medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> I would observe that candles stuck to fingertips would be impracticable.
> Why wouldn't the 'nagel' in question merely have been the nail (spike)
> on which the candle was impaled to keep it upright? One sees these
> employed still in any church... with the candles frequently burnt down
> to them.
Dear Theresa, thank you for your keen observation! The same was suggested by our
member Karl Brunner who kindly contacted me off the list, and it was anticipated
also by the German philologist and school teacher Carl Müller in Dresden, who
published it in 1899, yet without finding due attention in later discussions of
this proverb. It is true that "Nagel" in German can mean "clavus" as well as
"unguis", but I am not so sure (and have not yet tracked down textual
descriptions of candelholders for verifying this question) that "Nagel" would
have been used in early modern German (or in MHG) for the spike ("Dorn") of a
candle holder.
Early modern phrasings like "wan unsz das feuer uff den nagel brennet" (1583),
"daß ihnen das liecht zimlich auff den nagel gebrant" (1652) seem to suggest by
their use of dative personal pronouns ("unsz", "ihnen") that the nail in
question is rather an attributte of the person (finger-nail) than of a
candleholder (spike), unless we are dealing with a kind of dativus ethicus.
> The elaboration of the term into "finger-nail" would be typical of the
> 19C love of making the M Ages even more colorful (and odd) than they
> were...?
The understanding "finger-nail" is more or less explicit in the plural variants
"auf die Nägel brennen" (since 1735), "in die Nägel brennen" (since 1742) or
"unter die Nägel" (1746, rare and not to be confounded with the later form
"unter den Nägeln"): if this is not the original understanding, it is at least
too old for being a typical 19C medievalism; whereas the notion of monks glueing
candelsticks to their fingernails feels exactly like being such a thing!
Kind regards, O.L.
Dr. Otfried Lieberknecht
D-48157 Münster
Dorbaumstr. 86
Tel. +49 (0) 173 864 7127
[log in to unmask]
http://www.lieberknecht.de
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|