However, Rudolf does not linger much on this scene and soon switches the attention to the situation back in Cologne and then in England. Even there, Gêrhart proves his superior character and demonstrates why people give him the attribute ‘the good one’. For our purposes, it suffices that the castellan Stranmûr was also able to recognize the great human qualities in the merchant and hence treated him most honorably. As Rudolf thus indicates, religious and ethical differences would not matter at all on a global level since the same ethical and moral values could easily be shared by a Christian and a Muslim. Thus, here, we recognize a literary example in which tolerance was already a significant factor. To be sure, the audience was invited to consider the possibility of personal connections across religious barriers. Friendship, personal nobility, and other ethical values could be identical among people from different parts of the world. In Meinholf Schumacher’s words:
Mitten im Zeitalter der Kreuzzüge und ihrer Aggressivität gegen das religiös und kulturell Andere macht Rudolfs Protagonist nicht die leiseste Andeutung einer Missionierungsabsicht. Das hängt gewiss zusammen mit dem von der christlichen Theologie so heftig bekämpften Kaufmannsgeist, in dem Menschen vor allem als Kunden und Geschäftspartner wahrgenommen werden. Die Konsequenz davon ist: Heiden dürfen Heiden bleiben. Und das Fremde wird als bereichernde Ergänzung zum Eigenen akzeptiert nicht prinzipiell als Bedrohung abgelehnt. Gott bestätigt dies durch seinen Engel indem er den Kaufmann Gerhard zu den Heiligen zählt. Damit zeigt der Guote Gêrhart am Beispiel des Fernhandels Modelle interkultureller Begegnung auf, die mittelalterliche Christen in ihrem Verhältnis zum Islam und zu den Muslimen aufgeschlossener und damit letztlich doch toleranter machen konnten.44
[In the middle of the period of the crusades with their aggression against religious and cultural others, Rudolf’s protagonist does not make the faintest effort to missionize. This is certainly conditioned by the merchant spirit, which the Christian theologians fought so vehemently, according to which people are regarded especially as customers and business partners. The consequence is: Heathens can remain heathens. The foreign is regarded as an enriching addition to the self and is not principally rejected as a threat. God confirms this through His angel who identifies the merchant Gerhard as a saint. Thereby, the Guote Gerhart develops, drawing on the example of international trade, models of intercultural contacts which could make medieval Christians more open-minded and hence more tolerant in their relationship to Islam and to the Muslims.]
We only would have to differentiate a little more because Gêrhart does not engage with the castellan only as a business partner. First, both men strike a strong friendship, based on mutual attraction and admiration of their social manners, ethical ideals, and cultural accomplishments. Second, only then, once full confidence and trust have been established, do the two individuals explore the option of a swap of their ‘goods’ or ‘merchandise’.
In many respects, Rudolf von Ems’s Der guote Gêrhart thus emerges as a remarkable, most significant example of a late medieval literary text where an early form of tolerance, that is, specifically even more than toleration, becomes visible and is projected in a subtle but unmistakable fashion. We will observe parallel cases especially in Boccaccio’s Decameron. However, we must also remember Wolfram von Eschenbach’s example, even though there is a difference in Rudolf’s romance because religion is no longer an issue, and no one tries to convert the other since mutual respect dominates the scene.45
Notes
1 Erika Weigele-Ismael, Rudolf von Ems (1997); Franziska Wenzel, Situationen höfischer Kommunikation (2000).
2 Rudolfs von Ems Weltchronik, ed. Gustav Ehrismann (1915); Ingrid von Tippelskirch, Die “Weltchronik” des Rudolf von Ems (1979); Danielle Jaurant, Rudolfs
3 Only recently I have published an English translation of Rudolf’s Der guote Gêrhart. Albrecht Classen, An English Translation of Rudolf von Ems’s Der guote Gêrhart (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2016). The following comments on Rudolf’s biography and works I have drawn from my own introduction, though I have revised and updated them for the present purpose. For a detailed summary of our current state of knowledge, see Mike Malm, “Rudolf von Ems” (2013), 393–408.
4 Christine Putzo, Konrad Fleck, >Flore und Blanscheflur< (2015).
5 For a most helpful summary of what we know about Rudolf von Ems, with brief synopses of his works, see Helmut de Boor, Die höfische Literatur, vol. 2 (1969), 176–92. Although Wikipedia is not necessarily a reliable source, for a good bibliography online, see now https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_von_Ems, which is incomparably better than the English version. It would be a worthwhile enterprise to examine more closely why the various language pages of Wikipedia often represent remarkable differences in terms of background information and scholarship.
6 For a solid introduction and discussion of the relevant research positions, see Wolfgang Walliczek,“Rudolf von Ems” (1992), col. 322–45; Mike Malm, “Rudolf von Ems” (2013), mostly summarizes Walliczek and only updates the bibliography, which is a common feature of this new lexicon.
7 Rudolf von Ems, Der guote Gêrhart, ed. John A. Asher (1962).
8 Albrecht Classen, “Medieval Transculturality in the Mediterranean from a Literary-Historical Perspective” (forthcoming).
9 Joachim Heinzle, Wandlungen und Neuansätze im 13. Jahrhundert (1220/30–1280/90 (1994), 115: “Die Kaufmannsrolle ist vielmehr eine Funktion der Adelslehre: diese demonstriert, was adlig-christliches Verhalten bedeutet, indem sie dem kaufmännisch denkenden und handelnden Kaiser die genaue Kontrastfigur des kaiserlich denkenden und handelnden Kaufmanns gegenüberstellt” (The role of the merchant is rather to serve the function of teaching aristocratic readers/listeners. It demonstrates what noble-Christian behavior would have to be, and this by contrasting the merchant with the emperor, who thinks and acts like a merchant, while the merchant thinks and acts like an emperor).
10 Jost Hermand, Das liebe Geld! (2015). For a relevant review, see Marie Vorländer, “Soll und Haben seit Rudolf von Ems,” KulturPoetik 16.2 (2016): 284–86. However, despite the reference to Rudolf, Vorländer never engages with Der guote Gêrhart and only implies through the title of her review that the relationship between individuals and their material wealth was a constant negotiation process since the early thirteenth century. Hermand’s study itself, on the other hand, proves to be much more problematic with respect to his reading of the medieval narratives. Even though he admits that the protagonist, the good Gerhard, makes every possible effort to demonstrate Christian generosity and humility, he still argues that the romance mirrors profoundly “die Entstehung eines frühbürgerlichen Selbstbewußtseins” (41; the emergence of an early bourgeois self-conscience) insofar as the class of merchants and the class of ministeriales (lower ranking aristocratic administrators) is strongly merged here (40). Overall, a much more discriminating analysis of Der guote Gêrhart would be necessary; see the introduction to my English translation. Hermand’s argument is based on outdated research and pursues a social-historical perspective as was prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s. The role of money in the history of literature has been the topic of several major studies, though Rudolf’s romance then has not figured there at all; see, for instance, John Van Cleve, The Problem of Wealth in the Literature of Luther’s Germany (1991); Regina Angela Wenzel, Changing Notions of Money and Language in German Literature from 1509 to 1956 (2003). Here, there is not even a bibliography or an index, and we have to rely on the notes to each chapter. For a solid collection of relevant studies, see now Geld im Mittelalter: Wahrnehmung, Bewertung, Symbolik, ed Klaus Grubmüller and Markus Stock (2005). However, even here Rudolf’s romance finds no consideration.
11 Wolfgang Walliczek and Corinna Biesterfeldt, “Rudolf von Ems” (2011), 77.
12 www.handschriftencensus.de/2744 (last accessed on December 29, 2017).
13 In the introduction to my English translation I review the manuscript tr
adition in detail and outline the history of research, but there is no need here to go into further philological details. An English Translation of Rudolf von Ems’s Der guote Gêrhart (2016).
14 Der gute Gerhart Rudolfs von Ems in einer anonymen Prosaauflösung und die lateinische und deutsche Fassung der Gerold-Legende Albrechts von Bonstetten: nach den Handschriften Reg. O 157 und Reg. O 29a und b im thüringen Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar, ed. Rudolf Bentzinger, Christina Meckelnborg, et al. (2001), 3–5. The text is contained in a manuscript created sometime around 1510, or more probably one or two decades later in the Bavarian/Swabian language area. A corrected mistake in the text (fol. 34 v) confirms that the scribe created a copy from an earlier manuscript. Soon after the completion of the manuscript it was acquired by the Saxonian court historiographer Georg Spalatin (1484–1545), who combined it with numerous other texts, such as his own notes, excerpts, drafts, and copies important for his plan to create a chronicle of Saxony and Thuringia. His interest in the Guote Gêrhard focused on the references to the cathedral of Magdeburg and the role of the Emperor Otto I, as they emerge in the early part of the romance or the prose version respectively.
15 I have discussed many of these points in the introduction and my own contribution to Bestseller – gestern und heute: Ein Blick vom Rand zum Zentrum der Literaturwissenschaft, ed. Albrecht Classen and Eva Parra Membrives (2016). I do not, however, address the case of Rudolf von Ems in that context.
16 Franzjosef Pensel, “Zur DTM-Edition einer Prosaversion des Guoten Gêrhart von Rudolf von Ems” (1997), 89. See also John A. Asher, “Textkritische Probleme zum ‘guoten Gêrhart’” (1964), 570; John A. Asher, ed., Der guote Gêrhart, (1989), X.
17 See the introduction to Der gute Gerhart Rudolfs von Ems in einer anonymen Prosaauflösung (2001), 6–8.
18 One of the best examples would be Joachim Bumke, Höfische Kultur: Literatur und Gesellschaft im hohen Mittelalter (1986), who regularly refers to Rudolf von Ems in a variety of contexts.
19 These numbers always refer to the verses in the text.
20 Xenja von Ertzdorff, Rudolf von Ems: Untersuchungen zum höfischen Roman im 13. Jahrhundert (1967), 67–70. There are many towns in the German-speaking lands with the name ‘Steinach’. Most probably, Rudolf von Steinach originated from the community of Steinach near St. Gall.
21 Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter (1979), 274ff. As to Rudolf von Ems’s association with the Counts of Montfort, see Edward Schröder, “Rudolf von Ems und sein Literaturkreis” (1930), 209–51.
22 Sonja Zöller, Kaiser, Kaufmann und die Macht des Geldes (1993), 379; see also Wolfgang Walliczek, “Rudolf von Ems: Der guote Gêrhart” (1993), 258–63.
23 Steffen Krieb, Vermitteln und Versöhnen: Konfliktregelung im deutschen Thronstreit 1198 - (2000); Bernd Ulrich Hucker, Kaiser Otto IV. (1990); Reinhard Bleck, Keiser Otte und Künic Willehalm: Rudolf von Ems ‘Der guote Gêrhart’ (1985). Until today we can draw most valuable information from Eduard Winkelmann, Philipp von Schwaben und Otto IV. von Braunschweig (1878; 1963).
24 Joseph Patrick Huffman, “Richard the Lionheart and Otto IV (2000), 133–77; Steffen Krieb, Vermitteln und Versöhnen: Konfliktregelung im deutschen Thronstreit 1198–1208 (2000); Bernd Ulrich Hucker, Otto IV., der wiederentdeckte Kaiser (2003); Gerd Biegel, “Der Traum vom welfischen Kaisertum” (2009), 28–29; Gerd Althoff, “Otto IV. – Woran scheiterte der welfische Traum vom Kaisertum?” (2009), 199–214.
25 Adolf Elsperger, Das Weltbild Rudolfs von Ems in seiner Alexanderdichtung (1939), 27–30.
26 Otto Neudeck, Erzählen von Kaiser Otto (2003). He identifies Rudolf’s Guote Gêrhart as a political poem, as an exemplary narrative, and as a moral tale. However, he draws mostly on previous scholarship (Zöller), without fully exposing truly innovative perspectives regarding Rudolf’s narrative.
27 Werner Wunderlich, Der ritterliche Kaufmann (1975); Sonja Zöller, Kaiser, Kaufmann und die Macht des Geldes (1993); Sonja Zöller, “Von zwîvel und guotem muot: Gewissensentscheidungen im ‘Guten Gerhard’?” (2001), 270–90.
28 Xenja von Ertzdorff, Rudolf von Ems (1967), 67–80; 160–92; 328–38; Helmut Brackert, Rudolf von Ems (1968), 34–57; Rüdiger Schnell, Rudolf von Ems: Studien zur inneren Einheit seines Gesamtwerkes (1969), 58–83.
29 Albrecht Classen, “Medieval Transculturality in the Mediterranean from a Literary-Historical Perspective” (forthcoming).
30 For parallel cases in Aragon, see Jarbel Rodriguez, Captives and Their Saviors in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (2007); see also James W. Brodman, Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain (1986).
31 See, for instance, Ulrich Müller, “Mediävistik und interkulturelle Germanistik” (2003), 457–61; Meinolf Schumacher, “Toleranz, Kaufmannsgeist und Heiligkeit im Kulturkontakt mit den ‘Heiden’” (2010): 49–58; Albrecht Classen, “Medieval Transculturality in the Mediterranean from a Literary-Historical Perspective” (forthcoming). See also the contributions to Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, ed. Albrecht Classen and Marilyn Sandidge (2010).
32 For theoretical reflections on this larger issue, see Ulrich Müller, “Mediävistik und interkulturelle Germanistik” (2003), 457–61.
33 Wolfgang Walliczek, Rudolf von Ems, ‘Der guote Gêrhart’ (1973), 147–61.
34 This is, of course, a huge topic all by itself, and I have addressed it already in various ways in the chapter on Wolfram von Eschenbach. I will return to it also in the subsequent chapters. For further discussions of this global aspect, see, for instance, Christians and Muslims in Dialogue in the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages, ed. Martin Tamcke (2007); Albrecht Classen, “Transcultural Experiences in the Late Middle Ages” (2015). The collection of articles, Contextualizing the Muslim Other in Medieval Christian Discourse, ed. Jerold C. Frakes (2011), can serve well to illustrate the difficulties which scholars continue to face trying to figure out how medieval Christian writers really viewed the world of Islam. Whereas Frakes pursues a strongly negative perspective, some of the contributors take the rather opposite stance, basically arguing against their own editor. For a unique situation, see Antonella Scorpo, “Religious Frontiers and Overlapping Cultural Borders” (2011): 217–36; see also the contributions to East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Transcultural Experiences in the Premodern World, ed. Albrecht Classen (2013).
35 See, for instance, Michael Mitterauer, Markt und Stadt im Mittelalter (1980); Virtuelle Räume: Raumwahrnehmung und Raumvorstellung im Mittelalter, ed. Elisabeth Vavra (2005); Urban Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Albrecht Classen (2009); Orte der Stadt im Wandel vom Mittelalter zur Gegenwart (2013). Research on this topic is legion, of course.
36 Herzog Ernst: Ein mittelalterliches Abenteuerbuch, ed., trans., with commentary and an epilogue by Bernhard Sowinski (1970; 1989).
37 Carola Susanne Fern, Seesturm im Mittelalter (2012). She does not, however, consider Rudolf’s Der guote Gêrhart, although here the protagonist experiences first a near shipwreck, and then we learn about the disaster involving the Norwegian princess and her fiancé.
38 This proves to be a consequence of a profound change in twelfth-century philosophy, with Peter Abelard, John of Salisbury, and Siger of Brabant, among others, clamoring for a more humanistically oriented approach toward other cultures and religions. See Hans-Ulrich Wöhler, “Einige Bemerkungen über Humanität und Humanismus im mittelalterlichen Geistesleben” (1991), 868–78. See also E. Werner, “Das Bild des anderen: Antihumanismus und Intoleranz im 12. Jahrhundert” (1986), 877–91. As to the topos of the good, noble, and cultured Saracen, who can be integrated and thus be colonized, see Dennis Austin Britton, “From the Knight’s Tale to The Two Noble Kinsmen” (2015), 64–78. He suggests that crusade romances construct “white skin as a marker of class and racial identity, which ultimately sets western norms of whiteness as the absolute category of dominance.” See also Hannes Möhring, Saladin: The Sultan and His Times: 1138–1193, trans. by David S. Bachrach (2005; 2008).
40 Wolfgang Walliczek, Rudolf von Ems, ‘Der guote Gêrhart’ (1973), 41; Zöller, Kaiser, Kaufmann (1993), 304–305.
41 As to the significance of laughter in many different contexts and circumstances, see the contributions to Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, Its Meaning, and Consequences, ed. Albrecht Classen (2010). The example in Rudolf’s romance, however, is not considered there.
42 See the contributions to Friendship in the Middle Ages (2010); Freundschaftszeichen: Gesten, Gaben und Symbole von Freundschaft im Mittelalter, ed. Marina Münckler, Antje Sablotny, and Matthias Standke (2015). Rudolf von Em’s romance Der guote Gêrhart is, however, not considered in either anthology. The same also applies to Verwandtschaft, Freundschaft, Bruderschaft: Soziale Lebens- und Kommunikationsformen im Mittelalter, ed. Gerhard Krieger (2009), and to Caroline Krüger, Freundschaft in der höfischen Epik um 1200 (2011). For a critical discussion of the differences between homosocial and homosexual bonds, see C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love (1999).
43 There might be an intriguing parallel between this Norwegian princess Irene and the young giant Rennewart in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Willehalm insofar as he was a captive as well, though taken by Christians, and is eventually, as we might assume, integrated into the Christian world out of friendship and love. Of course, Wolfram did not conclude his chanson de geste and we do not know about Rennewart’s whereabouts.
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