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The Court in the Songs of the Monk

David Murray

The historical court of the Archbishop of Salzburg has its literary-musical echo in a number of the Monk’s songs. One of the most interesting of these is W19, Wier, wier der fünfzehent an der schar, which, on behalf of all the members of the court, addresses all the women who have injured them. Imitating exactly the form of a charter, from the introductory formula to the place and date at its end, Wier, wier is typical of the ingenious and playful approach to song-writing in Salzburg. Proposed by Franz Viktor Spechtler to have been composed at the Reichstag in Nuremberg in 1387, it is above all interested in the responsibilities of the good member of the courtly society,

Gesellschaft ist also gericht,
Das kain artikel sey nicht pricht.
Ein schalkch verirret gar die slicht;
Wie wol sölich dingk durch guet geschicht,
der volg yem unnser keiner gicht;
Den süll wir hassen vestiklich,
Wenen wir sein purgersinn unstët (Str. 2, 5–11)

(Courtly society is so inclined that it breaks no article of faith. A trouble-maker confuses the flow of things. However easily such a thing could happen for the best of reasons, no one among us will follow such a canker. We should instead hate him with passion, if we think his civic sense is insecure.)

Those, the song goes on, who are inconstant will not be allowed into the council. The courtly society is one that depends on trust. Where elsewhere (as in Ich klag dir, traut gesell) the songs play through notions of loyalty under the guise of the amatory relationship, in Wier, wier, the importance of trust to one’s social standing is discussed more or less openly here. While the amatory metaphor (one that reaches back to the earliest days of Minnesang in the twelfth century; see » B. Minnesang und alte Meister) is evoked at the beginning of W19, this song is all about standards in public life and conformity to conventions, something underscored in playful fashion by its already mentioned imitation of a charter.

One of the most commented pieces in the Monk’s secular corpus, Der frëudensal: Dem allerlibsten schönsten weib (W7), which takes the form of a letter to “frau Erengail” (Lady Greedy-for-Honour) is dated to carnival (Fastnacht) 1392. The supposed writer describes himself in the piece as “pilgreim”, a play on the name of the Archbishop that fed the idea, now generally abandoned, that Pilgrim von Puchheim was himself the Monk.[17] This connection to the prelate is made all the more concrete by the rubric appended to the poem in MS D (A-Wn Cod. 2856), f.190r. It describes the occasion for the apparent composition of the song Dem allerlibsten schönsten weib, the tenor of which it calls “Der Freudensaal”, during a visit by Pilgrim von Puchheim to the King of the Romans Wenceslaus IV in Prague. (See » Fig. Der tenor haizt der freudensaal: Monk of Salzburg)

Der tenor haizt der Frëudensal nach ainem lusthaws pey Salzburg, und ist gemacht zu Prag, da der von Salzburg da was komen zu kaiser Wenczla, der ym abhold was und verpot ym holz zu bringen. do schuf der von Salzburg zu kauffen als vil nuzz, daz er genug het zu brennen in seiner kuchen. (D, f. 190r)

(This tenor is called ‘The House of Joy’, after a pleasure house near Salzburg, and was made in Prague, when the Salzburger (sc. Archbishop Pilgrim) had gone there to see Emperor Wenceslas, who was unkind to him and forbade anyone to bring him wood. So the Salzburger required so many nuts to be bought that he would have enough to burn in his kitchen.)

The most extensive of any of the rubrics in the manuscript, it alleges that the song was composed in Prague, although Pilgrim is not recorded as having visited the city that year. Whether accurate or not, the rubric responds to the reality effects written into the song text and offers the fifteenth-century user a substitute connection with the fourteenth-century events described.

[17] On Pilgrim as the Monk, see Petzsch 1984, 23–24. Romuald Bauerreiß, by contrast, proposed the Abbot of St Peter’s Abbey, Johannes Rozzes to have been the Monk. See Baurreiß 1934, 204–20.

[1] Edition: März 1999. März gives a complete edition of the text and music of the secular songs as well as extensive commentary and interpretations for every piece. His edition is also valuable for reproducing ill-accessible manuscript sources. “W” numbers in the following refer to this edition.

[2] For the religious songs, see the edition Spechtler 1972 for the text. “G” numbers in the following refer to this edition. Spechtler’s edition should be used alongside the corrections proposed in Wachinger 1989. For the music of the religious songs, see Waechter 2004.

[3] On these refrain songs, which Christoph März labelled “Virelai/Ballade”, see März 1999, 19–30, and Lewon 2018, 223–225.

[4] See Lewon 2018, 225.

[5] See also » B. Geistliche Lieder des Mönchs von Salzburg. Possibly the only fourteenth-century witness to the secular songs is the manuscript, » D-BAs Msc Astr 4, which transmits the New Year song Mein traut gesell, mein höchster hort (W6).

[6] See the facsimile Heger (Hrsg.) 1968.

[7] On the manuscript workshop, whose location remains unidentified, see März 1999, 68–69, and before him Wachinger 1989, 78–80. The other manuscripts thought to have been produced there are: A (» D-Mbs Cgm 715); B (» D-Mbs Cgm 1115) and E (» A-Wn Cod. 4696, the so-called “Lambacher Liederhandschrift”).

[8] On an instance where the Monk’s songs were adopted in a less informal polyphonic context, see Welker 1984/1985, on the use of the Monk’s Taghorn (W2) as a tenor for a two-part setting of the ‘Veni rerum conditor’ in the St Emmeram codex, » D-Mbs Clm 14274.

[9] On the shift in the discourse on love in German lyric during the earlier fourteenth century, see Janota 2007.

[10] On the Puchheim dynasty, which flourished into the eighteenth century, see Tepperberg 1978.

[12] The best account of Archbishop Pilgrim’s life is still Klein 1937/1938.

[13] On the office of Hauptmann, see Spechtler 1963, 176–177.

[14] On Georg, see Klein u. a. 1952, 42.

[16] Mayr 1924, 12.

[17] On Pilgrim as the Monk, see Petzsch 1984, 23–24. Romuald Bauerreiß, by contrast, proposed the Abbot of St Peter’s Abbey, Johannes Rozzes to have been the Monk. See Baurreiß 1934, 204–20.

[18] For an introduction to the ballade, see Fallows 1998 and Graf 1998; on the virelai see Hirschberg u. a. 1998, Sp. 1711-1722. On the mixed forms in the Monk corpus, see most recently Lewon 2018, 222-224.

[19] On Salzburg’s literary connections with Prague, see Janota 2007, 27, and Spechtler 2001. For the political interactions between the power centres, see Klein 1972/73, 44–60 and Klein 1934.

[23] Knapp 2004, 468-469.

[24] Compare Willaert 1994 on the uses of song in the narrative texts of Guillaume de Machaut. An earlier Germanic example for the embedding of song in narrative is the Frauendienst of Ulrich von Liechtenstein (†1276).

[25] The model for the Monk’s song was first discovered by Christoph März; see März 1980/81. Ju ich jag was copied in score format on a parchment sheet (A-MB Man. cart. 10: see März 1999), which was originally part of a Tora manuscript, stolen apparently during the Vienna persecution of Jews in 1421. See Strohm 2014 (with fig. 4); » J. Aggressionen und Angste. Judenhass. 

[26] On the chace as a genre, see Newes 1987, and Kügle 1997, esp. Chap. 3. On the Monk’s relationship to Romance models, März 2005.

[28] Kügle 1997, 65–66 and 75–79.

[29] Bent 1990, 224.

[30] On the reception of the Monk corpus at St Emmeram’s in Regensburg, see Welker 1984/85.

[31] On this, see Kesting 1973.

[33] See Zimmerman 1995, 314–316.

[34] On the musical culture of Neustift, see Peintner 2001.

[35] On this see März 2005, 160-61.

[36] Santifaller 1924, 520-21.


Empfohlene Zitierweise:
David Murray: “The secular songs of the monk of Salzburg”, in: Musikleben des Spätmittelalters in der Region Österreich <https://musical-life.net/essays/secular-songs-monk-salzburg> (2016).