Perhaps of interest.
Best,
R.
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From: The Medieval Review <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 5:17 PM
Subject: TMR 11.06.19 Lasson, Superstitions médiévales (Bailey)
To: [log in to unmask]
Lasson, Emilie. <i>Superstitions médiévales: Une analyse d'après
l'exégèse du premier commandement d'Ulrich de Pottenstein</i>.
Nouvelle Bibliotèque du Moyen Âge 102. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010.
Pp. 560. Euro 110.00. ISBN: 987-2-7453-2084-1.
Reviewed by Michael D. Bailey
Iowa State University
[log in to unmask]
2010 was a busy year in the relatively small field of "medieval
superstition studies." Lasson's book, based on her 2007 doctoral
thesis, joined Euan Cameron's <i>Enchanted Europe: Superstition,
Reason, and Religion 1250-1750</i>, and Patrick Hersperger's
<i>Kirche, Magie, und Aberglaube: Superstitio in der Kanonistik des
12. und 13. Jahrhunderts</i>. This little swell of books focusing on
<i>superstitio</i> represents the continuation of an important trend
away from strictly "witchcraft" studies and toward more capacious
explorations of the history of magic (long underway) and now
superstition in pre-modern Europe. While her book is not so expansive
as Cameron's sweeping study, Lasson's topic is broader than her title
might appear to indicate. Decalogue commentaries were an important
and popular genre within late-medieval catechetical literature, and
they were one of the main vehicles through which authors could address
the subject of superstitious beliefs and practices, treated as a form
of idolatry under the rubric of the First Commandment. She wants to
use Ulrich's treatise, therefore, to explore common practices and the
clerical concerns they evoked in southern Germany and Austria,
particularly the region around Vienna, at the outset of the fifteenth
century.
This is by no means entirely uncharted ground. Over thirty years ago
Dieter Harmening published the pioneering <i>Superstitio:
Überlieferungs- und theoriegeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur
kirchlich-theologischen Aberglaubensliteratur des Mittelalters</i>
(1979), although he ended his study with the high medieval scholastics
and did not extend his work into the late medieval period. His
student Karin Baumann did, however, and her book, <i>Aberglaube für
Laien: Zur Programmatik und Überlieferung mittelalterlicher
Superstitionenkritik</i> (1989), is an essential basis for Lasson's
study. Baumann specifically examined criticism and condemnation of
superstition in the late-medieval German vernacular catechetical
literature of which Ulrich of Pottenstein's Decalogue commentary is an
example. While she mentioned Ulrich himself only once in her work,
Baumann dealt extensively with other authors of the so-called Vienna
school, including such Decalogue exegetes as Nicholas of Dinkelsbühl
and Thomas Ebendorfer, whom Lasson also discusses at some length by
way of comparison to Ulrich's work. Ulrich himself has become more
accessible in the two decades separating Baumann's book from Lasson's,
thanks to Gabriele Baptist-Hlawatsch's study and edition of his
Decalogue commentary, specifically the material on the First
Commandment (1995).
Ulrich may or may not have been born in the town of Pottenstein, about
twenty-five miles south-west from Vienna, but by 1396 he was serving
as curate there. Later he served parishes in Mödling, even closer to
Vienna, and Enns, in the diocese of Passau. He was also a court
chaplain in Vienna for a time. The only official notice connecting
him to the University of Vienna is a brief record of 1397, but Lasson
argues that he participated in the intellectual life of the city and
its university, and she counts him as a member of the Vienna school--a
group of theologians and other intellectuals who sought to apply
theology to practical, pastoral problems. Many, therefore, authored
catechetical works, a number of which were either composed in the
German vernacular or were translated into it, in order to reach a
widening audience of literate laity.
In the first part of her tripartite study, Lasson develops the
necessary background and context, introducing Ulrich, the University
of Vienna, the issue of superstition, and the nature of late medieval
catechesis. Her work is solid, although her tone is often uneven. At
times she seems to be aiming for that much-sought-after audience, the
general educated reader, offering fairly basic background on medieval
universities and scholastic method, for example. At others, she
delves deeply into the intricacies of Ulrich's life and work. And at
yet others, she seems to write still very much in the style of a
dissertation. After rehearsing several other scholars' slightly
differing judgments of who the major members of the Vienna school
were, she presents short biographies of her own choices, filling ten
pages with general information that does not really bear on her
analysis here, seemingly just to show that she has done her background
research fully. There is also a four-page excursus on the Devotio
Moderna in the Low Countries that might help illuminate some aspects
of late medieval lay piety for general readers, but bears little
direct relation to the situation in Austria. By whatever routes they
are led, however, readers will reach the end of Part I with the
background information they need.
In Part II, Lasson begins her analysis of Ulrich's treatment of the
First Commandment. She dedicates the entire section to unpacking his
main sources, which she determines to be the Bible, Gratian's
<i>Decretum</i>, and Aquinas's <i>Summa theologiae</i>. The
groundwork for this part of her book was firmly laid by Baptist-
Hlawatsch's edition, which identifies every Latin source quoted in
Ulrich's German text. Here too Lasson varies her tone considerably.
Any exposition of the sources of a scholastic commentary will
necessarily entail a great deal of highly technical work. Yet she
also presents very basic background information on Gratian and Thomas,
on canon law and scholastic theology. Despite this thoroughgoing
approach, she offers no particularly startling insights into how
Ulrich used his sources. That the Bible was foundational for a late-
medieval theologian, and that he employed Gratian and Thomas
essentially as "reference works," mining them, in turn, for citations
from even earlier authors, will not surprise any expert. Although
working in a somewhat new or at least newly important genre, Ulrich
appears to have been entirely traditional in his method.
In Part III, Lasson analyzes the specific beliefs and practices
mentioned in Ulrich's Decalogue commentary. She proceeds by means of
overarching categorizations, dividing reported superstitions first
into three broad groups--observation, divination, and magic arts--and
then examining individual practices. She draws her distinctions not
just from Ulrich but from a group of fifteen other late-medieval
southern-German and Austrian authors, as well as considerable
comparison to categorical listings of earlier authorities, mainly
Augustine and Aquinas. Her list of fifteen is not exhaustive of all
possible authors who could be used for comparison in this time and
region. While she includes two other major Viennese authors of
Decalogue treatises, Nicholas of Dinkelsbühl and Thomas Ebendorfer,
she excludes from her list (although not entirely from her analysis)
the Vienna theologian Johannes Nider, author of a widely circulated
<i>Preceptorium divine legis</i> and even more famously the early
witchcraft treatise <i>Formicarius</i>. Also included in her list
(although not really all that extensively discussed) is the later
witchcraft theorist Heinrich Kramer, who hunted some witches in
Austrian territory but actually wrote his <i>Malleus maleficarum</i>
in Cologne.
We get, in Part III, a rich enumeration of beliefs and practices that
were condemned as superstitious in and around late medieval Vienna.
The extensive comparisons among a broad selection of other texts
extend the value of this study far beyond an examination of Ulrich's
treatise alone. But the analysis is fairly limited. Lasson is
clearly most comfortable simply cataloging and cross-referencing.
This is exemplified by her quite useful appendix, listing terms and
concepts associated with superstition and providing citations. The
list starts with <i>aeromancy, aiguille, air, alcyon, Alp,
amulette</i> and proceeds through such terms as <i>astrologie</i>,
<i>demon</i>, <i>herbe</i>, <i>pyromancie</i>, and <i>Unholden</i>.
Since much of the terminology used by late medieval authors derived
from earlier authorities, an inevitable question in this as in all
research on medieval superstition is whether and to what degree
continued use of certain terms and categories indicates truly
perennial practices persisting across many centuries, or only the
inherent conservatism of medieval authors themselves. Lasson notes
this dilemma at one point (180), but then basically confines herself
to unpacking the literary tradition and its internal connections.
This is fine, except that the book does claim, in part, to offer a
window onto actual practices in late medieval and lower Austria. As
far as it extends, however, her systematic discussion of terminology
and the varieties of practice it might indicate provides useful
guidance through this complex issue. In this her work is similar to
Bernadette Filotas's foundational study of early medieval references
to superstitions, <i>Pagan Survivals, Superstitions, and Popular
Cultures</i> (2005). Filotas delivered a much more exhaustive survey,
but then, early medieval sources pertaining to superstition are much
more limited than the voluminous treatises of the fifteenth century.
A final hesitation about Lasson's work concerns her bibliography.
While she never seems uninformed about any of the issues she
addresses, still one generally wants to see all of the best
scholarship on a given topic put to use. This is not the case here,
particularly where English-language scholarship is concerned. Filotas
appears in Lasson's bibliography, for example, but does not seem to
have been cited directly anywhere in her footnotes. Similarly,
Richard Kieckhefer's fundamental study of <i>Magic in the Middle
Ages</i>, present in the bibliography, also seems absent from the
notes. Kieckhefer's study of a fifteenth-century southern German
manual of necromancy is nowhere in either notes or bibliography,
although necromancy is one of the specific categories of superstition
Lasson discusses. When discussing amulets, she does not reference the
now-essential work of Don Skemer. Nor are omissions solely in
English. Jean-Patrice Boudet's extremely rich <i>Entre science et
nigromance</i> (2006) covers innumerable issues with which Lasson
deals, but she does not refer to him. Instead there is extensive
reliance on reference works, particularly the <i>Handwörterbuch des
deutschen Aberglaubens</i> and Dieter Harmening's <i>Wörterbuch des
Aberglaubens</i>. The multivolume <i>Handwörterbuch</i> is an eminent
and admirable scholarly project, and Harmening is certainly well-
attuned to medieval developments and contexts. Nevertheless,
compilations such as these inevitably reinforce Lasson's own rigidly
categorical analysis.
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