literature such as love poetry and romances that circulated in the country both in prose versions and in the form of rímur.28 Rímur had become a most popular medium, no doubt because of their performative aspect – they were chanted and therefore lent themselves well to performance to a group of people. In order to combat the hold that secular literature had on the minds of his flock, Guðbrandur commissioned well-known poets to compose rímur based on biblical stories – thus taking the popular medium into the service of the Church. The biblical rímur that were printed in Ein ný vísnabók do not seem to have been very popular, so the success of Guðmundur Erlendsson’s version of JBB, Rímur af barndóminum Kristí, is all the more remarkable – or perhaps not, given the enduring popularity of the subject matter over the centuries. The final chapter in the reception of JBB in Iceland came when the story at last appeared in print. The Danish text was translated afresh by Magnús 26 Cf. Finnur Sigmundsson 1966: 65, which lists 40 manuscripts; six more are found in the catalogues of Landsbókasafn Íslands. Finnur also mentions a fragment from a different set of rímur that seem to treat the same subject matter. 27 Katelin M. Parsons, personal communication. Parsons is working on a study of one of Guðmundur Erlendsson’s poems, Einvaldsóður. 28 See Guðbrandur’s preface, Ein Ny Wiisna Bok, 2.
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Grímsson and published in Reykjavík in 1854. The end of the text reveals that this translation is based on one of the later reprints. Magnús’s translation was reprinted twice, in 1903 and 1924. The text thus seems to have had enduring appeal among Icelanders well into the 20th century.
Concluding remarks This brief study of the reception of apocryphal narratives concerning the Holy Family has shown how they were first brought to Scandinavia in the 13th century – or earlier – through popular Latin works that were subsequently translated, excerpted, and adapted to various uses (e.g., in hagiography and in universal history). On the eve of the Reformation, another reworking takes place in Denmark, this time based on a Late Mediaeval German poetry version that had circulated as a part of a universal chronicle. After the initial printing of the new Danish version in 1508, the text seems to be suppressed, possibly because it was perceived as too Catholic by the church authorities in the wake of the Reformation. Presumably due to its popular appeal, it circulated in handwritten copies before re-emerging in print in Denmark in the latter half of the 18th century, and from then on it was widely disseminated in Denmark as well as in Norway. The modification of the title in subsequent editions reveals how the emphasis shifts from the Virgin Mary and her childhood to that of Christ – possibly in order to tone down the more Catholic aspects of the text. Nevertheless, some of the changes that are made to the text in manuscripts and printed editions may reveal a tendency to enhance the role of the Virgin. Although the scarcity of sources, particularly from the earlier period, on the reception of this material in Scandinavia does not allow us to draw wide-ranging conclusions about its uses, it would seem that while in preReformation times these texts were primarily owned and used by clerics and cloistered people, the post-Reformation reception is characterized by their popularity among lay people who would not necessarily be bothered about doctrinal issues. It is conceivable that this was the reason that the Church authorities might have wanted to hinder the dissemination of JBB. When the text began to be printed again, it was indisputably ‘convenient’ that the text from the two last leaves of the Hær begynnes had gone missing, for the text thenceforth lacked Jesus’s promise that he would come for Mary when she died and make her the Queen of Heaven alongside the Holy Trinity. Jesu Barndoms Bog and its predecessors is a good example of how popular material ‘survived’ the Reformation and how literature concerning some key characters of the Scriptures was adapted to suit new times, new generations, and new audiences.
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Bibliography Primary sources Manuscripts
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, BFBS MS. 253. Copenhagen, Den arnamagnæanske samling, AM 695 d 4to. Copenhagen, Den arnamagnæanske samling, AM 76 8vo. Copenhagen, Den arnamagnæanske samling, AM 83 8vo. Copenhagen, Det kongelige bibliotek, Thott 9 8vo. Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Adv. MS. 21.8.9. Lund, Universitetsbiblioteket, Medeltidshandskrift 30. Oslo, Riksarkivet, NRA 78. Oslo, Riksarkivet, NRA 79. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Boreal. 90. Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn, JS 251 4to. Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn, JS 432 8vo. Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn, Lbs 714 4to. Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn, Lbs 4270 4to. Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn, Lbs 3013 8vo. Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, Dan. fol. K4. Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, Isl. perg 4: 0 nr. 1. Trondheim, NTNU Universitetsbiblioteket, DKNVSB 41 8vo. Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 76. Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 225. Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, C 370.
Printed and edited sources
A Danish Teacher’s Manual of the Mid-Fifteenth Century (Cod. AM 76, 8). 1993–2008. Ed. by Sigurd Kroon et al. 2 vols. Skrifter utgivna af Vetenskapssocieten i Lund 85 and 96. Lund: Kungl. Vitterhets-, historie- och antikvitetsakademien. De Hellige Kvinder, en Legende-Samling. 1859. Ed. by Carl Joakim Brandt. Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie. DFb = Danske folkebøger fra 16. og 17 århundrede. 1915–1936. Ed. by Jacob Peter Jacobsen, Jørgen Olrik, and Richard Jacob Paulli. 14 vols. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske boghandel, Nordisk forlag. Ein Ny Wiisna Bok: Med mórgum andlegum Viisum og Kuædum Psalmum, Lof sønguum og Rijmum. teknum wr heilagre Ritningu. Almuga Folke til gagns og goda Prentud, og þeim ødrum sem slijkar Vijsur elska vilia, og jdka Gude Almattugum til Lofs og Dyrdar, enn sier og ødrum til Gagns og Skiemtunar. 1612. Hólar.
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En klosterbog fra middelalderens slutning [Am 76, 8°]. 1933. Ed. by Marius Kristensen. København: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur. Hær begynnes aff Joachim oc / aff sancta Anna oc aff hwat slæct / the ære fødh oc aff theris leffnet / Oc saa aff Jomfrw marie leffnet / oc aff wors herre ihesu barndom. 1508. Copenhagen: Gottfred af Ghemen. Libri de nativitate Mariae. 1997. Ed. by Jan Gijsel and Rita Beyers. 2 vols. Corpus Christianorum. Series Apocryphorum 9-10. Turnhout: Brepols. Marienleben. 1853. In Bruder Philipp der Carthäusers Marienleben, ed. by Dr. Heinrich Rückert. Bibliothek der Deutschen National-Literatur 24. Quedlinburg and Leipzig: Gottfr. Basse. Maríu saga. Legender om Jomfru Maria og hendes Jertegn. 1871. Ed. by Carl Richard Unger. 2 vols. Christiania: Brögger & Christie. Morgenbladet, 12 February 1823; 11 October 1842. Nordske Intelligenz-Sedler, no. 9, 26 February 1777. Saga heilagrar Önnu. 2001. Ed. by Kirsten Wolf. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi. Svenska folkböcker. Sagor, legender och äfventyr, efter äldre upplagor och andra källor utgifne från äldre till närvarande tid. 1848. Vol. 2. Ed. by Per Olof Bäckström. Stockholm: A. Bohlins förlag. Trondhiems Kongelige allene privilegerede Adresse-Contoirs Ugentlig Udgivende Efterretninger, no. 8. 1781. Vísnabók Guðbrands. 2000. Ed. by Jón Torfason, Kristján Eiríksson, and Einar Sigurbjörnsson. Reykjavík: Bókmenntafræðistofnun Háskóla Íslands. Vor Herres og Frelsers Jesu Christi Barndoms Bog, tilligemed een liden Historisk Beskrivelse om Joachim og Anna, af hvad Slægt de ere fødde, item om deres Daatter Jomfrue Maria, hendes Barndom og Levnet. 1761. (Unknown place of print.) Exemplar kept at Oslo University Library.
Secondary sources Aasgaard, Reidar. 2009. The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books. Andersson-Schmitt, Margaret, and Monica Hedlund. 1989. Mittelalterliche Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Uppsala: Katalog über die C- Sammlung. Vol. 2. C 51-200. Acta Bibliothecae R. Universitatis Upsaliensis; 26.2. Stockholm: Almqvist u. Wiksell International. Andersson-Schmitt, Margaret, and Monica Hedlund. 1990. Mittelalterliche Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Uppsala: Katalog über die C- Sammlung. Vol. 3. C 201-300. Acta Bibliothecae R. Universitatis Upsaliensis; 26.3 Stockholm: Almqvist u. Wiksell International.
172 Elise Kleivane and Svanhildur Ósk arsdót tir
Andersson-Schmitt, Margaret, and Monica Hedlund. 1991. Mittelalterliche Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Uppsala: Katalog über die C- Sammlung. Vol. 4. C 301-400. Acta Bibliothecae R. Universitatis Upsaliensis 26.4. Stockholm: Almqvist u. Wiksell International. Dahl, Gina. 2011. Books in Early Modern Norway. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Elliott, J. Keith (ed.). 1993. The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in English Translation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fet, Jostein. 1995. Lesande bønder. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Finnur Sigmundsson. 1966. Rímnatal. Reykjavík: Rímnafélagið. Graef, Hilda. 1985. Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion. 2nd edition. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Gärtner, Kurt. 1984. Philipps ‘Marienleben’ und die ‘Weltchronik’ Heinrichs von München. In Wolfram-Studien 8, ed. by W. Schröder, 199-218. Berlin: E. Schmidt. Heizman, Wilhelm. 1993. Maríu saga. In Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano and Kirsten Wolf, 407-08. New York: Garland. Jón Helgason. 1975. Gyðinga saga i Trondheim. Opuscula 5. Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana 31: 343-76. Overgaard, Mariane. 1991. De islandske oversættelser af De tolv patriarkers Jacobs sønners testamenter og af Josephs og Assenaths historie med en udgave af Joseph Testamente. Opuscula 9. Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana 39: 203-300. Seelow, Hubert. 1989. Die isländischen Übersetzungen der deutschen Volksbücher: Handschriftenstudien zur Rezeption und Überlieferung ausländischer unter haltender Literatur in Island in der Zeit zwischen Reformation und Aufklärung. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi. Venås, Kjell (ed.). 1990. Den fyrste morgonblånen. Tekster på norsk frå dansketida. Det norske språk og litteraturselskap. Oslo: Novus. Widding. 2000. Norrøne Marialegender på europæisk baggrund. Opuscula 10. Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana 40: 1-128.
About the authors Dr. Elise Kleivane is a researcher at the University of Oslo. Her research focuses on Old Norse philology. Dr. Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir is an Associate Research Professor at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies at the University of Iceland (Reykjavík). Her research interests include the Icelandic manuscript culture, universal history in the Old Norse-Icelandic context, and Bible translations.
7
Frühneuzeitliche Summarien Erbauliche, laienexegetische Bibelberichte als polemische Plattformen im beginnenden Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung – Ein Vergleich zwischen Stephan Rodts Übertragung der neutestamentlichen Summarien Johannes Bugenhagens mit denen Veit Dietrichs sowie Johann Dietenbergers Sebastian Seyferth Abstract This essay is concerned with the New Testament summaries compiled by the 16th-century Low German reformers such as Johannes Bugenhagen and Veit Dietrich. The summaries were précis-like texts, introducing readers to the books of the Bible and explaining the biblical texts. The essay examines the textual and other linguistic means by which the biblical texts are referred to in the summaries, and links are created between the texts. The focal questions are: How far did the New Testament summaries of the Reformation period serve purely as introductions to and synopses of the actual texts of the Bible?; to what extent did they deal with the ideas of Reformation?; and to what extent was the function of the summaries to explain and give theological interpretations of the texts? These questions are interesting, particularly against the background that, according to the principles of the Reformation, the Bible should be in the vernacular and presented in such a clear and easily understandable way that it could function alone as a guideline for life and religious belief, without the explanatory texts inherited from Catholic times. Keywords: Frühneuzeitliche Summarien, Konfessionalisierung
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch07
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Summarien gelten bislang von germanistischer Seite aus als nicht genügend untersucht. Diese Texte erscheinen entweder autonom oder flankieren die jeweilige Bibelausgabe. Zu unterscheiden ist hierbei einerseits die selbstreferentielle Nennung im Titel (bei Bugenhagen ‘Summarien’, bei Dietrich ‘Summaria’), anderseits die Nichttitulierung als beigegebener Abschnitt, z.B. vor oder hinter dem Bibelabschnitt, so geschehen innerhalb der deutschen vorreformatorischen Bibelübersetzung bei Koberger 1483. Folgende Fragen leiteten mich zum Untersuchungsgegenstand: Welche Textsorten führen neben den Flugschriften die ideologische Auseinandersetzung am beginnenden Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung? Fassen Summarien lediglich Inhaltliches zusammen, als bloße biblische Sammelberichte? Inwieweit wird hierbei reformatorisches Gedankengut, aber auch das der Altgläubigen transportiert? Inwiefern wird der biblische Stoff verknappt, gerafft und schließlich exegetisch bewertet und mit welchen sprachlichen Mitteln geschieht dies? Ich beschränke mich hierbei auf das Feld der Bibelauslegung und lasse den großen Komplex der Bibelübersetzung, aber auch den der fiktionalen Literatur, bspw. Flugschriften, respektive Reformationsdialoge (Hans Sachs, Erasmus Alber) aus. Hauptsächlich werden im Beitrag die Summarien (Neues Testament) des niederdeutschen Reformators Johannes Bugenhagen in der übersetzten Bearbeitung des Stephanus Rodt (1527) mit den Summarien des Veit Dietrich (1550) verglichen.1 Beide sind Luther vertraute Personen. Nicht allein ein textsorteninhärenter Vergleich innerhalb der Summarien scheint äußerst lohnenswert, sondern ebenso ist es sinnvoll, Interdependenzen zwischen Summarien und den Bibelbezügen herauszustellen. Herauszuarbeiten sind demzufolge lexikalische und pragmatische Charakteristika der Summarien, um die unterschiedlichen Funktionen dieser überaus aufschlussreichen Textsorte herauszustellen. Zudem werden kontrastiv die Annotaten des katholischen Gegenübers Johann Dietenberger (1567) mit einbezogen. Als biblische Texte sind Luthers Septembertestament sowie eine der vorreformatorischen Bibelübersetzungen gewählt worden, nämlich die 9., illustrativ reich geschmückte Koberger-Bibel von 1483. Ziel meines Beitrages ist es, zu klären, wie Summarien lexikalisch-semantisch mit dem jeweiligen Bibeltext korrespondieren und inwieweit dessen Inhalt argumentativ und polemisch nacherzählt wird bzw. damalige theologische Debatten reflektiert werden.
1 Alle drei Theologen waren jünger als Martin Luther (1483–1546): Bugenhagen (1485–1558), Roth (1492–1546), Dietrich (1506–1549).
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Bibelübersetzung im späten Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit ist untrennbar mit der Bibelauslegung verbunden.2 Dass dieser Umstand eine bis ins Urchristentum und ins hohe Mittelalter zurückreichende Traditionsspur legt, muss nicht gesondert hervorgehoben werden. Man denke etwa an den vierfachen Schriftsinn, die Glossa Ordinaria, oder andere exegetische Kommentare als Scholien innerhalb frühneuzeitlicher Vulgata-Ausgaben. Wer die Bibel übersetzte, dem war ebenso an ihrer Deutung gelegen. Für das 16. Jahrhundert kommt aber eine entscheidende Neuerung hinzu. Die Bibel avanciert gerade mit Luther zu einem breitenwirksamen, missionierenden, und religiös pädagogisch-erbaulichen Volks- und Lesebuch und wird gleichsam zum Streitpunkt innerhalb der interkonfessionellen Auseinandersetzung. Bevor ich zu den Texten komme, ein paar kurze Hintergrundinformationen zu den Produzenten. Bugenhagen oder Pomeranus gilt als der niederdeutsche Reformator. 1523 wurde er Pfarrer an der Stadtkirche in Wittenberg, war aber ebenso Lehrer an der Universität Wittenberg. Neben seiner Übersetzungsleistung3 ins Niederdeutsche 1533/34 verfasste er Kirchenordnungen sowie andere wirkmächtige Texte. Stephan Roth fungierte als Stadtschreiber und Ratsherr von Zwickau und leitete 1517 die dortige Ratsschule. Er studierte ab 1523 Theologie in Wittenberg und popularisierte im Laufe seines Lebens reformatorisches Gedankengut, indem er u.a. Luthers Predigtmitschriften herausgab. Veit Dietrich gilt als Luthers Intimus; protestantisch gesprochen, war er dessen Hausgenosse. Nach der Wittenberger Zeit ging er nach Nürnberg, wo er das Predigtamt an der Sebalduskirche innehatte. Herausgegeben hat er u.a. Luthers Hauspostille. Dietrich wirkte als Prediger sowie als Flugschriftenautor, verfasste ferner zahlreiche erbauliche Schriften. Auf der religiös anderen Seite stand der für seine polemischen Schriften bekannte Dominikaner Dietenberger, dessen Hauptverdienst im Abfassen einer der drei katholischen Gegenbibeln gelegen haben mochte. Nähert man sich der zu untersuchenden Textsorte begriffsgeschichtlich, so hält das Grimmsche Wörterbuch zum Lexem ‘Summarium’ folgendes bereit:4 ‘Summarium’, “n., älter summari, summarie, n., f., aus lat. summarium entlehnt. plural summarien. die lat. form ist im 19. jh. neu entlehnt’. Das 2 Ich erinnere an dieser Stelle an die Publikationen Heimo Reinitzers, besonders diejenigen zur Lutherbibel. Speziell zu Summarien vgl. Reinitzer 1983: 259 ff. 3 Zur Übersetzung und Textgeschichte der Bugenhagenbibel vgl. Schröder 1991. 4 http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/? sigle=DWB&mode=Vernetzung&hitlist=&patternlist= &lemid=GS56518#XGS56518, [2.9.2015] (Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm. 16 Bde. in 32 Teilbänden. Leipzig 1854–1961. Quellenverzeichnis Leipzig 1971.).
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Hauptsemem ist wie folgt beschrieben: ‘zusammenstellung der hauptpunkte, kurzgefaszte inhaltsangabe’. Ein Blick in die jüngere germanistische Forschungshistorie zeigt, wie Vorbeck-Heyn (2010) neben Anordnungsprinzipien unterschiedliche syntaktische Strukturen und inhaltliche Bezüge zwischen Summarien und den Kapiteln innerhalb der Evangelientexte der Drucküberlieferung des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts untersucht. Dies geschieht jedoch auf recht formale Weise (Vorbeck-Heyn 2010: 799-827). Evangelien als Obertextsorte verortet die Autorin unter der Textsorte ‘(Geoffenbarter) Bericht’. ‘Die Summarien in den Evangelien stellen ein spezifisches Textgliederungsprinzip dar, das in der deutschsprachigen Bibeltradition mit funktionell verschiedenen Textgliederungsprinzipen kombiniert werden kann’ (Vorbeck-Heyn 2010: 799-800). Allgemeiner formuliert versteht Wulf (1991: 385) unter ‘Summarien’ ‘texterschließende Beigaben’ in mittelalterlichen deutschen Bibeln, die den jeweiligen Inhalt zusammenfassen. Diese recht eng und allgemein gefasste Definition des Begriffes für das Spätmittelalter sowie für die Frühe Neuzeit gilt es zu erweitern, dergestalt, dass nicht allein texterschließende, inhaltsbezogene Erläuterungen gemeint sind, sondern ebenso exegetische sowie (polemisch)-sakral-ideologische. In das Zentrum meiner Überlegungen möchte ich eine Summariensynopse stellen, die den variierenden Textcharakter, respektive die unterschiedlichen Textfunktionen auf Grund der linguistischen Marker bestimmen soll. Methodisch wähle ich somit einen primär sprachfunktionalen, phänomenorientierten Zugang, anstatt eines rein linguistischen, der die grammatischen Cluster exemplifiziert. Dergestalt wird sich heuristisch zeigen, inwieweit diese Texte erklären, interpretieren oder festlegen, aber auch unterweisen, anleiten, oder bestärken. Gewählt wurde dazu eine markante, bildhafte Passage aus dem Evangelium nach Johannes, Kapitel 15, den Abschiedsreden Jesu vor seinen Jüngern, da dieser zu den vier kanonischen Evangelien gehörende Text zentral war und ist für den christlichen Glauben, und vermutlich Anstoß liefern mochte für entsprechende Deutungen. Ich stelle den Bibeltext Luthers Septembertestaments voran:5 Septembertestament 1522 (ST) Johannes berichtet von Jesus in bildhafter Rede: Ich byn eyn rechter weynstock / vnd meyn vatter eyn weyngertner / Ein iglichen reben an mir / der nicht frucht bringt / wirt er abschneytten / vnd eyn iglichen der da frucht bringt / wirt er reynigen / das er mehr 5
Alle Hervorhebungen innerhalb der Zitate stammen von mir.
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frucht bringe / Yhr seyt itzt reyn vmb des worts willen das ich zu euch geredt habe / Bleybt ynn mir / vnd ich ynn euch / Gleych wie der rebe kann nit frucht bringen von yhm selber / er bleyb denn am weynstock / also auch yhr nicht / yhr bleybt denn ynn myr. Jch bynn der weynstock / yhr seyd die reben / Wer ynn myr bleybt / vnd ich ynn yhm / der bringt viel frucht / denn on mich kundt yhr nichts thun / wer nicht ynn myr bleybt / der wirt weg geworffen / wie eyn rebe / vnd verdorret / vnd man samlet sie / vnd wirfft sie yns fewr vnd verbrennet sie / So yhr ynn mir bleybt / vnd meyne wort ynn euch bleyben / werdet yhr bitten was yhr wollt / vnd es wirt euch widderfaren / Darynnen wirt meyn vatter preyset / das yhr viel frucht bringet / vnd werdet meyne iunger […].
Das Argumentationsmuster innerhalb der ersten vier Verse ist bipolar bzw. antithetisch sowie bildhaft vergleichend. Jesus wird als Weinstock, Gott Vater als Weingärtner und die Jünger werden als Reben dargestellt. Nikolaus von Lyra6 (1270–1349) nennt dieses Sprachbild in seiner Vulgataglosse ‘parabola’,7 das mit ‘byspil’, ‘glichniß’ im Diefenbachschen Glossarium übersetzt wird (Diefenbach 1997 (1857): 411). Nachfolgend werden die Auslegungskommentare analysiert: Bugenhagen (80)8 Sum. des XV. Cap. Johann. 1. Sind solche wort / von der gnade Gottes durch Christum nicht klar / widder den freyen willen vnd alles menschliche vermuegen / so weys ich nicht / was klar ist / One den Christum wirstu nichts kuennen thun / du wirst sein eine verworffene weinrebe. 2. Der heilige geist vnd die Aposteln geben zeugnisse von Christo / Daruemb / wenn die Papisten sagen / der heilige geist habe noch ander ding geleret zur selickeit / so antworte / Der heilige geist vnd rechte prediger geben zeugnis von Christo / Teuffels lere wollen was anders haben / dadurch man selig werde / Lies den ganzen Sermon Christi durch aus / so wirstu nichts anders finden von der lere des heiligen geistes. Die Papisten haben yhre sprueche von dem heiligen geiste (gleich ob er 6 Bekanntermaßen rezipiert Luther Lyra, der in seinen Exegesen (Postillae perpetuae, 1322 ff.) dem Literalsinn einigen Spielraum einräumt. 7 http://www.umilta.net/NL4.pdf (317), http://www.umilta.net/nicholalyra.html [2.9.2015]. Nicolaus von Lyras: Postilla super totam Bibliam. [Inkunabel 1492]. 8 http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb11117275.html [2.9.2015].
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was anders denn Christus solt leren) aus der ketzerey des verdampten Montani9 / vnd nicht aus dem worte Gottes. [Summarie].
Zuerst fällt auf, dass die Bugenhagen-Summarie das Negationssyntagma umdeutet, indem ein Anredewechsel vollzogen wird: One den Christum wirstu nichts kuennen thun (Enklise) ST: denn on mich kundt yhr nichts thun.
Im Bugenhagenschen alliterativen Nominalsyntagma wird danach die Bibelstelle paraphrasiert, indem das Partizip ein anderes Präfix erhält, nämlich ver- anstelle von weg-, das ebenso den Verlust kennzeichnet: ‘One den Christum wirstu nichts kuennen thun / du wirst sein eine verworffene weinrebe’ geht zurück auf das Septembertestament-Syntagma: ‘wer nicht ynn myr bleybt / der wirt weg geworffen’. Umgewandelt ist hier das Partizip weg geworffen als Prädikatsteil in verworffene als adjektivisches Attribut. Desweiteren wird ein fingierter didaktischer Dialog erzeugt, bei dem den Lesern Argumente gegen die katholische Lehrmeinung aufgezeigt werden: ‘wenn die Papisten sagen / der heilige geist habe noch ander ding geleret zur selickeit / so antworte / Der heilige geist vnd rechte prediger geben zeugnis von Christo’. Gleichzeitig wird die Argumentationsquelle der Papisten eruiert. Das Nomen Papisten ist dabei als pejorativer Begriff aus reformatorischer Perspektive für den altgläubigen Klerus zu werten. Insgesamt wird der Bugenhagenschen Rodt-Übertragung der Bibeltext nicht danebengestellt. Es fehlt überdies auch ein auf die jeweilige Bibelpassage bezogenes Kurzzitat. So gewinnt man den Eindruck, dass zu jedem Kapitel eine narrative Teileinheit angestrebt wird. Diese Volksexegese erklärt ganz im Sinne des sermo humilis bedeutsame Inhalte, will aber selbigen nicht narrativ wiedergeben, sondern wertet und kommentiert dessen theologische Relevanz aus reformatorischer Perspektive. Ganz in erbaulichem Sinn wird ferner der Leser direkt handlungs- und gedankenanleitend angesprochen (‘du’, ‘wirstu’). Gleichsam wird so der Kreis der Angesprochenen, nämlich der der Jünger, erweitert. Es finden sich also Anklänge an eine didaktische Dialogrhetorik, die wir aus spätmittelalterlichen Predigtnachschriften kennen (z.B. Geiler von Kaysersberg).10 9 Angespielt wird hier auf den Montanismus, eine im 2. Jahrhundert christlich-prophetische Bewegung, deren Mitglieder annahmen, es offenbare sich in ihnen der Heilige Geist. 10 Vgl. dazu Seyferth, Sebastian, 2016, Zur Predigtsprache Bertholds von Regensburg und Johann Geilers von Kaysersberg – ein diachroner Predigt(nachschriften)vergleich. In: Textsortenwandel vom
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Ebenso in reformatorischer Tradition stehen die Summarien des Veit Dietrich. Hochinteressant ist, dass seine Annotationes 1545 in Latein und fünf Jahre später auf Deutsch herauskommen. Vergleicht man diese beiden exegetischen Werke, so scheinen sie identisch zu sein, sprichwörtlich übertragen zu sein, wie folgendes Beispiel demonstriert, bei dem die Anfangszeile der Glosse zu Johannes 15 zitiert ist: Dietrich: latein (267)11 ETIAM consolatio est, contra futura scandala ut certe ei firmiter adhaereant, nec deficiant. […]. Dietrich: deutsch (496)12 IST auch ein Trost / wider das zukünfftige ergernusz / dass sie ja fest an jm halten vnnd nicht abfallen sollen […].
Das verwundert umso mehr, als dass es logischer gewesen wäre, den lateinischen Text für Kleriker oder gebildete Litterati ausführlicher zu gestalten und umgekehrt denjenigen in der lingua vernacula knapper, vereinfachender zu komponieren für die alleinig volkssprachlich schriftkundigen Laien. Dietrich: deutsch (496) XV. Jch bin ein rechter weinstock / vnnd mein Vater ein rechter rc.13 [anzit. Bibeltext] IST auch ein Trost / wider das zukünfftige ergernusz / dass sie ja fest an jm halten vnnd nicht abfallen sollen / Denn er sey der rechte Weinstock / die aber an jhn glauben / die Reben / Derhalb / wo sie an jhn fest bleiben / vnnd an seinem wort halten / werden sie durch den heiligen Geist frucht bringen / On mich / spricht er / koennet jr nichts thun / Denn durch den glauben an Christum / nimpt vns Gott zu gnaden an / vnnd schencket vnns den heiligen Geist / das wir umb Christus willen / erlangen was wir bitten. Die früchte dauon der Herr sagt / das / sind / wenn wir mit festem glauben an jn anhalten / vnd in jm bleiben / alle vnsere werck / die ein yeglicher 9. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Internationale Fachtagung vom 10. bis 13. Juni 2015 an der Universität Paderborn. 11 http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb10984846.html? pageNo=267 [2.9.2015]. 12 http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10142761_00496.html [2.9.2015]. 13 etc.
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in seinem Beruff thut / nach Gottes wort / sollen eytel koestliche frücht heissen / vnd endlich das ewige leben / die rechte frucht des glaubens folgen rc. [Summarie].
Dietrich arbeitet den Unterschied zwischen Summarie und Predigt in der Vorrede anschaulich heraus: Jn der Predig sol man genaw allem nachgehen […]. Jn solcher Lection aber ists genug / das man nur auff die fuernembsten puncten sehe / vnd die lere herausz neme / so am verstendligsten / vnd zur besserung am meisten dienstlich (8).
Kapitel 15 setzt bei Dietrich mit dem Bibeltext ein, woran sich die Summarie anschließt. Dietrichs Texten liegt ein anderes exegetisches Gerüst zu Grunde. Hier ist ein alternierendes Schema zwischen Bibeltext und Summarie zu beobachten, wobei der Sakraltext meist ein Kurzzitat umfasst, das danach dann ausgelegt wird. Es zeigt sich somit eine passagenhafte Interlinearität. Hinzu kommt bei Dietrich die aus der Lutherbibel bekannte Textform der Randglosse, die beim Reformator sowohl als philologischer und sachlicher, aber auch als theologischer Informationsträger fungiert. Als Marginalie wird das zentrale Bibelzitat: ‘On mich koennet jr nichts thun’ (499) gesetzt. Die zentrale reformatorische Botschaft ‘sola fide’ leitet Dietrich aus dem Bibeltext ab und erläutert in der Summarie, eingeleitet mit der kausalen Konjunktion: Denn durch den glauben an Christum / nimpt vns Gott zu gnaden an / vnnd schencket vnns den heiligen Geist / das wir umb Christus willen / erlangen was wir bitten. (s.o.).
An dieser Passage wird ebenfalls deutlich – ähnlich wie beim Bugenhagentext – dass Dietrich mittels der Personalpronomen ‘vns’ bzw. ‘wir’ die Glaubenden respektive die Leser involviert. Dietrich benutzt ferner das Nomen ‘Trost’ und scheint sich dessen illokutionärer Kraft bewusst zu sein, heilsgeschichtlich verweisend auf den Kreuzestod Christi. Hiermit deutet Dietrich die Passage und interpretiert diese ebenso in ihrer perlokutiven Absicht, nämlich Trost zu spenden. In seiner Wirkungsabsicht möge sich der Trost auf alle Christen übertragen, nicht allein auf die Jünger. Sprechakttheoretisch lohnte sich eine weitere Untersuchung der Summarien, da Dietrich unterschiedlichste interpretatorische Sprechakte dort
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verwendet, die vom Bitten, Raten, Beschuldigen bis hin zu Warnungen reichen. Diese Sprechakte charakterisieren aber nicht allein den Bibeltext, sondern richten sich ebenso seelenheilanleitend an die Leser. So verwendet er z.B. sakralklassifizierende Begrifflichkeiten wie ‘straffpredig, trostpredig’ (333), ‘schoene Hauszpredig’ (244), ‘schoene Historia’ (395), ‘Exempel’ (537). Auch werden zeithistorische Ereignisse bemüht, um antikatholisch zu argumentieren: ‘Mit solchem rhum vnd schein haben die Papisten S. Johannem Hus verbrant / vnnd noch heutigs tags / wo sie Christen verfolgen / die müssen alle sich schelten vnnd würgen lassen als Ketzer / die von Gott vnnd seiner Kirchen abtrünnig seyen worden’ (500).14 Einige philologische Merkmale mögen Dietrichs Summarienstil veranschaulichen. So nutzt er das indirekte Zitieren: Die früchte dauon der Herr sagt / das / sind […], bzw. Erläuterung der metaphorischen Redeweise in der Bibel: die aber an yhn glauben / die Reben.
Zudem erweitert er die Rebenmetapher und bezieht sie auf alle Gläubigen. Indem Dietrich die Fruchtmetapher auslegt, sagt er sinngemäß: Wer festen Glaubens ist, erhält: Summarienzitat: ‘Das ewige Leben’. Hier deutet Dietrich traditionell analogisch und entwirft ein eschatologisches Heilsschema. Zudem entsteht durch die folgende lexikalische Wiederholung eine Lexemiteration: die rechte frucht des glaubens [Summaria] Ich byn eyn rechter weynstock [ST].
Durch die Wiederaufnahme des Adjektivs rechte wird dergestalt die Beschaffenheit (‘frucht des glaubens’) mit Christus (‘weynstock’) assoziiert. Gleichzeit bleibt so die Fruchtmetapher erkennbar. Interessant ist ferner, dass Dietrich auch Gottvater mit diesem Adjektiv attribuiert, was weder aus der Vulgata noch aus dem Septembertestament hervorgeht: Jch bin ein rechter weinstock / vnnd mein Vater ein rechter rc. [Bibeltext innerhalb der Summarien].
Der durch die Doppelnennung des Lexems rechter erzeugte Parallelismus attribuiert Gottes-Sohn und Gott-Vater auf dieselbe Art und Weise. Dass Dietrich in der Anwendung des vierfachen Schriftsinns geübt war, belegt 14 Man beachte die nominale sowie verbale Paarformel.
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seine allegorische Auslegung 15 in den Sprüchen Salomo, wenn er über das 9. Kapitel in den Summarien schreibt (245): Das hausz der weyszheit / dauon er saget / ist die Kirchen oder das volck / so Gottes wort hat. Die siben sewlen / darauff es stehet / ist Gottes wort. Dasselbige wirdt auch vergleichet eynem tisch / dem wein vnd ander speise / Darumb das das wort der seelen oder des gewissens speise vnd frewde ist.
In der 1984er Lutherbibel heißt es:16 Spr 9, 1) Die Weisheit hat ihr Haus gebaut und ihre sieben Säulen behauen. Spr 9, 2) Sie hat ihr Vieh geschlachtet, ihren Wein gemischt und ihren Tisch bereitet. Dietenberger (1181/1182)17 Das XV. Capittel. Wie Christus seine Juenger widderumb zu der liebe hertzlich ermanet / vnd dasz er ein weinstock / vnd sie die reben weren / anzeiget. [inhaltszusammenfassende und innerbiblische sprechaktanweisende Summarie als Kommentarüberschrift] Jch binn der ware Weinstock / vnd mein vatter ist ein Weingaertner. […] [Bibeltext] 1 Dann on mich kondt jr nichts thun) Ausz dieser vnd dergleichen stellen schliessen die ketzer / dasz der mensch gar nichts vermoege noch thun koende / vnd dasz unser thun gar nichts sey / Darumb sie auch alle vnsere werck verwerffen. Christus spricht aber nit / dasz wir gar nichts thun koenden on jn / das ist / on sein gnad vnd hilffe. Aus welchem klerlich volgt / dasz wir mit vnd aus huelffe seiner gnad wol vermoegen guts thun / vnd das boese lassen. Vnd merck diese stell auch fur den freyen willen.
15 Dieser Umstand zeigt, dass sich die reformatorischen Exegeten (auch Luther) erst allmählich in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts vom vierfachen Schriftsinn zu lösen beginnen. Diese exegetische Methode geht bekanntlich u.a. auf Origenes (3. Jahrhundert) zurück, bei der christliche Ausleger die Bibel jenseits des Literalsinns zu deuten versuchten. 16 https: //www.die-bibel.de/online-bibeln/luther-bibel-1984/bibeltext/bibel/text/lesen/ stelle/20/90001/99999/ch/b7032846ff31395791ec24e17060dced/ [2.9.2015]. 17 http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10196265_01181.html [2.9.2015].
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2 Jn diesem Capittel haben die Elymasiter in jrer angeschmirten glosz / Dasz nach Christi zukunfft die Suend niemand mehr verdamm / dann der sie nicht lassen / das ist / als sie sprechen / Der nicht glauben wil: wo nun diese glosz bestendig ist / so volget daraus / dasz sund lassen vnd glauben / ein ding were Das ist aber falsch / denn es haben vil Heiden die sund gelassen / die dennoch nicht glaubt haben / [Summarie].
Ähnlich wie bei seinem reformatorischen Gegenspieler Dietrich, entsteht eine Textallianz zwischen Bibeltext und Summarie. Letztere teilt sich einerseits in die am Kapitelanfang stehende inhaltszusammenfassende und sprechaktanweisende Kommentarüberschrift und anderseits in die Bibelstellenerläuterung am Kapitelende. Zusammengefasst wird Kapitel 15 von Dietenberger in der Kommentarüberschrift: ‘Wie Christus seine Juenger widderumb zu der liebe hertzlich ermanet’. Das Verb ermahnen gehört nach Austin 18 zu den exerzitiven Äußerungen und gibt eine Entscheidung für eine bestimmte Handlung an. Die Reben stehen aus altkirchlicher Sicht textgetreu alleinig für die Jünger. Polemisch personal angegriffen wird die evangelische Seite durch Begriffe wie: ‘ketzer und Elymasiter’. Zudem wird deren Schrifttum als ‘angeschmirte[n] glosz’ tituliert. Gleichzeitig wird dem Leser die reformatorische Sicht auf Johannes 15, 5 vorgeführt: ‘denn on mich kundt yhr nichts thun’ (ST). Dietenberger kolportiert nämlich deren Sicht: ‘Ausz dieser vnd dergleichen stellen schliessen die ketzer / dasz der mensch gar nichts vermoege noch thun koende / vnd dasz unser thun gar nichts sey’. Daraus folgert er: Darumb sie auch alle vnsere werck verwerffen. Christus spricht aber nit / dasz wir gar nichts thun koenden on jn / das ist / on sein gnad vnd hilffe. Aus welchem klerlich volgt / dasz wir mit vnd aus huelffe seiner gnad wol vermoegen guts thun / vnd das boese lassen. Auf die Dietrichschen Summarien kann er sich nicht bezogen haben. Denn bezüglich der Passage heißt es dort: On mich / spricht er / koennet jr nichts thun / Denn durch den glauben an Christum / nimpt vns Gott zu gnaden an / vnnd schencket vnns den heiligen Geist / das wir umb Christus willen / erlangen was wir bitten.
18 Bezug genommen wird hier auf die Sprechakttheorie des John Langshaw Austin, einer der Gründerväter der linguistischen Pragmatik Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Vgl. dazu aktuell: Austin, J. L, 2010, Zur Theorie der Sprechakte (=How to do things with words), dt. Bearb. von Eike von Savigny, Stuttgart. Hierbei ist das Sprachhandeln performativer Verben von Belang.
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Bezüglich der ‘Werkkritik’ (‘Darumb sie auch alle vnsere werck verwerffen’) sei bemerkt, dass sich schon in Emsers19 Annotationes zum Neuen Testament 1524 eine gleichermaßen kritische Passage (36) befindet:20 Zum funfften. Wil vns Luther in seyner vorrede ouch vberreden / vnd eynbilden / wie dz Euangelion eygentlich kein werck von vns vordere / dadurch wir from vnnd selig werden moegen / Sonder verdamme soliche werck vnd vordere nur glouben […] Wer wil aber Luthern das glouben?
Diese wiederum bezieht sich auf Luthers Septembertestamentsvorrede: Denn das Euangeli foddert eygentlich nicht vnser werck / das wyr da mit frum vnd selig werden / ia es verdampt solche werck / sondern es foddert nur glawben an Christo […].
Schließlich auch erwähnenswert ist, dass im Dietenbergschen Text von 1567 die Glosse teilweise von Emser übernommen worden ist (Annotationes Hieronymi Emser uber Luthers naw Testame[n]t 1524). Ein kurzer Vergleich zeigt dies: Dietenbergers Summarie zu Johannes 15: (1182) Jn diesem Capittel haben die Elymasiter in jrer angeschmirten glosz / Dasz nach Christi zukunfft die Suend niemand mehr verdamm / dann der sie nicht lassen / das ist / als sie sprechen / Der nicht glauben wil: wo nun diese glosz bestendig ist / so volget daraus / dasz sund lassen vnd glauben / ein ding were. Emsers Annotation zu Johannes 15: (176) Jn diesem capitel spricht Luther in seyner angeschmirtenn glosz. Das nach Christus zukunfft / die sund nyemand mher verdam / dann der sie nit lassen das ist (als er spricht) der nith glewben wil / wo nu dise glosz bestendige so volgte daraus / dz sund lassen vnd glewben ein ding wer. Innerhalb von Johannes 15 nutzt Dietenberger seinen Kommentar vor allen Dingen dazu, um mit evangelischen Positionen abzurechnen und gleichsam die katholische Gegenposition aufzubauen. Somit verfolgt er eine kontrastiv-konfrontative Argumentationsstrategie. 19 Emser (1478–1527) gilt neben Dietenberger als Gegenspieler Luthers und altkirchlicher Bibelübersetzer (Das naw testament nach lawt der Christlichen kirchen bewerten text / corrigirt / und widerumb zurecht gebracht, 1527). 20 http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb10205705.html? pageNo=36 [2.9.2015].
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Koberger-Bibel (454)21 (vorreformatorische Summarientradition)22 Das. XV. Capitel. wie der herr ihsus seine iungern vil ynnige andechtige ding leret. Vnd sy zu der lieb vermanet. [inhaltszusammenfassende und innerbiblische sprechaktanweisende Summarie als Kommentarüberschrift] ICh bin ei warer weireb. vnd mein vater ist ein ackerman. Ein yeglich zweyd das nicht bringt ein frucht in mir. das nymt er ab. vnnd ein yeglichs. das da bringt die frucht. das reyniget er das er bringt ein merer frucht. Jtzund seyt ir reyn. vmb das wort daz ich hab geredt zu euch Beleybt in mir. vnd ich in euch. Als das zwayd nit mag bringen die frucht von im selber. nuer es beleybe an den reben. als auch ir. nuer ir beleibt in mir. Jch bin die rebe. vnd ir seyt das zweyd Der da beleybt in mir. vnd ich in im. Der bringt viel frucht. wann on mich muegt ir nichts thun Der nicht beleybt in mir der wirt auszgeworfen. als das zweyd. vnd dorret. vnd sye lesen in. vnd legen in an das fewer. vnd er brynnet. [Bibeltext].
Während Dietenberger in seiner Summarieneingangspassage das performative Verb ermanet verwendet, setzt schon die Koberger Bibel das ähnlich expressive Präfixverb vermanet. Ein katholischer Traditionszusammenhang darf hier vermutet werden. Ebenso ganz in dieser Tradition gleichen sich die inhaltsbezogenen Kommentarüberschriften zwischen der Koberger-Bibel und der Dietenberger-Bibel, eingeleitet durch die vergleichende Konjunktion wie. Es lässt sich aber auch ein Unterschied zum Lateinischen herausfiltern, nämlich zur Vulgata von 1542. Diese setzt unmittelbar mit dem Bibeltext ein und fügt darunter die jeweiligen Scholia (965),23 so dass zwei einheitliche Textblöcke entstehen. Die volkssprachlichen Bibeln in der Tradition alten Glaubens hingegen erkennen das ‘Überschriftenpotential’ der Summarie und nutzen diese als Einführungstext wie in einer Erzählung, besonders bei Koberger. Der divergierende Adressatenbezug mag das veranlasst haben. Vergleicht man diese Beobachtung der erläuternden Anfangsüberschriften mit den reformatorischen Summarien, so werden diese sowohl bei 21 http://ora-eb.swkk.de/digimo_online/digimo.entry? source=digimo.Digitalisat_anzeigen&a_ id=2116&p_ab=0 [2.9.2015]. 22 Koberger (1440–1513), als Drucker und Verleger tätig, wird mit der sog. Koberger Bibel von 1483 in Verbindung gebracht. Vielfältige sprachliche, aber auch illustratorische Neuerungen flossen in diese vorreformatorische Bibelausgabe, die 1466 mit der Mentel-Bibel ihren Anfang nahm. Diese deutschsprachigen Übersetzungen (14 oberdeutsche Übertragungen) können nicht mit Luthers Übersetzung in Verbindung gebracht werden. Der von vielen Theologen heutzutage benutzte Begriff: ‚vorlutherische Bibeltradition‘ ist irreführend und semantisch inkorrekt, da kein genetischer Zusammenhang zwischen beiden Übersetzungsarten besteht. 23 http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10199030_00965.html [2.9.2015].
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Bugenhagen als auch bei Dietrich ausgelassen, vermutlich – zumindestens bei Dietrich – um den Bibeltext als das Wichtigste voranzustellen (sola scriptura). Gleichwohl kann die Anordnung zwischen Summarie und Bibeltext variieren und ist wahrscheinlich vom Drucker beeinflusst, denn in einer Lutherbibel von 1622 mit Summarien Veit Dietrichs ist zwar der Summarienkommentar identisch mit dem in der Synopse dargestellten von 1550, nur mit dem Unterschied, dass die ganze Summarie zuerst abgedruckt wird und anschließend der Bibeltext nachfolgt. Ebenso entscheidend ist in einer Ausgabe, ob die Summarie den Bibeltext flankiert oder ob sie als alleinige Textsorte herausgegeben ist. Lexematisch fällt auf, dass das Nomen ‘Zweyd’ (Zweig) mit der Rebe gleichgesetzt wird. Zudem ist das Isotopiefeld, respektive Klassem ‘Wein’, ausdrucksärmer ausgebaut als beim Septembertestament. Gott-Vater wird hier aus der Vulgata wörtlich übertragen: agricola als ‚ackerman‘ und nicht als ‘weyngertner’. Bei Luther haben wir die semantisch-kontextuellen wortfeldbezogenen Lexeme: ‘weynstock’, ‘weyngertner’, ‘reben’. Schließlich scheint der deiktische Ausdruck’da’ kein ‘Lutherismus’ zu sein; er übernimmt schon bei Koberger achtungs- und rhythmisierende themenfortführende Aufgaben bzw. fungiert als metaphorischer Marker: ‘Der da beleybt in mir oder das da bringt die frucht’.
Zusammenfassung Insgesamt stellen die Summarien, gedruckt in der lingua vernacula, weniger ein theologisches Streitobjekt auf intellektueller Ebene dar, wie vormals im Lateinischen, sondern vielmehr auch ein Instrument im Glaubenskampf um die rechte Heilsbotschaft für den gebildeten Laien dar. Diese Adressatengruppe dürfte der frühbürgerlichen, gerade mit der Schrift in doppeltem Sinne vertraut gewordenen Schicht angehören. Drei Aufbauschemata der Summarien lassen sich festhalten: Bei Bugenhagen steht der Summarientext für sich allein ohne Bibeltext. Bei Dietrich wird jeweils das entsprechende Kurzzitat davorgesetzt, auf das Bezug genommen wird, aber auch kommentiert. Bei Dietenberger haben wir die Summarien als wirklichen Begleittext, der den Bibeltext flankiert. Am höchsten ist demnach die Textautonomie bei Bugenhagen. Aus der Bedeutsamkeit dieses Textes mag sich die popularisierende Übersetzung Rodts ins Hochdeutsche erklären. Außer bei Dietenberger paraphrasieren die beiden reformatorischen Autoren die Bibellexik bzw. lehnen sich lexematisch-argumentativ eng an das Heilige Wort an.
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Bugenhagen bzw. Rodt, aber auch Dietrich verletzten mit ihren Auslegungstexten hier eigentlich das reformatorisch-luthersche Prinzip, dass die Schrift für sich allein stehe, dass sie klar und verständlich sein soll aus sich selbst, ohne exegetische Hilfstexte. Diese Beigaben sind mehr als biblische Inhaltsangaben. Vielfältige Funktionen können anhand der Analyse aus ihnen abgeleitet werden: Verständlichmachung der Heiligen Schrift, Worterklärung, kontextuelle Erläuterung, konfessionelle Polemik sowie praktische Glaubensanweisung. Summarien können daher als Prä-, Subsidiär- aber auch als Haupttext gelesen werden. Gleichzeitig mochten sie als Predigtsurrogat rezipiert worden sein. Sie dienen somit insgesamt der geistlich-pädagogischen Erbauung und erfahren hierin eine konfessionell starke Akzentuierung.
Quellen Primärquellen Biblia Vulgata. 1542. Schoeffer. Moguntia. [Digitalisat BSB München]. http:// reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10199030_00965. html [2.9.2015]. Bugenhagen, Johannes [Stephanus Rodt]. 1527. Summarien vnd ynnhalt aller Capitel der vier Evangelisten. Wittenberg. [Digitalisat BSB München/als pdf benutzt]. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb11117275. html [2.9.2015]. Dietenberger, Johann. 1567. Bibell Das ist Alle Buecher Alts vnd News Testaments nach Alter in Christlicher Kirchen gehabter Translation trewlich verteutscht / vnd mit vielen heilsamen Annotaten erleucht. Köln: Johann Quentel. [Digitalisat BSB München/als pdf benutzt]. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/ display/bsb10196265_01181.html [2.9.2015]. Dietrich, Veit. 1545. Annotationes Compendiariae In Novum Testamentum […]. Francoforti: Apud Christianum Egenolphum. [Digitalisat BSB München/als pdf benutzt]. http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/ bsb10984846.html? pageNo=267 [2.9.2015]. Dietrich, Veit. 1550. Summaria über die gantze Bibel das alt und newe Testament. Nürnberg [Digitalisat BSB München/als pdf benutzt]. http://reader.digitalesammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10142761_00496.html [2.9.2015]. Emser, Hieronymus. 1524. Annotationes Hieronymi Emser uber Luthers naw Testame[n]t. Dresden: Emser. [Digitalisat BSB München/als pdf benutzt]. http:// reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb10205705.html? pageNo=36 [2.9.2015].
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Koberger, Anton. 1483. Biblia, deutsch. Diß durchleuchtigist werck der gantzen heyligen geschrifft. genant dy bibel. Signatur Inc 81. [Digitalisat HAAB Weimar]. http://ora-eb.swkk.de/digimo_online/digimo.entry? source=digimo.Digitalisat_anzeigen&a_id=2116&p_ab=0 [2.9.2015]. Luther, Martin. 1522. Das newe Testament Deutzsch. Vuittemberg. [Reprint 1994 Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft]. Luther, Martin. 1984. Die-Bibel.de. [Bibelportal der Deutschen Bibelgesellschaft, Internet]. https: //www.die-bibel.de/online-bibeln/luther-bibel-1984/bibeltext/ bibel/text/lesen/stelle/20/90001/99999/ch/b7032846ff31395791ec24e17060dced/ [2.9.2015]. Lyra, Nicolas of. 1492. Postilla in totam Bibliam, Gospels. Strassburg. [Digitalisat]. http://www.umilta.net/NL4.pdf (317), http://www.umilta.net/nicholalyra.html [2.9.2015].
Sekundärquellen Austin, J.L. 2010. Zur Theorie der Sprechakte (=How to do things with words). Dt. Bearb. von Eike von Savigny. Stuttgart: Reclam. Diefenbach, Lorenz. 1997 [1857]. Glossarium Latino-Germanicum Mediae Et Infimae Aetatis. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. 1854–1961. Deutsches Wörterbuch. 16 Bde. in 32 Teilbänden. Quellenverzeichnis Leipzig 1971. Leipzig: S. Hirzel Verlag. http:// woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB/? sigle=DWB&mode=Vernetzung&hitlist=&patter nlist=&lemid=GS56518#XGS56518 [2.9.2015]. Reinitzer, Heimo. 1983. Biblia deutsch – Luthers Bibelübersetzung und ihre Tradition. Wolfenbüttel: Herzog-August Bibliothek. Schröder, Ingrid. 1991. Die Bugenhagenbibel – Untersuchungen zur Übersetzung und Textgeschichte des Pentateuchs. Mitteldeutsche Forschungen 105. Köln, Weimar und Wien: Böhlau. Seyferth, Sebastian. 2016. Zur Predigtsprache Bertholds von Regensburg und Johann Geilers von Kaysersberg – ein diachroner Predigt(nachschriften)vergleich. Textsortenwandel vom 9. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Akten zur internationalen Fachtagung an der Universität Paderhorn vom 9.-13.06. 2015, hg. von Britt-Marie Schuster und Susan Holftreter. Berliner Sprachwissenschaftliche Studien 32. Berlin: Weilderverlag. 337-59. Vorbeck-Heyn, Manja. 2010. Syntaktische Strukturen in den Summarien in Drucken des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Historische Textgrammatik und Historische Syntax des Deutschen – Traditionen, Innovationen, Perspektiven, hg. von Arne Ziegler. Bd. 2. Berlin: De Gruyter. 799-827.
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Wulf, Christine. 1991. Tituli, Kapitelreihe, Buchsummarien, Überlegungen zu texterschließenden Beigaben in vorlutherischen Bibeln. Mit einem Textanhang. Deutsche Bibelübersetzung des Mittelalters, Beiträge eines Kolloquiums im Deutschen Bibelarchiv, unter Mitarbeit von Nikolaus Henkel, hg. von Heimo Reinitzer. Bern: Peter Lang. 385-99.
About the author Sebastian Seyferth is a Professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Görlitz. He is a specialist of the German linguistics and the history of the German language.
8
Early Finnish Translations of the Hymn Te Deum laudamus Tanja Toropainen
Abstract This essay discusses early Finnish translations of the Latin hymn Te Deum laudamus. The hymn, dating from the time of the mediaeval Roman Catholic Church, has been translated into Finnish several times (e.g., in a prayer book of Mikael Agricola [1544] and in a hymn book of Jacobus Finno [1583]); these texts include both prose-type versions and a rhymed version of the hymn. From these versions we can see the change that took place when the Catholic choral singing tradition was replaced, in accordance with the Lutheran ideal, by the practice of chanting the hymn together as a congregation. The essay examines the relationship between the versions and considers the influence of the Latin, Swedish, and German versions on the Finnish translations. The translation in Agricola’s prayer book is especially interesting because it contains features of the eastern dialect, which are rare in Old Literary Finnish, which is mostly based on the western dialects. Keywords: Finnish, hymn translations, Mikael Agricola, Jakobus Finno
The Lutheran Reformation gradually reformed liturgical music and the style in which it was performed, revealed by vernacular languages beginning to be sung in church services in addition to Latin. This gave the congregation – at least in principle – the possibility of participating in singing (see Ross in this volume). The change was not radical, however, nor was it particularly quick, and church services initially retained much music in Latin. It was also a significant innovation that metric and rhymed songs began to be written. For the congregation, those songs were easier to sing together than the old prosaic hymns. One song that was both preserved and reformed was the
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch08
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age-old hymn Te Deum, which has been the most famous liturgical song in the Western Church. It has appeared in a variety of translations in different languages alongside its Latin form. This study ascertains the number of different Finnish translations of Te Deum in 16th- and 17th-century music manuscripts and in the earliest Finnish books. It also examines the interrelationship between the translations, their dates of translation, and the influence of the source languages on the translations. While it is unknown whether there were any Finnish translations of Te Deum as early as the Middle Ages, certain features of the earliest translations suggest that they are relatively old. The study also briefly touches upon the question of to whom the Finnish translations of Te Deum should be attributed, although this is a rather tricky issue because there is little information on the identity of many Finnish translators and writers from the Reformation period. Old Finnish music manuscripts that include Te Deum translations are usually in multiple languages. It is common for Finnish and Swedish translations of Te Deum to be side by side in the manuscripts, which sometimes also include the Latin text. In this study, therefore, Swedish translations of Te Deum that appear in Finnish manuscripts are also involved. At the time of the Reformation, there was a sizeable Swedish-speaking population in Finland, and Swedish was also the language of secular administration. Music manuscripts provide a vivid illustration of the fact that the Finnish and Swedish languages lived side by side in the transition to a Lutheran vernacular liturgical experience.
Historical context The Reformation and the creation of literary Finnish are inextricably linked. Finnish literature was born when Finnish language texts were required in church services and the translation of liturgical and biblical texts into Finnish began. Finnish literature long consisted almost exclusively of religious translations. The first Finnish books – including the New Testament, a prayer book, a liturgical agenda, and a missal – were published in the 1540s. There are also manuscripts in Finnish, some of which are somewhat older than the printed books (e.g., Häkkinen 2015: 28-29). Some kind of liturgical tradition of literary Finnish must have existed before the Reformation, because the vernacular was used, to some extent, alongside Latin in the mediaeval Catholic Church. Finland was then the eastern part of the Swedish Realm, and, in principle, the same rules applied
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all over the country. According to Pirinen (1988: 9-10), in the provincial synod of Söderköping, Sweden, an ordinance was given in 1441 stating that, in connection with Sunday services, the priests had to read certain catechetical texts in the vernacular, for example, the Lord’s Prayer, Ave Maria, and the Apostles’ Creed. The ordinance was revised in the Turku diocesan synod in 1492, and no later than that time it was understood that it would apply in Finland as well. These catechetical texts may have been passed down orally but were probably written down as well, because the texts were to be read in a standard format. However, not one entire text or even a written note from the Middle Ages has been preserved to this day (e.g., Häkkinen 2015: 20). In Sweden the reforms and teachings of Luther gained a strong foothold first in Stockholm in the early 1520s (Lavery 2012: 10). The Reformation in Finland followed the developments in Sweden, but many years later. The Reformation reached the largest cities in Finland first, above all Turku, which was capital of the entire diocese, and apparently to some extent also Vyborg (Viipuri), which was also somewhat influenced by Baltic German culture (e.g., Häkkinen 2015: 25). In 1533 a Finnish preacher was appointed to the parish in Stockholm, because many of the Finns who had migrated to the capital of the kingdom were not able to speak Swedish (Heininen 2007: 49; Häkkinen 2015: 25). A few years later using Finnish in Finland became an obligation. In 1536 the Uppsala Council ordered the vernacular to be adopted in all the cathedrals in the ecclesiastical province and also in parishes in the rural areas as far as possible, and Finnish church services were introduced around 1537 (Pirinen 1962: 84-85; Kouri 1995: 64; Häkkinen 2015: 25). The progress of new ideas and reform in Vyborg, which was a lively and multilingual merchant city, is not fully known, but the Lutheran Reformation began early in the city, which was strongly influenced by events in the Baltics. In 1525 Count John of Hoya and Bruchhausen was acting as the governor of Vyborg Castle. The Reformation was implemented in his home region in Germany that very same year. There is no information on whether the Royal Court of Vyborg started to hold Lutheran services straightaway. Nevertheless, they began no later than 1528, when Johannes Block arrived as the castle chaplain. He came from Tartu, Estonia, where he had joined a group of moderate Reformation supporters in 1525 (Heininen 2007: 36-37). The first recorded Lutheran vicar of the city of Vyborg was Petrus Soroi, who took office in 1536 (Pirinen 1962: 83; Häkkinen 2015: 26). Because the earliest Finnish Reformation literature shows evidence of eastern linguistic elements, there is good reason to note Vyborg’s role when examining the early stages of the Reformation in Finland and its oldest written sources (Rapola 1933: 252-53; Nikkilä 1980: 59; Häkkinen 2015: 26).
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In the Middle Ages the majority of songs in the Mass were fully in Latin, though it is possible that some minor feast-day songs were sung in Swedish and Finnish. In the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, clerics, schoolchildren, and trained choirs were responsible for the sung parts of the services. However, it is possible that the congregation may have also been able to participate in singing in ecclesiastical processions and in other more informal occasions, but there is no actual proof that they were also sung in Finnish in the Middle Ages (Pajamo and Tuppurainen 2004: 36-38, 48). The liturgical music inherited from the Middle Ages was adapted into the vernacular during the Reformation and into the 17th century (Tuppurainen and Hannikainen 2010: 5). Mention of the congregation participating in the singing of new vernacular songs appears in written sources only in the 17th century, so it appears that the practice spread rather slowly (Pajamo and Tuppurainen 2004: 51). The actual work of the Reformation was carried out by young Swedish and Finnish theologians who had studied in Wittenberg and in other German universities. The most significant developer of literary Finnish was Mikael Agricola, headmaster of the cathedral school in Turku and finally Bishop of Turku. While Agricola was not the only person who wrote in Finnish, he was the only writer who was able to get his books published in Finnish. There are no other known writers of Finnish in the beginning stages of the development of literary Finnish, though researchers have suggested the names of other possible writers of Finnish-language texts (see, for example, Häkkinen 2015: 26-27). It has been presumed that, beginning in the late 1530s, many clergymen at Turku Cathedral probably translated liturgical literature into Finnish (Pirinen 1962: 110). One interesting premise that has also been put forward is that Finnish texts of the 1530s and 1540s display two competing styles, which are evident in the translator’s choice of phonological and morphological forms: one approach preserved more traditional forms while the other adopted modernized forms (Penttilä 1932: 95-96; Pirinen 1962: 109). According to this theory, Agricola was one of the developers of literary Finnish who modernized tradition and thus emerged the ‘winner’.
Te Deum and the Lutheran Reformation The hymn Te Deum is comprised of parts from different time periods, possibly compiled by Bishop Nicetas of Remesiana. The hymn consists of 29 lines, divided into three parts. The introductory part is the oldest, from the 3rd century. The next, the Christological part, is from the 4th century.
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The last part mostly comprises Psalm verses, a later addition. It is possible that the text was originally Greek, but the Latin text is quite old, and the hymn is generally known for the starting words ‘Te Deum laudamus’ (‘We praise thee, O God’) (Kurvinen 1929: 221; Hallio 1936: 539; Vatanen 2006: 322-23, 325, 331). Te Deum is a prosaic hymn of praise and thanksgiving, sung during morning services and at the largest and grandest festivities. The great value of the hymn is shown by the fact that in Latin psalters it appears in the section of biblical thanksgiving songs. The hymn was widely sung in the 6th century, and the earliest preserved sources for the text are very old. However, its melody was originally passed down orally from one generation to the next. The oldest written record of the melody is in a 12th-century manuscript. The hymn was originally a responsory, sung by two choirs. During the Reformation the choir piece shrank down to a hymn sung by the entire congregation (Kurvinen 1929: 221, 222; Vatanen 2006: 321-22). Many vernacular translations of the Te Deum were composed during the Reformation. I will next present the German and Swedish language translations of the hymn that I have used as the material for this study. The first translations were in prose. Of the many German prosaic translations of Te Deum, I have certainly not considered all versions and variants. Many of the German prosaic translations were written in the first decades of the 16th century (Kurvinen 1929: 221). In general, the German translations can be divided into two groups by style: the minimal; and the expansive. The Latin Te Deum is minimal, as are all Swedish and Finnish versions. I have therefore chosen minimal German translations for comparison, namely, Luther’s translation (1538) as well as the translation that appears in several prayer books (e.g., Hortulus anime 1504; Brunfels 1531). I have, however, also kept the expansive translations in mind, especially Johannes Brenz’s text from 1530. According to hymn researchers, Brenz’s German translation, in particular, has influenced Finnish translations via the Swedish (Hallio 1936: 54; see also Schalin 1946: 209). There are also a number of Swedish prosaic translations from the time of the Reformation. The oldest Swedish translation appeared in 1525 in the Catholic text Vorfruwetydher (Den Svenska Tideboken). This oldest Swedish translation has not been found in Finland (Schalin 1946: 221). More widely known is Olaus Petri’s 1536 translation, which is generally considered the source for Finnish translations of Te Deum (Kurvinen 1929: 221-22; Hallio 1936: 540). In Sweden, Olaus Petri’s translation was replaced by text that was added to the missal in 1541 (Tuppurainen and Hannikainen 2010:
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107).1 In Finland, however, Olaus Petri’s translations appeared in music manuscripts even into the 17th century (Kurvinen 1929: 222; Tuppurainen and Hannikainen 2010: 107). When considering Finnish translations of Te Deum, comparisons to the Latin and Swedish texts are most interesting, as these were the sources on which the Finnish was based. While it is plausible that German translations may have had some influence on the Finnish translations, it is difficult to see a direct influence. Luther’s Herr Gott dich loben wir. Herr Gott wir dancken dir, a Germanlanguage responsory adaptation of Te Deum consisting of rhymed lines of 6-8 syllables, was a true innovation. This first poetic version of Te Deum was published for the first time in 1529 and subsequently in many songbooks (such as Luther’s Geistliche Lieder 1535). Another innovation can be seen in that the congregation was given the opportunity to join in the singing. According to the 1533 Wittenberg Church Order, the two alternating singing parts belong to the school choir and the congregation when singing Te Deum (Vatanen 2006: 322). Luther’s poetic version became popular, and similarly poetic, rhymed translations began to appear in various other languages. In Finland a Swedish-language version of Luther’s hymn O Gudh wij loffue tigh. O Gudh wij tacke tigh was written before 1559, and it spread in manuscripts across the country (Kurvinen 1929: 257). In Sweden a rhymed poetic Swedish translation is not known until 1608, when Sigfridus Aronus Forsius published his revised Swedish-language text in a small sheet music publication (Tuppurainen and Hannikainen 2010: 107). It seems that the prosaic translations of Te Deum did not quickly become standardized in any particular form, because several versions from the time of the Reformation exist in German, Swedish, and also Finnish. It seems that the rhymed versions became established more quickly. This is most probably due to the fact that it was easier to remember and memorize the verses.
Finnish translations of the hymn Te Deum The Latin Te Deum was probably known in mediaeval Finland. However, the earliest known Finnish translation is from the Reformation, in 1544. It was a prosaic translation and is included among the first texts translated and published in Finnish. Experts in liturgical music have studied Finnish translations of Te Deum to some extent and have found that during the Reformation there were two Finnish translations into prosaic text and 1
The version of the text used in this study was published in Een liten Songbook in 1553.
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one into rhymed text. Hymn researchers have asserted that there are only very small linguistic variations between the prosaic texts (Kurvinen 1929: 221-22, 256, 257; Hallio 1936: 540-41, 545; Tuppurainen and Hannikainen 2010: 107). However, in this study I will use linguistic analysis to show that there were three different translated versions into prosaic text and one rhymed version. Three of the texts I have examined are from printed books: one from Mikael Agricola’s prayer book Rucouskiria Bibliasta (1544) and two from the hymnal Yxi vähä Suomenkielinen Wirsikiria (possibly 1583) by Jacobus Finno. In Agricola’s Rucouskiria there are three types of prayers. The first part is composed of prayers from the Bible, including 40 Psalms. This follows the model of Otto Brunfels’s prayer books Precationes Biblicae (1528) and Biblisch Bettbüchlin (1531). The second section of Rucouskiria contains prayers required in services at different times of the liturgical year. The prayers in the third section are for personal devotions. Rucouskiria also includes texts that were traditionally sung, such as a sequence. However, there are no musical notations in Rucouskiria or any reference to melody (Gummerus 1941–1955; Häkkinen 2015: 58). Agricola placed Te Deum amongst the biblical prayers even though the hymn is not actually a biblical text. In this respect Agricola did not copy the structure of Brunfels’s prayer books. Te Deum is, however, included in Brunfels’s work. The majority of the texts I used in my study are music manuscripts that were used by priests in the parishes. The manuscripts include both lyrics and melodic phrases. Songbooks with musical notations could not be printed in Sweden at the beginning of the Reformation, and for this reason they had to be written by hand (Häkkinen 2015: 29). There is a total of about 20 manuscripts, and most of them include two Finnish translations of Te Deum, one in prose and the other rhyming. It is typical for the manuscripts to include prose and rhymed translations of Te Deum into Swedish as well, and some manuscripts also contain the text in Latin. Olav D. Schalin (1946) briefly presented Finnish and Swedish manuscripts from the Reformation era. He numbered the manuscripts, and I use the same numbering in this paper. The manuscripts make up an interesting set of materials. They show concretely that the texts were truly in use at the time. The manuscripts also prove that there was a larger group of people than previously known who participated in writing and in the advancement of a literary culture. Early manuscripts are not very well known, and both researchers and the general public have generally focused their attention on printed books. Next I will present the Finnish translations of Te Deum that date to the Reformation – first the three prosaic translations, and lastly the poetic text.
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Prosaic version 1 As mentioned above, the earliest written occurrence of a prosaic Finnish translation of Te Deum is in Agricola’s Rucouskiria (1544) (see Figure 7). The text is not known to have appeared in entirely the same form in any other source. The source texts for the translation were the Latin Te Deum as well as Olaus Petri’s Swedish translation (1536) and possibly a later Swedish translation (1541). Further, it is possible that the oldest Swedish translation (1525) also had an influence on certain aspects of the Finnish translation. The translation shows no clear signs of influence from German, though of course translations based on the Latin Te Deum resemble each other in all target languages. The German prosaic translations were at least hypothetically known to Agricola, since the prayer books he used as sources for Rucouskiria included German translations of Te Deum (e.g., Brunfels 1531). The influence of the Latin Te Deum is strong in version 1 (V1). Certain lines correspond word for word with the Latin source text, though the word order is often different. However, there are many places in the text where the translator has deviated from the Latin wording. For example, the Finnish lines may exhibit deletions, such as in line 3 in which the second personal pronoun sinua (‘thee’) is omitted: Sinua caiki engelit, Taijuat ja caikinaiset wallat; cf. Tibi omnes Angeli, tibi caeli et universae potestates (‘To thee all Angels [cry aloud:] the Heavens, and all the Powers therein’). The influence of Swedish on V1 is as strong as that of Latin. Deviations from the Latin text are often based on the Swedish source text. Lines 4 and 9, near the beginning of V1, as well as the hymn’s three f inal lines, 27, 28, and 29, clearly show that Olaus Petri’s Swedish translation was used as a source text. In line 4 of the Finnish text (Sinua kijtte Cherubin ia Seraphin sanoden ilman loppu), the words, word order, choice of words, and the declined forms of loan match Olaus Petri’s Swedish translation exactly (Tich presa Cherubin och Seraphin, seyandes vthan enda). Also, the verb kijtte/presa (‘to praise’) at the beginning of the couplet is not found in the Latin text Tibi cherubim et seraphim, incessabili voce proclamant (‘To thee Cherubim and Seraphim: continually do cry’). The influence of Swedish translations, and of Olaus Petri’s translation in particular, is especially strong at the end of the Finnish translation. In line 27 of the Latin (1c), the phrase miserere nostri (‘have mercy upon us’) appears both at the beginning and at the end. This repetition does not appear in the Finnish version (1a), and the source for the Finnish is thus either
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Figure 7 Prose version 1. Mikael Agricola’s Rucouskiria, 1544. Photo: The National Library of Finland
Olaus Petri’s translation (1d) or the missal’s translation (1e), in which the repetition is also absent. (1a) Armada meite herra ia ole meille laupias (1544, V1) (1b) Armahda meidän päällem Herra, ja ole meille laupias (1583, V3) (1c) Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri (1d) Forbarma tich offuer oss o herre och war oss barmhertig (1536) (1e) Förbarma tigh öffuer oss o HErre, och war oss barmhertigh (1541/1553).
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The final line of the Finnish translation (2a) differs from the Latin text in that the Finnish uses the first person plural (mö […] turuame, meite), while the Latin (2d) uses the first person singular (speravi, confundar). Since Olaus Petri’s Swedish translation (2e) also uses the first person plural (wij, oss), it is clear that the source of the Finnish translation was the Swedish text. The plural form is also used in the later Swedish translation (2f), though the 1525 Swedish text (2g) had used the first person singular ( jac, migh). The use of the plural form in Olaus Petri’s translation may have been due to the influence of Luther (2h), who used the first person plural (wir, vns) in his German translation. Granted, the plural also appears in some other German translations, including Brenz (2i). Based on word order, among other features, it appears that the Finnish translation was not based on a German source text. (2a) Sinuun mö herra turuame, ele laske meite ijkenens häpijen Ala (1544, V1) (2b) Sinun herra me turvamme älä anna meitä ikänäns häpiän ala tulla (Sch 106, V2) (2c) Sinuun Herra me turvaamme, älä anna meitä ikänäns häpiän ala tulla (1583, V3) (2d) In te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum (‘O Lord, in thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded’) (2e) På tich herre fortröste wij låt oss icke komma på skam til ewig tijd (1536) (2f) På tigh hoppes wij o Herre, lät oss icke komma på skam til ewig tijd (1541/1553) (2g) Herrä jac hopes vppa tigh lath migh ey blygas ewinneliga (1525) (2h) Wir hoffen auff dich HERR, Las vns nimer mehr zu schanden warden (Luther) (2i) Auff dich Herr stet vnser hoffnung laß vnß nit zü schanden werden (Brenz).
In several places, the Finnish translation matches the 1525 Swedish translation, but there is usually a more likely source: either the Latin Te Deum or Olaus Petri’s translation. It is only in line 7 that the Finnish translation (3a) is closer to the Old Swedish translation (3f). In the Old Swedish translation there is one verb loffuar (‘to praise’), as in the Finnish (kijttepi). In contrast, Olaus Petri’s (3d) and the missal’s (3e) Swedish translations use two verbs – loffua och prijsa (‘to praise’) – in this line, and there is no noun to correspond to the Latin word chorus. The Latin text (3c) also differs from the Finnish in
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that there is no verb in the line; the verb laudat (‘to praise’) comes later on the text. Could this line be an indicator of the age of the Finnish translation? But why would the text used for Agricola’s Rucouskiria have been altered on the basis of the Old Swedish text, when two newer Swedish translations were available? (3a) Sinua kijttepi pyhe Apostolin iocko (1544, V1) (3b) Sinua kijttäpi pyhä Apostolitten ioucko (1583, V3) (3c) Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus (‘The glorious company of the Apostles: [praise thee]’) (3d) Tich loffua och prijsa the helige apostler (1536) (3e) Tigh lofwa och prisa alle helge Apostlar (1541/1553) (3f) Tigh loffuar then helghe apostlana chore (1525).
Overall, comparison to the source texts shows that there are several places in the Finnish translation that were translated on the basis of Reformation period literature, in 1536 at the earliest. However, it is possible that the Finnish translation consists of layers of various ages. The places that are based on the Latin may predate the Reformation. The word Sabaoth, which appears in line 5, indicates that the source text is relatively old. This form of the word appears in the Latin Te Deum as well as in Olaus Petri’s translation and some Old German translations, such as Hortulus anime 1504. Later translations in all languages use the form Zebaoth. The age and established status of the Finnish translation may also be evident in the mysterious first couplet of the translation. There is no equivalent found in the Latin, Swedish, or German texts. In the non-Finnish texts (4c-i), God is addressed in the second person singular (te, tich/tigh, dich), but in Finnish (4a) there is no direct address in the first line. Instead, the people are encouraged in the first person plural imperative mood to thank God: Kijttekem (‘let us thank’). Furthermore, the Lord is referred to in the third person singular, hende (‘him’). Based on the verb tunnustamma (‘we acknowledge’), the end of the couplet may have been translated from the Latin (confitemur), Olaus Petri’s translation (bekenne), the oldest Swedish translation (bekännom), or, for example, Brunfels’s German translation (bekennen). In the second half of the couplet, Mö tunnustamma hende herraxi (‘we acknowledge him to be the Lord’), the translative form of the word herra (‘Lord’) is used, which may be based on Olaus Petri’s (4d) expression for wor herra or from the structure wir bekennen dich eynen Herren, which appears in various German translations (4i). These unique forms in this textual context were preserved in subsequent translations. In the context
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of Te Deum, the first line in the Finnish translation is unusual. However, the phrase Kijttekem Jumala (‘let us thank God’) is used in various other Finnish religious texts as well. Its use may have been based on religious language in general. (4a) Kijttekem Jumala, Mö tunnustamma hende herraxi (1544, V1) (4b) O Jumala sinua me kijtämme, sinua HERra me tunnustamme (1583, V3) (4c) Te Deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur (‘We praise thee, O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord’) (4d) O Gud wij loffue tich, och bekenne tich for wor herra (1536) (4e) O Gudh wij loffue tigh, o HERRE wij tacke tigh (1541/1553) (4f) Wij loffuom tigh gudh bekännom tigh wara een herra (1525) (4g) GOtt dich loben wir, Herr dich preisen wir (Luther) (4h) DIch Gott loben wir, dich Herr bekennen wir (Brunfels) (4i) Herr Gott wir loben dich wir bekennen dich eynen Herren (Brenz).
Another feature of note found in V1 is the use of the first person plural pronoun variant myö (written mö ‘we’). This variant is found in eastern Finnish dialects, while literary Finnish was based on the western dialects spoken in the Turku region and, in a broader sense, in western Finland. For the most part, Agricola uses the same western variants for the personal pronouns as standard contemporary Finnish (Häkkinen 2015: 94). There are only a few similar personal pronouns from the eastern dialects found in Agricola’s other published works. Further, there are a few examples of these pronouns in other Finnish texts of the Reformation. However, eastern dialectical features can be found in the earliest manuscripts. This can be explained by the fact that those who wrote the first Finnish language texts were from the eastern dialectical region. It has been presumed that the ideology of the Reformation obtained its first foothold in Finland in the southeastern part of country, especially in Vyborg. The new ideologies came to eastern Finland directly from Germany, from the Baltic lands in particular (e.g., Häkkinen 2015: 25), and furthermore, most of the young men who left to study in Wittenberg were at one point from the school district of Vyborg (Heininen 1976: 17-18). V1 has been considered unquestionably Agricola’s work because it is published in his prayer book (e.g., Kurvinen 1929: 222). However, the text’s eastern dialect features give reason to doubt that the translation is Agricola’s work, because Agricola mostly used the western dialect in his works, even if he was born and had been at school in the eastern part of Finland. In addition, the fact that there are quite a few translation errors in the text, as well as the fact that the translation is based solely on Latin and Swedish
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texts, speaks against Agricola having written the translation. No German influence can be seen in the Finnish translation. If Agricola used Brunfels’s German prayer book as a source for Rucouskiria, it would be unusual for there to be no trace of German in the text, because Agricola is known for being a very scrupulous translator. For example, in translating his New Testament, Agricola used Latin, Greek, Swedish, and German sources alongside each other (Itkonen-Kaila 1997). It is very likely that the Finnish translation of Te Deum was already prepared when Agricola compiled his prayer book. Agricola may have incorporated it into his book and chosen to keep its original wording in accordance with the older of the two styles evident in translations of the period. It is unknown whether V1 was ever really used in church services. It is noteworthy that the Finnish translation of Te Deum appears in this form only in Agricola’s Rucouskiria. Does this mean that the translation was not in general use? Or could Finland, like Germany and Sweden, have had several prosaic translations of the hymn? It is completely possible, because there were, for example, many different Finnish versions of the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of the Reformation period.
Prosaic version 2 Translation version 2 (V2) is nearly identical to the text that appears in Agricola’s Rucouskiria. V2 appears in four music manuscripts: Codex Cumoënsis (Sch 27); the Skara music manuscript (Sch 104); the Songbook of Loimijoki (Sch 106); and Liber Georgij Marcj Aboënsis (Sch 113). V2 includes the same mysterious opening line, for example, which attests to the established nature of the Finnish translation. The versions differ in orthography and phonology, which is typical for Reformation-era texts. However, the syntactic and lexical differences are minor; there are 24 couplets in common between V1 and V2, and five lines show revision in the wording. Though the differences are slight, they are evident enough that V2 can be considered a revised or improved translation. This interpretation is supported by the fact that examples of V2 appearing in various manuscripts are nearly identical and consistent with each other. Previous studies have discussed these translations (V1 and V2) as being the same text (e.g., Tuppurainen and Hannikainen 2010: 107), which is a poor assessment because the differences between the texts are not made apparent. This judgement also makes it difficult to ascertain the order of the manuscripts’ dates. V2 was based on V1. The differences between the two translations are mostly lexical, for example Sabaoth (1544, V1) > Zebaoth (Sch 104, V2);
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ijancaikisesta nijn ijancaikisen (1544, V1) > ijancaickisesta ia ijancaickisen (Sch 106, V2); cf. in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi. The sources for V2 were also Latin and Swedish. The different languages and translations can be seen as having influenced the modification of the older Finnish translation, the details of which were corrected according to the models of other languages. For example, line 17 closely resembles V1 (5a), but the verb sortaa (‘oppress’) at the beginning of the line has been replaced with the compound verb ylitsenvoittaa (‘overcome’) (5b). The verb in the Finnish is in the imperfect, and so the source was either Olaus Petri’s (5d) or the missal’s Swedish translation (5e). The German translation also uses a corresponding compound verb, but in Luther (5f), for example, it is in the perfect. Because the modifications are so few, it is impossible to say which of the Swedish texts served as the basis for the changes. (5a) Sine sorsit coleman […] (1544, V1) (5b) Sinä ÿlitzen woitit cooleman […] (Sch 113, V2) (5c) Tu, devicto mortis aculeo […] (5d) Tu öffueruan döden […] (1536) (5e) Tu öffuerwan döden […] (1541/1553) (5f) Du hast des Todes stachel vberwunden […] (Luther).
The music manuscripts usually include Swedish- and Latin-language liturgical songs alongside the Finnish, in addition to musical notation. The manuscripts typically include both the prosaic Finnish Te Deum and a poetic Finnish Te Deum (Sch 104, Sch 105, and Sch 113). The Skara manuscript and the Songbook of Loimijoki also include the Latin text and both prosaic and poetic Swedish translations. The Loimijoki manuscript is exceptional in that all these foreign language texts appear twice, suggesting that the manuscript is made up of parts of different age. A unique aspect of the Skara manuscript is that it includes two different prosaic Swedish translations: Olaus Petri’s text; and the missal’s. Liber Georgij Marcj and the Codex Cumoënsis differ from the others in that they include neither the Latin nor a prosaic Swedish translation. The Codex Cumoënsis does, however, include a poetic Swedish translation. It is apparently the oldest of these manuscripts, dated to 1550–1570 (Tuppurainen and Hannikainen 2010: 128). The presence of a Swedish poetic version and lack of a Finnish poetic translation in the manuscript may aid in determining the age of the translations. It is also interesting that two prosaic Finnish translations of Te Deum, V2 and V3, are found in the Skara manuscript, the Songbook of Loimijoki, and
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Liber Georgij Marcj. This may be due to the manuscripts containing materials of different ages. For example, the Latin text of the Skara manuscript, along with the prosaic Finnish V2 and the two prosaic and one poetic Swedish translation, are in a part that has been dated to the 1570s. The prosaic Finnish V3 and the poetic Finnish translation are in a newer part, which has been dated to 1611 at the latest (Schalin 1946: 48-49). In the case of the Songbook of Loimijoki, the first pages – which include the Latin text, the prosaic Finnish V3, and the prosaic and poetic Swedish translations – may be younger than the other parts of the manuscript. This would explain why a portion of the texts appear twice in the manuscript. Of the Finnish translations, the prosaic V2 and the poetic version belong to the possibly older part. The manuscript has been dated partially to the 1570s and 1580s, while parts may be later (Schalin 1946: 51). In Liber Georgij Marcj, the parts which contain the prosaic Finnish V2 and V3, as well as the poetic Finnish translation, are from the 1580s (Schalin 1946: 56; Tuppurainen and Hannikainen 2010: 129). The Finnish V2 is found at the end of the manuscript, separate from the other Finnish versions of the Te Deum (Kurvinen 1929: 38). Based on the dating of the manuscripts, we may conclude that V2 was in use at least until the turn of the 1580s.
Prosaic version 3 Version 3 (V3) is the most common Finnish prosaic translation. It appears in approximately 20 manuscripts and in Finnish hymnals beginning with that of Finno (1583?). All of the translations have comparable lines, but the third version clearly differs from the earlier translations. Despite similarities between the versions, V3 can be considered a new translation, with details fine tuned on the basis of the Latin and the Swedish – and also of V2. Approximately 20 points in the Finnish translation show morphological, syntactic, lexical, and phraseological changes. V3 shows an attempt to reconcile the translation with the original Latin text. Changes based on the Latin are apparent in lines 10, 12, 19, and 24. For example, in line 12 the word kunnialinen (‘honourable’) (6a-b) has been added to the coordinating adjectives on the basis of the Latin. (6a) Ja sinun totisen ia aijnoan poijan (1544, V1) (6b) Ja sinun kunnialista, totista ja ainokaista poikaas (1583, V3) (6c) venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium (6d) Och tin eenfödda son then me tich haffuer sannan guddom (1536).
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The translator has also corrected obvious translation errors on the previous texts in at least a few places. For example, the first line (4b) was corrected, addressing God in the second person singular as is found in the original text. However, these corrections are not necessarily based on the Latin but also may have been based on the Swedish text. This translation version also shows the clear influence of Swedish, even to the extent that line 29 preserves a grammatical number error appearing in the Swedish (2c, 2e, 2f). A Swedish source text has been used as the basis of the translation in lines 17, 20, 27, and 29, at the very least. The changes based on Swedish have expanded an expression in several places, as a synthetic structure has been changed to a more analytic form. Examples of a structure being changed from synthetic to analytic are evident in lines 20 and 27. In the first case (7a-b) an infinitival clause palueliaijtas autaman (‘help thy ser vants’) becomes a subordinate clause ettäs palvelioitas auttaisit (‘in order to help thy servants’), and the imperfect form becomes perfect: lunastit > olet lunastanut; cf. haffuer återlöst (‘thou hast redeemed’). In line 27 (1a-b) the partitive form meite (‘us’) is replaced by a postpositional phrase meidän päällem / öffuer oss (‘upon us’). (7a) Nijn mö sijs rukoelema sinua palueliaijtas autaman, iotca sine callilla werelles lunastit (1544, V1) (7b) Niin me siis rukolema sinua, ettäs palvelioitas auttaisit, jotkas kalliila verelläs olet lunastanut (1583, V3) (7c) Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine redemisti (7d) Ty bidie wij tich at tu wille hielpa tina tienare som tu med tin dyra blodh haffuer återlöst (1536) (7e) Ty bidie wij tigh, at tu hielper tina tienare, som tu med tin dyra blodh haffuer återlöst (1541/1553).
This translation has been considered Finno’s work (e.g., Hallio 1936: 541) because it is found in his 1583 hymnal. However, it is possible, and even rather likely, that he adopted the text in use by congregations. Thus the Finnish translations may have been written or adapted by someone other than Finno. I base my claim on the fact that the text in Finno’s songbook differs clearly from the text of the manuscripts in two places, in lines 23 and 25. When Finnish translation V3 appears in the manuscripts, the personal pronoun heitä (‘them’) is typically used in the second half of line 23 (8b), while the pronoun is missing in Finno’s hymnal (8a). In line 25 Finno uses the adverb niin (9a), which appears in only a few manuscripts. In the manuscripts it is
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more typical that no emphatic adverb is used (9b). Of course the wording is familiar from Agricola’s Rucouskiria translation, e.g., ijancaikisesta nijn ijancaikisen (‘from everlasting to everlasting’). These kinds of additions or omissions easily occur in copying texts. On these grounds I assume that Finno copied Finnish translation V3 into his hymnal. The texts in the manuscripts represent translation V3, which was actually in use. (8a) […] ia ylös corghotta ijancaickisest (1583, V3) (8b) […] ja ÿlös corgota heitä ijancaickisest (Sch 106, V3) (9a) […] ijancaickisesta nijn ijancaickisehen (1583, V3) (9b) […] ijancaickisesta ijancaickisehen (Sch 106, V3).
The rhymed poetic version There is only one Finnish translation of the rhymed Te Deum dating from the Reformation. It is common in manuscripts (see Figure 8) and hymnals. The phonological and morphological differences between the texts are rather minor, and most can be explained by the erroneous copying of texts and the different dialectical backgrounds of the writers. The rhymed versions show no such significant differences as were obvious in the prosaic versions. As stated above, the original rhymed text was Martin Luther’s 1529 version. A Swedish-language translation was composed in Finland on the basis of this German text no later than 1559 (Kurvinen 1929: 257). The Codex Cumoënsis (Sch 27), the earliest music manuscript including Te Deum, has no Finnish rhymed version but does include a Swedish rhymed translation. This manuscript has been dated to between the 1550s and the 1570s. The Finnish rhymed version can be dated to the late 1570s or early 1580s because the text appears in nearly all the manuscripts, including those that have been dated to around 1580, for example in the Songbook of Loimijoki. In the rhymed poetic Finnish translation, the influence of foreign languages is not as clear as it was in the case of the prose translation, due to structural differences between the languages. In a prose text, translation can be done very accurately on a word-by-word basis. In a poetic text, end rhyme and the sound of the words must be considered, as well as the rhythm, which is dictated by the number of syllables, for example. A good example of different structural and lexical choices is seen in line 5 of Te Deum. In the German (10c) the line begins with an adjective, and the noun is modified by a possessive pronoun (heilig, vnser Gott). The Swedish (10b) also uses a possessive pronoun vår (‘our’), but the order of clauses is different, and
208 Tanja Toropainen Figure 8 Rhymed version. Songbook from Urjala. Photo: Jorma Hannikainen
the personal pronoun han (‘he’) has been added to the line. The Finnish text (10a) uses neither pronoun, but the order of clauses is according to the German original. (10a) Pyhä on Jumala, Pyhä on Jumala (1583) (10b) Vår Gudh han ähr heligh. Vår Gudh han ähr heligh (1559) (10c) Heilig ist vnser Gott, Heilig ist vnser Gott (Luther).
Foreign examples have certainly affected the creation of the poetic Finnish translation and, for example, the number of lines, which is 26 in the poetic
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version of Te Deum. In searching for the source texts for the poetic Finnish translation, we must consider the content of the text as well as individual word and structural choices. It seems that the Finnish language rhymed Te Deum cannot actually be considered a translation. It is an original composition or construction, based on a model. The Swedish text, in contrast, can be considered a translation of Luther’s original text. The Swedish translation is not word for word, but there are many linguistic and structural similarities between it and the German text. While the author of the poetic Finnish version has not rendered a close translation, he was at least familiar with the Swedish rhymed text. This is visible, among other places, in line 6 (11a), which includes a dependent clause (meaning ‘[you] who bring all good [things] to us’), as in the Swedish (11b). There is no such dependent clause in Luther’s original text (11c). Line 13 (12a-b) also shows the influence of Swedish: olet sinä wissist < äst tu wist (‘you are definitely’). In this case the end rhyme has been constructed according to the Swedish model (12c). While the end rhyme is similar in the original German text (12d) as well, there is a difference in the structure of the line. (11a) Pyhä HERra Zebaoth, Quin meillä caicki hyuät tuot (1583) (11b) Heligh är Gudh som kallas herre[n] Zebaoth, Then oss altijdh bewijsar gott (1559) (11c) Heilig ist vnser Gott der HERRE Zebaoth (Luther) (12a) O cunnian Cuningas Jesu Christ, Isäs poica olet wissist (1583) (12b) O cunnian kuningas Jesu christ. Isäs poica olet sinä wissist (Sch 106) (12c) Tw ärhones konung Jesu Christ Gudz fadhers eenda son äst tu wist (1559) (12d) Du König der ehren Jhesu Christ, Gott Vater ewiger Son du bist (Luther).
On the basis of the Finnish translation, it is not possible to say whether its author was also familiar with Luther’s German text. It is possible, but in that case Luther’s text has served primarily as a source of ideas and inspiration. The claim that the Finnish text is a close translation of Luther’s German hymn (Hallio 1936: 544) is not accurate. It also seems that the prosaic Latin text did not serve as the basis of the poetic text. However, a correlation between the prosaic (13c) and poetic (13a-b) Finnish versions is seen in line 7. (13a) Täydhet ouat taiuat ia maat, Sinun Herrauttas cunniat (1583) (13b) Täÿdhet ouat taiuat ia maat. Sinun herraudes cunniat (Sch 106) (13c) Täydhet ouat taiuat että maa, sinun Herraudhes cunniat (V3).
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This translation has also been thought to have been composed by Finno (e.g., Hallio 1936: 543), but his having translated the poetic version is even more unlikely than his having written the prose version (Schalin 1947: 59). In the first place, the Finnish rhymed translation appears in manuscripts older than or approximately the same age as Finno’s hymnal. Secondly, while the Finnish rhymed translation was quite established in the manuscripts, the rhymed text in Finno’s hymnal differs from the text in the manuscripts in some sections. If Finno’s text were the original form, why would it differ from all the other texts? It is likely that in composing the hymnal there were copying or printing errors. This can be seen in two lines. In one of them, Finno (13a) used an ungrammatical partitive case herrauttas (‘your omnipotence’) when in other versions (13b) it was the genitive herraudes. In the other line, the second person singular pronoun sinä (‘you’) is missing from Finno (12a).
Conclusions By comparing the text of Te Deum in different languages, I have shown that the sources for the Finnish prosaic translations were the original Latin text, as well as the Swedish translation by Olaus Petri and possibly the later Swedish translation published in the 1541 missal. The German did not have a direct influence on the Finnish translation. Due to the fact that all three Finnish prosaic versions have been modified on the basis of Swedish Reformation-era sources, the Finnish translation cannot be considered mediaeval. The text may, however, incorporate layers based on the original Latin that date back to mediaeval times. The fact that the idiosyncratic Finnish opening line, which does not have a counterpart in any other language, was corrected only in the third translation version indicates that text was, to some degree, established. The plural personal pronouns of the Te Deum appearing in Agricola’s Rucouskiria are of an eastern dialect. This feature links the text to the Vyborg region, from where there was a direct connection to the Reformation in the Baltic lands and Germany, strengthening the concept that Vyborg had a central role in both the Reformation and the early period of the development of the written Finnish language. There is no reason to consider the Te Deum in Rucouskiria to be Agricola’s own translation (cf. Czaika 2016); rather, he inserted into his work a translation that was composed by someone else and that was possibly already in use. It also does not seem likely that Finno translated the Te Deum texts in Finno’s hymnal. The numerous music manuscripts in which Finnish translations appear side by side with
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Swedish, and sometimes Latin, texts are important to the research of Finnish translations of Te Deum. These manuscripts show that the hymn was sung in the vernacular in the congregations. The age-old Te Deum was a significant piece of writing and liturgical song in the Church during the Reformation. A change can be seen in the use of Te Deum, in which the mediaeval choir song became a congregational hymn sung by the worshippers, according to the ideals of the Reformation. The Te Deum translations also show how the languages have influenced one another and how innovations, such as a rhyming Te Deum, were transmitted from one language to another.
Bibliography Primary Sources Agricola, Mikael. 1544. Rucouskiria / Bibliasta / se on / molemista Testamentista / Messuramatusta / ia muusta monesta / jotca toysella polella Luetellan / cokoonpoymettu Somen Turussa. http://kaino.kotus.f i/korpus/vks/meta/agricola/ agri1rk1_rdf.xml [accessed 2.6.2016]. Brenz, Johannes. [1530.] Te Deum. [Strasbourg: Köpfel.] In Daniel Trocmé-Latter, The Singing of the Strasbourg Protestants, 1523–1541, 280-82. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Ashgate, 2015. [Brunfels, Otto. 1531.] Biblisch Bettbüchlin Der Altuätter / vnd herzlichen Weibern / beyd Alts vnd Newes Testaments. [Strasbourg.] http://www.zvdd.de/de/dms/ load/met/? PPN=PPN818194928 [accessed 2.6.2016]. Brunsfel [sic!], Oth. 1528. Precationes Biblicae Sanctorum Patrum, Illustrium Virorum & Mulierum utriusq[ue] Testamenti. [Wittenberg.] http://daten.digitalesammlungen.de/~db/0002/bsb00020606/images/index.html? seite=00001&l=de [accessed 2.6.2016]. Den svenska tideboken. 1525. Revised reprint. Stockholm: Norstedt och Söner, 1854. https: //books.google.co.in/books? id=TZ0yAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover &hl=fi&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false [accessed 2.6.2016]. Een liten Songbook til at bruka j Kyrkionne. 1553. Microfilm (mf/ms 233) of the Laihia church archive manuscript. Helsinki: National Library. Finno, Jacobus. 1583 [?]. [Yxi vähä Suomenkielinen Wirsikiria]. http://kaino.kotus. fi/korpus/vks/meta/virret/finno_rdf.xml [accessed 2.6.2016]. Hortulus anime. 1504. Strasbourg. http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0000/ bsb00005610/images/index.html? seite=00001&l=de [accessed 2.6.2016].
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Luther, Martin. [1535. Geistliche Lieder auffs new gebessert zu Wittemberg.] http:// daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0005/bsb00055112/images/index.html? fip=19 3.174.98.30&id=00055112&seite=1 http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00055112/image_1 [accessed 2.6.2016]. Luther, Martin. 1538. Die drey Symbola oder Bekentnis des glaubens Christi jnn der kirchen eintrechtiglich gebraucht. Wittenberg. http://daten.digitale-sammlungen. de/bsb00023917/image_1 [accessed 2.6.2016]. [Olaus Petri.] 1536. Swenske songer eller wisor nw på nytt prentade / forökade / och vnder en annan skick än tilförenna vtsatte. Stockholm. http://runeberg.org/ swisornw/0004.html [accessed 2.6.2016]. Sch 27 = Codex Cumoënsis. Eö12 and C I 37. Helsinki: National Library. Sch 104 = Skara music manuscript. Skara: Stifts- och landsbiblioteket. Sch 106 = Songbook of Loimijoki. Microfilm (mf/ms 232) of the Loimaa church archive manuscript. Helsinki: National Library. Sch 113 = Liber Georgij Marcj Aboënsis. Microfilm (mf/ms 233). Helsinki: National Library.
Secondary sources Czaika, Otfried. 2016. Mikael Agricola: Reformator und Sprachschöpfer. Anmerkungen zur finnischen Reformationsgeschichte. In Reformation in Nordosteuropa – The Reformation in Northeast Europe, 50-73. Nordost-Archiv: Zeitschrift für Regionalgeschichte 25/2016. Lüneburg: Nordost Institut. Gummerus, Jaakko. 1941–1955. Mikael Agricolan rukouskirja ja sen lähteet I–III. Suomen Kirkkohistoriallisen Seuran Toimituksia 44.1-3. Helsinki: Suomen Kirkkohistoriallinen Seura. Häkkinen, Kaisa. 2015. Spreading the Written Word: Mikael Agricola and the Birth of Literary Finnish, trans. by Leonard Pearl. Studia Fennica Linguistica 19. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Hallio, Kustaa. 1936. Suomalaisen virsikirjan virret: Alkuperä ja kehitys. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Toimituksia 203. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Heininen, Simo. 1976. Nuori Mikael Agricola. Suomi 120.3. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Heininen, Simo. 2007. Mikael Agricola: Elämä ja teokset. Helsinki: Edita. Helin, Irmeli. 2012. Interferenssi ja transferenssi vanhoissa virsikäännöksissä. MikaEL. Electronic Journal of the KäTu Symposium on Translation and Interpreting Studies, vol. 6. Itkonen-Kaila, Marja. 1997. Mikael Agricolan Uusi testamentti ja sen erikieliset lähtötekstit. Suomi 184. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
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Kouri, E.I. 1995. The Early Reformation in Sweden and Finland c. 1520–1560. In The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, ed. by Ole Peter Grell, 42-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kurvinen, P.J.I. 1929. Suomen virsirunouden alkuvaiheet v een 1640. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Toimituksia 180. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Lavery, Jason. 2012. The Swedish Kingdom and Europe’s Age of Reform 1523–1611. In Luther, reformaatio ja kirja – Luther, the Reformation, and the Book, ed. by Tuija Laine, 9-14. Suomen Kirkkohistoriallisen Seuran Toimituksia 220. Helsinki: Suomen Kirkkohistoriallinen Seura and Suomalainen Teologinen Kirjallisuusseura. Nikkilä, Osmo. 1980. Mikael Agricolan teosten paikallissijojen loppuheitto. Folia Fennistica & Linguistica 1. Tampere: Tampereen yliopiston suomen kielen ja yleisen kielitieteen laitos. Pajamo, Reijo, and Erkki Tuppurainen. 2004. Kirkkomusiikki. Suomen musiikin historia. Helsinki: WSOY. Penttilä, Aarni. 1932. Upsalan suomenkielisen (1500-luvulta polveutuvan) evankeliumikirjan fragmentin kielestä. In Suomi: Kirjoituksia isänmaallisista aineista, viides jakso 13: s osa. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Pirinen, Kauko. 1962. Turun tuomiokapituli uskonpuhdistuksen murroksessa. Suomen Kirkkohistoriallisen Seuran Toimituksia 62. Helsinki: Suomen Kirkkohistoriallinen Seura. Pirinen, Kauko. 1988. Suomenkielisen liturgisen kirjallisuuden synty. In Mikael Agricolan kieli, ed. by Esko Koivusalo, 9-24. Tietolipas 112. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Rapola, Martti. 1933. Suomen kirjakielen historia pääpiirteittäin I: Vanhan kirja suomen kirjoitus- ja äänneasun kehitys. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Toimituksia 197. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Schalin, Olav D. 1946, 1947. Kulthistoriska studier till belysande av reformationens genomförande i Finland I-II. Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. Tuppurainen, Erkki, and Jorma Hannikainen. 2010. Suomenkielisiä kirkkolauluja 1500–1600-luvuilta. Kirkkomusiikin osaston ja Kuopion osaston julkaisuja 33. Sibelius-Akatemia. Vatanen, Osmo. 2006. Te Deum-hymnistä avautuvia liturgianteologisia näköaloja. In Ego sum qui sum: Festskrift till Jouko Martikainen, ed. by Tuomas Martikainen, 321-32. Studier i systematisk teologi vid Åbo Akademi 29. Åbo: Akademi.
About the author Dr. Tanja Toropainen is a teacher at the University of Turku. Her research focuses on Old Finnish language and historical word formation.
Part IV Language Contacts and Loanwords
9
Traces of Low German Influence in the Finnish Texts of Mikael Agricola? Mikko Bentlin
Abstract This essay examines the traces left by Low German on early Finnish translations from the Reformation era. It is well known that Mikael Agricola, Finland’s most important reformer and a powerful influence in creating the written Finnish language, used Luther’s High German texts as his source texts. This essay complements earlier research by establishing the extent to which the influence of Middle Low German source texts can be seen in the Finnish translations. Interesting potential source texts are, for example, Johannes Bugenhagen’s Low German texts from the same period. The essay also considers reasons why the influence of Low German language and Low German texts seems to have remained surprisingly scant in Agricola’s work. Keywords: Finnish, Low German, Mikael Agricola
Agricola in Wittenberg and the linguistic situation in Germany in the 16th century In the year 1536, two young men from Finland arrived in the German town of Wittenberg in order to study the theology of the new Lutheran confession at the local university (Heininen 2007a: 21). One of them was Mikael Agricola (c. 1510–1557), who was to become the leading figure of the Reformation in Finland and founder of the Finnish literary language (see Toropainen in this volume). Wittenberg was at this time the residential town of the prince-electors of Saxony and the centre from which Martin Luther’s reforms had begun to spread less than two decades earlier. Several of the central figures of the Reformation in Germany were affiliated with the University of Wittenberg, which had been founded in 1502.
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch09
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The Swedish king Gustav Vasa (1496–1560) favoured the reformation in his realm and was therefore vitally interested in the Protestant education of his subjects. This included the large project of translating the Bible into the national language Swedish (see Pettersson in this volume) and the realm’s second language Finnish, which was the majority language of the provinces east of the Gulf of Bothnia. The task of translating the Bible into Finnish was given to the young and ambitious priest Agricola, who was given the chance to travel to Germany in order to study Luther’s ideas (Heininen 2007a: 29). On his journey to Wittenberg, Agricola inevitably came into contact with the language forms of the areas through which he passed. In northern Germany this was Middle Low German (MLG). This language differed from its southern neighbour High German (HG) in a number of features, the most important of which was the absence of the so-called High German consonant shift.1 This feature and several others were shared with Middle Dutch in the West, however, and in part with Old Frisian and Middle English as well. From the 12th century onwards, several developments in northern Germany had affected Finland at the same time. The most important one was the rise of the Hanseatic League with its most important centre in the city of Lübeck, which brought an enormous Low German (LG) linguistic influence via trade to all the languages that were spoken at the shores of the Baltic Sea. Simultaneously, German settlements with both High and Low German linguistic background had started to expand eastward in a process that in the North followed the coast of the Baltic Sea up to what we today call the Baltic States. Both movements found a natural ending point in Finland as their utmost northern outpost (cf. Bentlin 2008: 36). As a result, the area of the Low German vernacular now stretched far beyond its original area, which was the Saxon tribal area in the northwestern part of modern Germany. The expansion happened at the expense of not only Frisian and Danish but also, in particular, at the expense of different Western Slavic language forms such as Polabian and Pomeranian, which became extinct through language shift. In the south, in contrast, minor areas were lost to the more prestigious High German. The political developments left their traces in the language. After the last Old Saxon2 documents there is a gap of almost a century in the written documentation of Low German, 1 The High German consonant shift comprises the development of Germanic voiceless plosives into fricatives or affricates, depending on their position, and the devoicing of voiced plosives; cf. HG Wasser (‘water’) vs. LG, Dutch and English water; HG Apfel (‘apple’) vs. LG, Dutch appel, English apple; HG Tag (‘day’) vs. LG, Dutch dag, English day. 2 Old Saxon is commonly used as a synonym for Old Low German, especially when stressing the tribal background of its speakers.
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and when it reappears in the second half of the 13th century it has been restructured and developed into the dominating lingua franca of the whole Baltic region for texts dealing mainly with trade and administrative issues. In the domain of religion, a special tendency towards mysticism can be noted in Middle Low German texts of the 15th century (Holtz 1980: 18). Now the term Saxon no longer applies for this language form, since the Duchy of Saxony for dynastic reasons moved up the river Elbe to the regions around Dresden and Leipzig with their Eastern Central German, that is, High German dialects. Only a few parts on the northern edge of the area remained mainly Low German speaking. The original ties to the Low German tribe of the Saxons were, in addition, lost completely. In this very area, where the river Elbe marks the border between Low and High German dialects, we find the town of Wittenberg, which was to become the centre of the Lutheran Reformation and the place where Agricola studied from 1536 to 1539.3 Linguistically, Agricola’s destination was therefore a very interesting one. As a university town and central melting pot of High and Low German, the town would probably have been an ideal field for linguistic contact studies in the 16th century. Middle Low German had dominated trade all around the Baltic Sea for several centuries, but during the previous decades its importance had begun to decline, while the use of High German had gradually grown, especially in official contexts (cf. Bentlin 2008). It is evident, however, that Agricola as the translator of the Visby admiralty law from Low German into Swedish had at least a passive competence in Low German, probably from contacts with the still very influential (Low) German merchants in the Finnish towns of Turku and Viipuri (Vyborg) (Heininen 2007c: 115-17). This influence was rather independent of the official Swedish policy, which, after the battle of Brunkeberg in 1471, had been trying to minimize German influence in the realm (cf. Beyer-Thoma 1998: 55; Kallioinen 2000: 140; Schweitzer 1993: 19).
Personalities of the German reformation in Wittenberg and their linguistic background Among Agricola’s teachers in Wittenberg there were three whose works had a substantial impact on Agricola’s Finnish publications: Martin Luther 3 The very name of the town of Wittenberg (literally ‘white mountain’) gives a clue to the fact that the area is genuinely Low German, as the High German diphthongization of ī and the sound shift from intervocalic t to s do not appear here. Compare the town of Weißenfels (‘white rock’), less than 100 km to the south of Wittenberg, with its clearly High German sound shape.
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himself; Philipp Melanchthon; and Johannes Bugenhagen. Of these, Me lanchthon was High German by birth and is therefore not of interest in the context of this paper. Luther was born in Eisleben and grew up in the nearby town of Mansfeld, where the majority vernacular at that time was still Low German, although it was in the vicinity of the language border and both his parents had come from the Central German dialect belt. 4 So Luther was obviously familiar with both variants of German of his time. Although he seems to have preferred Low German in some of his talks and his private written correspondence has a considerable amount of Low German elements (Stellmacher 1984: 78), the famous reformatory works and translations by Luther are written in a High German variant that follows the tradition of the Saxon court in the town of Meißen. Although Luther was always trying to stay intelligible to both High and Low Germans, the basis of the literary language he developed nevertheless remains High German. It is remarkable, however, that there are several Low German lexical items that were obviously chosen deliberately instead of their High German equivalents, such as northern Ufer instead of southern Gestade (‘shore’) or northern Lippe instead of southern Lefze (‘lip’) (Stellmacher 1984: 82-84). Luther’s friend and confessor Johannes Bugenhagen, from Pomerania, was put in charge of implementing the Reformation in the Low German parts of the country. Under Bugenhagen’s supervision Luther’s Bible translations were immediately cast into a Low German form that stayed very close to the High German version and thus differed very much from the earlier Low German Bible translations (Cologne 1478/79, Lübeck 1494, Halberstadt 1522) especially with regard to their vocabulary and syntactic features. For this reason the Bugenhagen Bible has largely been discredited as not representing genuine Middle Low German at all (Schröder 1991: 1). Indeed, it must at least in parts have been rather unintelligible for ordinary Low German speakers. Finally, however, the complete Low German Bible based on Luther’s High German text was printed in Lübeck in late 1533/early 1534, which in fact is approximately half a year before the complete High German version came out.
4 Central and Upper German dialects are commonly referred to as High German as opposed to Low German. Central German has undergone the High German consonant shift only in parts. In this sense, it marks a kind of transitional belt between Low and Upper German. In this context it is noteworthy that Martin Luther considered himself to be a Saxon as opposed to the group he calls Misii in Latin. Herewith he obviously refers to the people of the upper parts of the duchy of Saxony situated around the residential town of Meißen, where a Central German dialect was spoken (Stellmacher 1984: 77-78.)
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Most of the other works by Bugenhagen, in contrast, were not expected to match an original text as exactly as was the case with the Bible. Therefore the language in, for example, Bugenhagen’s Passion Harmony or several north German Lutheran church orders appears to be much more genuine Middle Low German. If Agricola used any of these texts for his Finnish works, it can be expected that traces of Low German influence would be manifest in Agricola’s usage as well and in this case should also be distinguishable from High German or Swedish equivalents.
Sources of Agricola’s works Agricola’s Finnish works are generally known to be translations from different sources written in Latin, Greek, High German, or Swedish (Itkonen-Kaila 1997: 10). Now, if it is possible to ascribe to Agricola a certain competence in (at least written) Low German, it seems somewhat strange that he should not have used any of the relatively numerous reformatory publications written in this language (cf. Lindow 1926), especially when bearing in mind that at least Bugenhagen, as one of his most influential teachers, was a native speaker of it. Therefore it is necessary at this stage to ponder carefully which of Agricola’s works could possibly have Low German sources. The oldest Finnish book, Agricola’s Abckiria (‘ABC book’) of 1543, consists of liturgical texts and prayers and is based primarily on Luther’s Small Catechism. The introductory poem is based on an equivalent by Melanchthon and adapted to Finnish conditions (Heininen 2007b: 46). Moreover, Agricola adds an Ave Maria according to older Catholic traditions and four short prayers of a mediaeval kind that do not seem to have any equivalents in the known Latin or German catechisms (Heininen 2007b: 52, 59). In these cases, however, it seems that the texts already had a relatively fixed Finnish form since the late 15th century, when Magnus Särkilahti (also called Magnus Nicolai or Magnus Särkilax), Bishop of Turku, had given the order that all basic texts should always be read in the same vernacular form. Undoubtedly these texts did exist, but they have not been preserved. For the Abckiria this means, however, that it is not reasonable to claim the existence of any Low German source. Agricola translated a large number of biblical texts into Finnish, which, apart from the New Testament (Se Wsi Testamenti, 1548), are the Psalms (1551), parts of the Pentateuch (1551) and the Prophets (1552) – according to Ikola (1988: 246), 36.9 per cent of the entire Bible including Apocrypha. Any influence of the older Low German Bibles cannot be expected to be
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manifest here, due to the fact that they were still products of the Catholic era. Further, Bugenhagen stuck too close to Luther’s text for any influence to be detectable. According to Agricola (1548: preface, unnumbered pages) himself, he translated from Greek, Latin, German, and Swedish. His main sources were the original Greek original texts as well as the Latin Vulgate, Luther’s German translation, the Swedish New Testament of 1526, and the Swedish complete Bible of 1541. Thorough studies of the text (e.g., Itkonen-Kaila 1997) have shown that Agricola indeed used all of them. He therefore simply had no need to use a mere translation of Luther along with its original, and it cannot be convincing to claim any influence of the Low German Bible either. The most influential hymn authors of early Lutheran times were all High German (Holtz 1980: 41). Although Joachim Slüter’s Low German hymnary, published in Rostock in two editions in 1525 and 1531, was of great importance for all Nordic countries, one has to bear in mind that even this widely known work is based on a High German source from Nuremberg (cf. Holtz 1980: 40). Moreover, the sources for Agricola’s works have already been studied quite thoroughly. Even though Agricola himself mentions Saxon sources for his prayer book (Rucouskiria Bibliasta, 1544), Jaakko Gummerus (1941: 39) has probably correctly assumed that this expression should refer to High German publications from the area of 16th century (Upper) Saxony rather than to any Low German ones. According to Knuutila (1997: 109), Agricola’s ‘Handbook of Baptism and other Acts of Christianity’ (Käsikiria Castesta ia muista Christikunnan Menoista, 1549) has been shown to be based mainly on a similar manual published the year before in Swedish by Laurentius Petri. Smaller parts are taken from a High German publication by Caspar Huberinus, a Latin translation of Panarion by the Greek Epiphanius of Salamis, as well as some speeches by Martin Luther (Knuutila 1997: 113). Knuutila (1997: 113) also states that the missal called Messu eli Herran echtolinen (1549) also follows similar patterns with respect to its sources in applying a Swedish missal as a base and adding passages of older Finnish Catholic missals in Latin as well as German ones by Luther.
The Low German Passion Harmony as a possible source for Agricola After having more or less excluded Low German models for almost all of Agricola’s major Finnish works, it is thus highly relevant to decide to what extent Agricola may have used especially Bugenhagen’s Low German Passion
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Harmony for his own one, called Se meiden Herran Jesusen Christusen pina, ylesnousemus ia taiuaisen astumus, niste Neliest Euangelisterist coghottu (‘The Sufferings, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Collected from the Four Evangelists’, 1549). The Passion Harmony was indeed the bestseller among Bugenhagen’s works. Before Agricola published his own version, it had already experienced three editions in Latin, twelve in High German, six in Low German, and two in Danish (Heininen 1978/79: 20-21). Moreover, a Swedish version is preserved, albeit only in fragments. As Heininen (1978/79: 24) notes, Agricola does not follow Bugenhagen slavishly. In fact he leaves out several chapters of the original as well as Bugenhagen’s comments. For some reason, however, Heininen only refers to the High German revised edition of 1544 and does not consider the Low German versions in the mother tongue of the author. These do not match exactly with the High German ones either, indicating that it might be possible to trace some kind of influence on Agricola’s translations. When looking at the Low German version of 1531, for example, one finds that already the beginning of Agricola’s text looks like an almost exact match: Agricola 1549, Historia ia Palma Sunnuntain Meno/ Matt xxj. Marci xj. Luce xix. Johan xij: Sinä toisna Peiuene / coska he lehestuit Jerusalemin / Bethphagin pein / lehes Ölioworta / lehetti Jesus caxi henen Opetuslastans ia sanoi heille / Menget Kylen ioca ombi teiden edessen / Ja cocta quin te sinne tuletta / nin te leudhette sidhotuna ydhen Asintamman ia Warsan henen tykenens / ionga päle ei wiele yxiken Inhiminen istunut ole / pästeket ne / Ja toocat minun tykeni. Ja ios iocu teille iotakin puhupi / nin sanocat HERRA neite taruitze / nin hen cochta ne laskepi / ia tenne lehettepi. Ne Opetuslapset menit / ia leusit mös sen Warsan / sidhottuna wlcona Ouen edes tienharasa / ia teit ninquin Jesus oli keskenut. Ja mwtamat iotca sielle seisoit / sanoit heille / Mite te teette pästein site Warsa? Mutta he sanoit heille / ninquin Jesus oli keskenyt / ia ne salleit. Ja he toit sen asintamman / Ja warsan Jesusen tyge / ia panit heiden wattens minen päle / ia istutit henen sehen päle. Mutta caiki ne tapactuit / sen päle ette teutettemē pideis quin sanottu on Prophetan cautta ioca sanopi / Sanocat Syonin tytterelle. Ele pelke Syonin tyter / Catzo sinū Kuningas tulepi sinulle hiliainen / istudhen Asintamman päle. Site eiuet henen Opetuslapsens ennen ymmerteneet / wan sitte quin Jesus Kirkastettu oli / nin he sen muistit ette sencaltainen oli heneste kirioitettu / ia se oli henelle techty.
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Nin palio weki iotca Juhlalle ylesmennyt olit / culit ette Jesus tuli Jerusalemin poleen / otit he Palmum oxia / ia wloslexit hēde wastan. Tuli mös palio Jwttan canssa Herrā möte Betaniasta / iotca peiue ennen sinne iooßnuet olit / ei waiuoin Jesusta / mutta mös Lazarusta nekemähän ionga hen kolehista ylesheretenyt oli. Mutta se Canssa ioca henen cansans oli cosca hen Lazarusen haudhasta wlos cutzui ia kolehista yleshereytti euhkesit site töte / sentedhen keuit mös ne Canssat henen wastans / ette he culitt henen tehnyen semmotoiset merkit. Bugenhagen5 Historia des Palm dages / Matthei am xxj., Marci am xj., Luce am xix., Johannis am xij: Des andern dages, do se harde by Jerusalem quemen tho Bethphage an den ölieberch, sende Jesus syner iüngern twe hen vnde sprack tho en: Ghät hen in dat bleck, dat vor iuw ligt; vnde also balde, wenn gy dar henyn kamen, werden gy eine eselinnen angebunden vinden vnde einen valen by er, vp welckerem noch nüwerle neen minsche geseten hefft; löset se vp vnde bringet se her tho my. Vnde so iuw yemant wat seggen wert, so spreket: De Here bedarff erer – also balde wert he se iuw laten vnde her senden. De iüngern gingen hen vnde vunden ock den valen gebunden by der dör buten vp der wegeschede vnde deden, alse Jhesus beualen hadde. Vnde etlike, de dar stünden, spreken tho en: Wat make gy, dat gy den valen afflösen? Se seden öuerst tho en, alse en Jhesus gebaden hadde. Vnde se letent tho. Vnde se brachten de eselinnen vnde den valen tho Jhesu vnde leden ere kleder darvp vnde setteden en darvp. Dat geschach öuerst althomal, vp dat voruüllet worde, dat dar gesecht ys dorch den Propheten, dede sprickt: Segget der Dochter Zion: Sü, dyn köninck kumpt tho dy, sachtmödich vnde rit vp einem esel vnde vp einem valen der lastbaren eselinnen. Solckes öuerst vorstünden syne iüngern thouörn nicht, sünder do Jesus vorklaret wart, do dachten se daran, dat solckes van em gescreuen was vnde eme solckes gedan hadden. Vele volckes öuerst, dat vp dat fest gekamen was, hörede, dat Jhesus queme na Jerusalem, vnde nemen Palm twige vnde gingen henvth em entiegen. 5
Quoted from Bieber-Wallmann 2013: 373-75.
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Ock quam veel volckes der Jöden mit dem HEREN van Bethania, dat des vördages darhen gelopen was, nicht allene Jhesum, sünder ock Lazarum tho seende, den he van den doden vpgewecket hadde. Dat volck öuerst, dat mit em was, do he Lazarum vth dem graue reep vnde van den doden vpweckede, römede de däth; darumme ginck em ock dat volck entiegen, dat se hörden, he hedde sodan teken gedan.6
In spite of the obvious similarities, there are also some minor differences. The comparison between the High (HG) and Low German (LG) versions of 1530 resp. 1531 shows approximately the same degree of differences as between High or Low German on one side and Agricola’s Finnish (AG) on the other. It seems that Agricola, in part, was closer to High German: (1) AG: Sanocat Syonin tytterelle. Ele pelke Syonin tyter / Catzo sinū Kuningas tulepi sinulle hiliainen / istudhen Asintamman päle. HG: Saget der tochter Zion: Fürchte dich nicht, du tochter Zion. Sihe, dein könig kompt zu dir senfftmütig vnd reit auff einem esel vnd auff einem füllen der lastbaren eselin. LG: Segget der Dochter Zion: Sü, dyn köninck kumpt tho dy, sachtmödich vnde rit vp einem esel vnde vp einem valen der lastbaren eselinnen.
6 (‘The next day, when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a donkey and a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie them and bring them to me. / If anyone talks to you, say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately’”. The disciples went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they did as Jesus had told them to do. / And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” / And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. / And they brought the donkey and the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, / “Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden”. / His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. / The large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. / So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him. / When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. / The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. / The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign’.)
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The principal difference in the first part of the example seems to be that the LG version has left out a passage that may have been found to be an obsolete double mentioning of the Daughter of Zion. A later Low German version from 1586 does show this repetition: (2a) LG86: Segget der Dochter Zion. Früchte dy nicht du Dochter Zion. Süh / dyn Köninck kümpt tho dy sachtmödich.7
In the latter part of the example sentence (1), both LG and HG mention the colt of the donkey, which AG does not. At the same time, closer matches at several places of the text can also be found between AG and LG: (3) AG: Ne sis menit Philippusen tyge / ioca oli Bethsaidast Galilean malda / ia rucolit hende sanoden. HG: die traten zu Philippo, baten yn vnd sprachen. LG: de treden tho Phillippo, de van Bethsaida vth Galilea was, beden en vnde spreken.
Here it is only possible to assume that the editor of the High German text simply expected the readers to know the origin of Jesus’s disciple Philip. Yet this finding does not necessarily indicate that Agricola really used a Low German version of the Passion Harmony, however popular it was at its time. As Heininen (1978/79: 29) points out, most differences between Agricola’s text and the High German version can be traced to the preserved fragments of the Swedish translations. A comparison with the equivalent passages of the Low German text reveals that, in all the named cases, LG has the same features as HG as opposed to AG and Swedish. Those few cases in which LG seemed to provide the more suitable model for Agricola might therefore only point towards a stronger influence of the LG version on the Swedish translation. As long as the knowledge about this text remains fragmentary, it is impossible to provide any definite verdict regarding whether Agricola used any Low German sources at all. While it seems that he did not, this is extraordinary, given the amount of contact that he must have had with this language – not only in his daily life in Wittenberg but even at home in Finland and on his travels.
7
Quoted from Bugenhagen 1985.
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Conclusions Finally, I would like to ask why Agricola then so consistently avoided using Low German sources. A lack of linguistic competence can hardly be the reason. Considering the level at which he handled both High German and Swedish, there should not have been any other third language that would have been easier for him to understand than Low German. Neither would Agricola have suffered from using sources in a less prestigious language, because he did not specify them anyway, and the usual reason for using a text is its quality rather than its language. Maybe Agricola simply did not experience enough of Bugenhagen’s lectures, because roughly half a year after Agricola’s arrival, Bugenhagen left for a longer journey to Denmark and did not return until Agricola finished his studies in Wittenberg in 1539 (Heininen 2007a: 25). In principle, the chances of Low German theological texts influencing works in other languages could never have been better than precisely in the middle of the 16th century. As stated by Max Lindow (1926: 86), Low German printings were still relatively common in Bugenhagen’s and Agricola’s lifetime, but the numbers started to drop rapidly soon after the beginning of the 17th century. It seems to me that the decline was especially strong during the time of the Thirty Years’ War. By the end of the century, the use of Low German in religious publications had completely ceased. Thus it can be concluded that Agricola seems to have been aware of the declining status of Low German by the second half of the 1530s at the latest, when he studied in Wittenberg and began his great translation project. Although he must have been familiar with the language at least to some extent, Low German reformatory literature was too scarce and too unoriginal to have any decisive impact on Agricola’s use of Finnish, despite two of his most prominent teachers having their roots in Low German areas.
Bibliography Primary Sources Agricola, Mikael. 1543. Abckiria. http://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/27243 [accessed 29.4.2018]. Agricola, Mikael. 1544. Rucouskiria, Bibliasta, se on, molemista Testamentista, Messuramatusta, ia muusta monesta, jotca toysella polella Luetellan, cokoonpoymettu Somen Turussa. http://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/43445 [accessed 29.4.2018].
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Agricola, Mikael. 1548. Se Wsi Testamenti. Stockholm: Amundi Lauritzan Poialta. http://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/43367 [accessed 20.10.2016]. Agricola, Mikael. 1549. Käsikiria Castesta ia muista Christikunnan Menoista. http:// www.doria.fi/handle/10024/39746 [accessed 3.12.2018]. Agricola, Mikael. 1549. Messu eli Herran Echtolinen. http://www.doria.f i/handle/10024/43341 [accessed 29.4.2018]. Agricola, Mikael. 1549. Se meiden HERRAN Jesusen Christusen Pina, ylesnousemus ia taiuaisen astumus, niste Neliest Euangelisterist coghottu. Stockholm: Amund Lauritsson. http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/43340/p90-06_se_meiden_herra_jesusen.pdf? sequence=1 [accessed 11.7.2016]. Bieber-Wallmann, Anneliese (ed.). 2013. Johannes Bugenhagen. Reformatorische Schriften (1515/16–1524). Johannes Bugenhagen, Werke. Band I, 1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Bugenhagen, Johannes. 1985 [1586]. Historia des lydendes unde upstandinge unses Heren Jesu Christi. Uth den veer Euangelisten, ed. by Norbert Buske. Niederdeutsche Passionsharmonie. Faks.-Dr. der Barther Ausg. von 1586. Berlin et al.: Evang. Haupt-Bibelges.
Secondary Sources Bentlin, Mikko. 2008. Niederdeutsch-finnische Sprachkontakte. Der lexikalische Einfluß des Niederdeutschen auf die finnische Sprache während des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. Beyer-Thoma, Hermann. 1998. Deutsche in Finnland während des Mittelalters. In Der Finnische Meerbusen als Brennpunkt. Wandern und Wirken deutschsprachiger Menschen im europäischen Nordosten, ed. by Robert Schweitzer and Waltraud Bastman-Bühner, 43-87. Beiträge anläßlich des ‘I. Internationalen Symposiums zur deutschen Kultur im europäischen Nordosten’ der Stiftung zur Förderung deutscher Kultur (Aue-Stiftung) Helsinki und der Ostsee-Akademie LübeckTravemünde in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Deutschen Kulturinstitut Tallinn und dem Finnland-Institut Tallinn vom 6. Bis 10. September 1995 in Tallinn, Estland. Helsinki: Stiftung zur Förderung Deutscher Kultur. Gummerus, Jaakko. 1941. Mikael Agricolan rukouskirja ja sen lähteet. Suomen Kirkkohistoriallisen Seuran Toimituksia 44.1. Helsinki: Suomen Kirkkohistoriallinen Seura. Heininen, Simo. 1978/1979. Mikael Agricolan Passio. Suomen Kirkkohistoriallisen Seuran Vuosikirja. Finska Kyrkohistoriska Samfundets Årsskrift 68-69: 17-30. Heininen, Simo. 2007a. Michael Agricola an der Universität Wittenberg. Jahrbuch für finnisch-deutsche Literaturbeziehungen 39: 21-40.
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Heininen, Simo. 2007b. Abckirian sisältö ja lähteet. In Mikael Agricola. Abckiria. Kriittinen editio, ed. by Kaisa Häkkinen, 42-61. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Heininen, Simo. 2007c. Mikael Agricola. Elämä ja teokset. Helsinki: Edita. Holtz, Gottfried. 1980. Niederdeutsch als Kirchensprache, ed. by Dieter Andresen, Ernst Arfken, Johann D. Bellmann, Heinrich Kröger, and Dirk Römmer. Festgabe für Gottfried Holtz. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Ikola, Niilo. 1988. Mikael Agricolan suomentamat Raamatun kohdat ja niiden osuus koko Raamatusta. In Mikael Agricolan kieli, ed. by Esko Koivusalo, 229-48. Tietolipas 112. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Itkonen-Kaila, Marja. 1997. Mikael Agricolan Uusi testamentti ja sen erikieliset lähtötekstit. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Kallioinen, Mika. 2000. Kauppias, kaupunki, kruunu. Turun porvariyhteisö ja talouden organisaatio varhaiskeskiajalta 1570-luvulle. Bibliotheca historica 59. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Knuutila, Jyrki. 1997. Messukirjat ja kirkolliset käsikirjat. In Vanhimman suomalaisen kirjallisuuden käsikirja, ed. by Tuija Laine, 102-34. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Lindow, Max. 1926. Niederdeutsch als evangelische Kirchensprache im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Greifswald: Adler. Schröder, Ingrid. 1991. Die Bugenhagenbibel. Untersuchungen zur Übersetzung und Textgeschichte des Pentateuchs. Cologne: Böhlau. Schweitzer, Robert. 1993. Die Wiborger Deutschen. Helsinki: Stiftung zur Förderung deutscher Kultur. Stellmacher, Dieter. 1984. Martin Luther und die niederdeutsche Sprachgeschichte. Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte. Neue Folge der. Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen 56: 73-92.
About the author Dr. Mikko Bentlin is a researcher at the University of Greifswald. His research focuses on the Finnish language, contact linguistics, and historical linguistics.
10 Polyglossia and Nativization The Translation of Zoonyms in Early Dutch Bibles Merlijn de Smit Abstract The topic of this study is the influence of Luther’s texts as source texts on 16th-century Dutch Bible translations. The initial situation was an interesting starting point, as during that time both Protestant and Catholic translations were produced in the vernacular. The study examines how different translation ideologies and strategies were applied in the texts, with a focus on translations of the names of exotic animals in the Old Testament. The Catholic translation principle dating from mediaeval times can be described as relying on source texts, whereas the Protestant principle was more concerned with adapting the text to the target language. The study shows, for example, that the Protestant translations do, in fact, generally use more target language vocabulary, while in the Catholic vernacular translations, the tendency is to rely on loan words. Keywords: Literary Dutch, ideologies of translation, Bible translations
Introduction This essay focuses on Dutch vernacular Bibles of the early 1500s. The translation and production of these is marked by the survival of a mediaeval tradition, by the production of New Testaments and complete Bibles in short succession in Antwerp, and by a doctrinal eclecticism where an ostensibly sound Catholic Bible translation would avail itself of Luther’s works. The Dutch-speaking Low Countries today encompass the Netherlands, the Dutch-speaking northwestern half of Belgium, and a sliver of northern France. Political divisions between these parts would not emerge until the 17th century.
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch10
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I am interested in comparing two ideologies of translation: a ‘Catholic’ one, where the end result of the translation is functional, a means to an end; and a ‘Protestant’ one, where the end result of the translation replaces the received source text and becomes the main mediator of religious truth and redemption. I examine whether these ideologies, and the competing sources of the Latin Vulgate and Luther’s vernacular translations, have differing effects on the translation of exotic zoonyms in the Old Testament. I am aware that this dichotomy simplifies matters and does not distinguish, on the Catholic side, between loyalty to the Vulgate and humanist striving towards a better source text. But as a way to approach the various Bible translations of the 1520s and the principles underlying these, I nonetheless believe it adequate. The material will consist of the 1477 Delft Old Testament and the equivalent sections of four 16th-century translations – three Protestant, one Catholic. These will be presented in further detail below. The main points of comparison will be the Clementine Vulgate and Luther’s 1534 translation. I will examine the translation strategies employed for a number of exotic zoonyms and aim to distinguish, with the help of these, between a tendency towards ‘monoglossia’ – the attempt to produce a self-contained textual whole – and ‘polyglossia’ as a continuous reference to the textual tradition in which the translation is but the latest link.
The religious landscape in the Low Countries in the 1520s Religious dissidents in the 1520s in the Low Countries were reform-minded Catholics, Augustinian monks, proto-Sacramentarians, and early followers of Luther. Dissident ideas were persecuted with increasing severity during their Lutheran (1520s), Anabaptist (1530–1550), and Calvinist (1560s) manifestations. This is exemplified by the demise of the key centre for the early spread of Luther’s ideas and writings, the Augustinian convent in Antwerp: it was abolished in 1522, with two brothers burned at the stake and the convent’s leader, Jacobus Praepositus, fleeing to Wittenberg (Akerboom 2006). Other early followers of Luther met with persecution as well. Jan de Bakker studied at Wittenberg but represented a more radical rejection of priestly authority and sacraments. After a scandal arose about the priest’s secret marriage, he was imprisoned and burned as a heretic in 1525 (BLGP 2 [1983]: 40-41). Henrik van Zutphen, Augustinian prior and a Wittenberg student, was caught up in the persecution of the Antwerp Augustinians and fled to Bremen. Influential in the spread of Protestantism in northern
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Germany, he was martyred in 1524 (BLGP 6 [2006]: 356-57). Persecution of ‘Lutheran’ ideas (De Bruijn 1937: 128-29) was thus severe, and between 20 and 30 people were executed for heresy during the 1520s (Duke 1975: 66). Despite this, the urbanized political landscape of the Low Countries, with its decentralized patchwork of city authorities and its distant Habsburg sovereign, meant that persecution was largely ineffective, with dissident preachers eluding authorities by moving from town to town (Decavele 1990: 13-15). The influence of Lutheran doctrines in the Low Countries did not last (De Bruijn 1937: 128-29; Duke 1975: 43-44). Among those who studied at Wittenberg, many, such as Jan de Bakker, represented more radical Protestant viewpoints (Decavele 1990: 22). The Anabaptists would grow influential after the 1530s, and later, after the 1550s, the ideas of Calvin were to spread widely and were eventually institutionalized in the Dutch (state) Reformed Church. And whereas the Anabaptist insistence on adult baptism implied an incipient institutionalization of Protestant doctrine, Lutheran ideas and those holding them in the 1520s are often difficult to distinguish from reform-minded Catholics. An example of such a transitional figure is Henrik Grapheus, city secretary of Antwerp, who spread Luther’s writings and translated the 15th-century German Augustinian Johannes von Goch’s defence of religious freedoms, de libertate christiana. When imprisoned by the Inquisition, he insisted that he was a follower of Erasmus rather than Luther (BLGP 4 [1998]: 148-49; Duke 1975: 63-64). In addition to thinkers such as Zwingli and Luther, homegrown movements with their roots in mediaeval religious dissidence also exerted their influence. The 14th-century theologian Geert Groote from Deventer was the founding figure of the Devotio Moderna movement, which would inspire Catholic humanists such as Erasmus (Rummel 1999: 191), and the Windesheim congregation founded by Groote would prove important in the production of vernacular translations during the early 16th century (Francois 2011: 181-82). The religious schisms that defined European history for the next century had yet to take their final form. For an observer at the time, religious dissidence in the Low Countries might well seem to be a continuation of the movements inspired by mediaeval dissidents such as Geert Groote rather than heralding a breach with the past. The importance of Antwerp and its environs as an intellectual centre for early Lutheran ideas cannot be overestimated. Lutheran ideas continued to spread from Antwerp after the suppression of the Augustinians in 1522. Antwerp printers such as Jacob van Liesvelt and Willem Vorsterman diligently printed vernacular translations of the Bible based on Luther’s work – as well as Catholic anti-Lutheran writings. Vorsterman and others also printed
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banned dissident work in Danish, French, Spanish, etc. (Arblaster 2004: 10; Meeus 2014: 113). For example, Merten de Keyser printed the religious writings of William Tyndale (see Flood in this volume), including his first printed Bible in English (King and Rankin 2008: 52-55). Thus Antwerp was an internationally significant centre for the printing of early Protestant texts. Reformers and dissidents from the Nordic countries who were drawn to the southern Low Countries at the time include the Danish humanist Christiern Pedersen, who lived in exile in Lier in the 1520s and had his writings (including a translation of the New Testament) published by Willem Vorsterman, and the early Finnish reformer Petrus Särkilahti, who studied at Louvain in the late 1510s. The reason for Antwerp’s dominant position as a printing centre lay in a confluence of factors, such as Antwerp’s position at the centre of a trade network allowing for easy access to resources and the presence of skilled craftsmen such as bookbinders, engravers, etc. (Meeus 2014: 110). The presence of a high number of printers in the same city made possible all kinds of collaborative projects (Meeus 2014: 110). The Ruremund Bible, a vernacular Dutch 1525 translation thought to underlie Liesvelt’s and Vorsterman’s slightly later versions, may have been precisely such a collaborative project (Jory 2014: 171), whereas Vorsterman and de Keyser collaborated in the printing of the Rosarium mysticum animae fidelis, a Catholic prayerbook of 1535 (Vervliet 1978: 98-99), testifying to the religious eclecticism of Antwerp printers. This eclecticism did not necessarily save them from the Inquisitors: Jacob van Liesvelt was executed in 1545 for the unlicensed printing of a Dutch Bible translation that included Luther’s margin notes (Den Hollander 1999: 108).
Vernacular Bible production from the Middle Ages to the 1550s Bible texts in the vernacular of the Low Countries have deep mediaeval roots. The first text incorporating a significant amount of biblical narrative was Jacob van Maerlant’s 13th-century poetic translation of Petrus Comestor’s Historia scholastica, a compendium of biblical and general history. These earliest translations were functional in orientation: the aim was to mediate the main biblical narrative and other aspects of general history – focusing on, for example, Alexander the Great or the destruction of Jerusalem – rather than to provide a detailed translation of the Vulgate. Thus the Bible translation fashioned in the Carthusian monastery of Herne between 1360 and 1380 includes various non-biblical books based on the Historia scholastica
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and Josephus Flavius’s De bello Iudaico, and the gospel section is a compiled gospel harmony (Hindman 1975: 191). The translation of biblical texts in the vernacular was closely connected to the Devotio Moderna, a late mediaeval reformist movement within Catholicism prominent in the Low Countries and Germany (Hindman 1975: 196-97; Van Duijn 2013: 281). Translations of the four Gospels soon followed. One was fashioned around 1390 in the Augustinian monastery of Rooclooster: De Bruijn (1937: 59-60) scolds the translation as little more than an interlinear gloss on the Vulgate, full of untranslated Latin terms and slavishly following Latin syntax. Another translation was also produced around 1390 by Johannes Scutken, a member of the Windesheim congregation. Scutken’s translation spread widely in areas where the Devotio Moderna was influential (De Bruijn 1937: 68). The first printed Bible translation was to be the Delft Bijbel in 1477. It contains the Old Testament only, without Psalms: the reason may be that vernacular versions of the Gospels and Psalms were already in wide circulation (Van Duijn 2013: 284). The first Old Dutch translation of the Psalms, the Wachtendonk Psalms, dates from the 10th century, and psalms in Dutch were widespread in books of hours during late mediaeval times. The Delft translation is largely based on the earlier Herne translation; a Carthusian monk from a monastery near the city of Delft may have worked as an auxiliary translator (Van Duijn 2013: 283, 287). Then, in the 1520s, a series of printed translations appeared in short order. The Franciscan friar Johannes Pelt produced the first translation of the Gospels based on Luther’s work in 1523. This translation of the New Testament was simultaneously published in Antwerp and Amsterdam; the Antwerp version does not include Luther’s comments (which would have aroused the attention of Church authorities) and is based on Scutken’s earlier translation, testifying to the continuing popularity of that work (De Bruijn 1937: 143-45). Shortly thereafter, a translation of the New Testament based on Luther’s was produced in the local Low Saxon dialect at Deventer; the printer is thought to have been Albert Pafraet, the translator the Zwinglian-oriented scholar Hinne Rode (De Bruijn 1937: 157; Vervliet 1978: 134). In the southern Low Countries, a Bible translation based on Luther’s work to the extent available at the time (and on the Vulgate elsewhere) was printed by Hans van Ruremund in 1525 in Antwerp (Jory 2014: 171). The Ruremund Bible was soon followed by a Bible printed by Jacob van Liesvelt in Antwerp in 1526. Liesvelt’s Bible is based on Ruremund’s translation of Luther as far as the Pentateuch is concerned, with the translation corrected in accordance with Luther’s texts; for some other parts, such as the book of Jonah, Liesvelt succeeded in availing himself of translations by Luther
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that had just then appeared. Isaiah is based on a new Latin translation by Oecolampadius, while some of the books that had not yet appeared in a reformed translation were translated from the Vulgate (De Bruijn 1937: 163; Den Hollander 1999: 114, 2010: 526). The translator himself remains unknown (Den Hollander 1999: 117). Liesvelt was to print new editions of his Bible during the following decades, at a time when censorship of vernacular Bibles that contained potentially heretical comments and explanations grew progressively more severe (Den Hollander 1999: 119-20). Liesvelt’s last edition of 1542, now based wholly on Luther’s translation, became his doom: the printer was tried and beheaded in 1545. Soon after the appearance of Liesvelt’s Bible in 1526, another Bible was put to print in 1528 by fellow Antwerp printer Willem Vorsterman. The Vorsterman Bible appears to be at pains to distinguish itself as an acceptable Catholic alternative to Liesvelt’s explicitly Protestant Bible: it received official sanction from Louvain theologians (Francois 2011: 185), it contains no Lutheran comments, and it advertised itself as an orthodox translation of the Vulgate (Hindman 1975: 203). Its translation, however, is based on Liesvelt and Ruremund (Den Hollander 2010: 526). Augustijn (1975: 81-83) argues that there is no direct influence from either Luther’s translation or from mediaeval Dutch translations such as the Delft Bible. Den Hollander (2010: 523) argues in contrast that the corrections bringing the Liesvelt/ Ruremund-based text in closer accordance with the Vulgate are themselves based on Luther’s work, while Francois (2011: 184) and particularly Desplenter (2011) argue for mediaeval influence on Vorsterman’s Old Testament. In the 1540s the Louvain theologians initiated a new Catholic translation of the Bible, after the Council of Trent had emphasized the need for reliable vernacular translations based on the Vulgate. The translator was Nicolaes van Winghe, an Augustinian from the congregation of Windesheim, and the Louvain Bible appeared in 1548 (Francois 2011: 181-82). The basis of the Louvain Bible is the 1477 Delft Bible, corrected according to revised versions of the Vulgate that had appeared in the meantime (Francois 2011: 186). Soon after, the Louvain theologians adopted a more hostile stance towards vernacular translation: religious riots in Courtray had convinced them that previous efforts to compete with Protestant translations by producing acceptable Catholic ones were futile (Francois 2015: 262). However, neither Charles V nor his successor Philip II enforced a ban on vernacular Bibles, and the production of the Louvain Bible continued (Francois 2015: 266). A corrected version of the Louvain Bible was produced by Jan Moerentorf in Antwerp in 1599, and this was to remain the officially sanctioned vernacular Catholic Bible until the 19th century.
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Hypothesis: mediaeval and early modern ideologies of translation As shown above, the production of vernacular Bibles reflects the diverse religious landscape of the 1520s, with explicitly Protestant versions – versions that availed themselves of Luther’s translation while insisting on Catholic acceptability – and, later, counter-reformatory Catholic versions. One also sees the competition between contemporary Protestant source texts, the Vulgate, and the known and unknown vernacular Bible translations transmitted mainly within the framework of the Devotio Moderna. By 1500 vernacular Dutch translations had spread widely through the urbanizing Low Countries for more than a century. Mediaeval vernacular translations, however, reflected ideologies connected to the Catholic view on Scripture. Redemption was mediated through sacrament and ritual carried out by the priesthood, not by an individual encounter with God’s word in Scripture, and vernacular biblical translation was understood functionally. For the laymen who did not read Latin, vernacular Bible translations were a means to understand Mass and the most central parts of biblical narrative, while those who learned Latin and wished to study the Bible were directed to the Vulgate (Hindman 1975: 196-97). Vernacular Bible translations intended for laymen were not necessarily complete but could be based on excerpts and explanations generally following the yearly progress of Mass (Van Duijn 2013: 281) and could include Gospel Harmonies such as those included in the Herne Bible. Recall that the 1477 Delft printed Bible did not include the New Testament or the Psalms, as these were already circulating widely. The received text remained the Latin Vulgate, which itself was a historical product and a translation, explicitly understood to be so under the philological, historicizing gaze of late mediaeval humanism. The purposes of a Bible translation in a Protestant world are very different. Redemption is not mediated through the priesthood, not necessarily aided by any sacraments, but is achieved through faith: a direct relationship between the believer and God mediated through Scripture. In Scripture, the Latin language has no privileged status: the vernacular Scripture should suffice for the believer. Instead of the translation being part of a tradition ultimately referring to the Vulgate, the translation supersedes the Vulgate (Ng 2001: 317). The aim of a Protestant vernacular Bible is a self-contained, self-sufficient whole that contains all that is necessary to mediate faith, the sole source of redemption, to the believer. I would like to hypothesize that the contrast between mediaeval, Catholic, and humanist ideologies of translation has consequences for the text itself, in that the difference is reflected in a tendency, among Catholic translations,
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towards ‘polyglossia’ (Bakhtin 1981: 12, 50); the co-existence, in terms of loanwords, terminology, etc. of various languages, causing the text to show a kind of ‘layeredness’ indexical of the historical tradition the translation is part of; and a tendency among Protestant translations to ‘monoglossia’, the usage of one specific vernacular language involving the correct translation and nativization (see below) of terms inside that language, signifying the Bible as a self-contained whole. This tendency towards monoglossia was, of course, partially determined by the intended public for Protestant Bible translations: laymen to whom the Latin original was unavailable.
Zoonyms in the Old Testament: the corpus The corpus used in this paper consists of the 1477 Delft Bible as well as the equivalent sections (OT without psalms) of the 1526 Liesvelt Bible, the 1528 Vorsterman Bible, the 1542 Liesvelt Bible, and the 1548 Louvain Bible. Two editions of the Liesvelt Bible were included because the earlier relies partially on different sources than the later, specifically including the Vulgate. In the following I will examine the translation of exotic zoonyms of the Old Testament. Confronted with a term such as gazelle (Latin caprea), an animal that does not occur in the target culture in question and cannot be assumed to be familiar to the recipients of his translation, a translator may employ various strategies. These are, first, transference (Newmark 1988), which is employing the source-language term as such in the translation, perhaps with some minimal concessions to the target language’s phonology and morphology. Second, using a borrowing established in learned registers but not necessarily in the common vernacular; and third, modulation (Newmark 1988: 89), a conceptual shift, for example using the name of a category or species (‘animal’) instead of the (absent) exact equivalent, or an abstract term instead of a concrete one. Finally there is cultural equivalence (Newmark 1988: 82-83), which, in the sense I am interested in here, would imply using a native term (e.g., ‘hart’ or ‘roe’) recognizable to the recipient but not an exact translation of the source culture term. I am interested in the relative strength of the two strategies of transference and cultural equivalence, or, as I will write in the following, nativization as competing strategies in the translation of Old Testament zoonyms. It should be noted that this endeavour is complicated by the fact that, first of all, no exact zoological taxonomy existed at the time of the Reformation, let alone earlier, and the corpus thus contains names denoting species (pavo ‘peacocks’) but also hypernyms (vulturus ‘vulture’), names for fantasy
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animals (regulus ‘basilisk’) and names that may denote both fantasy animals or existing species. The word eenhoorn – which has been used in Middle and Early Modern Dutch to designate the rhinoceros, the narwhal, and the unicorn (and in this corpus appears as a translation equivalent of pygargon, a kind of antelope) – exemplifies this difficulty. Furthermore, the Vulgate itself contains shifts from an existing to a fantasy animal, for example, regulus (‘basilisk’) for Greek and Hebrew terms for (‘snake’) as well as mistranslations that some of the later translators endeavoured to correct (see the discussion on Isaiah 14: 29 in section ‘Loan translations and paraphrases’ below). Thus there is often no exact underlying term against which the various strategies of translation can be compared. Given this, and given also that differences in contexts such as that between the literal usage of Hebrew teo (‘antelope’) in Deuteronomy 14: 5 (where antelopes are mentioned as allowed food) and metaphorical usage in Isaiah 51: 20 (where an antelope in a trap is used as a metaphor) can only be dealt with in a somewhat superficial manner, the following account should be regarded as exploratory rather than definitive. The following terms in the Vulgate will be examined, with the number of occurrences provided in brackets: aspis (‘asp, viper’) (5), attacus (‘a kind of locust’) (1), behemoth (‘a kind of fantasy animal’) (1), bestia (‘beast’) (1) (used as a translation of the Hebrew term for oryx in Isaiah 51: 20), bubalus (‘buffalo’) (4), bruchus (‘a kind of beetle’) (10), cameleon (‘chameleon’) (1), camelopardalis (‘giraffe’) (1), camelus (‘camel’) (56), caprea (‘gazelle’) (9), choerogyllius (‘a type of hare’) (2), crocodilus (‘crocodile’) (1), dromedarius (‘dromedary’) (1), elephans (‘elephant’) (12), eruca (‘a kind of caterpillar’) (3), gryphus (‘griffin’) (2), ibis (‘ibis’) (2), leviathan (‘sea monster’) (3), onocrotalus (‘bittern’) (4), oryx (‘oryx’) (1), pardus (‘leopard’) (8), pavo (‘peacock’) (2), porphirio (‘a kind of water bird’) (2), pygargon (‘addax’) (1), regulus (‘basilisk, a kind of snake’) (5), rhinoceros (‘rhinoceros’) (5), scorpio (‘scorpion’) (12), simius (‘ape’) (2), struthio (‘ostrich’) (10), vulturus (‘vulture’) (3). The selection criteria, as can be seen, are somewhat random: I excluded ‘lion’ since the animal, though not occurring in the Low Countries, would be well-enough known from its heraldic use but did include various terms for locust, grub, or caterpillar (bruchus, eruca). Though locusts, of course, do occur in the Low Countries, these specific types may not. Furthermore, some zoonyms that became fantasy animals in the Vulgate but perhaps were not so in the original Hebrew text – such as regulus, behemoth, etc. – were included. As can also be seen, the frequency of various terms varies wildly. Whereas most terms occur a handful of times in the Old Testament, camelus occurs no fewer than 56 times. This makes the material unsuitable for a detailed quantitative treatment, and I will restrict myself to a qualitative treatment in the following.
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Transference Transference from the Latin Vulgate as a translation strategy occurs mostly in the Delft and Louvain Bibles, occasionally also in Vorsterman and Liesvelt 1526, but not at all in Liesvelt 1542. The term oryx, a kind of antelope, which occurs once in the Vulgate (Deut. 14: 5, orygem), is transferred in all translations: origen (‘oryxes’) in Liesvelt 1526 and Vorsterman, eenen orix in the Louvain Bible, den origem, with Latin morphology, in the Delft Bible. Liesvelt 1542 uses eenhoornen, a term otherwise employed for rhinoceros. Luther’s 1545 Bible has Vrochs (‘aurochs’). The term orix is a known borrowing in the Dutch of that time, its first attestation being 1287 (VMNW). Dutch orix is used once more in the Louvain Bible, namely in Isaiah 51: 20; here the Vulgate has bestia (‘beast’) in a context of a beast in a trap, which has been translated in various ways in the other Bibles (slaepmuys [‘dormouse’] in Delft; a wild ox in Liesvelt 1526 and 1542; waterratte in Vorsterman), in accordance with the metaphorical nature of the context. Louvain may be following the Hebrew source text here, which has teo (‘antelope’) in both Deuteronomy 14: 5 and Isaiah 51: 20. Pygargon (‘addax’), another kind of antelope, has been retained as such in the Delft Bible (Deut. 14: 5) but is translated with native terms in all other texts (eenhoorn in Vorsterman, Louvain and Liesvelt 1526). Aspis (‘asp’) or (‘snake’) has been translated with aspiden (pl.) at three points in the Delft Bible (Deut. 32: 33; Isa. 11: 8, 59: 5) and once (Deut. 32: 33) also in the Louvain Bible; otherwise a nativization (aderen ‘vipers’) or modulation (slanghen ‘snakes’) is used (Job 20: 14, 16). The same two terms are used throughout in Vorsterman and Liesvelt’s translations. An exception is Liesvelt’s 1542 translation of aspis in Isaiah 59: 5, with basilisken (‘basilisks’) doubtlessly after the example of Luther. Attacus, a kind of locust mentioned once (Lev. 11: 22), is transferred as atthacus in the Delft and attacus in the Louvain Bible. The other translations use a transference from Hebrew, selaam or seloam, after Luther. Bruchus, a kind of beetle or locust, causes trouble for the Delft Bible: twice (Isa. 33: 4; Joel 1: 4) it is transferred as brucus, twice (Lev. 11: 22; 2 Chron. 6: 28) as breemzen, a species of fly in modern Dutch but possibly locust or beetle in older language, twice (Jer. 51: 14, 27) as (‘caterpillar’) (rupsenen), and four times as (‘grasshopper’) (hippelcoren, Joel 2: 25; Nah. 3: 15, 16). Liesvelt’s 1526 Bible uses a transferred bruchus four times (Joel 2: 25; Nah. 3: 15, 16) and once uses a Hebrew transference, arbe, after Luther (Lev. 11: 22). Vorsterman, Liesvelt 1542, and the Louvain Bible avoid Latin transference, using terms such as sprinchanen, coolsprengers (Vorsterman, Liesvelt 1542), or cruyt
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wormen (‘herb worms’) (Louvain). It should be noted that brucus had been attested in Dutch before (VMNW). Camelopardalis (‘giraffe’), occurring only once (Deut. 14: 5), is transferred in the Delft Bible but split in two (ende die camelo. ende den pardulnm), whereas Liesvelt 1526 and Vorsterman 1528 transfer only the later part (Pardulum). The Louvain Bible uses den cameellupaert (‘the camel-leopard’). Liesvelt 1542 follows Luther in translating it as (‘elk’) (den Elant). Choerogyllius (Deut. 14: 7) and its variant choerogryllus (Lev. 11: 5) are transferred in the Delft Bible as, respectively, cyrogillum (note the Latin morphology) and cyrogril. The Louvain Bible transfers the latter term as cherogrillus but translates the former using conijncken (‘small rabbit’), which occurs in all other translations. Pardus (‘leopard’) is usually translated as lupaert, luypaert with two exceptions: it is transferred as such in the Delft Bible in Hosea 13: 7 and in the 1526 Liesvelt Bible in Habakkuk 1: 8. Camelus is transferred once in the Delft Bible with Latin morphology, den camelum (Deut. 14: 7). Finally, onocrotalus (‘bittern’) occurs as a transference in all translations except Liesvelt 1542. In the Delft Bible it is transferred in Leviticus 11: 18 with some adaptation to Dutch phonology (den onocrotel), as well as in Isaiah 34: 11 (die onocrotalus). Elsewhere it is translated as reygher (‘heron’) (Deut. 14: 18) and roesdommer (‘bittern’) (Zeph. 2: 14). In Liesvelt 1526 onocrotalus occurs in Zephaniah 2: 14, in Vorsterman in the same place. Otherwise, various nativizations involving water-birds, for example den Swaen, den Oyuaer (‘the swan, the stork’; Liesvelt 1542, Isa. 34: 11) are used. The Louvain Bible uses den onocrotalus twice (Lev. 11: 18; Zeph. 2: 14), the other two times being eselscreyer (Deut. 14: 18) and ezelscreyer (Isa. 34: 11), which is a loan translation of the Greek original ὀνοκρόταλος, e.g., (‘donkey-rattler’). The loanword onocrotalus has been attested with the meaning of (‘pelican’) in earlier Dutch (VMNW, first attestation 1240). Notably, the Septuagint nowhere has ὀνοκρόταλος. At Leviticus 11: 18 and Deuteronomy 14: 18, πελεκᾶν is used, but this is not followed in any of the translations. It should be noted that quite a few of the transfers from Latin involve Latin borrowings from Greek, which involve semantic shifts and obscurities. The Greek word χοιρογρύλλιον (‘porcupine’ or ‘hedgehog’) is very rare and may be a coinage by the original Septuagint translators (Duncan 2010: 3), but the animal denoted in the Old Testament by choerogryllus and variants, the Hebrew šafan, may be a different one, perhaps a hyrax (Duncan 2010: 4). The Greek ὀνοκρόταλος survives only in Pliny’s Latinization, there clearly with the meaning of ‘pelican’, but later comments by Jerome and Isidore on a desert-dwelling ὀνοκρόταλος testify to semantic difficulties; the Greek word’s origin (in ‘donkey-rattler’) was likely known to mediaeval commenters (Arnott 2007: 157).
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Transfers from Latin make up about 8 per cent of the animal terminology studied in the Delft Bible. The percentage has no significance as such, but it can be compared with the other translations: transfers occur about half as often in the Louvain Bible, and half as often as that in the Vorsterman Bible. The occurrence of transfers in Liesvelt’s 1526 Bible is comparable to that of the Louvain Bible, whereas they are entirely absent in Liesvelt’s 1542 Bible. In a few places zoonyms have been transferred from Hebrew rather than Latin. Aside from the obvious behemoth (Job 40: 15) and leviathan (Job 3: 8, 40: 20; Isa. 27: 1), these are: selaam (Liesvelt 1526, Vorsterman) and seloam (Liesvelt 1542) for attacus in Leviticus 11: 22 (the Delft and Louvain Bibles transfer the Latin term here), and arbe for bruchus (Liesvelt 1526, 1542, Lev. 11: 22). Luther is followed in both cases. The verse lists two other similar insects (which were omitted from the corpus here): Luther also transfers Arbe mit seiner art, und Selaam mit seiner Art, und Hargol mit seiner art und Hagab mit jrer art from Hebrew and comments upon his choice of a Hebrew transfer rather than a nativization as follows: Diese vier thier sind inn unsern landen nicht / wie wol gemeinlich Arbe und Hagab / fur hewschrecken gehalten werden / die auch vierfüssige vogel sind / Aber es ist gewisser diese Ebreische namen zu brauchen / wie wir mit halleluia und andern fremden sprach namen thun. The two later animal terms, ophiomachus ac lucusta in the Vulgate, are translated in the Delft Bible as opiomachus ende die spelthane (involving a Latin transfer and a fairly exact translation equivalent), Vorsterman has Hargol and Hagab after Luther, and the same goes for both Liesvelt’s texts. The Louvain Bible follows the Delft Bible: ophiomachus, ende den sprinchaen.
Learned borrowings One zoonym that allows us to distinguish a learned borrowing from an etymologically related borrowing is that of the camel, camelus. The Dutch kemel, which occurs virtually exclusively in all translations but the Delft Bible, may well be a Crusades-era borrowing straight from Arabic (WNT). Latin borrowings such as kameel, cameel would then be a learned variant that, over time, was to replace kemel (MNW). In Modern Dutch kameel is common, and kemel is restricted to archaic and solemn registers of speech (WNT). In the Delft Bible camel – once with the Latin case ending camelum – co-occurs with kemel in various sections of the OT: the Pentateuch as well as Chronicles exclusively has cameel, but Judges, Samuel, and Kings mostly kemel. The learned variant cameel occurs only once in Liesvelt 1526 and the Vorsterman Bible (Zech. 14: 15).
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French, in addition to Latin, appears as a source of borrowings. Cokentrijs (‘basilisk’) (from French or Late Latin cocatrix, originally a bastardization of crocodilus (MNW) occurs three times in the Delft Bible as a translation of regulus, which is translated as basiliscus or a more adapted basilisk, baselisk in Vorsterman (Prov. 23: 32; Isa. 59: 5; Jer. 8: 17), Liesvelt 1542 (Isa. 11: 8; Jer. 8: 17), and the Louvain Bible (Prov. 23: 32; Isa. 11: 8; Isa. 59: 5; Isa. 30: 6; Jer. 8: 17). The word is, of course, a borrowing from Latin and indirectly from the Greek source of which regulus is a calque (‘little king’), king of the serpents – though in mediaeval times the original meaning of ‘dangerous snake’ gets confused with that of a mythological animal (Breiner 1979). Aside from cokentrijs and basilisk, paraphrases of the Latin regulus occur: coninck der serpenten (Liesvelt 1526, Isa. 11: 8), dat venijndige serpent (‘the venomous serpent’) (Liesvelt 1526, Isa. 30: 6), een vlieghende serpent (Delft, Isa. 30: 6) as well as modulations: serpent (Liesvelt 1526, Isa. 59: 5), ader, adere (‘viper’) (Liesvelt 1542, Prov. 23: 32; Isa. 59: 5). Liesvelt’s 1526 Bible once combines a paraphrase with a learned borrowing: regulus is translated as serpent cocodrillus (‘the serpent crocodile’) (Jer. 8: 17). The term simia (‘ape’) has been translated using the Latin borrowing sim at both places where it occurs (1 Kings 10: 22; 2 Chron. 9: 21) in all translations, with the exception of apinnen (‘female apes’) in Delft (2 Chron. 9: 21). The latter term may be of a more northern origin dialectally than the currently archaic southern sim (MNW). Interestingly, the Delft Bible transfers the feminine gender of simia to the Dutch translation equivalent. Provencal may be the source of the capret, which in the Louvain Bible is the most common translation equivalent of caprea (‘gazelle’) (WNT). The form cocodrille for corcodillus in the Delft Bible (Lev. 11: 29) is a borrowing from Old French (EWN); the other translations here have a learned borrowing from Latin (e.g., Vorsterman’s Crocodilus). A French origin can also be discerned for griffoen (EWN), which appears once in Vorsterman (Lev. 11: 13) and twice in the Louvain Bible (Lev. 11: 13; Deut. 14: 12) as a translation of the Latin gryphus (‘griffon, vulture’). The Delft Bible has grijp here, which is a well-established borrowing from the Latin term, perhaps influenced by the verb grijpen (‘to grasp’) (EWN). Liesvelt’s translations (as well as Vorsterman in Deut. 14: 12) have hauick (‘hawk’) after Luther’s Habicht. Finally, the words scorpioen and schorpioen, the usual translation equivalents of Latin scorpio, are likewise of French origin. The Delft Bible once has the odd scorpelione (Josh. 15: 3), a form that as schorpelioen still occurs in southern dialects. Latin ibis is translated as ibis once in the Delft Bible (ybis, Isa. 34: 11) and twice in the Louvain Bible (Lev. 11: 17; Isa. 34: 11); the other translations have nativizations such as Odeuaer (‘stork’) (Vorsterman, Lev. 11: 17) or storck
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(Vorsterman, Isa. 34: 11). Latin porphyrion, a borrowing from Greek denoting a kind of water-bird, is translated as pellicaen in the Delft and Louvain Bibles (Lev. 11: 18; Deut. 14: 17), a form first attested in the late 13th century (EWN). The other Bible translations have a nativization, Vledermuys (‘bat’), following Luther’s Fledermaus. Dromedarius occurs once (Isa. 60: 6) and is translated using a borrowing as dromedaris (EWN) in all translations except Liesvelt’s, who in 1526 paraphrases the plural form as die kleyne kemelkens (‘the small camels’) and in 1542 follows Luther’s Leuffer (itself based on the Greek origin of Latin dromedarius) with die loopers (oft Dromedarien) (‘the runners [or dromedaries]’). Finally, the single occurrence of Latin cameleon (Lev. 11: 30) is translated as cameleon or camelon in all translations – a borrowing attested since the late 13th century either directly from Latin or indirectly via French (EWN). Learned borrowings do seem to occur more widely in the Delft and Louvain Bibles than in Vorsterman’s or Liesvelt’s Bibles. Borrowings such as ibis and pellicaen are restricted to these two; cokentrijs and cameel occur in the Delft Bible, capret and griffoen occur in the Louvain Bibles. For these words, the Vorsterman and Liesvelt Bibles often opt for nativizations such as Vledermuys, hauick, etc.
Loan translations and paraphrases Some loan translations have been remarked upon above: thus the eselscreyer (‘donkey-rattler’) in the Louvain Bible (Deut. 14: 18; Isa. 34: 11) for onocrotalus (‘bittern’), and the coninck der serpenten ‘king of the serpents’ in Liesvelt 1526 and Vorsterman (Isa. 11: 8) for regulus (‘basilisk’), literally (‘little king’). The latter term has been translated using various variations of (‘fiery flying dragon’) in Isaiah 14: 29 and Isaiah 30: 6 (e.g., vierige vliegende draken, Liesvelt 1542, Isa. 30: 6; enen vliegenden drake, Liesvelt 1526, Isa. 14: 29), both after the example of the Vulgate (regulus volans, Isa. 30: 6; cf. Delft een vlieghende serpent) and Luther ( fewrige fliegende trache at both sites). Isaiah 14: 29 contains a mistranslation in the Vulgate (et semen eius absorbens volucrem ‘his seed shall devour the bird’) of the Hebrew that speaks of a sãrãph, a flying serpent, springing forth from the seed; this mistranslation – rooted in Jerome’s Vulgate identifying the form for sãrãph in the Hebrew as a participial verb for (‘devour’) (Botterweck and Ringgren 2004: 225) – is followed in the Delft (sal sijn verslindende den voghel), Vorsterman (opsuypende den voghel) and Louvain (sijn saet verslindende den voghel) Bibles, whereas Liesvelt follows Luther’s translation. At Isaiah 14: 29 the choice for drake
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rather than basiliscus or the like may be motivated by the occurrence of a basilisk directly before in the same verse. Latin bruchus has been paraphrased at various points in the Delft Bible (die hippelcoernen ionc ende out [‘grasshoppers young and old’], Joel 2: 25; hippelcoren dat vlogelen heeft [‘winged grasshopper’], Nah. 3: 15) and Vorsterman (die groote sprinchaen [‘the large grasshopper’], Joel 1: 4; oude vliegende sprinchanen [‘old flying grasshoppers’], Nah. 3: 15), whereas the other translations have more consistent equivalents, for example coolsprengers in Liesvelt 1542 and cruytwormen in the Louvain Bible. The bruchum aculeatum of Jeremiah 51: 27 (‘stinging bruchus’) has been translated as such in Delft, Liesvelt 1526, and Vorsterman (die rupsenen die een strael heeft ‘the caterpillar that has a stinger’) as well as in the Louvain Bible (cruyt wormen, die eenen anghel hebben). Liesvelt’s 1542 claterende sprinchanen (‘murmuring, buzzing grasshoppers’) appears to be after Luther’s fladdernde Kefer (‘buzzing beetles’). In the three first cases, the choice in favour of a paraphrase seems motivated by the fact that Joel 1: 4, Joel 2: 25, and Nahum 3: 15 all list various destructive insects in short order.
Nativizations Caprea (‘gazelle’) is nativized in all translations except Louvain (which has the borrowing capret); usually as rhee (e.g., Vorsterman in Song 3: 5), hint, hijnde (e.g., Delft, Liesvelt 1526 and 1542 in Deut. 12: 22), and die wilde gheyte (‘wild goat’) (Vorsterman, Liesvelt 1526 and 1542 in Eccles. 11: 32). Luther’s translation consistently has Rehe for caprea, a word with a close Dutch cognate often, though not always, used. The Delft Bible once uses the hypernym dier (‘animal’) (Eccles. 11: 32). Bubalus has been translated as buffel, a mediaeval French borrowing ultimately stemming from Late Latin, in most translations but not in Liesvelt 1542, who avoids it completely: Deuteronomy 14: 5 has gemse (‘chamois’) even though Luther has Püffel; 1 Kings 4: 23 has steenbocken (also in Vorsterman and Liesvelt 1526) where Luther has Gemse, and Amos 6: 13 has osschen, this time after Luther (Ochse). Onocrotalus (‘bittern’) has been nativized in various ways, for example die wle (‘owl’) in Vorsterman (Isa. 34: 11) and de swanen in Liesvelt 1542 (Zeph. 2: 14). The Dutch equivalent of (‘bittern’), roesdommel or roerdomp, occurs only in the Delft Bible (Zeph. 2: 14), though Luther usually uses the closely related German equivalent (Rhordomel). Porphirio (‘a kind of water-bird’) is nativized as (‘bat’) (Vledermuys) in both translations by Liesvelt as well as Vorsterman (Lev. 11: 18; Deut. 14: 17), where the Delft and Louvain Bibles have pellicaen (‘pelican’); gryphus is
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translated as ‘hawk’ (hauick) twice in both Liesvelt’s translations (Lev. 11: 13; Deut. 14: 12) and once in Vorsterman as well (Deut. 14: 12); in both cases Luther set the example (Fledermaus, Habicht). Ibis is nativized as ‘stork’ (Odeuaer, e.g., the Delft Bible in Lev. 11: 17; Liesvelt 1542 in Isa. 34: 11; storck in Vorsterman, Isa. 34: 11), though the Louvain Bible uses the borrowing ibis twice and the Delft Bible once. Here Luther, who uses various terms for ‘owl’, is not followed, except by Liesvelt 1526 (die wle, Isa. 34: 11). Conspicuously, however, some of Luther’s more radical nativizations are ignored by the Dutch Bible translators. Thus crocodilus (Lev. 11: 29) is translated using various transfers or borrowings where Luther has Kröte (‘lizard’); the same is true for cameleon (Lev. 11: 30), which is translated by Luther using Molch (‘salamander’). Luther’s translation of camelopardalis (Deut. 14: 5) as ‘elk’ (Elend) is followed only by Liesvelt 1542 (Elant). Luther translates struthio in Job 39: 13 as Storck in accordance with the Hebrew text; here, all the Dutch translations, including Liesvelt’s, nonetheless follow the Vulgate.
The Vulgate and Luther as competing models In Section ‘Transference’ above, I stated that direct transfers in Latin are a distinct presence in the Delft Bible, to a lesser extent in the 1526 Liesvelt and the Louvain Bibles, even less in Vorsterman, and not at all in the 1542 Liesvelt Bible. Straight transfers from Hebrew, always after Luther’s example, occur in the Liesvelt translations as well as once in the Vorsterman Bible but not in the Louvain and Delft Bibles. Translation equivalents such as vledermuys and variants for porphirio in Leviticus 11: 18 and Deuteronomy 14: 17 or hauick and variants for gryphus in Leviticus 11: 13 and Deuteronomy 14: 12 appear to be clearly modelled on Luther’s texts – they occur in the Liesvelt and Vorsterman Bibles but not in the Delft and Louvain Bibles. Luther’s translation and the Vulgate appear to be the only foreign-language models involved. There is no sign of the translators having used the Greek Septuagint as far as the zoonyms studied here are concerned, though Vorsterman names Greek as his source languages in his prologue. For example, the onocrotalus of Zephaniah 2: 14 is a χαμαιλέον (‘chameleon’) in the Septuagint, but this translation is not followed anywhere; the mistranslation of Isaiah 14: 29 is specific to the Vulgate, whereas the Septuagint has ὄφεις πετόμενοι (‘flying snakes’), a translation nowhere exactly followed (Liesvelt has ‘a flying dragon’ or ‘a fiery dragon’ after Luther). There is no sign in this material of any independent influence of Luther’s texts on the Vorsterman Bible. If Vorsterman follows Luther, such as with the
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Hebrew selaam for attacus in Leviticus 11: 22 or Vledermuys for porphirio in Deuteronomy 14: 17, he does so in accordance with Liesvelt’s 1526 translation. There are a few parts where Vorsterman refers to the Vulgate or the tradition set out by the Delft Bible: for instance, Basiliscus for regulus where Liesvelt has serpent or adere in accordance with Luther’s ottern (Prov. 23: 32; Isa. 59: 5); Griffoen for gryphus where Liesvelt has hauick after Luther’s habicht (Lev. 11: 13); and most notably the error in the translation of Isaiah 14: 29 regarding the bird and the seed (zijn zaet is opsuypende den voghel). There are a few cases where Louvain adapts itself to Liesvelt and Vorsterman and departs from the example set by Delft: the pygargon of Deuteronomy 14: 5 is translated using eenhorn in accordance with Liesvelt and Vorsterman, whereas Delft uses a Latin transfer; and choerogryllus in Deuteronomy 14: 7 is translated as conijncken as Vorsterman and Liesvelt have done. The main difference, however, between the Louvain and Delft Bibles is a greater consistency in translation equivalents: where caprea is translated in four different ways in the Delft Bible (hinde, ree, gheyt, dier), Louvain uses wilt boxken (‘wild billy-goat’) once (Deut. 12: 22) and capret elsewhere; bruchus is translated once as breemzen in Louvain (Lev. 11: 22) but elsewhere as cruytwormen, whereas Delft uses four translation equivalents (breemse, brucus, rupsen, hippelcoren). For the 30 Latin terms studied here, Delft uses a total of 44 translation equivalents, whereas the Louvain Bible has brought this number down to 35. All in all, it seems that Liesvelt’s 1526 and 1542 translations were the sole channel for Luther’s influence in early Dutch Bible translations. Vorsterman only follows Luther where Liesvelt does and occasionally reverts to the Vulgate; the Louvain Bible only very occasionally bases itself on Vorsterman’s and Liesvelt’s translations instead of either the Delft Bible or its own innovations.
Polyglossia and nativization, tradition and renewal in 16th century Dutch Bibles I argued above that one difference between Catholic and Protestant translation ideologies is that a Catholic vernacular Bible is a means to an end – for the layman, to understand the liturgy; for the initiate cleric, to approach the received Latin text – whereas a Protestant vernacular Bible is the source for religious truth and redemption. I hypothesized that this difference would be reflected in that a Protestant vernacular Bible must be a more self-contained whole than a Catholic vernacular Bible and therefore would show a stronger tendency to nativize exotic terminology, thereby opening up the underlying meaning of the text at the cost of surface accuracy. In
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contrast, a Catholic vernacular Bible would have a stronger tendency to use transfers and learned vocabulary and thereby point to a textual tradition in which the vernacular translation is only the latest link. The texts studied here partially confirm this hypothesis. Direct transfers from Latin are a strong presence in the Delft Bible of 1477, somewhat less so in the Louvain Bible, and they are completely absent in the 1542 Liesvelt Bible. Learned borrowing is often used in the Delft and Louvain Bibles, where Liesvelt’s translations and Vorsterman often employ a nativization instead. In that sense the Delft and Louvain Bibles employ three lexical layers – native vocabulary, learned borrowings, and direct transfers from Latin, the latter two not always easy to distinguish – whereas Liesvelt’s translation attempts to reduce these layers. Liesvelt almost always avails himself of the example set out by Luther’s translation in this attempt. Notably, Liesvelt 1526 still employs a number of Latin transfers – e.g., onocrotalus (Zeph. 2: 14) and Pardus (Hab. 1: 8) – and not always after the example of the Delft Bible (in Zeph. 2: 14, Delft has roesdommer [‘bittern’]; in Hab. 1: 8, a paraphrase die alre snelste dieren [‘the quickest animals’]). One explanation may be the hurry with which Liesvelt 1526 was produced: it is one of the earliest printed Bibles inspired by the Reformation – indeed before Luther’s own translation of the Old Testament. Liesvelt’s translations, though in the 1542 version reducing the polyglossia induced by Latin transfers and borrowings, introduce a new kind of polyglossia by following Luther in occasionally using transfers from Hebrew. This kind of polyglossia may be seen as reflecting Protestant ideologies in that it does not constitute a signifier of learned, Latin-based clerical tradition (as do the Latin transfers in the Delft Bible); rather, being a signifier of the Palestinian origins of the Old Testament narrative, it thereby fits the Protestant direction towards an original, uncorrupted early Christianity. I mentioned at the beginning that the Dutch religious dissident scene of the 1520s was marked by the absence of any regal or state direction – on the contrary, it met with increasingly severe repression – and by a lack of doctrinal institutionalization. Early religious dissidents ranged from reformminded Catholics to early Sacramentarians, with Luther’s early writings and translations eagerly read and spread by all of them. Eclecticism is also apparent in the Bible translations of the 1520s: the 1526 Liesvelt Bible and the 1528 Vorsterman Bible both show the influence of Luther’s texts to the extent they were available, while at the same time the 1526 Liesvelt Bible has a layer of Latin transfers that recall the style of the 1477 Delft Bible. Vorsterman’s 1528 Bible, though reverting here and there to the Vulgate and the Delft Bible, is a more linguistically purist Bible (reverting to Latin transfers only with the difficult cases of onocrotalus and camelopardalum). The hypothesis
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mentioned above of Catholic tradition-centred polyglossia and Protestant text-centred monoglossia is borne out most clearly by the latter two Bibles. The 1542 Liesvelt Bible avoids Latin transfers completely and prefers learned borrowings only in those cases where Luther’s nativizations seem rather extreme; and the 1548 Louvain Bible reduces, but does not eliminate, the Delft layer of Latin transfers and expands the layer of learned borrowings.
Bibliography Primary sources Delft Bible 1477 = Delftse Bijbel. Digitized by Nicoline Van der Sijs 2008. http:// www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl/delftse-bijbel-1477/. Liesvelt Bible 1526 = Dat oude ende dat nieuwe Testament. http://www.dbnl.org/ titels/titel.php? id=_lie012lies02. Vorsterman Bible 1528 = De Bibel. t Geheele oude ende nieuwe Testament […]. Digitized by Nicoline Van der Sijs 2012. http://www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl/vorstermanbijbel-1528–1531/. Liesvelt Bible 1542 = Den Bybel met groter neersticheyt ghecorrigeert […]. Digitized by Nicoline van der Sijs 2010. http://www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl/liesveltbijbel-1542/. Louvain Bible 1548 = Den gheheelen Bybel Inhoudende het oude ende nieuwe Testament … Digitized by Nicoline van der Sijs 2008. http://www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl/ leuvense-bijbel-1548/. Luther = Biblia das ist die gantze heilige Schrifft Deudsch Mart. Luth. Wittemberg 1534. http://ora-web.swkk.de/digimo_online/digimo.entry? source=digimo. Digitalisat_anzeigen&a_id=4792. Vulgate = The Clementine Vulgate Project. http://vulsearch.sourceforge.net/. Septuagint = Vetus Testamentum (Septuaginta). http://www.hs-augsburg. de/~harsch/graeca/Chronologia/S_ante03/VT/vte_pd00.html. Hebrew = Hebrew Interlinear Bible (OT). http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Hebrew_Index.htm.
Secondary sources Akerboom, T.H.M. 2006. ‘A new song we raise’: On the First Martyrs of the Reformation and the Origin of Martin Luther’s First Hymn. Perichoresis 4.1: 53-77. Arblaster, Paul. 2004. ‘Totius Mundi Emporium’: Antwerp as a Centre for Vernacular Bible Translations 1523–1545. In The Low Countries as a Crossroads of Religious Beliefs, ed. by Arie-Jan Gelderblom, Jan L. De Jong, and Marc Van Vaeck, 9-32. Leiden: Brill.
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Arnott, W. Geoffrey. 2007. Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z. London: Routledge. Augustijn, C. 1975. De Vorstermanbijbel van 1528. Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 56.1: 78-94. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press. BLGP = Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme. 1978–2006. Vols. 1-6. Kampen: J.H. Kok. http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/ retroboeken/blnp/. Botterweck, G. Johannes, and Helmer Ringgren. 2004. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Vol. 14. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans. Breiner, Laurence A. 1979. The Career of the Cockatrice. Isis 70.1: 30-47. De Bruijn, C.C. 1937. De Statenbijbel en zijn voorgangers. Leiden: Sijthoff. Decavele, Johan. 1990. Vroege reformatorische bedrijvigheid in de grote Nederlandse steden: Claes van der Elst te Brussel, Antwerpen, Amsterdam en Leiden (1524–1528). Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 70.1: 13-29. Den Hollander, August. 1999. Dat oude ende dat nieuwe testament (1526). Jacob van Liesvelt en de nieuwe markt voor bijbels in de zestiende eeuw. Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis 6: 105-21. Den Hollander, August. 2010. Christian Hebraism and Early Printed Dutch Bibles. In Between Lay Piety and Academic Theology, ed. by Ulrike Hascher-Burger, August den Hollander, and Wim Janse, 521-32. Leiden: Brill. Desplenter, Youri. 2011. Een middelnederlands Oud Testament uit Holland in de Vorsterman-bijbel (1528)? De cantica in her Middelnederlandse Philadelphiapsalter. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- & Letterkunde 127: 3-27. Duke, Alastair. 1975. The Face of Popular Religious Dissent in the Low Countries, 1520–1530. Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26.1: 41-67. Duncan, Dennis. 2010. Urchin, Coney, Rock Badger: Genus Hopping with the Choirogrullios. Dandelion 1: 1. http://dev.dandelionjournal.org/index.php/ dandelion/article/view/3/44. EWN = Philippa, Marlies, Frans Debrabandere, Arend Quack, Tanneke Schoonheim, and Nicoline Van der Sijs. 2003–2009. Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. http://www.etymologiebank. nl/werken. Francois, Wim. 2011. Solomon Writing and Resting: Tradition, Words and Images in the 1548 Dutch ‘Louvain Bible’. In The Authority of the Word: Reflecting on Image and Text in Northern Europe 1400–1700, ed. by Celeste Brusati, Karl A.E. Enenkel, and Walter Melion, 181-213. Leiden: Brill. Francois, Wim. 2015. The Catholic Church and the Vernacular Bible in the Low Countries: A Paradigm Shift in the 1550s? In Discovering the Riches of the Word:
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Religious Reading in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Sabrina Corbellini, Margriet Hoogvliet, and Bart Ramakers, 234-81. Leiden: Brill. Hindman, Sandra. 1975. The Transition from Manuscripts to Printed Books in the Netherlands: Illustrated Dutch Bibles. Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 56.1: 189-209. Jory, Colin H. 2014. The First Printed Dutch Bible: Reassigning the Honour. Quaerendo 44: 137-78. King, John N., and Mark Rankin. 2008. Print, Patronage and the Reception of Continental Reform: 1521–1603. The Yearbook of English Studies 38.1/2: 49-67. Meeus, Hubert. 2014. Printing Vernacular Translations in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp. Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 64.1: 108-37. MNW = Verdam, J., and E. Verwijs. 1864–1952. Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek. http://gtb.inl.nl/. Newmark, Peter. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall. Ng, S.F. 2001. Translation, Interpretation, and Heresy: The Wycliffite Bible, Tyndale’s Bible, and the Contested Origin. Studies in Philology 98.3: 315-38. Rummel, Erika. 1999. Humanism and the Reformation: Was the Conflict between Erasmus and Luther Paradigmatic? In Northern Humanism in European Context, 1469–1625: From the ‘Adwert Academy’ to Ubbo Emmius, ed. by F. Akkerman, A.J. Vanderjagt, and A.H. Van der Laan, 186-97. Leiden: Brill. Van Duijn, Mart. 2013. Printing, Public, and Power: Shaping the First Printed Bible in Dutch (1477). Church History and Religious Culture 93: 275-99. Vervliet, H.D.L. 1978. Post-incunabula en hun uitgevers in de Lage Landen. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. VMNW = Pijnenburg, W.J.J., K.H. Van Dalen-Oskam, K.A.C. Depuydt, and T.H. Schoonheim. 2000. Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek. Leiden: Instituut voor Nederlandse Lexicologie. http://gtb.inl.nl/. WNT = Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. 1882–1998. http://gtb.inl.nl/.
About the author Dr. Merlijn de Smit is an Adjunct Professor and a teacher at the Stockholm University. His research interests include the old written languages, historical syntax, and Old Finnish.
11
Medical Discourse in the Oldest Lithuanian Lutheran Texts Dainora Pociūtė
Abstract The focus of this paper is medical terminology and discourse in 16thcentury Lithuanian Lutheran books, the oldest and most important documents of the kind in the Lithuanian language. The central questions raised address the issues of whether the early Lutheran vernacular texts prepared in Prussia dealt with medical concerns; how they influenced the development of Lithuanian medical terminology; what was the role of the popular religious literature in the dissemination of medical knowledge in lay society. The early Lutheran texts in Lithuanian show that the compilers and translators of these texts created the foundation for Lithuanian medical terminology reaching far beyond the vernacular and Latin. Keywords: Lithuanian literature, medical terminology
Medicine and Christianity: the protestantization of medicine The relationship between religion and medicine in the 16th century has attracted considerable attention among scholars in the recent times. This research has yielded many interesting results, showing that Christianity and the practice of medicine were interconnected in a very tight way. As an example, Andrew Cunningham (2001: 44) has claimed that anatomy, being the central issue of early modern medicine, could not be thought of outside the context of Christianity in the mediaeval and early modern eras. Anatomy was part of the philosophy of nature, which held theoretically that the world was created by God. Medicine and anatomy were not separated from the problems of the soul, just as physica was connected with metaphysica. According to Dijkhuizen (2009: 189), illnesses and bodily suffering were also
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch11
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interpreted and experienced within a Christian framework and connected to spiritual improvement. Nonetheless, pain was still seen as an evil resulting from original sin (Pender 2008: 474). Even though it is a debated question, it can be argued that the Reformation had a significant influence on medical innovations of the 16th century (Helm 2001: 51), and thus the interconnection between medical innovations and evangelical thought can be conceived as the ‘protestantization’ of early modern medicine. Cunningham, trying to explain what would constitute a ‘Protestant’ form of anatomizing, stressed that the conception of the human body as the culmination of creation was not altered with the Reformation but, rather, emphasized by Protestants (Cunningham 1997: 105-252). Early modern Protestants were aware of the common principles of theology and nature introducing medical education into philosophical training. Jürgen Helm, who studied the teaching of anatomy at two different universities, the University of Wittenberg and the Catholic University of Ingolstadt, concluded that the teaching of medicine at Wittenberg was directly related to theology but that in Ingolstadt anatomy was confined narrowly to medical teaching (Helm 2001: 68). This aspect was conditioned by the Jesuit educational strategy based on the distinction between theology and nature studies. Notwithstanding the fact that the University of Ingolstadt had both Jesuit and secular teachers, Jesuits did not teach at the faculty of Medicine, whose staff was secular (Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte: 321). In contrast, at the Lutheran universities medicine became an important academic subject that was developed in accordance with the spirit of the Reformation, thanks to Melanchthon’s desire to integrate the philosophy of nature with evangelical theology; these tendencies were approved by Luther (Toellner 1984: 297). Andreas Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica (1542) had been received by Melanchthon and his students in Wittenberg already by 1550 or so (Koch 1998: 213). To describe the features of the ‘protestantization’ of learned medicine is not the same as to analyze the general dynamics of medical history. In early modern Europe, the boundary between popular medicine, rooted in folklore, and learned medicine, the sphere of university-educated professionals, was not explicit. In the treatment of illness there was no clearly defined division between the methods used by authorized practitioners and those used by popular practitioners. Doreen Evenden Nagy, in her study on lay and learned medicine in early modern England, concluded that ‘any sharp distinction between ‘popular’ and professional medical practice and treatment in Stuart England appeared to be untenable’ (Nagy 1988: 53). Keeping in mind the widely spread ideas about the ‘protestantization’ of early modern medicine, as well as the interrelations between learned and
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folk medicine, many other questions related to the social history of medicine can be raised. Did early vernacular confessional literature play some role in the dissemination of medical thought? Does vernacular literature resonate with the tendencies of Renaissance medicine, and what can we learn about those tendencies from the common catechisms, sermon books, etc.? Do 16thcentury Lutheran written sources – the first examples in written Lithuanian language – provide any material that can help us describe medical practice in everyday contemporary life? Finally, is Protestant vernacular literature more oriented towards medical items in comparison with Catholic written sources? To try to answer some of these questions, we will discuss some early Lithuanian Lutheran sources.
Main forms of 16th-century Lithuanian Lutheran literature Lutherans were the pioneers of the Lithuanian written language and book publishing. The history of Lithuanian literature starts in the first half of the 16th century with the early wave of Lithuanian exiles in Prussia during the period of persecution of Evangelicals in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. More than ten Lithuanian Lutheran books were published in 16th-century Prussia (in Königsberg), and two large manuscripts were prepared (a sermon book and a translation of the Bible). The history of Lithuanian literature begins with the catechism of Martynas Mažvydas Catechismusa prasty ßadei (1547), which was a volume of translated and original texts. It has been found (Stang 1929: 6-47) that the main sources of the catechism were the first Polish Lutheran catechisms printed in Königsberg a short time earlier – the catechisms of Jan Seklucjan (Katechismu text prosti dla prostego ludu, 1545) and Jan Malecki (Catechismus to iest nauka Krzescianska, 1546), as well as two Latin sources: the catechism of Jodoc Willich (Catechismi corpus, 1542) and the catechism of Johannes Sauermann (Parvus catechismus pro pueris in schola, 1529). Another Lithuanian Lutheran catechism was prepared by Baltramiejus Vilentas (Enchiridion, 1579). Vilentas used the Mažvydas catechism (Ford 1969: 22-23), but the main source for his catechism was the German Small Catechism of Martin Luther (Der kleine Katechismus, 1529, 1535, 1536, 1542). Two Lithuanian sermon books contain the largest part of the original Lithuanian texts. The f irst Lithuanian sermon book, the so-called Wolfenbüttel Postile (1573), is an original work compiled using many different Lutheran Latin sermon sources (Gelumbeckaitė 2008: 36-43). The author of the Postile is unknown. To prepare this enormous text, the author used
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sermon books by Johannes Brenz, Antonius Corvinus, Daniel Greser, Niels Hemmingsen, Martin Luther, Arsatius Seehofer, and Johannes Spangenberg. The Postile was intended as a manual for pastors preparing sermons for the entire Christian year. Since its target audience was not the common but educated people, the didactic tendencies in the Wolfenbüttel volume are not greatly developed. In 1591 the first published edition of Lithuanian sermons appeared, a volume prepared by minister Jonas Bretkūnas (Johannes Bretke, 1536–1602). This original sermon book (Aleknavičienė 2005: 31-36), dedicated to the ministers who preached to common Lithuanian peasants, is the richest source of 16th-century Lithuanian medical discourse. In different episodes of the sermons, Bretkūnas tries to instruct his audience by describing and explaining the main features and symptoms of some diseases. A series of Lithuanian Lutheran hymnals was published in Königsberg, starting with a small hymnal in the first Lithuanian book by Mažvydas (1547). Vilentas finished the compilation and publication of the first two large separate hymn books prepared by Mažvydas, who died in 1564. This was a hymnal in two volumes, Giesmes chriksczioniskos (1566, 1570). In 1589 Bretkūnas published another two collections of Lutheran hymns (Kancionalas and Giesmes Duchaunas). Because of their specific poetical nature (Pociūtė 1995: 13-29), hymns are of course less informative about everyday matters. Two Lithuanian translations of the Bible and its sections were prepared. In 1579 Vilentas published Evangelias bei Epistolas (‘Gospels and Epistles’), which contains a Lithuanian translation of the Gospels and Epistles and some excerpts from the Acts of the Apostles. In 1590 Bretkūnas finished the translation of the entire Bible (Falkenhahn 1941: 127-35); he did not succeed in having it published, but it survived in manuscript form. From the 16th century onwards, the Prussian authorities issued decrees that were also translated into Lithuanian (Prūsijos valdžios gromatos 1960: 19-56). Those decrees are the only examples of the secular Lithuanian language during the 16th and 17th centuries. Lithuanian decrees concerning health issues belong to the 18th and 19th centuries.
Königsberg University as a centre of Lutheran education It is important to note that all the 16th-century Lithuanian Lutheran authors were ministers who graduated from Königsberg University. They were working in the Lithuanian Lutheran churches in Königsberg (Vilentas,
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Bretkūnas) or its districts (Mažvydas, Bretkūnas, who was active first in Labiau, later in the capital of Prussia), where the process of Germanization was indistinct in the 16th century and where more than half the population used Lithuanian as their native language. The Lutheran University of Königsberg (Albertus-Universität Königsberg, Albertina), founded in Prussia in 1544 by Duke Albert of Prussia, had a profound impact on the development of Lithuanian Protestant culture. From its inception the university comprised a College of Medicine.1 Physicians played an important role in the development of the university during the 16th century (Jaster 2008: 42-43). Johann Bretschneider (Joannes Placotomus, 1514–1577), physician to Duke Albert, was one of the founders of the university and the first dean of the medical faculty, becoming Rector of the university in 1548–1549. He maintained close relationships with the Lithuanian dissidents in Prussia and played the role of the agent of Lutheranism in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.2 Another influential physician in the early phase of Königsberg University activity was Andreas Aurifaber (= Goldschmidt, 1512 [1514?]–1559), physician and secretary of Duke Albrecht as well as Rector of the university from 1553.3 The integration of medicine and philosophy in the education system of the Lutheran University helped to prepare the ministers to be ready to spread their medical knowledge among lay society. At the same time, such an educational base created more favourable conditions for adapting the lay medical experience in the process of creating the established corpus of medical knowledge. This explains why, from its very beginning in the 16th century to the end of the 19th century, Lithuanian Lutheran literature is the main source of Lithuanian medical terminology.
1 The first university in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, founded in 1579 by the Jesuits in Vilnius (Academia et Universitas Vilnensis), did not receive a papal privilege to develop medical studies. After the second unsuccessful attempt to establish a Faculty of Medicine in the 17th century, the study of medicine in Vilnius started only at the end of the 18th century. 2 In 1546 he came to Vilnius and brought a letter (8 June 1546) from Duke Albert to Martynas Mažvydas, the future author of the f irst Lithuanian book, inviting him to come to study at Königsberg University. 3 In 1529 Aurifaber became Rector of the Latin school in Danzig and two years later accepted a similar post at Elbing. The patronage of Duke Albert of Prussia enabled him to pursue the study of medicine at Wittenberg and in Italy. After 1545 he was physician to the Duke and professor of physics and medicine at the university at Königsberg, issuing, in the performance of his duties, a number of medical treatises. Aurifaber wrote a number of treatises on physics and physiology. He is the author of an exceedingly rare work on the origin and use of amber in medicine: Succini historia (see Aurifaber 1572).
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Medical terminology From an analysis of medical discourse in certain languages (Zemlevičiūtė 2007: 165), seven main semantic groups of medical terminology can be defined: 1) parts of the human body, organs, and body fluids; 2) human diseases and their symptoms; 3) homemade means of treatment; 4) persons (patients, medical practitioners); 5) actions, conditions, and features; and 6) institutions; 7) documents. A general analysis of the old Lithuanian written language of the 16th and 17th centuries (Palionis 1967: 286) revealed that the largest group of names for the parts of the human body and organs is very old, descending from the proto-Indo-European period. This semantic group in the terminology is, naturally, not absolutely related to specific medical matters and is often used in broader contexts. Given its old origins, this terminological group was not influenced by Slavonic languages, as were some other later-formed terminological groups. The first Lithuanian Lutheran texts introduced the largest part of this old anatomical terminology into the common practice of the written language. The majority of the terms are used in the standard contemporary language (akis ‘eye’, galva ‘head’, kraujas ‘blood’, širdis ‘heart’, viduriai ‘viscera’, etc.). A significant part of the medical terminology of folk origin became official medical terms, thanks to their systematic development in Lutheran literature for the common people from the very beginning of the 20th century (Zemlevičiūtė 2009: 250). Thus Lutheran Lithuanian literature, which constituted the most significant part of the entirety of Lithuanian written heritage during the 16th to 18th centuries, played an important role as a mediator of the lay pre-Christian culture. Among another six semantic groups, those terms that deal with medical practitioners and diseases could be defined as a group as being more sophisticated than the other ones in 16th-century Lithuanian Lutheran literature.
Medical practitioners: types and names As Kusukawa observes (2004: 3), in the year 1500 three distinct groups of medical practitioners can be identified in different European countries: physicians, barber-surgeons, and apothecaries. Of these groups physicians treated foremost diseases affecting the body internally, such as fevers. They prescribed medicines and supervised surgical operations. Barber-surgeons, in contrast, treated external wounds and offered a wide range of services from bloodletting and bonesetting to barbering. Apothecaries provided
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medicines (Kusukawa 2004: 3). In addition to those special professional groups, various kinds of healers were offering their assistance. Learned physicians (doctores) who practised in early modern Lithuanian and Prussian societies were of two kinds. Most were Italians and Germans who worked at the court of the sovereign and different courts of the aristocracy. From the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th, some Lithuanians also gained degrees in philosophy and medicine from universities in Poland, Italy, and Germany. The middle and lower classes of the early modern society had very few opportunities to be served by learned physicians. Still, in the 16th-century Lithuanian written language intended for the consumption of the common people we come across the term for a learned physician, daktaras, as a general name for a physician. This term is used for the first time in the anonymous Lithuanian hymn about the plague published in the Hymnal of Martynas Mažvydas (Mažvydas 2000: 42): Gijmditoijus ir waikus užmusch maras / Negielbt Daktaras (‘Parents and children are killed by plague, the physician is helpless’). The term daktaras indicating a physician is also used by Jonas Bretkūnas (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:153, 191; 2:459). Another Lithuanian term for a medical practitioner introduced into the old Lithuanian written language by Lutheran authors was liekorius (liekarius, lekorius). The root of the word lek is of archaic Indo-European origin (Bela 2011). The term for a physician (lēkjaz) from Celtic languages (lēgi) was borrowed into Germanic languages (Orel 2003: 244). Terms based on this root with a semantic meaning of healing and medical treatment were used in many old European Germanic languages. The primary sense of the verb based on it was ‘to pick up, to gather, to collect’ (Gr. λέγω ‘to pick up, to tell’ and Lat. lego ‘to gather, to collect’), and it signifies that the mediaeval lay reception of the illness was conceived in a magic sense as an item that enters the organism and should be extracted from it. From this archaic root in the late mediaeval and early modern period also derive various Slavic terms with a sense of healing and treatment (Old Slavonic lekar ‘physician’; Polish lek ‘medicine’, ‘remedy’ and lekarz ‘physician’) that are used as standard medical terms in contemporary Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and other Slavic languages. The term liekorius entered Old Lithuanian most probably from the Polish and Old Slavonic languages. The word liekarius was used already in the first Lithuanian book, the catechism of Mažvydas (2000: 77). Later it was used in the works of Vilentas (1969: 173) and Bretkūnas (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:190; 2:455, 459). Together with daktaras it became the main word meaning (‘physician’) in 16th-century Lithuanian.
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In the Wolfenbüttel sermon book, we can see a systematic attempt to introduce another Latinized term – barbierius (balbierius) (‘barber-surgeon’) – as a general term for physician. Since in the Christian tradition the Word of God is called medicine and the image of Christus medicus, Christ the Physician, is quite frequent (in some German and Scandinavian sources Christ is also called apothecary), the author of the Lithuanian sermons applies the term barbierius even to Christ: Eſch panas eſmi tawa barbierius (Wolfenbüttel Postile 2008: 209). This shows that the figure of the barbersurgeon in the second half of the 16th century in Prussia was probably quite common as a representative of the medical practitioner and began to be used as a common name for a physician. At the end of the 16th century, the Lithuanian term gydytojas (from Lithuanian gyti ‘recover’, ‘get well’) was introduced into Lithuanian. Approximately during the same period, the word began to be used in the Bible (Old Testament) translation by Bretkūnas (2002: 591) as well as in the Catholic literature that emerged at the end of the 16th century in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Bretkūnas, a Lithuanian Lutheran minister in Prussia, used all the names of medical practitioners (except apothecaries) in his writings: daktaras, barbierius, liekorius, gydytojas. Two of these terms (daktaras and gydytojas) are the main standard Lithuanian terms for physicians and remain in use in contemporary Lithuanian. The medical practitioners known as healers have a negative connotation in all early modern Christian literature. In Lithuanian Lutheran literature they are usually not only healers but also representatives of the pagan culture. Lutheran sources often call them žyniai (‘wizards’), burtininkai (‘wise-women’), or manenikai (‘cunning-folk’). Criticism of the burtininkė (‘wise-woman’) is emphasized as early as in the Catechism of Mažvydas (2000: 71). In the Wolfenbüttel Postile (Wolfenbüttel Postile 2008: 234) we come across other names such as žynys and manenikas: biednaſis ßmagus turretụ kittụ pagalbinikụ kaip tai ßinụ, burteninkụ, ir kittụ manenikụ ieſchkati (‘Instead of wizards, wise-women and cunning-folk a man in trouble should look for another help’). The image of the fourth group of medical practitioners, apothecaries, is absent in the earliest Lithuanian Lutheran texts. Pharmacies were a recent development in 16th-century Prussian and Lithuanian societies. Lithuanian literature was addressed mainly to the common village folk, while pharmacies were founded only in towns, and their customers belonged to the more privileged society. At the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th, the terms aptieka (‘pharmacy’) and aptiekorius (‘apothecary’) were introduced into
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written Lithuanian in some Catholic sources.4 The early Lithuanian Lutheran sources provide evidence of the use of the common European names for medical practitioners (physicians, barber-surgeons, and healers, though not apothecaries). Nevertheless, we can note that their functions are not clearly separated, and the use of the terms is quite amorphous.
Diseases In 16th-century Lithuanian Lutheran texts, there are three main categories of diseases and motives for mentioning them: 1) contagious epidemical diseases; 2) biblical diseases referenced systematically in the Holy Writ; and 3) other contemporary diseases. The main source for the names of diseases is a book of sermons by Jonas Bretkūnas (1589), who paid the most articulated specific attention to medical matters. Contagious epidemic diseases. Plague (pestis) Plague (pestis) was the cause of some of the most devastating epidemics in mediaeval and early modern society. It is important to note that in different sources the term plague could refer both to an infectious disease developing and spreading rapidly to many people as well as to bubonic plague caused by the bacillus Pasteurella pestis (Yersinia pestis) – the most common form of the plague in humans. Bubonic plague (Black Death) was the most widespread epidemic that devastated Asia and Europe in the mid-14th century. It killed ‘from one-fourth to three-fourths of the population of Europe and Asia’ (Encyclopedia of Plague 2008: 31-33). There were several devastating epidemics of the plague in early modern East Prussia. The last large outbreak, which killed about 200,000 inhabitants of Königsberg and surrounding Lithuanian suburbs, occurred in 1709–1711 (Matulevičius 1989: 39). Early Lithuanian writings use two Lithuanian words for the plague: maras and pavietris. The author of the first Lithuanian books, Mažvydas, mainly used maras, which is probably of old pre-Reformation origin and derives from the verb mirti (‘to die’). This word became the common name for the plague in official Lithuanian medical terminology. In the Mažvydas 4 The term aptieka was used in the Catholic sermons of Mikalojus Daukša of 1599 (Daukša 2000: 503), and the word aptiekorius appears in the third edition of Lithuanian dictionary prepared by Konstantinas Sirvydas (1642; Senasis Konstantino Sirvydo žodynas 1997).
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texts, pavietris (pavietrė) is used once as a synonym for maras. Pavietrė and pavietris were also used by Bretkūnas and other authors. The word pavietris is of Polish origin (i.e., powietrsze morowe ‘the plague air’) and came through Polish sources translated into Lithuanian. From Mažvydas onwards, maras and pavietris/pavietrė were used synonymously. These terms were used to signify any infectious disease developing and spreading rapidly to many people, as well as spreading from person to person. Bretkūnas used the term pavietrė widely in his description of various ancient Hebrew stories (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:179; 2:213, 349). Mediaeval and early modern medicine held that the plague had at least one of several causes. It was generally conceived of as a punishment from God for people’s sins. Bretkūnas also claims in his sermons (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:190) that ‘Teipo ir ape kau / pawietri ir wiſſas kittas liggas kalbant / iſch kitto nieko ſwietui nerandasi liſch iſch grieko’ (‘Plague as well as any other disease in the world from nothing else than from evil arises’). There were also more specific interpretations. It was widely believed that the plague was caused by pockets of bad air released by earthquakes or by an unfavourable alignment of heavenly bodies. Some other interpretations explained how bad air was disseminated. In 16th- and 17th-century Poland-Lithuania, anti-Semitic theories claiming that the main disseminators of bad air were Jewish physicians and barber-surgeons were also widely spread. The term pavietris (‘the plague air’) signifies that the disease was conceived as bad air also in the Polish and Lithuanian societies. Bretkūnas explains that such bad air emerges, for example, from the putrefaction of dead bodies (Bretkūnas 2005: 2:408): Nera iau nieka iſch ßmogaus numirusio / kunas io kaip kita maita gul / ir iau nekencʒams ira? Ir iei tůiau ne ira ßemena pakaſams / tada iſch tos ſmarſes / randaſe pawietre alba giltine / kuri ßmones dideis pulkais paſmaug. (‘The dead human body is good-for-nothing and it lies just like flesh, hated by everyone. If not buried it starts to smell and from this putrefaction rises plague or death that kills a lot of people’.)
Smallpox (variola) The plague was by no means the only contagious disease in the early modern period. Smallpox (variola, variola vera), a higly contagious viral disease, ‘has been one of humankind’s greatest scourges since time immemorial’ (Barquet and Domingo 1997: 635). Smallpox is not clearly described in the
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Bible or in the literature of the Greeks and Romans. In Europe it started to spread uncontrollably at the beginning of the 16th century. According to Nicolau Barquet and Pere Domingo, the name of the disease in English was first pox or red plague. Its common name small pox came into use in the 15th century to distinguish it from the great pockes, or syphilis (Barquet and Domingo 1997: 636). In the early modern period, smallpox was one of the most communicable and deadly diseases. As Crosby (1986: 199-200) observes, the infection of smallpox culminated in the 18th century, with up to 10 to 15 per cent of all deaths resulting from this disease. It affected especially children, with 80 per cent of its victims being less than 10 years old. This disease had gross mortality rates of up to one-fourth, one-half, or more. Jonas Bretkūnas was the first author to describe smallpox in Lithuanian and to mention the Lithuanian term for the disease – rauplės. Since the name rauplės was very similar to another old ‘biblical’ skin disease, raupsai (leprosy),5 Bretkūnas tried to stress the difference between the diseases and noted that smallpox was known to occur in Prussia, while leprosy was very rare (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:188): Kitta liga ira Rauples / kitta raupſai / alba kaip kitti kalba raupſas. Muſu waikai / kartais ir ſenni ſerga rauplemis / kaip ßinnot patis. Raupſais reta karta girdim Pruſu ßemeie apſirgusi. (‘The one disease is smallpox [rauplės], yet another is leprosy [raupsai]. As you know well, our children and even adults sometimes suffer from smallpox. However leprosy here in the Prussian land occurs rarely’.)
In Prussia, rauplės became the official Lithuanian word for variola and was widely used in the 17th to 19th centuries in various Lutheran sources (Zemlevičiūtė 2007: 135), for instance in the German-Lithuanian lexicons (the German terms for variola were Pocken Lex, die Pocken, or Kindblattern). The term rauplės was still used in the common language of the 20th century, even if another form of the word based on the same root – raupai – was adopted as the official medical term for variola.6 5 Both words have the same root raup, which means a rugged surface. 6 Interestingly, the adjective raupuoti appears once in the 16th-century Lithuanian Lutheran sources. It was used in the Vilentas translation of the Gospels Euangelias bei Epistolas (Vilentas 1579: 5): Akli regi / raiſchi waikſcʒio / raupůti ſtoieſe apcʒiſtiti / kurtinei girdi […]. Most probably it was a misprint for raupsuoti (‘affected by the scabs from leprosy’). The form with s (raupsuoti) had to be a correct translation of that episode of the Gospel where, as in the entire Bible, the term variola does not exist. Using the same excerpt of Vilentas’s translation of the Gospel in
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Biblical diseases: leprosy, palsy, fever A group of diseases was introduced into early Lithuanian Lutheran texts together with the reception of biblical discourse. Some names of diseases are mentioned in the Bible, such as leprosy, fever and palsy (paralysis). Many of them received Lithuanian names and were commented upon together with biblical stories in 16th-century Lutheran literature, although some of them were not encountered very frequently. One of the most frequently mentioned biblical diseases was leprosy (Lithuanian brantai, raupsas, raupsai). In the Wolfenbüttel book of sermons, the Germanism brantai is used as the equivalent of leprosy (Wolfenbüttel Postile 2008: 238): ſkaitame raſchte ſ: karatus nog pana Diewa, ir Brantais, kaip bua karata Maria ſeſo Moiſeſcha (‘In the Holy Writ we read about persons being punished by God, as in the case of Miriam, a sister of Moses, who was struck by leprosy’). The author of the Postile also widely used the adjective brantuotas to refer to the person affected by leprosy. The word brantai was used also by Bretkūnas (Bretkūnas 2005: 2:476): warginami tas ſchaſchais ſchis nießais / kits gumbe / kits brantais apſerg / kits negal koiomis / kits rankomis / kits akimis prapůl (‘One is tormented by itch, another by scabs, others suffer from leprosy or have problems with their legs or hands, there are persons who are blind and cannot see’).7 The first to introduce the other Lithuanian word raupsas (and its adjective form raupsuotas) for leprosy when translating parts of the New Testament was Baltramiejus Vilentas (Vilentas 1579: 27, 109): ir biloia / noriu / būk cʒiſtas. Ir tůiaus apcʒiſtitas buwa raupſas iô (‘And he said “I’m willing. Be clean”. And immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy’); kaip ghis ateia y wiena mieſteli / ſ/ ſte ghy deſchimtis viru raupſůtu / kurie ſtoweia iſchtola / ir pakiele balſus (‘When he came to the village he met ten men who had leprosy; they stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice’). It is likely that Vilentas first started to use the word raupsas, which strictly means ‘the scab’ on the skin, and the adjective raupsuotas (‘scabby’) his Postile, Bretkūnas once adopted the same mistake: Akli reg / raiſchi waikſchcʒoij / rauputi ira apcʒiſtijami / kurtinei gird numirelei keleſi (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:28), while in his manuscript of the New Testament translation he used the form with an s when translating the same episode (Bretkūnas 1991: 50). As witnessed by the text of his original sermons as well as his New Testament translation of the same episode, Bretkūnas clearly distinguished between the two diseases, i.e., leprosy (raupsai) and variola (rauplės), so it is not correct to claim that he used the term raupai (variola) to indicate raupsai (leprosy), as Zemlevičiūtė (2007: 135) argues. 7 Later the term brantai (bruntai) was used for syphilis (‘morbus Galicus’), as in the f irst Lithuanian dictionary of Konstantinas Sirvydas (Senasis Konstantino Sirvydo žodynas 1997: 91).
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to indicate not the name of the disease but its attributes, the signs of the disease – the scabs on the skin. Then, wanting to indicate a name for the disease, he also used the term brantai. Bretkūnas started to use the plural form of the word ‘raupsas’ raupsai in his sermons when interpreting biblical stories. He gave the word a more precise meaning and introduced it as a term for the disease. Nevertheless, he noted that despite the disease being widely spread among Hebrews, it was rare in contemporary Prussia (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:187-91). Palsy is a disease causing loss of mobility and is mentioned quite often in the Bible (Matt. 4: 24, 9: 6; Mark 2: 3; Luke 5: 18; Acts 8: 7, 9: 33). When translating the New Testament (Matt. 8: 6), Vilentas used the Lithuanian term stabas to indicate the palsy (Vilentas 1579: 28): PONE / tarnas mana guli namie ſtabu aßumuſchtas / ir tur dide kancʒe (‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly’). The same word stabas (meaning a palsy) is used once in the Postile of Bretkūnas (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:184): Pone / tarnas mana gul namie ſtabu ußmuſchtas / ir tur dide kancʒe. It is obvious that here the term is automatically transferred together with the whole episode of the Gospel, translated by Vilentas (Bretkūnas used Vilentas’s translation of the Gospels to illustrate almost all his sermons). While in his original sermons Bretkūnas used the word stabas for another disease – (‘gout, podagra’) – it is most likely that Vilentas took the Lithuanian term from the spoken language, where the word stabas is used for stiffness and stagnation. Fever is a frequently mentioned disease in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments (Deut. 28: 22; Matt. 8: 14; Mark 1: 30; Luke 4: 38; John 4: 52; Acts 28: 8). It is likely that drugys, a Lithuanian equivalent of fever, is one of the oldest Lithuanian names of diseases. The word has no semantic association with fever or burning heat as it does in Hebrew, Greek, and many other languages. The first direct meaning of drugys is ‘butterfly’; subsequently the name of the insect was used to name the disease. The disease was already named in the original Lithuanian hymn on the plague in the hymnal of Martynas Mažvydas. There is no doubt that the word there means a classical fever,8 because it is used in association with a synonymous term, ‘drugys, karščių liga’ (‘drugys or disease of the fever’). The word was used by Vilentas in his Gospels (Vilentas 1579: 122) and was also repeated by Bretkūnas (2005: 2:475), who paid special attention to this disease in his sermons and noted that fever (drugys) was not just a biblical 8 The word does not mean ‘malaria’ as it is (wrongly) explained in the dictionary of Martynas Mažvydas prepared by Urbas (1996: 102).
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disease like leprosy but a widespread contemporary problem (Bretkūnas 2005: 2:367). As a disease, drugys has a strongly developed imagery in Lithuanian folklore. The butterfly is an insect that rises from a cocoon. In Lithuanian folk tales the disease called drugys also has a mythological and personifying meaning. The disease grows like some living creature; emerging, for instance, from an egg hatched by a witch (Trimakas 2008: 86-88). Consequently, treatment of the disease and recovery from it have a magical nature. Other contemporary diseases. Podagra (gout) and jaundice Some other actual diseases are mentioned in the Bretkūnas book of sermons, for example, podagra (gout) and jaundice (icterus). Although known since Antiquity, podagra was a very widespread disease in the early modern era. Bretkūnas was the first to mention this disease in Lithuanian. The problem is that he started to use the same term that was introduced by Vilentas to designate palsy (‘paralysis’): stabas. For this reason, Bretkūnas also used the synonym kaulų liga (‘bone disease’) when describing the gout. The disease was common in Prussia. In his Postile, Bretkūnas gives the characteristics of podagra together with its German name ‘die Gicht’, which confirms that the author means podagra (gout) with the terms stabas and kaulu liga (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:188-89):9 Stabas alba kaulu ligga ira kitta liga nei Raupsai / kaulu ligga serganti szmogu / ta kalbam kurio gislos ira ischtansamas / kurio kunas ant kaiu alba ranku patinsta ir didei skaust / kaip szmagus nei dirpti nei paeiti negal / net gulenti tur / kaip tha ligga sergancziu daug musip ira / wokischkai wadinna / die Gicht. (‘Podagra or the bone disease is different from leprosy; the disease stretches all the patient’s tissues, the arms and legs of his body are tumid and extremely arduous so that he cannot work or walk, having just to keep to the bed and there are a lot of sick persons because of that illness in our lands which in German is called die Gicht’.)
In his sermon book Bretkūnas once mentioned (Bretkūnas 2005: 1:112) another name for the disease: gelta (from geltonas ‘yellow’), which means 9 Vilentas used the form stabu in his Gospel translations, indicating a person affected by palsy (paralysis) e.g.,: Oſchitai / atneſche iopi / wiena ſtabu vßmuſchta gulinti ant patala (Vilentas 1579: 118).
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jaundice (icterus). The Lithuanian name, widely used in contemporary Lithuanian, represents the common symptom of this liver disease, i.e., the yellowish pigmentation of the skin.
Conclusions Early Lithuanian Lutheran literature was the first mediator in lay society of the Christian understanding of pain and disease. In Lutheran sources physical pain and diseases are generally an evil, part of the constellation of suffering that resulted from original sin. Bretkūnas often stresses in his sermons that evil is a permanent and inevitable part of human life on earth, and he also notes the continuous rise of new diseases as new forms of the evil in the world (Bretkūnas 2005: 2:459): Ir tiek indiwinu liggu randaſe / kaip nepatis / daktaraj ſotug neßinnos / kaipo tas nauias liggas giditi alba prawariti. (‘So many strange diseases are emerging that even physicians themselves do not know how to treat those new diseases or to heal the sick’.)
In comparison with Catholic sources, Lutheran literature was much more concerned with medical issues and giving instructions on how to deal with this evil as a companion to everyday human life. The integration of medicine and philosophy in the Lutheran university education system helped to prepare ministers to disseminate medical knowledge in lay society. Lithuanian Lutheran literature, intended for the common country people from its very beginning in the 16th century, was oriented towards the notable development of medical discourse, and until the end of the 19th century it was the principal means of communication and source of medical knowledge. 16th-century Lithuanian Lutheran books bear witness to the fact that Lutheran authors initiated the process of systematizing medical terminology on the basis of Latin and vernacular languages. Describing the biblical diseases, Lithuanian Lutheran authors both used the terminology of preChristian origin and created new terms. The special interest in medical issues in popular Lutheran books was not a phenomenon restricted to the Reformation period: medical discourse was especially developed in the Lutheran editions of the later centuries, thus forming the basis for contemporary Lithuanian medical terminology.
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Bibliography Primary sources Bretkūnas, Jonas. 1991 [1580]. NAVIAS TESTAMENTAS Ing Lietuwischką Lieszuwį perraschitas per Janą Bretkuną Labguvos plebona 1580. Das NEUE TESTAMENT in die litauische Sprache übersetzt von Johann Bretke, Pastor zu Labiau 1580, ed. by Jochen Dieter Range and Friedrich Scholz. Faksimile der Handschrift, Band 7 und 8, Labiau i. Pr. 1580. Biblia Slavica, Serie 6. Biblia Lithuanica, Band 1.7. Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, and Zurich: Ferdinand Schöningh. Bretkūnas, Jonas. 2002 [1590]. Biblia tatai esti Wisas Schwentas Raschtas, Lietuwischkai pergulditas per Janą Bretkuną Lietuwos pleboną Karaliacziuie 1590. Die Bibel das ist die ganze Heilige Schrift Litauisch übersetzt von Johann Bretke, Litauischer Pastor zu Königsberg 1590, ed. by Jochen Dieter and Friedrich Scholz. Faksimile der Handschrift, Band 2 und 3, Königsberg i. Pr. 1590. Biblia Slavica, Serie 6. Biblia Lithuanica, Band 1.2/3. Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, and Zurich: Ferdinand Schöningh. Bretkūnas, Jonas. 2005 [1591]. Jono Bretkūno Postilė. Studija, faksimilė, kompaktinė plokštelė. Ed. by Ona Aleknavičienė. 2 vols. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla. Daukša, Mikalojus. 2000 [1599]. Mikalojaus Daukšos 1599 metų Postilė ir jos šaltiniai, ed. by Jonas Palionis. Vilnius: Baltos lankos. Mažvydas, Martynas. 2000 [1547]. Martyno Mažvydo raštai ir jų šaltiniai, ed. by Guido Michelini. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas. Prūsijos valdžios gromatos. 1960. Prūsijos valdžios gromatos, pagraudenimai ir apsakymai lietuviams valstiečiams, ed. by Povilas Pakarklis. Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla. Senasis Konstantino Sirvydo žodynas. 1997 [1642]. Ed. by Kazys Pakalka. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas. Vilentas, Baltramiejus. 1969 [1579]. The Old Lithuanian Catechism of Baltramiejus Vilentas, ed. by Gordon B. Ford Jr. The Hague and Paris: Mouton. Vilentas, Baltramiejus. 1579. Euangelias bei Epiſtolas / Nedeliu ir ſchwentuju dienoſu ſkaitomoſias / Baßnicʒoſu Chrikſcʒoniſchkoſu / pilnai ir wiernai per gulditas ant Lietuwiſchka Sʒodʒia / per Baltramieju Willenta / Plebona Karalaucʒui ant Schteindama. Priegtam / ant gala priedeta jra Hiſtoria apie muka ir ſmerti Wieſchpaties muſu Ieſaus Chriſtaus pagal kieturiu Euangeliſtu. Iſchſpauſtas Karalaucʒui per Iurgi Oſterbergera / Metu M.D. LXXIX. [Königsberg]. Wolfenbüttel Postile. 2008 [1573]. Die litauische Wolfenbütteler Postile von 1573, ed. by Jolanta Gelumbeckaitė. Band 1: Faksimile, kritische Edition und textkritischer Apparat. Band 2: Einleitung, Kommentar und Register. Wiessbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
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Secondary sources Aleknavičienė, Ona. 2005. Jono Bretkūno Postilė Lietuvoje: sklaidos istorija. In Jono Bretkūno Postilė. Studija, faksimilė, kompaktinė plokštelė, ed. by Ona Aleknavičienė, 15-119. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla. Aurifaber, Andreas. 1572. Succini historia: ein kurzer grundlicher Bericht, woher der Agtstein oder Bornstein vrsprunglich komme, das er kein Baumhartz sey, sonder ein Geschlecht des Bergwachs, und wie man jnen manigfaltiglich in Artzneien moge gebrauchen. Königsberg: Johan Daubman. Barquet, Nicolau, and Pere Domingo. 1997. Smallpox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible of the Ministers of Death. Annals of Internal Medicine 127.8 (Part I) (15 October, 1997): 635-42. Bela, Zbigniew. 2011. Etymologia ir pierwotne znaczenia wyrazów lek ir leczyć. Gazeta farmaceutyczna 3:26-28. Crosby, Alfred W. 1986. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cunningham, Andrew. 1997. The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical Projects of the Ancients. Aldershot: Scolar Press. Cunningham, Andrew. 2001. Protestant Anatomy. In Religious Confessions and Sciences in the Sixteenth-Century, ed. by Jürgen Helm and Annette Winkelmann, 44-50. Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill. Dijkhuizen, Jan Frans. 2009. Partakers of Pain: Religious Meaning of Pain in Early Modern England. In The Sense of Suffering: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture, ed. by Jan Frans van Dijkhuize and Karl A.E. Enenkel, 189-220. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence: From Ancient Times to the Present. 2008. Ed. by George Childs Kohn. 3rd edition. Facts On File, Inc. Falkenhahn, Viktor. 1941. Der Übersetzer der litauischen Bibel Johannes Bretke und seine Helfer. Beiträge zur Kultur- und Kirchengeschichte Altpreußens. Königsberg and Berlin: Ost-Europa-Verlag. Ford, Gordon B., Jr. 1969. The Life and Works of Baltramiejus Vilentas. In The Old Lithuanian Catechism of Baltramiejus Vilentas, ed. by Gordon B. Ford, Jr., 13-26. The Hague and Paris: Mouton. Gelumbeckaitė, Jolanta. 2008. Einleitung zur Edition der litauischen Wollfenbütteler Postile von 1573. In Die litauische Wollfenbütteler Postile von 1573, Band 2: Einleitung, Kommentar und Register, ed. by Jolanta Gelumbeckaitė, 7-30. Wiessbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. 1996. Band I: 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert. Von de Renaissance und der Reformation bis zum Ende des Glaubenskämpfe, ed. by Notker Hammerstein, with the participation of August Buck. Munich Verlag C.H. Beck.
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Helm, Jürgen. 2001. Religion and Medicine: Anatomical Education at Wittenberg and Ingolstadt. In Religious Confessions and Sciences in the Sixteenth-Century, ed. by Jürgen Helm and Annette Winkelmann, 51-68. Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill. Jaster, Stephan. 2008. Die medizinische Fakultät der Albertus-Universität und ihre bedeutendsten Vertreter im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. In Die Universität Königsberg in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. by Hanspeter Marti and Manfred Komorowski, 42-76. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag. Koch, Hans-Theodor. 1998. Melanchthon und die Vesal-Rezeption in Wittenberg. In Melanchthon und die Naturwissenschaften seiner Zeit, ed. by Stefan Rhein and Günther Frank, 203-18. Sigmaringen: Frommann-Holzboog. Kusukawa, Sachiko. 2004. Medicine in Western Europe in 1500. In The Healing Arts: Health, Disease and Society in Europe, 1500–1800, ed. by Peter Elmer, 1-26. Manchester: The Open University. Matulevičius, Algirdas. 1989. Mažoji Lietuva XVIII amžiuje. Vilnius: Mokslas. Nagy, Doreen Evenden. 1988. Popular Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press. Orel, Vladimir. 2003. A Handbook of German Etymology. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Palionis, Jonas. 1967. Lietuvių literatūrinė kalba XVI-XVII a. Vilnius: Mintis. Pender, Stephen. 2008. Seeing, Feeling, Judging: Pain in The Early Modern Imagination. In The Sense of Suffering: Constructions of Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture, ed. by Jan Frans van Dijkhuize and Karl A.E. Enenkel, 469-96. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Pociūtė, Dainora. 1995. XVI-XVII a. protestantų bažnytinės giesmės. Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė ir Prūsų Lietuva. Vilnius: Pradai. Singer, Peter. Galen. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 edition), ed. by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/ entries/galen/. Stang, Christian. 1929. Die Sprache des litauischen Katechismus vom Mažvydas. Oslo: Dybwad. Toellner, Richard. 1984. Die medizinischen Fakultäten unter dem Einfluss der Reformation. In Renaissance–Reformation. Gegensätze und Gemeinsamkeiten, ed. by August Buck, 287-97. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Trimakas, Ramūnas. 2008. Lietuvių liaudies medicina: etnografiniai ir folkloristiniai aspektai. XIX amžiaus pabaiga–XX amžiaus pirmoji pusė. Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla. Urbas, Dominykas. 1996. Martyno Mažvydo raštų žodynas. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla. Zemlevičiūtė, Palmira. 2007. Terminologinė medicinos leksika lietuviškuose 1738–1831 metų Prūsijos valdžios įsakuose. Archivum Lithuanicum 9: 121-66.
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Zemlevičiūtė, Palmira. 2009. Lietuvių medicinos terminologijos raida XIX amžiaus pabaigoje–XX amžiaus pradžioje. Daktaro disertacija. Humanitariniai mokslai, filologija. Vilnius.
About the author Professor Dainora Pociūtė is a Head of the Department of Lithuanian Literature at the Vilnius University. Her research interests include Early Modern intellectual history, Reformation and Counter-Reformation history as well as 16th- to 18th-century literature in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Prussia.
12 German Influence on the Christian Discourse of Early Written Latvian Pēteris Vanags
Abstract The focus of this essay is the influence of German on early written Latvian, in particular on Christian discourse. The background for the themes dealt with is formed by loan-based cultural phenomena (the Christian religion and the Lutheran Reformation) and the loan-based texts (above all biblical texts) relating to the phenomena and their translation. The study examines the vocabulary and idioms of Christian discourse in the early 16th and 17th centuries, and also the morphological and syntactic structures, in terms of their origin. Early written Latvian was, in practice, a language translated from German, which was clearly reflected in the difference between the written and the spoken language. The influence of German on the written language was even more pronounced because the writers either spoke German as their mother tongue or they had a very good command of German. The influence of German and the resulting obscurity of the texts remained characteristic features of the language of Christianity until in the 19th century. Keywords: Language contact, language transfer, loanwords, Latvian, German, Old Russian
Introduction The Christian paradigm was one of the central paradigms in the early period of the history of written languages of the people in the Baltic region. The very beginnings of the written language are connected with the spread of Christianity, especially with the Reformation movement in the 16th century. The early written sources of Latvian are connected with the Reformation, the
Kauko, M., M. Norro, K.M. Nummila, T. Toropainen, and T. Fonsén (eds.), Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas. Amsterdam University Press, 2019 doi: 10.5117/9789462981553/ch12
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period when the idea of the translation of the Bible and use of vernaculars in worship spread over many parts of Europe and also found their place in Livonia. The earliest preserved books in Latvian are Catholic (1585) and Lutheran (1586) catechisms. Even the early short and fragmentary texts in Latvian from the first half of the 16th century were mostly connected with Christianity: they were prayers or other formulae used in Christian rituals. Nevertheless, the history of Christianity in the Baltic area is longer and begins with the Christianization of the entirety of northern Europe in the 9th century. This was the period when the two branches of Christianity met on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea – the Western branch from Rome and the Eastern from Byzantium. In the 9th century, Ansgar became the first archbishop for Scandinavia, but Christianity was officially adopted only in the following centuries. The mission to the eastern Baltic shore began almost immediately. The sources already speak about the Scandinavian mission in Courland in the late 11th century: ‘Una ibi nunc facta est ecclesia cuiusdam studio negotiatoris, quem rex Danorum multis ad hoc illexit muneribus’ (‘A church has now been built there through the zeal of a merchant whom the king of the Danes moved to do this by many gifts’), from Adam’s ‘Gesta hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum’, lib. 4, cap. 16 (Schmeidler 1977 [1917]: 244). Archaeological excavations from this period have revealed cross-shaped pendants as well as signs of Christian influence in the burial practices (Mugurēvičs 1987: 11-14; Šterns 2002: 329-31). Two lexical borrowings from Old Norse could have originated from this very early period in 11th- to 12th-century Latvian (hereafter ‘Latv’) mūks (‘monk’) (from Old Norse [hereafter ‘ONorse’] munkr; cf. also Estonian munk from the same sources; Karulis 1992 1:605; Metsmägi et al. 2012: 287-88); and Latv biķeris (‘chalice’) (from ONorse bikarr or Old Saxon bikeri; cf. also Old Estonian piker; Karulis 1992 1:126-27). The eastern neighbours of the Balts – Eastern Slavs or Old Russians – officially accepted Christianity in the late 10th century (988). From the next century onwards, it spread to the neighbouring lands. The centres for the mission to the early Latvian lands were the Old Russian bishoprics of Polock and Novgorod. According to Old Russian and German chronicles, as well as various archeological materials, part of the Latgalians or Eastern Latvians were baptized Orthodox (Apals and Mugurēvičs 2001: 364-65; Mugurēvičs 1987: 15-17; Šterns 2002: 331-37). Linguistic data are also more than convincing, because the base of the Christian lexicon in the Latvian language consists of borrowings from the Old Russian language. However, this lexical layer can be interpreted in different ways.
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Jules Levin (1974: 70-71) distinguishes between three different layers: 1) ‘the area of broad cultural institutions associated with the rise of Christianity, which outside the Christendom had an impact greater than the Christian religion itself’; 2) ‘the basic terminology of Christian-pagan religious communication, which the Prussians could have borrowed before their conversion to Christianity through the influence of Slavic missionary activities or simply in contacts with Slavic Christians’; and 3) ‘terminology that more than likely would be acquired only after, or rather, in the course of, widespread conversion to Christianity that is, terms used basically by Prussian Christians’. The same may well be true for Latvian. Nevertheless, it is difficult to place words into these three groups. The archaeological data also can be interpreted in different ways. For example, the use of crosses in burial traditions in the graves of the 12th century is traditionally interpreted as a sign of Christianity, but there are also authors who see them only as a sign of the fashion of the time (cf. Šterns 2002: 331-37). Nevertheless, the vast layer of borrowings allows the assumption that the contact between different people and cultures was close and lasting.
Slavic influence on the Christian vocabulary of Latvian Naturally, Christian vocabulary has a strong foreign influence (Loorits 2005 [1962]). Christianity as a religion has been borrowed, so it is possible to claim that even the Christian discourse itself has been borrowed. Nevertheless, it includes borrowed as well as native elements. If we use Werner Betz’s (1949, 1959) typology of loans, we can assert that the Latvian Christian vocabulary includes almost all possible kinds of loans: lexical loans including loanwords (integrated words from another language, for example Latv grēks [‘sin’] from Old Russian [hereafter ‘ORuss’] грѣхъ, Latv brūte [‘bride’] from Middle Low German [hereafter MLG] brût); loan formations including loan translations (translation of the elements of a foreign word, for example Latv Lieldiena [‘Easter’] from ORuss великъ дьнь, Latv baznīc(as)kungs [‘priest’] from MLG kerkhêre) and loan creations (coinage independent of the foreign word, but created out of the desire to replace it, for example Latv žēlastība (‘mercy’) for ORuss milostь [‘mercy’]) as well as semantic loans (indigenous word to which the meaning of the foreign word is transferred, for example Latv bausls [‘commandment’] for ORuss заповѣдъ or MLG gebede). Borrowings are also found in other layers of language, especially in phraseology and grammar.
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Unfortunately, there are no sources for the actual situation in the 11th and 12th centuries when contacts with Old Russian took place. Our earliest data go back only to the 16th century, after 300–500 years had passed and the borrowed vocabulary had become a part of the basic vocabulary and the derivational system of Latvian (Blese 1955: 10-15; Endzelīns 1971 [1899]; Sehwers 1953: 321-23; Summent 1950). The authors of the 16th century regarded these early Slavic borrowings as native Latvian elements. They were already phonologically, grammatically, and derivationally adapted to the system of Latvian and did not differ from the inherited vocabulary. In the written sources of the 16th and early 17th centuries there is a group of Christian terms that could be described as semantic loans. One can assume that such Christian semantics were already borrowed during the first steps or even before conversion to Christianity. There are no homonymic lexical loans. Examples of semantic loans include: bausls (‘commandment’), debesis (‘heaven’), dievs (‘god’), dvēsele (‘soul’), gars (‘spirit’), lūgt (‘pray’), ļauns (‘evil’), miesa (‘flesh’), šķīsts (‘innocent’), ticēt (‘believe’), and velns (‘devil’). All of these words have acquired Christian semantics alongside their primary non-Christian meaning. The best-known group of Christian loans in Latvian is, of course, lexical loans. These lexemes have been collected and described in several studies from the 19th century, and one can mention all or most of the lexical Slavisms of religious texts as Christian loans. The early texts contain most of the known Old Russian Christian loans. Very early loans are krists (‘cross’) (from ORuss крьстъ), kristīt (‘baptize’) (ORuss крьстити), and zizlis (‘sceptre’) (ORuss жьзлъ), which are borrowed before the fall of the reduced Slavic vowels ь and ъ. From the same period also stem perhaps: baznīca (‘church’) (ORuss божьница, бозьница), gavēnis (‘fast’) (ORuss говѣни ѥ), gavēt (‘to fast’) (ORuss говѣти), grāmata (‘book’) (ORuss грамота), grēks (‘sin’) (ORuss грѣхъ), kūma (‘godmother’) (ORuss кѹма), kūms (‘godfather’) (ORuss кѹмъ), nedēļa (‘week’) (ORuss недѣлѩ), pagāns (‘pagan’) (ORuss поганыи), svece (‘candle’) (ORuss свѣча), svētīt (‘to bless’) (ORuss свѧтити), svētki (‘holiday[s]’) (ORuss свѧтъкъ, свѧтъки), svēts (‘holy’) (ORuss свѧтыи), zvanīt (‘to ring’) (ORuss звонити), and zvans (‘bell’) (ORuss звонъ). Other examples of Slavic lexical loans used in early religious texts are: bēdas (‘sorrow’) (ORuss бѣда ‘disaster’), cilvēks (‘man’) (ORuss человѣкъ), gads (‘year’) (ORuss годъ), kalps (‘servant’) (ORuss хол(o)пъ), karogs (‘banner’) (ORuss хорѹгъвь), miers (‘peace’) (ORuss миръ), mokas (‘torture’) (ORuss мѹка), muita (‘customs’) (ORuss мыто), sods (‘punishment’) (ORuss сѹдъ, сѫдъ), dabūt (‘to obtain, to get’) (ORuss добыти), solīt (‘to promise’) (ORuss сѹлити), strādāt (‘to work’) (ORuss страдати), bagāts (‘rich’) (ORuss
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богатыи), nabags (‘poor’) (ORuss небогъ), vesels (‘well, healthy’) (ORuss веселыи ‘cheerful, glad’), ļoti (‘very’) (ORuss лютѣ ‘hard, strong, heavily’), and žēl (‘pity’) (ORuss жаль). The next group is derivations from lexical loans. Even here at least two subgroups can be distinguished. There are words that on the one hand were created according to the borrowed model with native derivational morphemes, for example Latv. kristības (‘christening’) from kristīt (‘to baptize’) as ORuss krьščenie from krьstiti or Latv. mūžīgs (‘eternal’) from mūžs (‘life, age’) as ORuss věčnyi from věkъ. On the other hand there are words that could be classified as loan creations and do not match their semantic sources formally, for example žēlastība (‘mercy’) from žēl (‘sorry, pity’). ORuss žalostь means (‘compassion, sympathy’), but the ORuss term for (‘mercy’) is milostь from milъ (‘dear’). The nouns muitnieks (‘tax-collector’), mocenieks (‘martyr’), and strādnieks (‘worker’) are a special case. These nouns could be regarded as loan formations, but they could also be borrowed from ORuss мытьникъ, мѹченикъ, страдьникъ and then reanalyzed as derivatives with the suffix -niek-. The loan formation grēcinieks (‘sinner’) from ORuss (грѣшьникъ) already shows the native shape of derivation from the lexical loan grēks (from ORuss грѣхъ) with the alternation k–c. The third group of borrowings is compounds or collocations – loan translations and creations. Traditionally this group includes the names of week days, especially otrdiena (‘Tuesday’), ceturtdiena (‘Thursday’), piektdiena (‘Friday’) from ORuss въторьникъ, четврьтъкъ, п ѧтъкъ, as well as the names of several Christian festivities or holidays: Lieldiena (‘Easter’) from ORuss великъ дьнь, lielā piektdiena (‘Good Friday’) from ORuss великыи п ѧтъкъ, and Old Latvian (hereafter OLatv) lielā ceturtdiena (‘Maundy Thursday’) from ORuss великыи четврьтъкъ. In the early Latvian sources, one can definitely find more examples of loan translations and creations. Thus in the Creed and prayers the common designation of God the Father is visuvaldītājs (‘ruler of all’), for example Es titcz exkan Dewe to Thewe / wueſſewalditaye / Radditaye / Debbes vnde thäs Semmes (‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth’). The corresponding German term is the adjective allmächtig (‘almighty’); cf. Ick gelöue ynn Godt den Vader allmechtigen Schepper Hemmels vnnde der Erde. The Latin version of the Creed also had an adjective – omnipotens: Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae. The Slavonic (hereafter ‘Slav’) and Greek (hereafter ‘Gr’) versions in contrast use a noun, ‘ruler of all’ in this formula: Gr. Παντο-κράτωρ, Slav. вьседьржитель: Верую во единаго Бога Отца, Вседержителя, Творца
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небу и земли. In Old Russian texts we also find a simple noun дьржитель (‘ruler’). So there is good reason to assume that the Latv visuvaldītājs is a loan translation of the ORuss or Slav word and has been in use since the 11th–12th century in the Latvian Christian tradition.
German influence on the written Latvian language of the 16th and 17th centuries The cultural and linguistic situation in the early Latvian lands changed with the German expansion to the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea in the 12th–13th century (see Ross and also Pettersson in this volume). When the Sword Brethren and thereafter the Teutonic Order took over the lands later called Livonia, the impact of the Eastern Slavs diminished, and the native Baltic and Finnic people were baptized in the Roman faith. In the eastern parts of Livonia, the Catholic Church replaced Orthodox Christianity. In the Catholic Church, of course, Latin was used as the main language for church services, but we lack reliable evidence to claim that Latvian has direct borrowings from this. German served as the relay language for the Latin origin borrowings in Latvian (Sehwers 1953: 323-37). German, which has been spoken on Latvian soil since the 13th century in various dialectal forms (Arbusow 1939: 356-57, 383-84; Lele 1993: 19), has left a heavy influence on the Latvian language. From the second half of the 14th century, Low German was also used as written language in both official and private communications, thus replacing Latin, which had hitherto been used for these purposes. Low German was the traditional language of the Hanseatic League, and certain regional traits were already inherent in it. From 1520 the transition to High German had begun (Schmidt 1938), but in the Lutheran church, at least in Riga, Low German was used in services at least until the end of the 16th century. This can be seen from the repeated new editions of the Riga hymnal with texts in Low German extending until 1592. However, Low German was still used as a spoken language in Livonia in the 17th century and partly also in 18th. Although the texts show no direct evidence, we may accept it as axiomatic that from the 14th or 15th century (when the mix of inhabitants in the cities had stabilized), Latvian-German bilingualism existed in Riga and other larger towns in the Latvian part of Livonia. This bilingualism was undoubtedly widespread among the Latvians, since Latvian craftsmen and servants were forced to communicate with numerous non-Latvians. The Latvians and non-Latvians formed a united society in which each language
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had its social status. It seems likely that many non-Latvians, especially those born in Riga, had a greater or lesser command of Latvian. Since the earliest Latvian Lutheran texts were translated from Low German originals, a powerful Low German influence on the written Latvian language in the 16th century is understandable. Two levels of influence need to be distinguished: (1) the Low German influence on the spoken Latvian language; and (2) the direct influence of the original text on the language of the translations, whereby forms or constructions non-existent in spoken Latvian could arise. These two levels are often difficult to separate, but their existence must be kept in mind.
German influence on the Christian vocabulary of Latvian German influence is observable, first of all, in the vocabulary of 16th-century written Latvian. Lexical loans from German can be found in various semantic fields. The early texts contain most of the known (Middle Low) German Christian loans (cf. Jordan 1995; Ozols 1968: 12-17; Sehwers 1953, esp. 319-37): a) words related to Christianity and its doctrine: apustulis (‘apostle’) (MLG apostel), elle (‘hell’) (MLG helle), eņģelis (‘angel’) (MLG engel), evaņģēlijs (‘gospel’) (MLG ewangelium), jumprava (‘virgin’) (MLG junkfrouwe), paradīze (‘paradise’) (MLG paradîs), pravietis (‘prophete’) (MLG profête), and sātans (‘Satan’) (MLG satan) b) words related to the church as a building and its fixtures: altāris (‘altar’) (from MLG altâr), bilde (‘picture’) (MLG bilde), ērģeles (‘organ’) (MLG örgel), ģērbkambaris (‘vestry’) (MLG gerwekamer), kapele (‘chapel’) (MLG kapelle), klosteris (‘monastery’) (MLG klôster), koris (‘choir’) (MLG kôr), pulpete (‘pulpit’) (MLG pulpet), turnis, tornis (‘tower’) (MLG turn, torn), and velve (‘vault’) (MLG welve) c) words related to the church as a hierarchy and its employees: bīskaps, pīskaps (‘bishop’) (MLG bischop), kaplāns (‘chaplain’) (MLG kapp(e)lân), ķesteris (‘sacristan’) (MLG köster), pāvests (‘pope’) (MLG pawest), prāvests (‘dean’) (MLG prawest, prowest), and vērminderis (‘churchwarden’) (MLG vörmünder[e]) d) words related to the Mass and its procedure, as well as other rituals: aplāts (‘indulgence’) (MLG aflât), bannis (‘excommunication’) (MLG ban), bēres (‘funeral bier’) (MLG böre), bote (‘confession’) (MLG bôte), brūtgams, brūtgans (‘bridegroom’) (MLG brûdegam), brūte (‘bride’) (MLG brût), līķis (‘dead body’) (MLG lîk), mise (‘mass’) (MLG misse), (s)prediķis
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(‘sermon’) (MLG predikie), upuris (‘offer’) (MLG opper), vīroks (‘incense’) (MLG wirôk), zārks (‘coffin’) (MLG sark), and zvērēt (‘to swear’) (MLG sweren) e) words denoting exotic animals, plants, notions, etc. mentioned in the Bible: balzams (‘balm, balsam’) (MLG balsam), bazūne (‘trumpet’) (MLG basune), ciedrs (‘ceder’) (MLG ceder), eļļa (‘oil’) (MLG ölje), ēzelis (‘donkey’) (MLG esel), kamielis (‘camel’) (MLG kamel), ķeizers (‘emperor’) (MLG keiser), lauva (‘lion’) (MLG lauwe), mamons (‘mammon’) (MLG mamon), mandele (‘almond’) (MLG mandel), mirres (‘myrrh’) (MLG mirre), pērle (‘pearl’) (MLG perle), vāravs (‘pharao’) (MLG pharao), vīģe (‘fig’) (MLG vîge), and vīns (‘wine’) (MLG wîn) f) other words used in the religious discourse (the Bible, collections of sermons, psalm books, Catechisms), e.g.: āmurs (‘hammer’) (MLG hamer), amats (‘handicraft’) (MLG ammet), ārste (‘physician’) (MLG arste), baļķis (‘log; beam’) (MLG balke), brūķēt (‘to use, to apply’) (MLG brûken), bulta (‘arrow’) (MLG bolte), bungas (‘drum’) (MLG bunge), dīķis (‘pond, pool’) (MLG dîk), dilles (‘dill’) (MLG dille), gaņģis (‘passage, lane’) (MLG gang), jeķis (‘fop, nitwit’) (MLG geck, jeck), kambaris (‘room’) (MLG kamer), kanna (‘can’) (MLG kanne), kronis (‘crown, wreath’) (MLG krone), kungs (‘lord’) (OHG kunig), ķēde (‘chain’) (MLG kêde), ķēniņš (‘king’) (MLG könink), lēģeris (‘camp’) (MLG lêger), lievenis (‘porch’) (MLG löving), lode (‘bullet, round’) (MLG lôde), maltīte (‘meal’) (MLG mâltît), meisteris (‘master’) (MLG meister), mice (‘cap’) (MLG mütze), mūris (‘wall’) (MLG mûre), nagla (‘nail’) (MLG nagel), piķis (‘pitch’) (MLG pik), roze (‘rose’) (MLG rôse), rūme (‘space, room’) (MLG rûm), skāde (‘damage, loss’) (MLG schade), skola (‘school’) (MLG schole), smādēt (‘to spurn’) (MLG smâden), spitālīgs (‘leprous’) (MLG spittâlich), spieģelis (‘mirror’) (MLG spêgel), stalts (‘stately, tall’) (MLG stolt), stunda (‘hour’) (MLG stunde), sturmis (‘storm’) (MLG storm), šķiņķot (‘to present’) (MLG schenken, schinken), šķūnis (‘barn’) (MLG schune), tangas (‘tongues, nippers’) (MLG tange), tērēt (‘to spend’) (MLG têren), trumeteris (‘trumpeter’) (MLG trummeter), vadmala (‘broadcloth’) (MLG wâtmâl), vakts (‘watch’) (MLG wacht), vaktmeisters (‘watchman’) (MLG wachtmeister), vērts (‘worth’) (MLG wert), ziepes (‘soap’) (MLG sêpe), zēģelis, zieģelis (‘seal’) (MLG segel), and zīds (‘silk’) (MLG sîde). There are certainly loan translations from the German models as well. One can mention such compounds or collocations as Latv. baznīc(as) kungs (‘priest’) from MLG kerkhêre, baznīcsēta (‘cemetery’) (MLG kerkhof ), diev(a)nams (‘church’) (MLG godeshûs), vakar(a)ēdiens (‘Holy Communion’)
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(MLG âventeten); collocations (s)prediķa krēsls (‘pulpit’) (MLG predikstôl), dieva kalpošana (‘divine service’) (MLG godesdênst), krustības akmens (‘baptismal’) (G Taufstein), kapa raksts (‘epitaph’) (G Grabschrift), kapa akmens (‘gravestone’) (G Grabstein), dieva galds (‘Holy Communion’) (MLG disch godes), dieva vārds (‘God’s Word’) (MLG wort godes), kaulu kambaris (‘ossuary’) (MLG bênhûs), and dziesmu grāmata (‘hymnal’) (G Gesangbuch). Alongside the lexical loans from German in the texts of the 16th and early 17th centuries one can also observe the semantic influence of the source language on the semantics of Latvian words. One of the interesting instances is the adjective rāms in the sense of ‘pious’. In the dictionary by Mühlenbach-Endzelīns (1923-1946), the meanings of the adjective rāms are given as ‘kirre, zahm, still, fromm (nicht religiös)’ (ME III 496), following K. Ulmann’s dictionary from 1872. In 18th-century dictionaries as well, the meanings of this adjective are similarly explained. Lexicographical and other linguistic sources from the 17th century, however, offer material of two different kinds. In most of these sources there seems to be a reference to the use of rāms in a religious sense. For their part, the manuscripts of C. Fürecker’s dictionary (c. 1650–1670) offer objections to the use of rāms in a religious sense: Rahms. from, rectius zahm, still, bändig (Fürecker 1:194, 2:304), and this is more strikingly so in the manuscript of the Manuale Lettico Germanicum, which also made use of Fürecker’s material: Obs. Rahms qdm fromm dicunt, sed non recte quia potius edomitum significat, a quo pius discrepant. rectius dices: labs, sirdigs, Deewa Behrns, Deewa Zilweks, Deewa Ļaudis, Deewa tizzigs: J. (Manuale 403). Such clear-cut objections are understandable only on the assumption that the adjective rāms was relatively widely used at the time in the sense of ‘pious’, and such a usage can indeed be found in the written texts. Nevertheless, the fact that rāms in these sentences is used in the Christian sense ‘pious’ is indicated not so much by the context as by comparison with the German originals. In the majority of cases, Latvian rāms has been used to translate High German fromm or Low German fram, for example: vnde tas patcz Czilwhex by räms vnde Dewebyatays (EE I, 211) vnnde desulue Minsche was främ / vnd Goedtfrüchtich (‘and the man himself was calm and pious’) Dar labe Kunx / Ka tam by buth / Thems labbems ramem sszirdems (Ps, 78b) Do Herr wol / wo ydt syn sal / Den guden framen herten (‘do good as you should for those pious hearts’)
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Dode tu touwe szeelestibe wiszims ramims chrustitems (Ps, 95b) Gib du die gnade allen frommen Christen (‘give your mercy to all the pious Christians’)
The sense ‘pious’ cannot be derived from the basic meaning of the adjective rāms ‘peaceful, tame’. It may be considered relatively certain that we are here dealing with a semantic loan translation or extended meaning. The most interesting aspect is the fact that the prime role in the process of meaning extension appears to be attributable not to the similar basic meaning of the words in the two languages but, rather, to their phonetic similarity: Low German fram (with long ā) and Latvian rāms. We cannot envisage a straight-out borrowing from Low German, since the phonetics cannot support such a proposition: in the event of a straight-out borrowing, the Latvian form would need to be *brāms, since Low German fr- (vr-) leads to br- in Latvian borrowings: cf. brokastis ‘breakfast’ (< MLG vrôkost), brīvs ‘free’ (< MLG vri) (cf. also Sehwers 1918: 49). It is to be doubted whether the semantic loan translation into Latvian from German fromm was in fact very widely used in the 16th and 17th centuries. It may have been characteristic of the language of religious texts only, perhaps even in the language of pastors who were not native speakers of Latvian. The translation of the religious texts also richly enhanced Latvian phraseology. As is the case for the languages of all Christian peoples, a large number of idioms entered Latvian via biblical texts (Veisbergs 2007: 8-31, 2012: 91-113). The role of Ernst Glück’s translation of the Bible (1685–1694) in solidifying these idioms in the language cannot be overstated. Of course not all idioms were first introduced by this translation; some were already used in the early pericope translations of the 16th century and first half of the 17th century. For example, (vilks) avju drēbēs (‘[wolf] in sheep’s clothing’) was already fixed in the pericope edition of 1587: SZargates yums par tims wiltigims Prophetims kattre exkan Auwe drebims py yums nake / Beth eſkige gir the pleeſige Wuelke (EE I 157) (‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves’). This idiom occurs again in subsequent pericope editions and in Glück’s translation: BEt śargajtees no teem wiltigeem Praweeścheem / kas Awjo Drehbês pee jums nahk / bet no eekśch=puśśes irr tee plehśigi Wilki (JT Matt. 7: 15). Similarly, redzēt skabargu otra acī, bet baļķi savā neredzēt (‘see the speck in another’s eye, but not the log in one’s own’) (Matt. 7: 3 etc.) is used in the earliest translations from the New Testament: Beth ko redtcze tu wene
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Figure 9 Ta Swehta Grahmata Jeb Deewa Swehtais Wahrds. (Riga, Wilcken, 1689). Original in the National Library of Latvia
ßkabbarge exkan touwe Brale Atcze / vnde tho Balcke exkan touwe / Atcze tu nhe noman? (EE I 148) (‘Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?’). It is repeated in Glück’s version: Bet ko redſi tu to Śkabargu / kas tawa Brahļa Azzî/ un to Balķi tawâ paśchâ Azzî tu ne nomanni? (JT Matt. 7: 3).
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However, in other cases Glück’s translation gives a new external form to an idiom used earlier, which then becomes established in the Latvian language. For example, in the 16th century the idiom pēc ģīmja un līdzības (‘in [our] image, after [our] likeness’) (Gen. 1: 26 etc.) is rendered as pēc vaiga (‘after [our] cheek, face’): Dews raddye to Czilwheke peetcz ßouwe Wayge / ja peetcz ßouwe Wayge raddye Dews to (E I H3A) (‘God created man in his own image, in his own image God created them’). In this idiom Georg Mancelius replaces the word vaigs (‘cheek, face’) with the Lithuanism ģīmis (‘face’), which subsequently becomes established in Written Latvian: vnd raddiya abbus / ick kattru py śawu tawtu / vnd darriya tohs pehtz śawu Giem (‘and created both, each and every to their nation, and made them by his own face’) (Syrachs 1631: 546). However, the phrase only acquires its present-day form in Glück’s work: Un Deews śazzija: Darriśim Zilweku pehz muhśu Ģihmi/ pehz/ muhśas Lihdsibas (‘And God said: Let’s make a man after our faces, after our likeness’). As many parts of the Bible had not been translated at all before the complete work was issued, a large number of idioms appeared in Written Latvian for the first time in Glück’s translation. Some examples are: zemes sāls (‘salt of the earth’) – Juhs eśśat tahs Semmes Śahls / ja nu tas Śahls neleetis/ ar ko tad taps śahlihts? (JT Matt. 5: 13) (‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?’); turēt (likt) sveci zem pūra (‘hold [put] your candle under a basket’) – Tà arri ne weens eededſina Śwezzu / un leek to appakśch Puhru / bet uhs to Lukturi / tad ta wiśśeem śpihd / kas Nammâ irr (JT Matt. 5: 15) (‘Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house’); Bet ne weens / kas Śwezze eededſina / leek to Kaktâ / neds appakśch kahdu Puhru/ bet uhs Lukteŗi / ka tee kas eekścha nahk / to Gaiśchumu redſ (JT Luke 11: 33) (‘No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a bushel, but on a stand, that those who enter may see light’); piedauzīšanas (piedauzības) akmens (‘stumbling stone’) – tee irr dauſijuśchees pee ta Akmiņa tahs Peedauſiśchanas (JT Rom. 9: 32) (‘They have stumbled over the stumbling-stone’); Jttin kâ rakſtihts irr: Raugi/ es leeku eekśch Sionas weenu Akmini tahs Peedauſiśchanas / un weenu Akmini tahs Apgrehzibas (JT Rom. 9: 33) (‘as it is written, behold I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall’). As can be deduced, some of the biblical idioms were still used in their literal meaning and synchronically could not be considered to be true idioms. However, they must be mentioned as being the basis for idioms that over time became established in Latvian.
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German influence on the grammar of early Latvian texts The German influence on the early Latvian texts is not limited only to the lexicon; considerable influence can also be observed in the structure of texts, in both morphology and syntax. The main cause of this, however, is not to be sought in German influence on spoken Latvian or in the translators’ insufficient knowledge of Latvian. The most important factor is the method – the word-for-word translation of the texts (cf. the text on the front page of the translation of Luther’s Enchiridion (1586): Nun aber aus dem Deudschen ins vndeudsche gebracht / vnd von wort zu wort / wie es von D.M. Luthero gesetzet / gefasset worden) (E I) (see Figure 10), which means that on many occasions the morphological and (especially) syntactic differences between the original and the target language are overlooked. The use of morphological forms and syntactic structures that have been affected by the translation process from the German original provides evidence (more than material from other linguistic levels) of the possible difference between the spoken and written Latvian of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Attested parallel forms allow us, at least in part, to separate two areas of German influence – on the spoken language and on the translated text.
Influence on the usage of certain morphological forms Latvian possesses a case form that does not exist in German. This is the locative, which is used quite frequently to designate place, time, or manner (Ahero et al. 1959: 105-09; Auziņa et al. 2013: 354-55). German influence in the use of this case might be expected, and this is indeed so. In the Latvian text, instead of the locative, we find, for the most part, the use of a construction involving the preposition iekšan (‘in, into’) governing the accusative singular and dative plural (cf. also Augstkalns 1933: 47-48; Nītiņa 1978: 84-87): Vnde stum thös exkan to Beddre (UP, 54) (instead of bedrē) Vnd störte se yn de grouen henyn (‘and pushed them into the pit’) Iten ka tas exkan prexke laikems treszeis gir (Ps 91a) (instead of priekšlaikos) Alse he yn vörtiden geredet heft (‘as he has spoken in prehistoric times’)
286 Pēteris Vanags Figure 10 Enchiridion, Der kleine Catechismus. D. Martin. Luther. Nun aber aus dem Deudschen ins vndeudsche gebracht. Königsperg 1586. Original in the National Library of Latvia
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Locative forms are also used, but more rarely (cf. Vanags 1992): Tas tän Jounan denan auxkam czells (Ps 98b) (Middle Latvian (hereafter ‘MLatv’) jaun(aj)ā dienā) He wert am yüngsten dage vpsta[n] (‘In the new day he will resurrect’) Tad bus te wüsse […] tan wetan, kur tems pesatzietz tohp, ateth (LW, 55) (MLatv tai vietā) So sollen alle ambtsbrüdere […] sich zu rechter zeit am bestimpten orte einstellen. (‘Then everyone will have to go to the place where they were told’)
The parallel use of the case form and the prepositional construction indicates that locatives were in reality not expunged from the language; however, it is likely that constructions derived according to the German model could have been used even in the spoken language. The use of possessive pronouns (or adjectives) in Latvian and German is, to a large extent, divergent, since in Latvian the pronoun savs is used with reference back to the subject of the clause, irrespective of the grammatical person involved (Ahero et al. 1959: 510-12; Auziņa et al. 2013: 443-44). In the early texts, however, the German model is very frequently encountered (Barbare 2002: 326-30): Esz pesoutz ar manne Balxne tho Kunge (Ps 2a) (instead of ar savu balsi) Ick rope an mit minen Stemmen den Heren (‘I cried unto the Lord with my voice’) Baase touwe Sobenne exkan to Maxte (EE I 78) (instead of savu zobenu) Steck dyn swert in de schede (‘put up thy sword into the sheath’)
In the third person, however, where the German sein (‘his’) corresponds to both viņa (possessive genitive of viņš ‘he’, the declinable pronoun viņš, viņa ‘his, her’ also is often used in the 16th and 17th centuries; cf. Fennell 2015) and savs (the reflexive possessive pronoun or adjective), the semantic difference between the two Latvian forms is usually observed: Tas […] pallydtcz szouwam kalpam (UP 39) He […] helpet vp synem dener (‘he helps his servant’)
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Tad szapleesze tas Auxtebasnitczkunx szouwes Drebes (EE I 83) Do thoreet de Hogeprester syne Kleder (‘The high priest tore his robes’)
But Dewam tam Thewam gir ta godibe, vnnde wingam Dhelam muszige (Ps 39a) (MLatv viņa dēlam) Godt vader sy de herlicheit, vnd sinem Sön yn ewicheit (‘God the Father has the glory and his Son forever’) Vnde thas aiskare winge Ausze (EE I 78) Vnde he rörede syn Ohr an (‘and it touched his ear’)
Thus, in this instance, the Latvian possessive pronoun system does not fall under the German influence. It seems that the use of mans and tavs etc. instead of savs was never characteristic of spoken Latvian but merely of the Germanized written language. Among the most significant interferences from German we must include the use of the demonstrative pronoun tas, tā (‘that’) and of the numeral viens, viena (‘one’) in the function of the German definite and indefinite articles respectively (Barbare 2002: 336-46; Mieze 2002: 247-55; Ozols 1965: 190). Almost without exception, the articles are translated in the early texts, thus diverging from the Latvian system, in which there is no article: Tas […] dode tay Pasoule wene Joune spidumme (UP 41) Dat […] gift der werldt eynen nyen schyn (‘it gives the world a new shine’) Tas stum tos warrennes nu to kresle (Ps 40a) He stött de weldigen van dem stole (‘He has put down the mighty from their seat’) Tad nätce Jesus ar tims py wenas Muyszas ta dheway Getsemane, tur by wens Därsis (EE I 75) Do quam Jesus mit en tho einem Haue de hete Gethsemane, dar was ein Garde (‘Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane; there was a garden’)
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Especially in spoken Latvian the pronoun tas, tā is even today frequently used in an article function (Ahero et al. 1959: 519; Auziņa et al. 2013: 441-42). There is thus reason to believe that, as early as in the 16th century, such usage was not uncommon in both written and spoken Latvian. In addition, woven together in this phenomenon we have the developmental tendencies of Latvian itself alongside interference from the German system. In the verbal system too, Latvian and German have much in common, as well as much that is distinctive. The formation of reflexive forms, for example, is different: in Latvian the reflexive particle is added to an ending, whereas German uses a pronoun. There is observable German interference in the use of these forms in 16th-century writings, for although German reflexive verbs are usually translated into Latvian reflexive verbs, the dative form of the pronoun is also added (Ozols 1965: 190-91; Veidemane 2002: 424-26): Es […] he bysthos man (UP 32) (instead of es nebīstos) Ick […] früchte my nicht (‘I do not fear’) Vnde tu nhe bystes thöw arridtczan prexkan Dewe (EE I 97) (instead of tu nebīsties) Vnde du früchtest dy ock nicht vör Gade (‘and you also do not be afraid of God’) Kad sew arriedczan wens prettczehtes grib (LW 35) (instead of viens precēties grib) Wenn sich auch einer befreyen will (‘When someone also wants to get married’)
However, if a Latvian reflexive verb is used to translate a non-reflexive German verb, no pronoun is added: Es gulle vnde duso, vnde pamhodhos (UP 3) (MLatv es pamostos) Ick ligge vnd slape, vnd erwacke (‘I sleep and rest, and wake up’) ka the nee maldas no thöw (Ps 68b) (MLatv tie nemaldās) dat se nicht erren van dy (‘that they don’t go astray [from you]’)
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Since there are almost no instances in the early texts where Latvian reflexive verbs are used with the pronoun other than under the direct influence of a German original, it is likely that such a usage was not characteristic of the Latvian spoken in Riga at that time. At the same time, such verbal forms as the infinitive, the future, participles, compound tenses, and negative forms, where Latvian diverges morphologically from the corresponding German forms, do not show any significant interference from the original text in the earliest Latvian texts as far as the manner of constructing the forms is concerned. However, there is significant interference from German in the earliest Latvian texts in the matter of prepositional usage (Nītiņa 1978: 192-203, 2007: 31-50). Certain Low German prepositions are translated almost solely by a single Latvian preposition: ane–bez (‘without’), beth an–īz (‘until’), dorch–caur (‘through’), in–iekšan (‘in’), manck–starpan (‘between’), na–pēc (‘after’), under–apeskan (‘under’), uth–āran (‘out’), van–no (‘from’), vor– priekšan (‘before’). Among these, there are a number of instances that are not characteristic of spoken Latvian. We may mention once again the preposition iekšan, which in combination with cases of nouns or pronouns is used in the function of a locative. The Latvian preposition caur is normally used to translate the Low German dörch, although the semantic field of the German preposition is much wider than that of the Latvian preposition, which originally denoted only place (Ahero et al. 1959: 743-44; Nītiņa 1978: 71-76): O Kunx zour touwe speeke mums gattow dar (Ps 1a) (instead of ar spēku) O Here dörch dine kraft vns bereidt (‘O Lord, through your power make us ready’) Apszlidtczenath to ruckte Nawe, Czour szouwe passche Assen vnd Mokems (UP 50) (instead of ar asinīm un mokām or asinīs un mokās) Versöpen ock den bittern dodt, Dörch syn egen blodt vnd wunden (‘to drown bitter Death, through your own blood and torment’)
In the use of those prepositions which do not display a one-to-one correspondence with some German preposition, German interference is less perceptible. In these instances prepositions normally preserve their genuine Latvian semantic purpose. We may mention uz (for Low German tho and an); pi (for Low German tho, an, by); par, pār without semantic distinction (for Low German vor, tho, alter); and ar (for Low German mit, sampt):
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Par allge puise py sauwe meister […] stradaht (LW 39) Für einen lohnjungen bey seinem meister […] arbeiten (‘to work as wages boy for his own master’) Tas gir kha wens Koex estadytz py tems Vdenne vppems (UP 1) De ys als ein bom geplantet an den waterbeken (‘he is like a tree planted by streams of water’) Gaya thas atkal aran py tems Juddeloudems (EE I 87) Ginck he wedder henuth tho den Jöden (‘He went again up to the Jewish people’)
German influence on syntactic constructions Significant German influence is perceptible in the syntax of the first Latvian texts. In view of the word-for-word method of translation, the word order characteristic of German in most cases has been preserved in sentences: this is especially noticeable in the placement of the verb in both main and subordinate clauses: Mhes luudtczam thöw Kunx JEsu Christ, Katters tu tas pirmays vsczeeles esse (UP 36) (instead of esi uzcēlies) Wy bidden dy Herr Jesu Christ, de du de erste erstanden bist (‘we beg (pray) you Lord Jesus Christ, you the first Risen’) Wüsse pirmack busz ar sinnaschen to ammatte kunge weno olderman […] pehtz wetze eradeumme iszwehleht (LW 33) (instead of būs izvēlēt) Erstlich soll mit vorwissen der amptherren ein elterman […] nach alter gewohnheit erkohren (‘First, using their knowledge, out of old habit craftsmen should elect the elder’)
German syntactic interference can be seen in the placement of an attribute expressed with a genitive. In the German text this is frequently to be found after the head noun, and here it usually remains in the Latvian translations (Ozols 1965: 189): Mhes titzam wusz exkan wene Dewe, Radditaie Debbes vnde tas Semmes (Ps 13b) (instead of debess un zemes radītāju)
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Wy gelöuen all an eynen Godt, Schepper Hemmels vnd der Erden (‘We believe all in one God, maker of heaven and earth’) Bürgermeistere und rath schas Köninge Pils Riga dohde sinnam ar to skaidre (LW 33) (instead of šās ķēniņa pils Rīgas birģermeistri un rāte) Bürgermeistere und rath dieser königl. stadt Riga uhrkunden hiemit offentlich (‘The Burgomaster and the town council of the Riga town hereby announces’)
Sometimes, however, especially if the genitive attribute is expressed simply by a noun without adjective, its placement in the translations is changed in favour of the syntax of spoken Latvian: Tha Kunge Mers gir allaszin ar yums (UP 19) de frede des Heren su altydt mit yuw (‘The peace of the lord be always with you’) The […] ayswhele wene lele Ackmenne, prexkan to kappe durwe (EE I 102) Se […] wölterden einen groten Steen vör de Döre des Graues (‘they […] rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb’)
It would thus appear that, in relation to German interference in the placement of the attribute, we should speak of influence on the written language alone, not on the spoken Latvian of the 16th century. German influence is frequently observable in the structuring of negative constructions in the first written texts. Just as in the German original, the negation in negative sentences applies only to a pronoun, or to an adverb, but without being applied to the verb, which is atypical of the spoken Latvian language (Ozols 1965: 189-90): Tho nawe neewens warrey vswarreth (Ps 52b) (instead of neviens nevarēja) Den dodt nemandt dwingen kondt (‘the death no one could win’) Tha taysnybe taps neemuszam aismyrsta (UP 32) (instead of netaps (ne) mūžam) Des rechtuertigen wert nümmer mehr vorgeten (‘the truth will never be forgotten’)
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Especially in prose texts, however, the construction is modified according to the model of spoken Latvian, by applying the negation to the verb as well: Mhes needristam neewene nokouth (EE I 86) Wy dören nemande döden (‘It is not lawful for us to to put any man to death’) Tad nebus tam oldermannam neweno meister bes meisterstück eyemt (LW 39) Und soll der elterman keinen hinfort des meisterstücks erlassen (‘No elder should pass any master/craftsman without knowing his skill’)
Even in this instance one may speak only of interference in the written language or in specific translations: the German influence in negative constructions was clearly foreign to spoken Latvian. Strong German interference in the earliest texts can be seen in the syntax of the cases. One can frequently find constructions that are atypical of spoken Latvian but correspond to the text of the German original. Only in particular instances are peculiarities of Latvian syntax consistently observed. The negative construction, especially the negative of possessive sentences, in which the structure: dative + nav (3rd person of the verb nebūt ‘not to be’) + nominative appears is the syntactic construction, in which a nominative is frequently used: Tay newaid newens pallix py dewe (Ps 2a) (instead of neviena palīga) Se hefft nene huelpe by Gade (‘she does not have any help from God’)
Negative possessive sentences with the object in the genitive are much less frequently encountered in the early texts: Thems nhe gir Wyna (EE II 30) Se hebben nenen Wyn (‘they have no wine’)
In this instance it is difficult to evaluate which influence is principally responsible for the frequent use of the nominative in negative constructions of this kind. On the one hand, the constant accusative in both affirmative and negative possessive sentences in German could be considered to be
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an influence. On the other hand, examples of this kind are well known in Latvian subdialects, especially within the Tamian dialect, suggesting a purely Latvian origin for the phenomenon. In special cases, under the influence of the German original, a nominative is used in connection with certain verbs that would normally require other cases in Latvian; the logical object of the verbs dēvēt (‘to call’), trūkt (‘to lack’): Katters thur dhewey Dwynis (EE II 103) de dar hett Tweseke (‘who was called Twin’) Vnde kad tims Wyns petruke (EE II 30) Vnd do en Wyn entbrack (‘when they were lacking wine’)
Examples analogous to the latter of these are certainly to be found in Latvian dialects. In certain other instances as well, the nominative appears in place of other cases, especially the genitive. The genitive, as already mentioned, is sometimes replaced by the nominative in certain constructions, but in some instances the genitive is also used in negative constructions. Also typical of the old texts is the genitive being dependent on certain verbs, following the mode of the German original. The genitive is often used with the verbs gaidīt (‘to wait’), pagaidīt (‘to wait’), apžēlot(ies) (‘to be merciful’), pieminēt (‘to mention, to remember’), and priecāties (‘to be glad’): Ickdenes pagaide es thoeuwis (UP 23) dagelykes vorwachte ick dyner (‘every day I am waiting for you’) Beth ta preczayas szöw thas tesnibes (EE II 45) Se frouwet syck auerst der Warheit (‘but she is happy about the truth’)
In some cases the genitive is also dependent on adjectives. Thus it occurs with svabads (‘free’) and pilns (‘full’): Essem mhes thäs Nawes skeepe suabbade (UP 36) Synt wy des Dodes stackels fry (‘We are free from the spear of the Death’)
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Pülns thas Titczibes vnde Speke (EE II 16) Vull des gelouens vnde krafft (‘full of faith and power’)
With respect to the use of the dative form, we must first mention the coalescence of the dative and accusative forms of personal pronouns of the first and second persons under the influence of Low German morphology. In Low German morphology, not only are vns and juw non-distinct in the dative and accusative plural but also, in the singular, my and dy cover both cases (Lasch 1914: 213-16). Under the influence of these Low German peculiarities, the singular forms man, tow, and the plural forms mums, jums, are used in the first Latvian texts and perhaps also in the spoken language of Riga in both dative and accusative functions: touwa titcziba gir thöw pallydtczeis (EE I 175) (MLatv tev–dat.) dyn loue hefft dy gehulpen (‘your faith has helped you’) vs. kas thöw vnde winge aytcenays gir (EE I 183) (MLatv tevi–acc.) de dy vnde en geladen hefft (‘who has called you and him’) Kattre mums Moses döuwis gir (EE II 16) (MLatv mums–dat.) de vns Moses gegeuen hefft (‘which was given us by Moses’) vs. Ka Christus mums mileis gir (EE II 51) (MLatv mūs–acc.) alse Christus vns geleuet hefft (‘as Christ has loved us’)
Under the influence of the original text, the dative is used in dependency on verbs conveying an expression ‘of positive emotions and support’, such as slavēt (‘to praise’), svētīt (‘to sanctify’), teikt (‘to praise’), and dziedāt (‘to sing’): grib es […] touwam wärdam czedath (EE II 4) wil ick […] dynem Namen singen (‘I want to sing to your name’)
In a number of instances, the influence of certain German verbs has perhaps been generalized to other verbs in Latvian with a similar meaning.
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However, that is only the case when the corresponding German does not have a dative. Beth sweetyet Dewam tam Kunga[m] exkan yuusims szirdims (EEII 134) Hilliget auerst Godt den Heren yn juwen herten (‘But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts’)
The same strong German influence is not observed in the use of the accusative. Here examples are fewer, and they do not allow generalization. We may consider the above-mentioned limitation of the use of the accusative in the pronominal paradigm (resulting from the expansion of the dative) as the most important change. A significant German influence is the very extensive use of the passive voice in the early Latvian writings. Passive constructions with verb tapt (‘to become’) + passive past participle were used in translating passive voice from German and occasionally in other cases: Kas gir vnd bues wens Chriſticz dhewetcz tapt (CC, 247) Was ist und soll ein Christ genennet werden (‘what is and what will be/should be called a Christian’) Bet jums ne buhs śaukteem tapt Rabbi (JT Matt. 23: 8) ABer jr solt euch nicht Rabbi nennen lassen (‘But you are not to be called rabbi’) Dews dode ka Chriſto tam Kungam / cour tho / doudſe cruſtites dweſceles atweſte war tapt (CC 246) (‘God, grant that to Christ the Lord can be brought many baptized souls through it’)
So the strongest influence was on the use of the locative and some other case forms, on the use of possessive and demonstrative pronouns and several prepositions, and on word order within the sentence, especially in relation to the placement of the verb and attribute. Weaker interference is observed in the use of reflexive and prefixed verbs and in the structure of the analytical necessity construction and the negative construction. From a diachronic point of view, the use of the demonstrative pronouns in the sense of articles as well as the use of the passive voice is widely spread into both written and spoken Latvian.
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Conclusion The formation of Christian discourse of Latvian language, which most notably was reflected in religious writings, has experienced strong German influence. It was influenced by various factors: the German dominance in Livonia; the fact that most of the texts were translated from German and in the beginning also very literally; and the fact that for almost all of the authors of Latvian texts German was not only their dominant but also mainly their native language, while many of them had learned the Latvian language quite incompletely, moreover, already in adulthood. German influence, of course, was felt not only in religious texts but also in the Latvian language in general. This strong influence contributed to the fact that the religious written language was rather different from the spoken Latvian. It was also noticed by the more attentive clergy who described the Latvian language. They tried to understand the genuine grammar and improve the written language. The Latvian Literary Society, which was established at the beginning of the 19th century and which consisted mainly of ethnic German Lutheran clergy, often expressed a rather critical view of the language in the Bible and other religious books in its publication Magazin, for example: ‘Trotz dem, daß die lettische Bibelübersetzung im reinsten Dialect verfaßt ist, ist sie doch voller Germanismen, und Ebräischer und Griechischer Wortfügungen’ (Magazin 2.2:25), as well as ‘Bisher erschien uns das Verwechseln des conditionalis mit dem conjunct. oder mod. referens auf oht fast als ein sicheres Zeichen davon, daß Jemand sein Lettisch nur aus Büchern gelernt, jedenfalls nicht im lebendigen Umgange mit dem Volke regenerirt hatte’ (Magazin 5.1:98). Possibly the most severe judgement on the language used in the Latvian Christian discourse of that time is that which states that Latvians themselves divide their spoken language, their māju valoda (‘home language’), from the church’s language, calling the latter the svēta valoda (‘holy language’) (Magazin 2.2:27), citing the Latvian view of a sermon: gan svēti Dieva vārdi, bet vells var saprast (‘God’s Word is holy, but only the devil can understand it’) (ibid. 30). Thus, during the remainder of the 19th century, particular attention was paid to the written language, gradually removing the excessive German influence, especially in the grammar. However, in many ways the influence on the Latvian lexicon had already established itself and had become an integral part of the religious discourse.
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Bibliography Primary Sources CC = Catechismus Catholicorum. Iſcige pammaciſchen […] Cour Kungam Petrum Caniſium […] Vilne Pille, Littourre Semmen, pi Danielem Lancicienſiem […]. 1585. E I = ENCHIRIDION. Der kleine Catechiſmus […] Gedruckt zu Königsperg bey George Oſterbergern. Anno M.D. LXXXVI. EE I = Euangelia vnd Epiſteln […] Gedruckt zu Königsperg in Preuſſen / bey Georgen Oſterbergern. M.D. LXXXVII. EE II = Evangelia und Epiſteln […] Gedruckt in der Königl. Seeſtadt in Liefflandt, bey Nicolaus Mollin. 1615. Fürecker I = Lettisches und Teutsches Wörterbuch zusahmen geschrieben und mit fleiß gesamlet Von Christopher Fürecker. Ms. (Latvijas Akadēmiskā bibliotēka, L. dr. b. 5361). [Published by Fennell, Trevor Garth. 1997. Fürecker’s Dictionary: The First Manuscript. Riga: Latvijas Akadēmiskā bibliotēka.] Fürecker II = Christoph Füreckers. lettisch-deutschen Wörterbuchs erster theil A–P. zweÿter Theil R–Z. Ms. (Latvijas Universitātes Akadēmiskā Bibliotēkā L. dr. B. 5362). [Published by Fennell, Trevor Garth. 1998. Fürecker’s dictionary: the second manuscript. Riga: Latvijas Akadēmiskā Bibliotēka.] JT = Tas Jauns Teſtaments Muhſu KUNGA JESUS KRJSTUS […] RIGA Gedruckt durch Johann Georg Wilcken […]. MDCLXXXV. LW = Erneurter Schragen des Rigaschen Leinweberamts. 1625 Febr. 18. Quoted from L. Arbusow, Zwei lettische Handschriften aus dem 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (1532 ff. 1625), Acta Universitatis Latviensis 2 (1922): 19-57. Magazin, ed. by d. lettisch-literärischen Gesellschaft. Bd.1-. Mitau. 1828–. Manuale = Manuale Lettico-Germanicum. Ms. (Latvijas Universtātes Akadēmiskā Bibliotēka, R 5088). [Published by Fennell, Trevor Garth. 2001. Manuale LetticoGermanicum. 2 vols. Riga: Latvijas Akadēmiskā Bibliotēka.] ME III = Mǖlenbachs, Kārlis. 1927–1929. Latviešu valodas vārdnīca. Edited and updated by Jānis Endzelīns. 3 vols. Riga: Kultūras fonda izdevums. Ps = Pſalmen vnd geiſtliche Lieder oder Geſenge […] Gedruckt zu Riga in Liefflandt / bey Nicolaus Mollin. 1615. Syrach = Das Hauß= Zucht= vnd Lehrbuch Jeſu Syrachs […] Durch GEORGIVM MANCELIVM […] Gedruckt zu Riga in Lieffland / durch vnd in Verlegung Gerhard Schröders. 1631. UP = Undeudſche Pſalmen und geiſtliche Lieder oder Geſenge […] Königsperg bey George Oſterbergern. 1587.
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Secondary sources Ahero, Antonija, Anna Bergmane, Aina Blinkena, Rūdolfs Grabis, Milda Lepika, Rasba Melbikse, Aina Miķelsone, Tamāra Porīte, and Mērija Saule-Sliene. 1959. Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas gramatika. Vol. 1: Fonētika un morfoloģija. Riga: Latvijas PSR Zinātņu akadēmijas izdevniecība. Apals, Jānis, and Ēvalds Mugurēvičs. 2001. Vēlais dzelzs laikmets (agrie viduslaiki) 800.–1200.g. Latvijas senākā vēsture: 9. g.t.pr.Kr.–1200.g. Riga: Latvijas Vēstures institūta apgāds. Arbusow, Leonid. 1939. Die deutsche Einwanderung im 13. Jahrhundert. In Baltische Lande, Bd. 1: Ostbaltische Frühzeit, ed. by Albert Brackmann and Carl Engel, 355-84. Leipzig: S. Hirzel. Augstkalns, Alvils. 1933. Mūsu vecie raksti. In Filoloģijas materiāli. Profesoram J. Endzelīnam sešdesmitajā dzimšanas dienā veltīts rakstu krājums, ed. by Jānis Endzelīns and Karlis Mielenbahs, 41-58. Riga: Ramave. Auziņa, Ilze, Ieva Breņķe, Juris Grigorjevs, Inese Indričāne, Baiba Ivulāne, Andra Kalnača, Linda Lauze, Ilze Lokmane, Dace Markus, Daina Nītiņa, Gunta Smiltniece, Baiba Valkovska, and Anna Vulāne. 2013. Latviešu valodas gramatika. Riga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts. Barbare, Dzidra. 2002. Vietniekvārds. In Latviešu literārās valodas morfoloģiskās sistēmas attīstība: Lokāmās vārdšķiras, ed. Albert Rosin, 309-408. Riga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts. Betz, Werner. 1949. Deutsch und Lateinisch: Die Lehnbildungen der althochdeutschen Benediktinerregel. Bonn: Bouvier. Betz, Werner. 1959. Lehnwörter und Lehnprägungen im Vor- und Frühdeutschen. In Deutsche Wortgeschichte, vol. 1, ed. by Friedrich Maurer and Friedrich Stroh, 127-47. 2nd edition. Berlin: Schmidt. Blese, Ernests. 1955. Mūsu valoda savu vēsturisko cīņu gaitās. Londona: Latviešu informācijas birojs. Endzelīns, Jānis. 1971 [1899]. Латышские заимствование из славянских языков. Živaja Starina 3: 285-312. [Darbu izlase, vol. 1. Riga: Zinātne. 80-113] Fennell, Trevor G. 2015. Unexplained Oddities in Depkin’s Possessive Adjectives. Baltu filoloģija 25.2: 5-10. Jordan, Sabine. 1995. Niederdeutsches im Lettischen. Untersuchungen zu den mittelniederdeutschen Lehnwörtern im Lettischen. Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte. Karulis, Konstantīns. 1992. Latviešu etimoloģijas vārdnīca. Vol. 1: A-O. Riga: Avots. Lasch, Agathe. 1914. Mittelniederdeutsche Grammatik. Halle: Max Niemeyer. Lele, Dzintra. 1993. Viduslejasvācu valoda Baltijā. Latvijas ZA Vēstis 9 (554): 19-21.
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Levin, Jules F. 1974. The Slavic Element in the Old Prussian Elbing Vocabulary. Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. Loorits, Oskar. 2005 [1962]. Zur christlichen Terminologie bei den Esten, Liven und Letten. Stockholm: Eesti Vaimulik Raamat. [Trames, 2005, 9.3 (59/54): 211-27.] Metsmägi, Iris, Meeli Sedrik, and Sven-Erik Soosar. 2012. Eesti etümoloogoasõnaraamat. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus. Mieze, Silvija. 2002. Skaitļa vārds. In Latviešu literārās valodas morfoloģiskās sistēmas attīstība: Lokāmās vārdšķiras, ed. Albert Rosin, 243-308. Riga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts. Mugurēvičs, Ēvalds. 1987. Kristīgās ticības izplatība Latvijas teritorijā 11.-12. gs. un katoļu baznīcas ekspansijas sākums. Latvijas PSR Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis 5 (478): 10-27. Nītiņa, Daina. 1978. Prievārdu sistēma latviešu valodā. Riga: Zinātne. Nītiņa, Daina. 2007. Prepozīcija (Prievārds). Latviešu literārās valodas morfoloģiskās sistēmas attīstība: Nelokāmās vārdšķiras, ed. Albert Rosin, 31-99. Riga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts. Ozols, Arturs. 1965. Veclatviešu rakstu valoda. Riga: Liesma. Ozols, Arturs. 1968. Aizgūtā veclatviešu rakstu valodas leksika un mūsdienu latviešu valoda. In Latviešu leksikas attīstība, ed. by Daina Zemzare, 11-49. Riga: Zinātne. Schmeidler, Bernhard. 1977 [1917]. Adam von Bremen: Hamburgische KirchGeschichte, ed. by Bernhard Schmeidler. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung. Schmidt, Gertrud. 1938. Das Eindringen der hochdeutschen Schriftsprache in der Rigaschen Ratskanzlei. Riga: Verlag E. Bruhns. Sehwers, Johannes. 1918. Die deutschen Lehnwörter im Lettischen. Zurich: Berichthaus. Sehwers, Johannes. 1953. Sprachlich-kulturhistorische Untersuchungen vornehmlich über den deutschen Einfluss im Lettischen. Berlin: Harrasowitz. Šterns, Indriķis. 2002. Latvijas vēsture. 1180-290. Krustakari. Riga: Latvijas Vēstures institūta apgāds. Summent, August. 1950. Unbeachtete slavische Lehnwörter im Lettischen. InauguralDissertation. Göttingen. Vanags, Pēteris. 1992. Locative in the Earliest Latvian Writings. Journal of Baltic Studies 23.4: 387-94. Veidemane, Ruta. 2002. Darbības vārds. Latviešu literārās valodas morfoloģiskās sistēmas attīstība: Lokāmās vārdšķiras, ed. Albert Rosin, 409-509. Riga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts. Veisbergs, Andrejs. 2007. Iesākumā bija vārds, jeb Bībeles izcelsmes frazeoloģija latviešu valodā (17.-21. gs.). In Andrejs Veisbergs, Latviešu valoda – pastāvīgā un mainīgā, 8-31. (= Valsts valodas komisijas raksti, 3 vols.). Riga: State Language Commission.
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Veisbergs, Andrejs. 2012. Borrowed Phraseology in Latvian (17th–21st Century). Riga: LU Akadēmiskais apgāds.
About the author Pēteris Vanags is a Professor at the Stockholm University. He is a specialist of the history of the Latvian language.
Index Agricola, Mikael bishop of Turku, reformer of Finland 18, 26, 28, 47, 191, 194, 197-199, 201203, 207, 210-213, 217-219, 221-223, 225-229 Anabaptists 109-110, 232-233 approach analogistic 64, 66-67, 69-70, 73 anomalistic 64 anatomy 253-254, 269 Antwerp 18, 20, 27, 35, 39, 45, 48, 53, 231-236, 249-251 audiences 112, 115, 121, 135, 163-164, 169, 256 Aryans (antitrinitarians) 84 Augsburg 43, 86, 114 authors 37, 39, 60, 62, 65, 68, 96, 107, 115, 135, 159, 209, 222-223, 255-257, 259-264, 266-267, 275-276, 297 authorship 48 Baltic German culture 193 Baltic languages 9, 11 Baltic people 278 Baltic Sea 58, 218-219, 274, 278 Baltic Sea region 11-12, 79, 193 Baltic lands (Baltic region) 12, 202, 210, 218-219, 273-274 beliefs, religious 12-13, 25, 110, 173 Bible 13, 16-26, 40, 42-43, 45-49, 51-52, 57-61, 63-65, 67-73, 80, 87-88, 92-100, 105-107, 113-117, 119-122, 129-130, 132-136, 138-145, 151, 158, 160-161, 164, 168, 173, 197, 218, 220-222, 231-238, 240-249, 255-256, 260, 263-265, 274, 280, 282, 284, 297 and Scriptures 168-169 Bible translation see translations of Bible biblical culture 40 humanism 113-114, 122 language 24, 115-117, 136 scholarship 42, 117 stories 168, 234, 237, 264-265 style 115-116, 136 texts 9, 16-21, 25, 27, 116, 121-122, 140-141, 173, 192, 197, 221, 234-235, 273, 282 translations see translations of Bible “biblicity” (Biblizität) 107 bilingualism 278 Birgitta Birgersdotter 133, 142 birgittine order 133-134, 139, 142 bishops 35, 39-40, 42, 44-45, 47, 109-111, 113, 116, 120-121, 134, 140, 162, 166, 168, 194, 221, 274, 279 Bohemia 19, 24, 34, 105-106, 108-111, 113 book trade 39 borrowings lexical 238, 240-246, 248-249, 274-278, 282 linguistic 21, 82
British Isles 133 Budde, Jöns, Birgittine monk 133-134 Bugenhagen, Johannes 17, 26, 34, 173-178, 186-187, 217, 220-224, 227 bull, papal 14, 34-35, 119 Calvin, Jean (1509–1564), French-born reformer 16, 233 Calvinism 16, 85, 106, 111 Calvinists 16, 83, 110, 112, 232 Cambridge 14, 39, 42-43, 166 catechetical texts 193 Catechisms 17-19, 57, 61, 72, 81-82, 87-90, 94-98, 100, 113, 158, 221, 255, 259-260, 274, 280, 286 catholic adherents to Catholicism 46, 94, 108-109, 111, 115-116, 120-121, 232-233, 248 era and times 25, 173, 222 Roman Catholic Church 13-15, 24-25, 40, 46, 59, 83, 86-87, 191-192, 194, 278 Roman Catholic Church or Western Church 108 texts or literature 24, 86, 95, 121, 159, 195, 222, 233-234, 255, 260-261, 267, 274 traditions or practices 21, 191, 221 translations 26, 231-232, 236-237, 247-248 Catholicism 13, 23, 79-80, 83-84, 86, 111-112, 235 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 34, 236 Christ, Jesus 25, 34, 46, 50, 92, 151-159, 163-169, 176-184, 209, 223-224, 226, 260, 288, 291, 295-296 christian adherent to Christianism 109, 137-138, 275, 282, 296 discourse 26-27, 57, 273, 275, 297 faith 15, 89, 164, 176 literature 19, 260 religion 27, 108, 273, 275; see also Christianity rituals 274 tradition and culture 260, 274, 278 teaching or dogma or doctrine 82, 94 vocabulary 274-276, 279 year 256 Christianity 13, 27, 84, 95, 100, 109, 151, 222, 248, 253, 273-276, 278-279 church Catholic see Catholic and Catholicism buildings 14, 39, 61, 83, 99, 132, 155, 157, 256, 274, 276, 279-280 history 27 Lutheran see Lutheran manuals 61-62, 70 as a religious organization 13-15, 17, 20, 24-25, 27, 34-35, 37, 40, 42, 46, 59, 80-83, 86-88, 90, 94, 98-100, 108, 111, 113, 119-120,
304 134-135, 137-138, 140, 152, 159, 163, 168-169, 192, 194, 211, 233, 235, 278-279, 297 services 20, 191-193, 203, 278 clerics 111, 169, 194, 247; see also clergy clergy 15, 23, 46, 57, 69-70, 73, 110, 112, 297 Cochlæus, Johannes 38, 40, 42, 44, 49 Cologne 35, 38, 44, 220 commentaries 38, 71, 82, 92 confessions of Augsburg 99 denominations 83, 86, 99, 108-112, 116, 120-122, 217, 279 confessional boundaries 109, 117, 140 divisions 106, 111 literature 255 mixing 109 splitting 108 confessionalization 105-106, 111-112, 122, 140 confessors 34, 134, 142, 220 congregations 14, 25, 50, 59, 61, 63, 90, 99, 119120, 138, 191, 194-196, 206, 211, 233, 235-236 contacts cultural 25-26, 275 linguistic 11-12, 21, 25-26, 139, 218-219, 226, 276 personal 67, 110, 117 of populations 61, 275 conversions to another confession 84-85, 87, 89, 109-111 to Christianism 275-276 Copenhagen 14, 153, 155, 157, 161-162, 164-166 Council of Constance (1415) 35 of Trent (1545–1563) 40, 236 of Uppsala (1536) 193 Counter-Reformation 100, 111 Cracow 84, 89-90, 94-95 Czech Lands 19, 24, 105-109, 111, 114, 116, 118-119 language 11, 19, 24, 87, 93, 105-107, 109, 112-115, 117-119, 121-122 people 15, 88, 106, 108-110, 117 Danish 11, 18, 20, 22, 135, 140, 145, 154, 157-162, 165-166, 168-169, 218, 223, 234 Denmark 12, 18, 20, 152, 154, 157, 159-160, 162-164, 166, 169, 227 denominations 80, 82, 84-86, 93, 110, 120 devotion Marian 155, 167 personal 197 popular 155 dialects Estonian 64 Finnish 191, 202, 210 High German 219-220 rural 131-132
L anguages in the Luther an Reformation
doctrine Catholic 15 Christian 94, 279 Lutheran 14-15, 84, 159, 167, 233 Dutch 11, 19, 22, 26, 218, 231, 234-237, 239-243, 245-247 Eastern Central German see High German education of clergy 112 Lutheran 86-87, 218, 256-257 in universities 108, 254, 257, 267 England 12, 14-15, 20, 22, 33-35, 37-39, 42, 44, 47, 254 English 11, 20, 23, 33, 35, 37-40, 42-52, 131, 136-137, 161, 218, 234, 263 Erasmus of Rotterdam 17, 37-38, 40, 42-43, 48, 51, 80, 84, 97, 114, 135-137, 140-141, 143, 233 Estonia 12, 23, 57, 61, 64, 66-67, 69-70, 73, 193 Estonian 9, 11, 16, 19, 21-23, 57-74, 274 Europe 11-13, 15-16, 22, 25, 34, 63, 84, 86, 107-108, 112, 140-143, 151, 157, 254, 261, 263, 274 Finland 12, 14, 17, 26, 47, 134, 192-193, 195-196, 199, 202-203, 207, 217-218, 226 Finnish 9, 11, 16-18, 21-22, 25-26, 69, 191-198, 200-211, 217-219, 221-222, 225, 227, 234 Finno, Jacobus, compiler of the first Finnish hymnbook 191, 197, 205-207, 210 France 35, 39, 63, 84, 231 French 47, 49, 63, 107, 234, 243-245 German humanists 45 influence 27, 65-66, 69, 73, 121, 131, 139, 198, 201, 203, 209-210, 217, 219, 221-223, 225-227, 273, 278-279, 285, 287-297 language 9, 11, 17, 21-23, 25-27, 37-38, 40, 42-43, 45-47, 49-51, 57-63, 65-67, 69-70, 72-73, 80, 82, 86-88, 99, 108-109, 113-115, 131, 135, 138-142, 158-159, 161, 166, 169, 191, 195-196, 198, 200-201, 203-204, 207-210, 217-223, 225-227, 245, 259-260, 263, 266, 273, 275, 277-282, 285, 287-297; see also High, Middle, Low German sources for translation 62-63, 66, 121, 139, 161, 198, 200-201, 203, 207-209, 221-222, 225-227, 255, 279, 281-282, 285, 290-294, 296-297 Germanic culture 12, 14, 193 Germany 12-15, 34-35, 37-40, 42-43, 49, 58, 61, 63-64, 67, 72, 80, 84, 107, 141, 154, 166, 193, 202-203, 210, 217-218, 233, 235, 259 glosses 48, 98, 137, 140, 177, 179, 184, 235 Grand Duchy of Lithuania 85, 255, 257, 260 Great Northern War 67, 69, 73 Greek
305
Index
language 17, 40, 42-44, 46, 48-51, 65-66, 92-93, 97-98, 117, 135, 152-153, 161, 195, 203, 221-222, 239, 241, 243-244, 246, 265, 277 studies 40 Hanseatic League 13-14, 218, 278 Hanseatic merchants 39 Hebrew 17, 40, 46, 49, 107, 119, 161, 239-242, 244, 246-248, 262, 265 Henry VIII, King of England 22, 33-34, 44-45 heresies 42, 110, 233 heretical books 39, 42, 45, 236 High German 11, 17, 26, 38, 40, 58, 62, 135, 142, 217-223, 225-227, 278, 281 Hohenzollern, Albrecht, Duke of Prussia 86-87, 90, 92, 257 humanism biblical 113-114, 122 Erasmus’s 143 ideas of 13 late medieval 237 Prussian 84 humanist ideas 80, 86, 237 people 16, 45, 84, 116, 140, 233-234 translations 99, 116-117 Hus, Jan 15, 34-35, 181 Hussite movement 105, 108 Hussite wars 106-107, 111 hymnals and hymnbooks 62-63, 65-66, 68, 70, 73, 81-82, 88, 118, 122, 166, 168-169, 191, 197, 205-207, 210, 222, 256, 259, 265, 278, 281 hymns 25, 57-58, 60-63, 65-66, 68, 71-74, 95, 191-192, 194-198, 203, 209, 211, 222, 256, 265 Iceland 12, 18, 25, 151-152, 155-157, 159-161, 166, 168 Icelandic 11, 18, 151, 160-161, 166-168 influences Catholic 13, 163 Christian 274 of Czech 107, 115 of Erasmus’ edition of the Greek New Testament 17 of humanism 13, 84 of German 21, 26-27, 139, 198, 203, 210, 217, 219, 221, 273, 278-279, 281, 285, 290-297 of Latin 198 linguistic 9, 11-12, 21, 23, 131, 160, 211, 217-218, 221, 226 of Luther’s 22, 24, 26, 47-48, 50, 85, 116, 200, 231, 236, 246-248 of Lutheranism 15, 22-23, 26, 79-81, 100, 117-118, 233, 253 of the Reformation 11, 18, 20, 23-24, 26-27, 79, 105, 254 of Slavic 275 of Swedish 21, 198, 206, 209 textual 9, 25, 191-192, 196, 204, 207, 222
Ingolstadt 38, 254 innovations linguistic 21, 24, 98, 129, 135, 144-145 medical 254 of song writing 191, 196, 211 interference from German 135, 288-293, 296 from Latin 135, 140 Italian 49, 107 Italy 121, 259 Jagiellonians 84 Jerusalem 151, 153, 223-224, 234 jesuits 111, 121-122, 254 Jesus see Christ justification by faith 38, 48 Kutná Hora Peace Treaty 108 Königsberg 14, 18, 64, 80-81, 86-87, 89, 97, 255-257, 261 languages biblical 16, 24, 47, 51, 72, 115-117, 136 of church (services) 13 contexts of usage of 14, 116, 118, 161, 192, 278-279, 297 development of 24, 82, 130-131, 135, 139, 143-144 normative or standard 22-23, 79, 84, 86, 89, 107, 135, 258 religious 13, 96, 202, 282, 297 spoken 27, 47, 60, 64, 115, 160, 265, 273, 278-279, 285, 292, 295, 297 vernacular 80-82, 87-89, 118, 191, 238, 267 written or literary 9, 16, 20-24, 27, 33, 52, 64-65, 67, 72, 79-80, 86, 89, 98, 100, 115, 135, 160-161, 210, 217, 255, 258-259, 273, 278-279, 288, 292-293, 297 Latin 13-14, 16-17, 25-26, 35, 37-38, 43, 45, 47-49, 51, 59, 65-66, 68, 87, 89, 92-93, 99, 107, 110, 114, 116, 118-119, 135, 138, 140, 142, 152, 154-155, 158, 161, 169, 191-192, 194-198, 200-206, 209-211, 221-223, 232, 235-238, 240-249, 253, 255, 267, 277-278 latinisms 115 Latvian 11, 19, 21, 26-27, 69, 273-279, 281-282, 284-285, 287-297 Leo X, Pope 35 lexical borrowings 274-277, 279, 281 changes or developments 131-132, 205 differences 136, 203 lingua franca 13-14, 219 linguistic changes 21 influences 11, 23, 131, 160, 218 innovations 24, 98, 129, 135, 144 standards 58, 135
306 literacy 16, 163 literary language see language, written literature Estonian 19 Finnish 192 formative 88, 95 Latvian 19 Lithuanian 19, 255, 257-258, 260, 267 liturgical 194 Lutheran 23, 79, 81, 89, 255, 257-258, 260, 264, 267 reformatory 16, 193, 201, 227 religious 17, 61, 72, 84, 87-88, 95-96, 100, 159, 192, 253, 255, 260 secular 168 Lithuania 12, 15-16, 85, 255, 257, 260 Lithuanian 11, 18-19, 26, 87-88, 253, 255-267 living speech see language, spoken Lollard movement 34 London 35, 37-39, 42, 44-45 Low Countries 13, 15-16, 19, 231-235, 237, 239 Low German see Middle Low German Luther, Martin 14-15, 17, 21-24, 26, 33-40, 43-52, 58-60, 63, 65-66, 68-69, 71-74, 84-87, 94, 105, 110, 113-116, 135, 139-141, 159, 174-176, 184, 186, 195-196, 200, 202, 204, 207-209, 217-222, 231-233, 235, 240-242, 245-248, 254-256, 285 Lutheran church 81-83, 87, 100, 163, 221, 256, 278 doctrine 14, 44, 80, 86, 167, 233 ideas 15, 21-26, 39, 57-58, 61, 79, 82, 84-86, 88, 100, 106, 191, 218, 232-233 movement 37, 113 reformation 14, 18-20, 22-24, 27, 33, 57-58, 72, 79-80, 84-85, 106, 108-109, 113, 130, 140, 145, 191, 193-194, 217, 219, 273 Lutheranism 12, 14-15, 17, 22-23, 38, 48, 79-86, 89, 106, 110-111, 113, 118, 257 manuals 61-62, 70, 154, 222, 256 manuscripts 13, 17, 19, 35, 42, 58-59, 61, 64, 67-68, 98, 107, 118-119, 131, 133-134, 153-155, 157-160, 162-164, 166-169, 192, 195-197, 202-207, 210-211, 255-256, 281 music 191-192, 194, 196-197, 203-204, 207, 210 marginal notes 46, 48-49, 114-115 Mariology 154; see also devotion, Marian mass 17, 87, 91, 118-119, 194, 237, 279 medieval period 129 Melanchthon, Philipp 40, 43, 94, 117, 220-221, 254 Middle Ages 11-14, 17-19, 24, 58, 90, 106-107, 129-130, 132-133, 138-141, 143-145, 151-154, 192-194, 234 Middle Low German 14, 17, 25-26, 38, 40, 49, 58, 62, 135, 142, 156, 173, 217-223, 225-227, 275, 278-279, 281-282, 290, 295 missals 192, 195, 199-200, 204, 210, 222 mysticism 219
L anguages in the Luther an Reformation
Netherlands see also Low Countries 12, 231 networks of texts 39 textual 11 New Testament 17-20, 22-25, 33, 37, 39-48, 57, 67-70, 81, 88-90, 95, 97-98, 105, 107, 112-117, 119, 121-122, 129, 132-135, 137, 141, 145, 173, 192, 203, 221-222, 231, 234-235, 237, 264-265, 282 Norway 12, 18, 20, 25, 151-152, 156-157, 159-164, 166, 169 Norwegian 11, 157, 160-161 Old Church Slavonic 107, 118 Old Czech 106, 112 Old Frisian 218 Old Norse 152, 155, 160, 274 Old Saxon 218, 274 Old Testament 17, 19, 26, 40, 45, 68, 70-71, 112, 114-116, 132, 231-232, 235-236, 238-239, 241, 248, 260 oral communication 58, 71 transmission 193, 195 paratextual elements or materials 96, 141 Peasants’ War 38 pericopes 19, 57, 61-63, 72, 97, 140, 282 Petri, Olaus 17, 135, 195-196, 198-201, 204, 210 philosophy of nature 253-254 Pietism 58, 69-71, 73 pietists 70-71, 73-74 Pius IV (Pope) 119 Poland 12, 15-16, 18, 23, 79-86, 88-89, 94, 99-100, 119-120, 259 Polish 11, 18, 23, 79-95, 97-100, 107, 115, 255, 259, 262 popes 14-15, 34-35, 37, 120, 122, 140, 279 Prague 107, 111, 118 printing press 14, 16, 141, 160-162, 166 shops 39, 90 technology 135, 144 Re-Catholicization 111; see also Counter-Reformation reception of texts 152-154, 166, 168-169 reforms 15, 85, 111, 118, 151, 193, 217 Reformed Church 98, 159, 233 reformers 16, 20, 25-26, 34, 39, 43, 82, 118, 173-175, 180, 217, 234 Riga 14, 67, 278-279, 290, 292, 295 Roman Catholic Church see Catholic Rome 14, 35, 38, 119, 134, 274 sacraments 22, 33-34, 95-96, 232, 237 Scriptures see Bible sermons 17, 35, 61-63, 67, 88, 132, 164, 177, 255-256, 260-262, 265, 267, 280, 297
307
Index
Slavic 11, 107, 115, 218, 259, 275-276 Slavonic 65, 81, 106-107, 153, 258-259, 277 songs folk 60, 163 liturgical 60, 87, 119, 191-192, 194-195, 204, 211 source languages 46, 92, 121, 138, 155, 192, 198, 204, 221-222, 226-227, 238, 243, 246, 274, 277, 281 texts 19, 21, 23, 26, 46, 62, 65, 68-69, 92, 97, 117, 135, 139-140, 142, 155, 158-159, 162, 169, 193-196, 198, 200-201, 203-204, 206, 209-210, 217, 221-222, 231-232, 237-238, 240, 255, 260-263, 267, 276-277, 281 Spalatin, Georg 37-38, 44, 49 standardization of languages 16, 22, 64, 66, 72-73, 82, 106, 135; see also language, normative Stockholm 14, 17, 132, 134, 136, 139, 143, 193 Strasbourg 35, 37, 40, 154 Sweden or Swedish Empire or Swedish Realm 12, 17, 58, 69, 73, 86, 131, 133-134, 136, 142, 192-193, 195-197, 203 Swedish 9, 11, 14, 17, 21-22, 24-25, 66, 69, 129-133, 135-136, 138-140, 142-145, 191-198, 200-207, 209-211, 218-219, 221-223, 226-227 Tallinn 14, 61, 66-67, 70 Tartu 14, 193 terminology, religious 99, 107, 119-120, 275 Teutonic Order 80, 86, 278 textual comparisons 48, 118 influence see influence, textual tradition 95, 155, 232, 248 theology evangelical 254 Lutheran 38, 135, 217 protestant 254 Reformed 121 scholastic 119 Thirty Years War 107, 112, 119, 227 Turku 14, 193-194, 202, 219, 221 transition to High German 278 between medieval and Early Modern periods 11-12, 24, 129, 131, 136, 143 from Old Swedish to Early Modern Swedish 129, 131
translations as a media of linguistic exchange or innovation 21-22, 211, 279, 282, 285 ideas 58-59, 63, 142 ideals 22, 33, 51, 57, 59, 63, 142 ideologies 23, 231-232, 234, 237, 247 methods 21, 51, 58, 62, 65, 67-68, 114, 207, 285, 291 of the Bible 13, 16-20, 22, 24, 26, 40, 43, 45, 48, 51, 57-61, 64-65, 67-73, 87, 96, 98, 100, 105-107, 113-115, 117, 122, 129-130, 132-134, 136, 138-139, 141-144, 160-161, 168, 220, 231-248, 255-256, 260, 274, 282, 284 of the New Testament 18-20, 22, 24, 33, 37, 39-40, 42-46, 49, 68, 70, 81, 88, 90, 95, 97, 107, 114, 116-117, 129, 132, 134-135, 141, 145, 192, 222, 234-235, 282 principles 60, 68, 72, 231 strategies 23, 46, 62, 68, 195, 231-232, 238-240 technique 45 theories 45 Tyndale, William 20, 22-23, 33, 39-52, 234 Unity of Brethren or Unitas Fratrum 106, 108-112, 116-117, 119-122 universities 14, 43, 64, 84, 86, 108, 111, 113, 161-162, 175, 194, 217, 219, 254, 256-257, 259, 267 Uppsala 154, 193 Utraquism 111, 118 Utraquists 108-110, 112, 118-119, 121-122 Vadstena 133-134, 136, 154 Vasa, Gustav, King of Sweden 132, 134, 218 vernacularization 118 Viipuri or Vyborg 193, 202, 210, 219 Vulgate 16, 40, 42-43, 46, 48-51, 68, 114-116, 121, 136-137, 222, 232, 234-240, 242, 244, 246-248 Western Church see Catholicism Wittenberg 14, 19, 34-36, 40, 42-44, 49, 87, 110, 113, 135, 175, 194, 196, 202, 217-219, 226-227, 232-233, 254 Worms 34-35, 41, 44, 46 writings, anti-Lutheran 35, 233 written language see languages, written Wyclif, John 15, 20, 34-35, 42, 50 Wycliffite or Wyclifite 37, 120 Zwingli, Huldrych 15, 233 Zwinglian 110, 235