• Der hochswebund in naturleichen chünsten Maister Aristoteles spricht in probleumatibus Das is in seinen chünstleichen und sweren fragen Wie wol sich all menschen frewen, daz sy gelert werden in ebenpilden und in gleichnüssen chärleichen erczaiget wiert... Dauon mein allerliebster Sun begern wier dier zwschreiben sittleiche ler der sitten die dei iugent lerleich und vaterleich vnderweisent... [Incipit, the text also known as.

Extent:
  • folios 1r-70v. manuscript. [96] watercolor wash illustrations. 38 x 27 cm. later rolled white pigskin binding, dated 1577.
Date:
  • 1425-1430
Language:
Author:
  • Ulrich, von Pottenstein, active 1398-1416
Description:
  • "Ulrich von Pottenstein's work consists of a translation of and a gloss on the Latin fables, the Speculum sapientae attributed to Cyrillus, an author whose identity still remains in question, although Bodemann argues that he was probably an Italian dominican living before the fourteenth century. Titled somewhat differently from Cyrilluss, Ulrich called his composition Das Buch der natürlichen Weisheit, and he began it in the first decade of the fifteenth century. Whereas the translation of fables into the vernacular is not new in the Middle Ages, what is new in the Cyrillus/Ulrich von Pottenstein version is their literary claim, which self-consciously enriches the genre of fables and, ultimately, created a whole new fable type.
  • "Taken from three areas -- the habits of animals, the properties of things, and the particularities of human behavior -- Ulrich's fables draw together developments in the evolution of the fable genre during the earlier Middle Ages. Like all fables, they utilize a core of Aesopic material, some from the Romulus, some from the Phaedrus. Like Marie de France, their morals sometimes include explicit social commentary appropriate to the period, responding to a need for contemporary relevance. Like Alexander Neckham, the stories also derive from the "properties of things," witnessing an interest in science. Like Odo of Chertin, the fables weave sacred knowledge into everyday life and behavior, responding to criticisms of fables as "lies". Ulrich's fables represent a culmination of these medieval fable traditions, which he reshaped in a highly inventive fashion. The systematic divergence from Aesopic conventions in Cyrillus/Ulrich von Pottenstein lies in the fact that the latter uses the moments of action to present rhetorical arguments that offer moral teachings on virtue. In this way, they programmatically created a whole new genre, animating the genre of fables from within its form and reanimating its use or function for its audience.
  • "The extraordinary readability of Ulrich's work lies in his clear, yet intricate, overall project, laid out in the prologue. He divides his fables into Four Books of corresponding virtues and vices (I. Wisdom and Folly; II. Generosity and Pride; III, Justice and Avarice; and IV, Temperance and Lust)..." Hindman pamphlet, p. 7.
  • The Kreuzenstein manuscript may be one of the earliest extant manuscripts of Recension X, the earlier version of the text, of which only four copies survive. Textually "it occupies a position between the Munich and Vienna versions on the stemma of Recension X. Its pictures adapt the same models as the Munich manuscript, although they are not by the same artist nor are they copies one from another. There are technical, stylistic and philological reasons for dating the Kreuzenstein manuscript around the same time as the Munich manuscript, which is securely dated 1430 by scribal colophon and was in the Cistercian cloister of Aldersbach near Passau at least by the seventeenth century.
  • This manuscript is the "second most richly illustrated copy among the exemplars of the text. Only one other copy, a rather late manuscript in Berlin, dated 1467, is more densely illustrated (Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, ms. germ. fol. 641, B1) With 97 illustrations (2 for the Prologue), the Berlin copy includes 1 more illustration than the Kreuzenstein copy.".
  • "The Kreuzenstein manuscript is virtually entirely unknown... It is mentioned once in the literature by Bodemann in 1996, when it was described as location unknown after its appearance in a sale in Geneva, Nicolas Rauch, Auction Catalogue no 5, N.S. 1953, lot 11.".
  • Contents: I. Cyrillus Fables, folios 1r-70v; II. Proverbs of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, in a German translation, with glosses foliow 71r-137v; III. Pseudo-Bernard of Clairvaus, Epistola ad Raymundum, in German fols 137v-139v; IV. Anonymous, Glossed Narrative of the Passion Von unsers Herren Marter fols. 139v-172r; V. Extract of the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus: Story of Christ's Resurrection, Letter of Leukios and Charinos on the Descent into Limbo of Jesus, Letter of Pontius Pilate to the Roman Emperor Claudius fols 172r-173r; VI. Brother Berthold, Rechtssumee (after Johannes of Freiburg, Summa confessorum), fols 1774-185v, Index; fols 186r-186v, blanks.
  • Rolled pigskin binding, spine in six compartments with 5 raised bands. Boards with outer border built up of palmette rolls, doubled at top and bottom and enclosing roll of the reformers: Erasmus, Huss, Melanchton, Luther, a narrower roll with smaller oval portraits [Reformers?], a large panel formed of double rules, with horizontal panels at top and bottom, the lower one on the cover enclosing the date 1577 lettered in ink, and a rectangular panel formed of a string of pearls roll, the large reformers roll, a small chain roll, the small reformers roll, and the interlaced pattern which accompanies the palmettes in the center. The rolls separated by double rules throughout.
Provenance:
  • Count Johann Nepomuk of Wilczek in Burg Kreuzenstein
Alternative:
  • Das Buch der natürlichen Weisheit (Cyrillus-Fables).
View in catalog:
Scopenote:
  • 93r-106r