1 Introduction
The theme of accounting for one’s life at the hour of death can be considered universal.1 For example, the concepts of ‘dances of death’ and ‘memento mori’-literature were prevalent in the Middle Ages.2 However, the theme received particular attention in the dynamic cultural space of the late Middle Ages in western and northern Europe that was part of the Habsburg Empire, where several plays on the subject were written, performed, and printed, in Latin and in the vernacular.3 The subject was particularly topical as death was a constant threat, and the devastating pandemic of the ‘Black Death’ of 1347–1352 had had a profound impact. It received even more attention in the Netherlands and parts of Germany in the sixteenth century, when society was changing from a predominantly rural to an urban and mercantile economy, and anxieties arose about appropriate Christian behaviour. Young, rich urban merchants needed their own ethical code of conduct. Religiously, the period was marked by a strong interest in the doctrine of justification. This doctrine asks how sinners can become righteous before God, in short: through virtue, good works, the sacraments or the Church, according to the Roman Catholic doctrine, or by grace or faith alone, which was the Lutheran answer.4 It was particularly the Protestant Reformation and the developments that led up to it, that made the question of what was most important for a person’s salvation a matter of paramount importance.
In terms of literature, the morality play, a play with allegorical characters, was the medium used to convey moral and religious advice.5 In Latin humanist education, dramas written in the style of the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence fulfilled this function. The theatricality of each play—the fact that it was performed for an audience—enhanced the transmission of ideas and beliefs by arousing the emotions of the audience through the events in the drama.6 In the sixteenth-century Low Countries, the ‘rhetoricians’ (‘rederijkers’), amateur poets who wrote complex verses and allegorical morality plays in their Rederijkerskamers (Chambers of Rhetoric), frequently used this theme.7 In their 1539 Ghent drama competition, each Chamber was required to respond to the question: ‘What is the greatest comfort to a dying man’ (‘Welc den menschen stervende meesten troost es?’).8
Humanity’s confrontation with death and justification at the crucial moment of dying was precisely the theme of the Dutch morality play Elckerlijc, its English translation Everyman and many other Everyman dramas that emerged in the late Middle Ages and beyond. The Everyman plays combined three motifs: the preparation for death (ars moriendi), the judgement after death and the ‘Freundschaftsprobe’ (‘friendship test’, i.e., whether friends and relatives will assist a person when he or she dies).9 Over time, playwrights changed the allegorical figures of the morality plays into more life-like, individualised characters. The literary detail of everyday life increased, as did the comic elements, while the allegorical elements decreased.10
The theme and its theatrical treatment became a prime example of transnational literature: it circulated across places and times, and most of the plays were interconnected in one way or another. The central question of this chapter is: why did the Everyman theme have so many literary lives over such a long period, from 1500 to 1700? Why was it so popular? And secondly, why was it popular mainly in the north-west part of Europe—the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavian countries—and not, for instance, in Spain, France or England? Another intriguing question we will try to answer is the place of the Everyman theme in the history of drama. My PhD student Andrea Peverelli has found that plays on this theme form a separate stylistic cluster that has few verbal and thematic similarities with other plays, with one exception: Thomas Naogeorgus’s Mercator (1540).11
We will therefore map and trace, as far as possible, the circulation of the theme and connections between the plays, playwrights and/or printers, as well as the similarities and differences between the plays, and assess the role of the playwrights’ and the printers’ contexts, as well as their religious point of view in shaping these plays. Translations play an important role,12 as does the principle of ‘utile dulci’: ‘a lesson in Christian living animated by the spark of everyday life.’13 The focus will be on the two Latin adaptations and the German version by Jaspar von Gennep, which is a translation of Homulus with additional scenes taken from two other plays, and a good example of transnational literature.
The plot of Elckerlijc could easily be transposed and adapted for the Latin schools, colleges, and gymnasia, the guilds and rhetoricians’ chambers, and places where vernacular plays were staged.14 In each of these situations, the audience might have been as rich as the protagonist, but if not, it may have been a consolation—and a warning—that even the rich cannot escape the final hour. The development of the Everyman theme accelerated in the years 1536 to 1540, when four versions appeared in a short span of time. After centuries, the tradition culminated in Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann (1911), which has been performed every year since 1920 in Salzburg, Austria.
In this survey, I will refrain from discussing plays that deal with similar themes but are outside the direct ‘cultural web’ of Everyman plays, in the sense that they do not feature an appeal to family and friends for help, such as the French morality play Bien advisé, mal advisé (1439), Das Münchner Spiel vom sterbenden Menschen (1510), Levinus Brechtus’s Euripus (1549)15 and Jacob Bidermann’s Cenodoxus (1602; printed 1666).16 My focus will be on the transnational aspect of the theme, and the interdependence of the various plays and their networks, from Elckerlijc to Everyman, and via the Latin Everyman plays from the Netherlands, Homulus and Hecastus, to reworkings of the plays. This discussion, as stated, will include the authors and printers of the plays, as well as the plays themselves, their performances and their printed editions.17 We will first give an overview of the interrelations of Everyman plays, which will show which plays are related to which other plays, in which periods and in which languages.
2 Petrus Van Diest (?), Elckerlijc (c. 1475)
Figure 5.2
Elckerlijc, Antwerpen. [Govaert Bac. 1501?], title page
The Hague, KB 231 G 51
The first play to deal with the Everyman theme is the Dutch morality play Elckerlijc (c. 1475; Everyman), the full title of which is: Den spieghel der salicheit van Elckerlijc: Hoe dat elckerlijc mensche wert ghedaecht Gode rekeninghe te doen (The Mirror of the Salvation of Everyman: How Every Man is Summoned to Give Account before God). It was printed in Delft in 1496 by Christiaen Snellaert (whose workshop had printed a Dutch translation of the Vulgate, the so-called Delft Bible) and reprinted in Antwerp around 1501 by Govaert Bac, and in the same city around 1525 by Willem Vorsterman.18 It is no coincidence that these printers published the play: the Delft printer Snellaert was in contact with the Antwerp publisher Govaert Bac and his St Luke’s Guild, which had merged with the Antwerp Chamber of Rhetoric ‘De Violieren’ (‘The Violets’); Bac published the second edition as a guild brother and fellow member of the chamber. Vorsterman was another member of the Antwerp St Luke’s Guild who produced an edition of the Elckerlijc.19 It was published anonymously, but a certain Peter van Diest (1454–1507) is mentioned in the title of the Latin adaptation Homulus by Christianus Ischyrius (see below). This is probably the same person as Petrus Dorlandus, a Carthusian monk and vicar of the order’s monastery in Diest (Belgium).20 However, this attribution is not entirely certain. Another candidate is the prominent Antwerp rhetorician of the late fifteenth century Jan Casus, also a member of ‘De Violieren’ and St Luke’s Guild, but his authorship also remains speculative.21 Whoever the author was, the play in any case is written in the style of the rhetoricians.22 It combines the themes of ‘what is helpful at the moment of dying’ (the praeparatio mortis), God’s judgement, and a ‘test of friendship’.
Figure 5.3
Elckerlijc, Antwerpen, Willem Vorsterman, ca. 1525, title page
Leiden UBL 1090 G 1
In the first part, a ‘Prologue in Heaven’, God laments the depravity of mankind:
I see from my throne above that all that is of human kind lives without fear of God, ignorant. I see the people so blinded by sin, that they don’t recognize me as God. They are enamoured of worldly treasures, which they have chosen over God, and have forgotten me, who heretofore had suffered death for the profit of man.23
Elckerlijc, ll. 1–9Ick sie boven uut mijnen throneDat al dat is int smenschen personeLeeft uut vresen, onbekent.Oec sie ic tvolc also verblentIn sonden, si en kennen mi niet voer God.Opten aertschen scat sijn si versot,Dien hebben si voer Gode vercoren,Ende mi vergheten, die hier te vorenDie doot heb geleden doer tsmenschen profijt.
That is why God sends Death to ‘Elckerlijc’ (Everyman) to summon him to a reckoning as he is about to die (the ‘pilgrimage that no one in the world can escape’):
Go hence to Everyman at once, and tell him immediately in my name that he must set forth on a pilgrimage which no one in the world can escape, and that to me he shall come to make his reckoning without delay: that is my command.24
Elckerlijc, ll. 50–55Gaet hene tot Elckerlijc ghereet,Ende segt hem van mijnen twegen saenDat hi een pelgrimagie moet gaenDie niemant ter werelt en mach verbi,Ende dat hi rekeninghe come doen miSonder vertrec: dats mijn ghebot.
Elckerlijc is thrown back on himself and, in a painful process of self-discovery, has to renounce everything on which his trust and reputation in the world were based: friends, relatives, and possessions. By the middle of the play, he is in utter misery:
Therefore I may as well spit at myself. Fie, Everyman, you may indeed shudder, how thoroughly can I despise you!25
Elckerlijc, ll. 428–431Dies ic mi selven wel mach bespuwen.Tfy, elckerlijc, u make wel gruwen.Hoe deerlic mach ic u versmaden.
This is the beginning of sincere repentance, the prerequisite for the reversal in the second part of the play, the slow recovery of Elckerlijc. He finally remembers his Virtue (Duecht), whom he has neglected all his life. Then Virtue’s sister, Knowledge (Kennisse), appears and leads Elckerlijc to Confession (Biechte) and repentance. His path to salvation includes encounters with his Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty (Vroetscap, Cracht and Schoonheyt), and leads him to his Five Senses (Vijf Sinnen). At the end of his pilgrimage, at the hour of his death, these friends will also leave him. Only Virtue accompanies him beyond death to God’s judgement. She is the witness of his repentance and the guarantee of Elckerlijc’s salvation.26 At the end of the play, it is explicitly stated that the play is a mirror for all Christians, exhorting them to avoid pride and other sins:
Mark this mirror, hold it before your eyes and avoid arrogant endeavours and all other sins as well.27
Elckerlijc, ll. 871–873Merct desen spieghel, hebten voer oghenEnde wilt u van hovardien poghenEnde oec van allen sonden met.
At the same time, Elckerlijc is a mirror of the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Penance and its stages of contritio (remorse), confessio (confession), and satisfactio (satisfaction, penance).28 I agree with Parker when he characterises the play as: ‘a plain homiletic piece of dramatic writing addressed to a pre-Reformation audience’ and ‘a didactic work of art’.29
The play has 895 lines, is not divided into acts and scenes and the structure is quite simple: the play begins, like the Old Testament Book of Job, with a scene in heaven with God, and ends with a scene in which an Angel announces the arrival of Elckerlijc’s soul in heaven. In between, the protagonist appeals to his friends (‘Gheselscap’), his relatives (‘Maghe’ and ‘Neve’, his extended and close family, respectively), his wealth (‘TGoet’), and then to his Virtue (‘Duecht’), all allegorical figures. Not everything in Elckerlijc is allegorical: the scene praising the priesthood (Elckerlijc, ll. 701–720; cf. Everyman, ll. 706–727) is realistic and theologically essential.30 As a theatre play, it builds up a tension—Everyman is abandoned by all his friends, family and possessions—which slowly dissipates in the second part. Towards the end, God sends Death herself to summon Elckerlijc, but Death does not accompany the protagonist to his death, nor is she even present in the climactic moment.31
Elckerlijc is a play of the city: the protagonist is a wealthy young citizen with the characteristics of a merchant and thus fits well in the demographic and social developments of the time from a rural to an urban society.32 It is a rhetoricians’ text and the rhetoricians’ chambers are a typically urban phenomenon. Its primary moral lesson is that only virtue matters, and that people should repent and do penance before they die. Death, as God’s servant, guides the afflicted soul to this realisation. The ‘new’ ethical behaviour and the idea of justification are based on the old Roman Catholic moral theology, now applied to an urban society and its merchants.
3 Everyman (c. 1510–1525)
Roman Catholic theology also informs the second play, Elckerlijc’s famous English adaptation: Everyman, or The Somonyng of Everyman (The Summoning of Everyman), the full title of which is Here begynneth a treatyse how the hye fader of heuen sendet dethe to summon euery creature to come and gyue a counte of theyr lyues in this worlde, and is in maner of a morall playe (Here Begins a Treatise how the High Father of Heaven Sends Death to Summon Every Creature to Come and Give Account of their Lives in This World, and is in the Manner of a Moral Play). The work was printed in London by Richard Pynson in c. 1510–1525 (and again in c. 1525–1530), and by John Skot, c. 1525–1530 (and again c. 1530–1535).33 The identity of the translator is unknown. Although there is some debate about the priority of Elckerlijc or Everyman, the consensus is now that Elckerlijc is the earliest play.34 The first printer, Pynson (1448–1529), was born in Normandy and came to London in 1492 to become one of its first printers. The quality of his work earned him the prestigious position of Royal Printer to Henry VII and Henry VIII. He printed Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1492) and Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff (in Alexander Barclay’s translation, Ship of Fooles; 1509).35 Pynson was a transnational printer, publishing texts and translations from England and the continent. There were also close contacts between the Dutch and English book markets from the last decades of the fifteenth century.36
John Skot or Scott (fl. 1521–1537) rarely dated the books he published and often printed for others. He or his commissioner may have wished to emulate Pynson’s success with the Everyman edition.37 The title page itself is already transnational: the two figures on it, Everyman (left) and Death (right) are copied from continental models: Death from a French shepherd’s calendar of 1493, and Everyman from Antoine Vérard’s Therence en francois (Paris, between 1499 and 1503). The structure of Verard’s title page was in turn copied from the first German edition of Terence’s works, printed in Strasbourg by Johann Grüninger in 1499 in which the names of the characters from each play are inscribed on a scroll above their heads. On his title page, Skot imported the figure of Pamphilus. the young lover (adulescens) from Terence’s Andria, but neglected to print the name of Everyman on the scroll above him to which Death points.38
Figure 5.4
Everyman, London: John Skot, c. 1425–1530, title page
Google images, Public domain
The title page of the Everyman play presents it as a ‘treatise’ ‘in the manner of a moral play’. The plot is very similar to that of Elckerlijc. For instance, Death does not accompany Everyman to his death. One of the significant differences is that in Elckerlijc, Virtue is brought back to life by the protagonist’s repentance, whereas in Everyman it is ‘Good Dedes’ who is revived. Their reappearance fits into a Roman Catholic worldview, unless we equate virtue with good deeds.39 Similarly, Elckerlijc’s ‘earthly goods’ are in a miserable state because he has misused them, whereas in Everyman these goods are represented in their overwhelming abundance.40 Several saints are also invoked in Everyman, while in Elckerlijc only the apostle St Peter is mentioned.41 Be that as it may, the theme was taken from the Netherlands to London, and its four editions may be evidence of the play’s success.42 Their structure is similar: at the beginnings of the plays God complains and sends Death to Everyman, who is saved by repentance.
The Dutch play inspired two schoolmasters to adapt it into Latin: Christianus Ischyrius in his Homulus, and Georgius Macropedius in his Hecastus, which we will discuss next. These two Latin plays led to a wide and long reception of the theme in early modern European drama, as we shall see.
3.1 Christianus Ischyrius, Homulus (1536)
In 1536, the Roman Catholic priest and rector of the Maastricht Latin School, Christianus Ischyrius or Christaen Sterck (fl. 1526–1551) introduced the theme into the Neo-Latin literary system when he published his Homulus (diminutive of ‘homo’: Mere Man, Weak Man or Everyman), in full: Homulus Petri Diesthemii, Comoedia in primis lepida & pia, in rem Christiani hominis adprime faciens, Antuerpiae quondam in publico ciuitatum Brabanticarum conuentu vulgariter acta, palmamque adepta. Homulus haec inscribitur comoedia, quod in ea hominis Christiani vita, & cuiuslibet voluptatis carnalis fugacitas graphice depingitur (Everyman by Peter van Diest, an Especially Witty and Pious Comedy, Very Valuable for the Case of Christian Man, Performed Once in Antwerp in the Vernacular at a Public Meeting of the Cities of Brabant and Awarded a Prize. This Play is Called Everyman Because in It the Life of a Christian Man and the Transience of All Carnal Pleasures are Graphically Depicted). The play was printed seven times, in Cologne by Jaspar von Gennep in 1536, 1537 and 1539; in Antwerp by Joannes Steelsius in 1538 and 1546; in Krakow by Helena Unglerowa (widow of Florian Ungler) in 1540 and 1541, and by Maciej Szarfenberg, also from Krakow, in 1540. Gennep and Steelsius, in particular, were printers who published several Latin dramas.43 Moreover, Gennep printed for foreign publishers, especially those from Antwerp and Leuven.44 The title identifies Pieter van Diest as the author of Elckerlijc and states that the original Dutch play had won the prize in an Antwerp competition.
Figure 5.5
Christianus Ischyrius, Homulus, Cologne, Jaspar von Gennep, 1536
The play is part of the emerging humanist drama in the early sixteenth century. In 1528, the rector of the Latin school in The Hague, Guilielmus Gnapheus (1493–1568) had his pupils perform a comoedia sacra (‘sacred comedy’), based on the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15, 11–32). The play was published in 1529, after he had fled the Low Countries because of his Lutheran sympathies. It began a tradition of writing Latin comedies in Europe. The humanists were looking for themes that would appeal to their students and their parents.45 They wanted to replace the immoral, frequently amorous and sexual content of the plays by Plautus and Terence with stories that promoted Christian morality. As Ischyrius writes in his preface ‘to the pious reader and the sincere youth’ (‘Ad lectorem pium et candidum iuventutem’):
Here you have, dear reader, a comedy that is both pleasant and pious. Although it does not display the charm of Terence or the eloquence of Plautus, it shows and weighs, as on a balance, the life of a Christian and the fragility of the wealth of this world. Indeed, you will not find in it the shameful temptations of love, nor the infamous luxury of life, nor, in short, the reconciliations of lovers as in the comedies of Terence and Plautus.
Habes, candide lector, comoediam non minus lepidam quam piam, quae tametsi Terentij venustatem aut Plauti non redoleat eloquentiam, tamen Christiani hominis vitam, mundique huius luxus fugacitatem, tanquam ex quodam perpendiculo depingit & aestimat. In ea siquidem non turpes amorum illecebras, non vitae infamem luxum, non denique amandi conciliationes, vt in Terentianis Plautinisque comoedijs, deprehendes.
Ischyrius, Homulus (1536), sig. Aijr
These words reveal the humanists’ ambivalent attitude towards Roman comedy: its content may be indecent but its style is charming and eloquent.
The pupils were often the sons of citizens and merchants who wanted them to receive a ‘modern’ humanist education. Ischyrius participated in the humanists’ Christianisation of Roman comedy with his Latin adaptation of Elckerlijc. Homulus has the same plot, but the 895 lines of Elckerlijc are extended to 1539 lines. Many passages from the original play are closely translated into Latin, but Ischyrius also frequently expanded the monologues and dialogues throughout. Compare, for example, Elckerlijc, ll. 486–487: ‘She is a pure river, she will purify you’ (‘Si es een suver rivier, / Sy sal u pureren’) and Homulus, ll. 833–834: ‘Like a fast-flowing river she will cleanse you even more from the crime that pollutes you’ (‘Illa in morem riuuli velociter labentis, | Illa te reddet puriorem defecatum scelere’).46
The ‘Prologue in Heaven’ of Elckerlijc47 is also elaborated, into a lament of humankind’s depravity with classical allusions and mentioning the creation in the first lines and the seven virtues in the last lines quoted:
In the beginning, I created the race of mortals from clay, so that they might be settlers of the all-producing earth. To them, I gave them a single commandment: to cultivate noble virtue, and to abstain from harmful passions and deceitful pleasures, from treachery and pride, which are hateful to both high and low. But man rebelled against the heavenly reins and rushing headlong into vice, he fell into a miserable decline. Then came the dreadful beast, the Leviathan, whose bite robbed him of his vital strength. For this reason, I took pity on the perishing human race, and, out of compassion, I rescued them from the jaws of the beast and restored them once again to their former safety. But when, a little later I looked down upon the earth from my supreme throne—oh pain, oh wasted effort!—all had gone to the worse, and without fear they had degenerated; blind perversity had taken hold of everything that had torn sound judgement from their hearts. Ill-advised bronze and gold, ruinous to life, seduced mortals to their own opinions. Oh mind, having drunk from the cup of Lethe, do you not remember the Redeemer who suffered on the Cross? For your sake, o most ungrateful man, I endured that fate! Alas, the cursed pride and the evil lust for life and the remaining wicked horde, have scattered their manners and their royal sceptres throughout the world, and have forcibly driven the seven pure virgins into exile, that is to say, they have driven the virtues from their kingdom.
Ischyrius, Homulus, ll. 45–72Principio genus mortalium e limo condidi,Telluris vt esset colonus omniparae,Huic vnicum, vti virtutem colat ingenuam,Praeceptum dedi, seque noxijs amoribusAbstineat, blandisque voluptatibus,Perfidia, & summis imisque ingrata superbia.At ille coelestis habenae repugnans, &In vitium praeceps actus, vulnere contabuit,Venitque fera pessima leuiathan,Quae vitale ejus robur abstulit mordicus.Quamobrem misertum est me depereuntis hominis,Illumque beluinis miserans excussi faucibus,Priori denuo redditum incolumitati.Ast vbi supremo, paruo post tempore, solioDespicio terras. O dolor, O labor irritus,Omnes exorbitant in peius, defluunt timoris inanes,Caeca peruersitas occupat omnia,Quae sanam deuellit pectore mentem.Aes malesuadum aurumque vitae perda,In suum pellexit mortales arbitrium.O mens lethaeo epota poculo,Commeministine in cruce expassi redemptoris?Tui causa o homo fatum subiui ingratissime.Ah, nefandus vitae tumor, & scelesta cupido,Et reliqua scelerata cohors, late per orbemSparserunt mores & sceptra regalia,Septenis virgunculis violenter pulsisExilio, regnoque virtutibus actis.
Homulus transforms Elckerlijc into a humanistic play with the metre, style, and structure of Roman comedy and with classical, biblical, and patristic allusions and expressions.48 For example, at the end of the preface to his play, Ischyrius added a distich, translating ‘Elckerlijc’ as ‘Quilibet’ (‘Whoever’, ‘Everyman’): ‘Everyman I was before, now with a changed name I am called Homulus, because through me man will return to his senses’ (‘Quilibet ante fui, mutato nomine dicor | Nunc Homulus, per me nam resipiscet homo’). The term ‘resipiscere’ is Erasmus’s translation of the Greek New Testament word
He (sc. Homulus) has offended the heavenly gods too much with the stains of sin and the ineptitudes of his life, so that Jupiter, threatening with an unexpected death, would push the unbridled men down under to the Styx. The pale, wicked and alas, too horrible Death is sent to Homulus.
Ischyrius, Homulus (1536), Prologue, ll. 5–10aQui laesit nimium coelica numinaPeccati maculis, vitae & ineptijs,Vt mortem minitans Iuppiter abditamEffrenos homines sub Styga truderet.Pallescens Homulo Mors mala mittitur,Horrenda heu nimium.
In Act I, God orders Death (Mors) to announce his death to the sinful Everyman (Homulus); at the end of this act, Mors leaves the stage and does not reappear, just as in Elckerlijc.51 In vain does Man ask his many friends (Act II), his relatives (Act III), and his wealth (Act IV) to accompany him. In Act V, his Virtue, which he has neglected, is too weak to accompany him, and refers him to her sister Knowledge (Cognitio). Knowledge and Confession (Confessio) bring Homulus to the throne of the Virgin Mary. Through Mary’s intercession, penance and the last rites he is saved. In Act V, scene 5, two devils, Larvicola and Crambarabus, lament the loss of this soul (‘Quaerimonia daemonum de amisso Homulo’, ll. 1156–1255).
Ischyrius made the characters less abstract: he divided the character ‘Gheselscap’ (‘Friends’) from Elckerlijc into six friends and the character ‘Maghe and Neve’ (‘Close and Distant Relatives’) into ten relatives, each with their own name, and gave them their lovers (‘meretrices’) and parasites in the style of Plautus and Terence. In this way, he reduced the allegorical nature of the play, and at the same time was able to have more students on stage.52 He also omitted the listing of the seven sacraments (Elckerlijc, ll. 677–681) and the epilogue (‘Naeprologhe’, Elckerlijc, ll. 855–878).53 In contrast, he inserted stage directions, which Elckerlijc did not have.54 Above all, he made the plot more Roman Catholic. For example, he changed:
I hope, if God wills it, that no one will do this [go to prostitutes]. So let us honour the priests and always follow their teachings.
Elckerlijc, ll. 721–723Ic hope, of God wil, dat niemant en doet.Daer om laet ons die priester eerenEnde volghen altijt haer leeren.
Into these words, spoken by Quinisensus (Five Senses):
We shall think it better and indeed best, that God should prevent such immoral behaviour. Let us respect them as the guardians of our souls and accept their words rather than their works, their preaching rather than their examples.
Ischyrius, Homulus (1536) V.4, ll. 1193–1196Meliora opinabimur et optima quaeque,Rem tanti incestus auertat Deus.Nos illos vt animarum antistites reuereamur,Magisque verba quam opera, sermones quam exempla amplexemur.
There are two obvious sources of inspiration for this change. The first is historical: Ischyrius is aware of the growing criticism of the clergy, as expressed by Erasmus in his Praise of Folly of 1511 and by Martin Luther; he acknowledges this clerical malpractice and adjusts his Latin adaptation accordingly. Secondly, there had been a long debate in Catholic theology about the validity of sacraments administered by unworthy priests. These sacraments—in Roman Catholic theology necessary for the salvation of man—included the Eucharist administered in the Mass.55 As in Elckerlijc, Homulus is abandoned by the allegories of Beauty, Strength, Knowledge, and Five Senses, but accompanied by Virtue and Confession.
A Roman Catholic feature—still familiar to those who only recently had converted to the ‘new religion’—is the appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus in V.3. She addresses her child, introducing herself as follows, referring to her titles of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Nostra Mater de Perpetuo Succursu), Queen of Heaven (Regina Caeli), and Star of the Sea (Stella Maris):
My dear son, it is my condition to help mortals; it is my duty to grant a haven to shipwrecked, to illuminate the roaring sea with a fiery star.
Ischyrius, Homulus (1536), V.3, ll. 924–926O fili, mea est conditio, mortalibus adminiculari,Meum est munus, naufragos portu donare,Vndisonum & pelagus sidere illustrare flammeo.
The fact that Homulus was reprinted seven times between 1536 and 1546 demonstrates its success as a play to be read and performed in Latin schools. The printers of the play, Steelsius in Antwerp, Gennep in Cologne and the Krakow publishers were Roman Catholics and printed many Roman Catholic books, which reinforces the impression that Homulus was popular mainly in Catholic regions.56 However, even if the area of reception was not the whole of Europe, the Maastricht schoolmaster brought the theme into the realm of Latinity and school drama from Holland and Brabant to Limburg in the southern Netherlands and Cologne in Germany.
4 Georgius Macropedius, Hecastus (1538)
The Homulus led to a relatively small tradition of Everyman plays, as will be shown below. Another, more extensive, Neo-Latin line began in Utrecht and had an afterlife particularly in Protestant circles. In the summer of 1538 the most famous and most influential Everyman play was performed in this city, namely the Hecastus by the Roman Catholic Brother of the Common Life Georgius Macropedius or Joris van Lanckvelt (1487–1558).57 The full title of the play is: Hecastus Macropedii, fabula non minus pia quam iucunda, in qua facinorosus quisque mortalium (dummodo salutis suae rationem habebit) tanquam in speculo quodam contemplari poterit, quemadmodum per Christum post ueram suorum criminum poenitudinem ad beatam adeoque laetam mortem perueniat (Hecastus by Macropedius, a Pious and Pleasant Play, in Which Every Human Sinner (as Long as He Is Willing to Account for His Salvation) Will be Able to Reflect as in a Mirror How, through Christ, after True Repentance of His Sins, He May Attain a Blessed and Joyful Death), printed in Antwerp in 1539 by Michael Hillen, who published a wide range of books including several humanistic works and both anti-Lutheran and Protestant ones.58 The play was reprinted twelve times between 1539 and 1586; it was included in the collection Comoediae ac tragoediae aliquot ex Novo et Vetere Testamento desumptae (Some Comedies and Tragedies Taken from the New and the Old Testaments), published in Basel by Nicolaus Brylinger in 1541.59 The edition in Macropedius’s Omnes fabulae of 1552 contains an extra chorus before the first act, and musical scores for the choruses, and the 1584 Strasbourg edition of his works contains twelve pages of four-part music after the text with other melodies than in the Omnes fabulae edition: ‘Chori in Hecastum’.60
Macropedius omitted the Prologue in Heaven and other scenes in the supernatural world, probably because the times had changed, or because it was too allegorical, in a wish to increase the play’s liveliness and lifelikeness. Contacts between heaven and earth are established by a messenger and the devil. At the beginning of the play, the protagonist, Hecastus, lives an optimistic life:
None of all mortals lives a happier life than I do, nowhere in the world, for I do not know if anything could be added to my blessedness.
Macropedius, Hecastus (ed. 1541) I.1, ll. 97–100Nemo omnium mortalium foeliciorMe uiuit usquam gentium, quod nesciamSi quidlibet meam ad beatitudinemQueat addier.
He is morally degraded by self-indulgence and living as a rich man, as shown in dialogue with his frugal wife Epicuria—introduced by Macropedius for a more vivid and lively performance—who warns him that the priests say they will have to give an account on their last day. He is to be morally blameless and free from heresy, when the messenger of God, Nomodidascalus (the Teacher of the Law), summons him to God’s judgement seat. All pleas to friends and relatives to accompany him are in vain; even Wealth (Plutus) refuses assistance. Only the neglected and impaired Virtue (Virtus) promises to help, and she also wants to call her sister Faith (Fides); these are the only two allegories. Hecastus’s two sons, Philomathes and Philocrates (‘Lover of Education’ and ‘Lover of Power’), are already quarrelling over the inheritance, while Satan and Death frighten Hecastus with his long list of sins. But the priest, summoned on the advice of Virtus, strengthens the dying man’s faith and gives him the sacraments. Only in Act IV does Death herself appear on stage. The resulting conversion protects Hecastus from the Devil, who now blames Death for having made the rescue possible by his long hesitation. The drama ends with a consoling conversation between the priest and the bereaved.61
Like Ischyrius’s Homulus, which was a partial source of inspiration, Macropedius’s Hecastus is a humanist drama in Plautine and Terentian metre and style, and with a five-act structure. The Greek title (
However, Hecastus differs from its predecessors in a number of respects. First, it distinguishes itself by its vivid characterisations and enlivenments, e.g, the appearance of the cook Daetrus (
Macropedius’s version of the Everyman theme was immensely popular. At least sixteen performances are recorded between 1538 and 1609, in Utrecht, Nuremberg, Königsberg, Basel, Annaberg, Prague, Nördlingen, Trautenau, Solothurn, Frankenstein, Salzburg, Schmalkalden, and Munich. It is not known whether the play was also performed in Latin outside the Low Countries, Germany, and Central Europe, but it was translated into Danish and Swedish and was well received in Scandinavia. The many editions that appeared between 1539 and 1586, in the Low Countries and the German lands also testify to its wide circulation.67 Its liveliness, combined with the Latin language and the unpolemical nature of the play, which made it acceptable to Reformed playwrights and audiences, may have contributed to its popularity. Like Elckerlijc and Homulus it could also be easily performed: it did not require a special stage or change of location; it is more of an allegorical drama of thoughts, showing the mental conflicts of the characters, without any significant action.68 However, we can only guess at the reasons why its reception was limited to these northern and central European countries. It may well have been related to the spread of the Reformation, in which the tolerant and more generally Christian way in which Macropedius treated the subject fitted better than in more strictly Roman Catholic circles. The new age may also have been more comfortable with lifelike characters than with allegories.
Hecastus was reprinted in 1552 and included in the Omnes fabulae edition of Macropedius’s plays of the same year, but slightly reworked and expanded for some two hundred lines. As noted above, the Ghent rhetoricians’ competition of 1539 included plays on the subject of ‘what is man’s greatest consolation in the hour of his death’ (‘ ’tWelc den mens stervende het meest tot troost is’). The government, seeing that not all the answers were orthodox, but that some plays were Lutheran in attributing salvation to ‘faith’ or ‘grace’, took severe measures: the printed texts were placed on the Index and the Chambers received serious warnings.69 Macropedius feared that some elements of his play might also be considered heretical, and changed the play to align it more with orthodoxy,70 especially emphasising the importance of faith in Christ and repentance.71 Macropedius expressed his fears in the preface to the benevolent reader (‘Ad candidum lectorem in Hecastum praefatio’), dated 1550.72 He tells the reader that he might be suspected of defending salvation by faith alone (the Lutheran point of view—referred to as ‘errors of our time’) rather than by the orthodox sequence of repentance, penance (satisfaction), and absolution:
After I published our Hecastus, if I am not mistaken about ten years ago, and sent it to the press a little later, there were many who (rightly considering the purpose of the play) found it entirely pleasing, there were some who found certain aspects of it objectionable, and there were also some who found it wholly disagreeable, especially because it seemed to close its eyes to, and even support, certain errors of our time. First of all, they objected to the fact that it seemed to teach or assert the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ alone and through contrition of the heart, without the works of penance (what we call satisfaction) and the sacraments of the Church. And also that each person was obliged to believe with certainty that he would be saved.
Cum ni fallor ante annos abhinc decem Hecastum nostrum edidissem, & paulo post praelo mandassem, fuere multi quibus (fabulae scopo recte considerate) per omnia placuit, fuere, quibus in ea nonnulla offenderunt, fuere quoque, quibus omnino displicuit, ob hoc praecipue, quod erroribus quibusdam nostri temporis conniuere & suffragari uideretur. In primis illi, quod citra poenitentiae opera (satisfactionem dicimus) & ecclesiae sacramenta, per solam in Christum fidem & cordis contritionem, condonationem criminum docere uel asserere uideretur. Et quod quisque certo se fore seruandum credere teneretur.
Macropedius, Hecastus (1552), sig. b2r
Macropedius defends himself by arguing that since Death came so suddenly, there was no time for canonical penance, only for God’s goodness and mercy:
I wished to show in the play especially how one who, after crimes and wicked deeds, has been overtaken or pre-empted by a sudden death, when he has come to his last moments and there is no opportunity or time left for canonical penance, should be treated so that he may not perish, broken by faintheartedness and despair.
Volui siquidem precipue in fabula ostendere, quo pacto post scelera postque flagitia subitanea morte occupatus seu praeuentus quispiam, cum ad extrema peruenerit nec canonicae paenitentiae locus uel tempus reliquum sit, ne pusillanimitate & desperation fractus pereat, tractandus sit.
Macropedius, Hecastus (1552), sig. bijr–v
He added similar remarks to the prologue, although did not actually make any significant theological changes to the play itself:
Figure 5.6
Georgius Macropedius, Hecastus, Antwerp, Michael Hillenius, 1539, title page
Nevertheless, you will see how (when the time for the works or fruits of penance was denied by the imminence of death), after the previous confession of sins, after the tears and the repentance of the heart, just as the pious thief hanging on the cross returned to the grace of God the Father—most grievously offended—by faith alone in Christ, and was carried by angels who rejoice over the penitent [Lk 15, 10], to eternal joys.
Macropedius, Hecastus (1552), Prologue, b4v–b[5]rVidebitis nihilominus quemadmodum(Cum paenitentiae operibus seu fructibusEssent negata nece imminente tempora)Post criminum confessionem praeuiamPost lachrimas cordique paenitudinem,Non aliter ac pius latro in cruce pensilisPer unicam in Christum fidem Deo patriGrauissime offense redijt in gratiam,Et ab angelis de penitente ouantibus,Subuectus est ad sempiterna gaudia.
In this way, Macropedius attempted to defend and remedy his originally open-minded Everyman play and change it into a more orthodox Roman Catholic comedy, without losing much of its original vigour. Times had changed towards more orthodoxy, certainly also in Utrecht, still the archiepiscopal city of the northern Netherlands. However, it was the original, open version that had the greatest impact.73
5 Jaspar von Gennep, Der sunden loin ist der Toid (1540)
As this second overview shows, the German play Der sunden loin (1539), or Homulus (1548), also mentioned in the first overview, can be considered a ‘spider in the web’ of several plays. The Cologne printer, playwright, and defender of the Roman Catholic Church Jaspar von Gennep (c. 1500–1564)—especially known for his printed religious works—not only printed the original Latin Homulus three times, in 1536, 1537, and 1539, but also translated it into German and published it three times as Der sunden loin ist der Toid (The Wages of Sin is Death, 1540), and Homulus (1548 and 1554). Here an angel injects Everyman with a ‘pestilenz’ (plague) that causes the protagonist to be spiritually reborn. As the full title of the 1540 edition suggests, Gennep added characters and lines (the play is 2104 lines long): Der sunden loin ist der Toid. Rom. vj. Comedia Homuli, gemehrt vnd gebessert mit personen vnd sprüchen. Dairin angezeigt wirt was loins die sündt gibt, nemlich den Toid, vnd wie den menschen dann all creature verlaissen, Alleyn syn Duigt stat ym dan by. Gar nützlich vnd lieblich zu lesen (The Wages of Sin is Death, Rom. 6 [6, 23]. The Comedy of Homulus, Expanded and Improved with Characters and Aphorisms. In It is Shown What Wages Sin Gives, viz. Death, and How When All Creatures Abandon a Person, Only his Virtue Helps Him. Very Useful and Pleasant to Read). Gennep printed revised versions in 1548 and 1554.74 The German play has no divisions into acts or scenes; Gennep combined Ischyrius’s plot with other plays: the Dutch original, Elckerlijc (which he could read in the original Dutch, which was close to the Lower Rhenish dialect of Gennep’s Cologne), Macropedius’s Latin Hecastus, Ein Christenlich Teutsch Spil wie ein Sünder zur Buß bekärt wirdt (A Christian German Play, How a Sinner is Converted to Penance; 1539) by the Protestant theologian, teacher, and playwright Leonhard Culmann (1497/8–1562), from whose play (Act IV) Gennep was inspired to include the scene with Everyman’s trial and condemnation by Moses (ll. 1218–1297), and Pamphilus Gengenbach’s Spil von den zehen altern (Play of the Ten Ages of Man; 1515).75
Gennep himself tells the reader the reasons for translating and adding to the play:
Dear benevolent reader, some years ago I came across a beautiful Latin comedy called ‘Homulus’ by Peter van Diest. After reading through it and realising that it reflected, as in a mirror,76 the life and death of human beings, I translated it from Latin into German to the best of my ability. I printed it and performed it in public last year with the kind support of my esteemed gentlemen of the Council. However, when I found that it was well received by the audience, I decided to add some content that would harmonise with this comedy and give the play a nicer plot than it had before. The main content that I added to the play regarded the question of what the wages of sin are, which is death. That is why I gave the play the title: “The Wages of Sin is Death” [Rom. 6, 23].
Figure 5.8
Jaspar von Gennep, Der sunden loin ist der Toid (1540), title page
Günstiger lieber Leser, myr ist vor kürtzen jaren zu händen komen eyn schön Latynsche Comedy, genant Homulus Petri Diesthemii, vnd nach dem ich die ouerlesen hab, vnd angemirckt das darinn wie in eym Spiegel das leben vnd sterben der Mynschen gesehen wirdt, hab ich nach mynem vermögen die selbig auß dem Latyn in Teutsche sprach ouergesat, die selbig Getrückt, vnd mit günst myner G. Hern vam Radt offentlich das vergangen jair gespielt. So ich aber gemerckt vnd gesehen hab das dem Volck daran geuallen hatt, hab ich myr fürgenommen etzliche matery darin zu trecken, die in sich selbst mit disser Comedien stimpt vnd ouereyn kumpt, vnd dem Spyl eynn schönern Proceß gibt dan das vorige gehabt hatt. Die weil aber die principail matery dair ich diß Spyl mit gemehret hab ist was loins die Sünd gibt, nemlich den Toid. Hab ich dissem Spyl auch den namen geben, Der Sünd loin ist der Toid.
Gennep, Der sunden loin ist der Toid (1540), verso of title page
He also acknowledges to have added some other material:
Since I noticed and saw that the people enjoyed it, I decided to add some material to it that would fit in and correspond to this comedy, and give the play a finer narrative flow than it had before.
So ich aber gemerkct vnd gesehen hab das dem Volck daran geuallen hatt/ hab ich myr fürgenommen etzliche matery darin zu trecken/ die in sich selbst mit disser Comedien stimpt vnd ouereyn kumpt/ vnd dem Spyl eynn schönern Proceß gibt dan das vorige gehabt hatt.
Gennep, Der sunden loin ist der Toid (1540), verso of title page
Gennep’s version transposes the action to the sphere of the Rhineland merchants, strengthens the protagonist through virtue and confession and, as in Ischyrius’s Latin play, makes him find grace through the intercession of the Virgin Mary.77 The printer defends orthodox Catholicism against Lutheranism, although not in an overtly polemical way. For example, the prologue (‘Vorred’) states that:
Where penance is not done, there will be great punishment, for God’s wrath is not minor. The world is now so deeply blinded that no one recognises his own vices. For the whole world lives in disobedience, day and night, revelling in carnal desires.
wo nit wird Penitentz gethon,wirdt große straff vorhanden seyn/Dan Gottes zorn der ist nit kleyn.Die welt ist yetz so hart verblent/Das niemant syn eigen laster kant.Dan die gantz welt in Ungehorsam lebt/Tag vnd nacht in fleyschlichen lüsten swebt.Gennep, Der sunden loin ist der Toid (1540), ll. 78–82
In the 1548 and 1554 editions, Gennep added a passage in which he applied a phrase from St Paul (1 Tim 4, 1) to the contemporary situation of—we may think—three religions: Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Humanist:
There are three kinds of faith in one house: oh God, what will become of it! St Paul said it long ago: when the last day draws near, many will turn away from Christ and will engage in devilish doctrines.
Dreyerlei glaub ist in eim hauß:/Ach Got was wil noch werden draußS. Paulus hats lang zu vor gesachtWann sich nähet der jüngste tagDan werden vil von Christo weichen/Vnd Teuflischen lehren sich vergleichen.Gennep, Homulus (1548; 1554), ll. 35–40
In the 1540 edition he had added a line against the ‘new pastor’ (‘newen pastoir’), in whom Luther could be seen.78 Without mentioning the reformer by name, he criticised him more directly for his alleged alcoholism and his departure from the Augustinian order:
He was a man of a religious order, he has taken off the monk’s hood, now he is his own abbot and master, now he can satisfy the desires of his flesh. His life is so hard and lavish, that he is seldom found sober.
Er is gewesen eyn ordens Man/Die kap die hat er auß gethan/Ist yetz syn eygen Apt vnd herr/Nu mach er volnbringen syns fleyschs beger.Syn leben ist so streng vnd swyndt/Das man yn selten nuchteren findt.Gennep, Der sunden loin ist der Toid (1540), sig. Bii
However, this anti-Lutheranism—which is more pronounced in the 1548 and 1554 editions—is not the only focus of the play, despite the title ‘Der sunden loin ist der Toid’, which may refer to the ‘sin’ of Luther’s ‘heresy’.79 In the play, Gennep added Homulus’s boasting about his wealth and the appearance of his wife from Macropedius’s Hecastus, and a scene with a ‘Waldbruder’ (Forest Brother) from Culmann’s play Ein Christenlich Teutsch Spil wie ein Sünder zur Buß bekärt wirdt and Gengenbach’s Shrovetide comedy.80 Only after several scenes borrowed from and inspired by these three plays did he translate Ischyrius’s Homulus, for which he also used Macropedius’s adaptation and the original Elckerlijc.81 Unlike in the other plays, the protagonist has plenty of time for remorse and penance but does not do the canonical penance.82 At first it is an Angel (der Engel) who stabs Homulus to warn him (Gennep, 1540; sig. B), but then it is Death himself, who says:
I want to tell you, that you will not have no delay, God wants to receive a reckoning from you, the day is gone, the night is near, you must go home, whether it is good or bad for you.
Ich wil dyrs sagen/ hab keyn verlangen/Got wil rechnung von dyr entfangen.Der tag ist vergangen/ der abent ist hie/Du moist gan heym dyr sey wol oder wee.Gennep, Der sünden loin ist der Toid (1540) sig. Biii
In the 1548 and 1554 editions, Gennep included a Latin song about wealth and poverty, which he borrowed from Johannes Reuchlin’s Scaenica progymnasmata / Henno (1497):
(The joy of mortals is fleeting and uncertain, it moves like a whirlwind, driven by unremitting snow, why then do you trust in glory? He who is rich fears ignoble poverty,] he always fears the fickle wheel of fortune, and lives an almost uncertain life. He who is poor, has nothing to fear, nothing to lose, but he sits down with joy and hope, for he hopes to get something and learns to worship God virtuously.)
(Mortalium iucunditas uolucris et pendulaMouetur instar turbinis quem nix agit sedula.Quid ergo confiditis in gloria?Qui diues est penuriam formidat ignobilem,Instabilis fati rotam semper timet mobilemDegitque uitam prope fallibilem.Qui pauper est nihil timet, nil potest perdere,Sed spe bona laetus sedet, nam sperat acquirereDiscitque uirtute Deum colere.)Gennep, Homulus (1548), sig. Iv; (1554), sig. Hijv)83
In the 1554 edition, Gennep had this chorus followed by a list of famous people from classical antiquity, all of whom had died: the Greek philosophers Plato and Porphyry, the Roman authors Cicero and Virgil, the Greek philosophers Empedocles and Aristotle, King Alexander the Great and the Trojan hero Hector, and from the Old Testament: Judge Sampson, King David, and his son Absalon (Gennep, Homulus (1554), ll. 1950–1965).
The play was performed at least twice in Cologne. The first performance took place in 1539, according to the preface of the 1540 edition, in which he also alludes to the mirror in the title of the Dutch original Elckerlijc and Macropedius’s Hecastus.84 Another performance is attested on 23 August 1604 by ‘etliche Comoedianten’ (several (English) comedians), who were allowed, ‘to use drumbeats’ (‘darbey den trommelschlag zo gebrauchen’).85 In this way he brought the theme to northern Germany, although it was still within the Dutch sphere of influence. Cologne was the city where many Dutch boys studied, and where many plays from the Low Countries were printed.
Gennep shows himself to be a defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy and in the 1548 and 1554 editions he even makes the play more ‘Catholic’, even ‘anti-Reformatory’. The new preface (‘To the Christian and kind-hearted reader Jaspar von Gennep wishes grace and peace from our Saviour Jesus Christ’; ‘Dem Christlichen vnd Güthertzligen Leser/ Wünscht Jaspar Gennepeus gnad vnd frid von vnserm Heyland Jesu Christo’) also testifies to this intensification of the Roman Catholic character. This may well have had to do with the religious situation in Cologne. There, Archbishop Hermann von Wied (1477–1552) first attempted to reform the Catholic Church (from 1536 onwards), then openly broke with Rome (in 1542) and finally renounced the archbishopric in 1547 and was excommunicated by the papal court.86 In these changing circumstances, the Roman Catholic Gennep made his play more Catholic as a counterweight to the developments in his city and to underscore his orthodoxy. The transnational reception and the treatment of Homulus was thus clearly influenced by local history.
The printer and playwright Peter Jordan, who lived for some time in Mainz87 and later in Cologne, acknowledges his debt to Gennep’s printing of the Everyman play in his Comedia Josephs, which he had performed in 1540 and which was printed in the same year by the same Jaspar von Gennep.88 For in the preface he writes:
Then, having observed last year the great diligence and earnestness with which the people received the tragedy of Homulus, which was written and publicly performed by the honourable and wise printer Jaspar von Gennep, I thought it would not be unprofitable for the common good and the Christian religion if once or twice each year such spiritual comedies or tragedies from the Holy Scriptures were performed.
Dann die weyl ich im vergangnen iar den grossen fleyss vnd ernst des volcks/ so sie zu der Tragedien HomuIi hatten/ welche der Ersam vnnd vorsichtig Jaspar von Gennep büchtrücker angericht/ vnd offentlich gespielt hatt/ gemerckt vnnd gespurt/ hab ich gedacht es solte gemeynem nutz vnnd Christlicher religion nit vnfruchtbarlich erschiessen/ wen man alle iar ein mal oder zwey/ solche geystliche Commedien oder tragedien auss der heyligen schrifft anrichtet/
[Jordan], Comoedia Josephs, sig. Aiiv–Aiii
Gennep’s Homulus had a remarkable afterlife in the Low Countries. The 1554 version was translated into Dutch twice: a more pointedly Catholic version in 1556 (printed in Nijmegen) with the title: Van Homulus een schoene Comedie, daer in begrepen wort hoe in der tijt des doots der menschen alle geschapen dinghen verlaten dan alleene die duecht/ die vlijft by hem/ vermeerdert ende ghebetert/ ende is seer schoon ende ghenuechlijck om lesen (A Beautiful comedy of Homulus, in Which is Depicted How, at the Time of a Person’s Death, All Created Things Abandon Them Except for Virtue, Which Remains with Them, Increased and Improved and is Very Beautiful and Enjoyable to Read), and a decidedly Protestant adaptation in 1608 (printed in Utrecht) as Een comedia ofte spel van Homulus, daer in betoont werdt, wat loon dat de sonde geeft, namelijck de Dood, ende hoe den Mensch van alle creatueren verlaten wordt, alleen sijne deucht staet hem daer by. Seer ghenoechelijck ende kortswyligh voor allen Menschen, ende seer nuttelijck om te weten. Der sonden loon is de doot. Rom. 5 (A Comedy or Play of Homulus, in Which it is Stressed What Wages Sin Gives, viz. Death, and How Man is Abandoned by All Creatures, Only His Virtue Helps Him. Very Pleasant and Entertaining for All People, and Very Useful to Know. The Wages of Sin is Death, Romans 5 [= 6, 23]).89 In the latter version, the role of the Virgin Mary was deleted, and Virtue (in the sense of good works) has been replaced by Faith.90 This latter edition was reprinted several times in Amsterdam by different printers.91 Why the Utrecht translation was so popular in Amsterdam until well into the seventeenth century cannot be determined. We can say, however, that it is likely that the editions were intended to be read rather than to be performed.
6 Hans Sachs, Ein comedi von dem reichen sterbenden menschen, der Hecastus genannt (1549)
Hans Sachs made a German translation of Hecastus in 1549, reducing Macropedius’s 1831 lines to 1284 lines. His German play was entitled Ein comedi von dem reichen sterbenden menschen, der Hecastus genannt, hat neunzehen personen und 5 actus zu spielen (A Comedy of the Rich Dying Man, Called Hecastus, with Nineteen Characters and Five Acts) and dated 6 September 1549.92 There was no separate edition, but the play was included in his Sehr herrliche schöne und wahrhaffte Gedicht geistlich und weltlich allerlei Art, vol. 2 of 1560.93 He shortened some of the long speeches or had them interrupted by another character and omitted the chorus songs, as he did not need to have as many pupils as possible perform the play and wanted to adapt it to his audience, who were accustomed to more fast-paced plays. He also did away with much of the (classical, biblical and patristic) learning in Macropedius’s Hecastus such as the reading of Hippocrates and the appeal to Sallust, Livy, and Caesar, which would have been ‘ballast’ for a less educated audience.94 For example, he replaced Macropedius’s ‘Proh Jupiter’ (Hecastus (1539) IV.2, l. 1013) with ‘Ach Gott’ (Comedi, l. 770, fol. XXXIIIIr).95 He also minimised the universality of the play. When Macropedius’s Prologus proclaims: ‘Let every one of you realise that he may become like [Hecastus]’ (‘talemque se | tandem futurum quisque vestrum cogitet’, Hecastus (1539), Prologue, ll. 17–18), Sachs has his ‘Ehrnhold’ (‘Herald’) merely recount the content without explaining the universal validity of the plot of the play.96 He also emphasises Hecastus’s wealth even more than Macropedius by beginning his title with it: ‘A Comedy of the Rich Man Who Dies …’ Both protagonists gradually accept their inevitable fate and ultimately want to die. When asked by Death ‘Do you wish to die?’ (‘wilt du geren sterben?’), Sachs’s Rich Man answers ‘Yes, yes!’ (‘Ja, ja’, Comedi, l. 1163r, fol. XLII), just as Macropedius’s Hecastus replies: ‘Now I am glad to die’ (‘Sed gaudeo nunc emori’, Hecastus (1539), l. 1695). In Sachs’s play, Faith says: ‘For you, Death will be a sleep; for the unbeliever he is a punishment’ (‘Der Todt wirdt dir nur sein ein Schlaff / Dem unglaubing ist er ein straff’, Comedi, ll. 1071–1072; Act V, fol. XLI). Sachs has retained Macropedius’s novel view of death as cruel and the enemy of God:
Now is the time for me to definitely shoot my arrow at Hecastus. Open, open your window, so that I may shoot my arrow in! I will spare no one, young or old … I want to put fear into him. I want to take Satan with me, so that I can shame him too.
Jetzt ist die zeit, das ich gewißMein Pfeyl in den Hecastum schisThu auff/ thu auff das Fenster deinAuff das ich schieß mein Pfeil hineinIch verschon weder jung noch alt.…Ich wil im wol ein forcht einsteckenIch wil den Sathan zu mir nemen,Ob ich in auch mit möcht Beschemen.Sachs, Hecastus, V, ll. 1117–1121; 1136–1138; fol. XLIv
He has also retained Macropedius’s emphasis on faith, as is evident from the questions of the priest (Hieronymus in Macropedius’s play; ‘Der Priester’ in Sachs’s):
Do you believe all that the only Son of God has done, He did to save you? That He was born for you, lived for you and died for you, was buried for you, rose for you, and conquered death for you?
Credis, quod omnia quae patravit filiusDei unicus, tibi redimendo gesserit?Tibi natus est, tibi vixerit, tibi mortuusSit, tibi sepultus et tibi surrexeritMortemque tibi devicerit?Macropedius, Hecastus (1539), V.4, ll. 1377–1381
The priest in Sachs’s play asks the rich man:
Do you believe that Christ was born on earth, became man for your sakes, and that he also died for your sakes, gained grace for you from the Father and rose from death, so that you might be reconciled to God and live with Him there [in heaven] forever?97
Gelaubstu Christum sey gebornAuff Erd dir zu gut Mensche wornUnd dir zu gut auch sey gestorbenDir bey dem Vatter huld erworbenUnd aufferstanden von dem Todt,Das du versönet seyst mit Gott,Dort ewigklich mit im zu leben.Sachs, Hecastus 965–971; fol. XL
It has been debated whether Sachs’s knowledge of Latin was sufficient to undertake such a translation or adaptation without help, for instance from Rappolt.98 Whatever the case, Sachs’s work resulted in this translation or adaptation. Parker assesses Macropedius as ‘in no way a propagandist writer’, but his play as ‘a Catholic play.’99 The latter is only partly true, since Hecastus is so close to Lutheran theology that Hans Sachs was able to transform it into a play oriented towards the Lutheran theology of justification by faith without major changes.100 The play had some success: Not only was it staged in Nuremberg by Sachs himself, but there is also evidence of performances in Schmalkalden in 1595 and in Dresden in 1645.101
The Hecastus by the Nuremberg schoolmaster Laurentius Rappolt (Ein schön christlich spiel, Hecastus genannt, aus welchem ein jeder mensch, wol und gründlich als in einem Spiegel, ersehen und erlernen kann wie diejenigen, so ire sünd warhafftig und von herzen erkennen, und bekennen, rew und leidt darüber haben, durch Christum das ewig leben ererben. Durch etliche Knaben zu Nürenberg gehalten. Deutsch im 1549. Lateinisch im 1550. / A Beautiful Christian Play Called Hecastus, by Which Every Man May See and Learn Well and Thoroughly, as in a Mirror, How Those Who Truly and Heartily Recognise and Confess Their Sins and Repent and Mourn over Them, Inherit Eternal Life through Christ. Staged by Several Boys in Nuremberg, in German in 1549 and in Latin in 1550) was printed in Nuremberg in 1552 by the Lutheran printer and publisher Hans Daubmann.102 Rappolt dedicated the printed play, in which he included a list of all the actors, to the Imperial Magistrate (‘Schultheiß’) Hans Haug von Parsberg und Lippurg. It is similar to the translation by Hans Sachs, although there are differences. For instance, in Sachs’s version it is an Angel (and Death) who announces death; in Rappolt’s translation this role is for Nomodidascalus, a character in Macropedius’s Hecastus. But the many similarities with Sachs’s play raise the question of which version is the earliest and how the similarities came about. Goedeke suggests that Rappolt’s prose translation was versified by Sachs and sent to Rappolt, who sent it to the dedicatee, who then had it printed.103 Goetze thinks that Rappolt helped Sachs with the translation, while Sachs set the words to rhyming verse, but Holstein points out that Sachs knew Latin well.104 As far as we know, neither Sachs nor Rappolt accused the other of plagiarism.
7 Other Translations and Adaptations of Hecastus
There are several other translations and adaptations of Macropedius’s Hecastus in German literature. A full discussion of these would go beyond the scope of this chapter. They will therefore only be mentioned. The German theologian and Protestant reformer Cyriacus Spangenberg (1528–1604) published his translation of Hecastus in Leipzig in 1564.105 Years later, the Lutheran vicar Heinrich Peter Rebenstock translated Macropedius’s play as Hekastus, ein geistlich Spiel vom Ampt und Beruf eines jeden Menschen (Hecastus, a Spiritual Play of the Office and Summoning of Every Man; Frankfurt 1568).106 His translation is said to be quite close to the original but no copy is known.
The schoolmaster Johannes Schreckenberger in Weissenburg am Rhein performed his verse adaptation of Macropedius’s Hecastus (not from the original but from a German translation) with his fellow citizens on 25 September 1588. He himself played the role of Nomodidascalus; he had the play published in 1589 by Antoine Bertram in Strasbourg.107
The jurist, historian, cartographer, and prolific writer Abraham Saur, Sauer or Saurius (1545–1593), from Frankenberg, published his translation of Hecastus as Comoedia germanica Hecastos seu Homulus in Marburg in 1591.108 He lived in the Protestant areas of Germany.
In 1632, the Salzburg Benedictine schoolmaster Thomas Weiss combined the Everyman theme with that of the Prodigal Son in his Anastatius fortunae pila, terrae piaculum, orci monstrum (Anastasius, a Plaything of Fortune, an Atonement Sacrifice of the World, a Monster of Hell), as it is called in the periocha, the program.109 In the surviving manuscript (the play was probably never printed), it is entitled Anastasius Salisburgensis (Anastasius from Salzburg). The dramatis personae lists over 80 characters and a Chorus musicorum. Weiss is the only Roman Catholic author in this list, but the Benedictines in Salzburg were quite liberal.
8 Johannes Stricker, De Düdesche Schlömer (1584)
For his play De Düdesche Schlömer (The German Rascal, 1584) written in Middle Low German, the German playwright and Lutheran pastor Johann Stricker or Johannes Stricerius (c. 1540–1598) used Gennep’s German translation of Homulus and Macropedius’s Latin Hecastus. The full title is: De Düdesche Schlömer. Dat ys, Ein Geistlick Spil, darinne affgemalet, gewarnet, vnd tho warer Bothe vormanet werden alle Gades vorgetene, wilde, rökelose vnde sekere Minschen, vp dat se mit dissem Schlömer bekeret, vnd Salich werden möchten (The German Glutton, that is a Sacred Drama, in Which All People who Have Forgotten God and Are Wild, Reckless, and Secure, Are Depicted, Warned, and Exhorted to the True Gospel, that They May Be Converted with this Glutton and Be Saved).110 Stricker dedicated it to the Lutheran bishop Eberhard von Hölle. Printed in Lübeck in 1584, the became one of the most famous plays in Middle Low German.111 It was translated into High German (Magdeburg, 1588) and reprinted twice in its original language but reworked by the Protestant theologian Christoph Pelargus (1565–1633), in Frankfurt an der Oder by Nikolaus Voltz, both times in 1593.112 The play shows the serious moral preacher of repentance that Stricker was.
Figure 5.9
Johann Stricker, De Düdesche Schlömer, Lübeck, Balhorn, 1584, title page
Staatsbibliothek Berlin (Public Domain)
The play—essentially an extension of the Gennep’s translation of Homulus—tells the story of a Holstein squire who lives the extravagant life of a glutton and is a swindler who has appropriated the property of the Church. He ignores the advice of his wife and the pastor (who is modelled on a Protestant minister) as well as the warnings of an angel. When an angel appears as a herald of Death to summon him, he realises that he has been blinded by wealth and lust. The Devil and Sin personified become his accusers, and Moses condemns him to eternal damnation in the eternal fire of hell, as Leonhard Culmann presented it in his play Ein Christenlich Teutsch Spil wie ein Sünder zur Buß bekärt wirdt, and as adopted by Gennep.113 At the last minute he confesses to the priest, who grants him absolution by the command and power of God so that he can die in peace.114
The first two scenes are imitations of Macropedius’s Hecastus, as the Schlömer boasts of his wealth and lifestyle, although, unlike Hecastus, the Rascal is a nobleman, who has taken property from the Church: ‘the goods of the clergy belong to us, we have taken them all’ (‘Vns hörn de Geistliken Güder tho | Wy hebben se all ingenamen’, Stricker, De Düdesche Schlömer (1584), sig. Bvr, I.1, ll. 350–351), and as a patron of the Church with some benefices, he abuses them (De Düdesche Schlömer (1584), sig. Bvv; I.1, ll. 379–396).115 This abuse is a new element in the Everyman dramas. Another new, Lutheran element is the reference to ‘complacency’ (‘sekerheit’) as the greatest sin, in a dialogue between the Schlömer and his thrifty wife, where she says: ‘My dear husband, complacency will condemn us for eternity’ (‘Myn Herten Man, de sekerheit | Vordömet vns in eeuwicheit’, De Düdesche Schlömer (1584), sig. Cv; I.2, ll. 605–606).116 Stricker is the first author of an Everyman play to include a ‘Narre’ (‘fool’, ‘jester’) in his dramatis personae in order to provoke laughter. But it is actually an extension of Jaspar von Gennep’s Homulus. As in Gennep’s play, the Rascal’s drinking sessions with his friends (scenes I, 3; I, 5 and I, 6) are interrupted, in this case by a dignified typically Protestant preacher (‘Prediger’). In Act IV.2, as in Gennep’s translation, it is Moses who condemns the protagonist. Stricker addresses the audience directly: ‘I warn you, Spectators, do not turn to these fools, the Rascal and his company!’ (‘Ivw vormän ick, Spectatoren, | Kert juw nicht an disse Doren, | Den Schlömer vnd de Gselschap syn!’, De Düdesche Schlömer (1584), sig. Ev[2]v; II.2, ll. 1781–1783).117
In De Düdesche Schlömer Stricker transforms the universally applicable description of a sinner who converts in the face of mortal danger from Elckerlijc and Hecastus into a moral portrait of the Holstein nobility of his time; the protagonist becomes an individually drawn nobleman who, ignoring the warnings of the priests, wants to live a life of feasting, going to prostitutes and fighting day and night, shamelessly enriching himself with monastic and church property. He is accompanied by an adulteress but also has a frugal housewife—like Epicuria in Macropedius’s Hecastus—and is warned to repent by a preacher.118
Stricker obviously wanted to give his pupils’ audience a good moral lesson: they should not think that the licentious scenes were exemplary. The homiletic element is therefore very important in this play as are the many biblical references. In his version, Stricker sets the action of the play in a particular place and time in order to criticise specific abuses.
9 Thomas Naogeorgus, Mercator (1540)
Although he did not write a true adaptation, the Protestant theologian, preacher, and poet Thomas Naogeorgus or Thomas Kirchmeyer (1508–1563) based his Latin play Mercator (written 1539, printed 1540) mostly on Ischyrius’s Homulus, but also on Macropedius’s Hecastus.119 This creates a chronological riddle: the preface of Hecastus is dated 31 March 1539, that of Mercator 31 May of the same year.120 However, Hecastus had been performed the year before and may have circulated in manuscript, and Mercator does indeed have elements that could have been borrowed from Hecastus, although the Naogeorgian play is a loosely adapted version of the Everyman theme.
The full title of this long play (3204 lines) is: Tragoedia [alia] nova Mercator sev Ivdicivm, in qua in conspectum ponuntur Apostolica et Papistica doctrina, quantum utraque in conscientiae certamine ualeat et efficiat, et quis utriusque futurus sit exitus ([Another] New Tragedy: The Merchant or Trial in Which is Shown How Much Power and Influence Apostolic and Papist Doctrines Each Have in the Struggle for Conscience, and What Might Be the Outcome for Each of Them).121 The title already indicates the polemical nature of the play in its opposition of the Protestant (Apostolic) Reformation and the Roman Catholic (indicated with the pejorative term Papist) Church. The play is so to speak a satirical dramatization of the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification defending the Lutheran dogma on this point.122 The protagonist has changed from (almost) ‘every [young] man’ (Elckerlijc) via ‘a rich young man’ (Macropedius’s Hecastus) to a rich merchant of mature age, whose wife or friends are not mentioned, unlike Macropedius’s play. The Prologue gives the plot of the play:
When a new (as they say) story is most pleasant, you, Spectators, must direct your eager attention to this one: we bring you this new tragedy and if you like, I will now tell the story in a few words. By order of Christ the Judge four men were brought to trial by Lyochares whom we have invented as the herald of death. One of them was called the Merchant, for it was fitting that he should be called by that particular name. Disturbed by the unexpected summons, he was taught by a priest the papist doctrine that he would fly to heaven free from sin. But this doctrine is contradicted (I don’t know how) by the Merchant’s conscience. He always speaks of sins, always of (God’s) wrath, by which he is driven to anguish of heart. But above all, when he saw Satan’s book, and all his sins written exactly in it, and that all the priest’s efforts against Satan were mocked, he was not far from complete despair.
Naogeorgus, Mercator, Prologus, ll. 1–20Si nova (quod aiunt) est contio gratissima,Huc avidum spectatores animum ad vortite,Novam adportamus et hanc vobis Tragoediam,Si placet igitur argumentum vobis modoExponam paucis. Iussu Christi iudicisHomines ad iudicium citavit quattuorLyochares, nuntium quem mortis finximus,Inter eos vero et Mercator citatus est,Quem sic proprio placet appellari nomine.Is excitatione insperata anxius,A parocho doctrina imbuitur Papistica,Ut a peccatis liber in caelum volet.At doctrinae illi contradicit (nescioQuo fato) mercatoris conscientia.Peccata semper, semper et iram praedicat,Unde ille in cordis detruditur angustiam:Praesertim tamen ut Satanae vidit codicem, etPeccata sua in illo exacte scripta omnia, etAdversus Satanam omnem ludi parochi operam,Paulum aberat quin suum desponderet animum.
The physician Lyochares (‘Dissolver of Joy’)—a ‘messenger of Death’123—stands at the Merchant’s door and meets Conscientia, his Conscience, who is in despair because she is not allowed to enter.124 Her husband, Mercator, is now with the prostitute Sors (Money). Lyochares enters and tells the Merchant that he must die and that he will administer a lethal poison to him. At the end of the first act, the Chorus reflects on the universality of death, stressing that all people have to die, and will have to face the ultimate judgement:
Alas, the harsh judgment of the Judge awaits those in whom no love reigns and whom no fear leads away from the world’s temptations, from the lost flock, and from impious deeds. Sooner or later, death will come for us all, when perhaps neither full reason nor firm resolve will face the Judge’s light. Blessed is he who keeps watch.
Naogeorgus, Mercator (1540), sig. B5[2]vDurum heu iudicium Iudicis in quibusNullus regnat amor, nec metus avocatA mundi illecebris et grege perdito,Et factis procul impiis.Mors nobis aderit serius ocyusCunctis, quum ratio forte nec integra,Nec constans adeat lumina Iudicis.Felix qui excubias agit.
Mercator sends for the priest Parochus, who instructs him in the Roman Catholic doctrine and offers him ‘good works’. In the third act, Christ Himself sends down from heaven St Paul and the physician Cosmas, who persuade the Merchant to do good works and make offerings, and to believe in God’s mercy and the crucifixion of Christ. This is the first time in the Everyman tradition that a force external to the protagonist initiates salvation.125 The last two acts deal with Mercator’s appearance before Christ’s tribunal. He is admitted with Conscientia, is saved by God’s grace, while those who accompany him, a prince, a Roman Catholic bishop and a Franciscan friar, are excluded.
The title, the Prologue and the summary all show that this is a very anti-Catholic play. Naogeorgus expresses two important issues of Lutheran theology: the elimination of the Catholic concept of the Church, rooted in the primacy of the pope, and the abolition of the sacrament of penance, which he replaces with the new concept of justification by faith of man in Christ.126 There is also a long purgation scene (III.4; ll. 1705–2074), which ‘illustrates step by step Luther’s doctrine of justification as expressed in his commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians’ (1531 and supplemented in 1535).127
It is also the first time in Everyman plays that contemporary rulers are severely attacked, in this case rulers who actively opposed Protestantism. The Episcopus (Bishop) who appears in the play probably refers to Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, since it is mentioned in the play that he had to pay 30,000 guilders to the papal curia to obtain his see (‘Empto bis quindecim aureorum milibus | In pallio spes est’, Mercator IV.2, ll. 2209–2210), and the Princeps (Prince) is most likely the Roman Catholic Henry, Duke of Brunswick.128 Thus, Naogeorgus connected the theological discussion of the Protestant idea of justification by faith versus the Catholic conviction of justification by good works and the sacraments of the Church to issues of local history.
The play was very popular, and translated into Dutch by Frans Leerse of Aerschot as Een seer schoon Comedie oft Spel vanden bekeerden Coopman (1583),129 and into German by Jacob Rulich, Der Kauffmann oder das Gericht (1593).130 It was also translated into Low German, Polish, French, Czech, and Frisian.131 The Dutch scholar, theologian and philosopher Dirck Volckerstz. Coornhert (1522–1590) may have written his Comedie van de Rijckeman (1582, but written c. 1550) as a response to Naogeorgus’s Mercator.132 A discussion of all these translations and adaptations is beyond the scope of this chapter.
10 Concluding Remarks
Why did Everyman have so many lives for such a long period of time? These investigations reveal some of the mechanisms at work in the circulation of plays: the fact that printers knew each other, or liked to import literary works and print them; that there were contacts at book markets, or that printers translated plays after printing the original; and that there were schoolmasters and playwrights in need of suitable subjects. These could be called the infrastructure for the circulation of the theme.
However, there were also more fundamental reasons. Theatre itself was a popular means of bringing audiences to spiritual transformation through word, image, and action, in the same way as devotional literature did, and Everyman plays were of a devotional kind.133 Latin dramatists were able to adapt the theme for didactic purposes to teach Latin or to provide their students and fellow citizens with moral edification in an entertaining and memorable way. The theme was popular and remained so for two centuries, because it addressed a fundamental question: How should people live in the face of eternal death or eternal salvation? The answer had divided ‘Europe’s house’ since 1517,134 when Luther published his 95 theses, and developed his own ideas of justification by faith in Christ alone. The religious attitudes of printers and playwrights influenced the circulation and the treatment of the theme. The reception of the Dutch Elckerlijc across north-western Europe happened mainly through two Latin adaptations. Both Ischyrius’s Homulus and the Hecastus of Macropedius were well known in the German lands, but the circulation of the first play was limited to Roman Catholic areas. The change in the economy and the emphasis on Christian morality seems to have been confined to the north-western part of Europe, which may explain why the play was not popular or perhaps even unknown in Italy, Spain and France, to name but a few countries. In any case, the subject matter allowed for fundamental literary and religious-theological adaptations. Each playwright brought something new: Ischyrius introduced the structure and style of Roman comedy and classical learning. Macropedius, in addition to these features of Roman comedy and classical learning, applied more lively devices to enliven the play. Stricker introduced a jester. Other things that changed over time are the role of Death—from God’s servant and messenger to his adversary, and from announcing his presence himself to being announced by a messenger; the transfer of the theme from all people with some money to rich merchants in the Low Countries, the German lands, and a Holstein rascal (Stricker) and an adult merchant (Naogeorg). Thus, the Everyman theme could have many different lives, from more Roman Catholic to more open-minded Christian to outright Protestant and anti-Catholic lives, from a universally applicable angle to criticism of specific groups. The vigour of Macropedius’s version also contributed greatly to the popularity of the theme in early modern drama. However, it was and remained a ‘closed’ tradition within the Everyman theme without many connections with plays outside this ‘web’.135 The reasons for that closeness can only be guessed at. Perhaps the plays were too closely associated with allegorical characters or with the actual Everyman theme of consolation in the hour of death, which made them less applicable to other themes. After all, the reception of Naogeorgus’s Mercator—the ‘freest’ adaptation, so to speak—was somewhat more ‘open’. A remarkable reception occurred in late seventeenth-century Amsterdam, where an early seventeenth-century translation of Gennep’s translation of Ischyrius’s Homulus was printed several times. This may be related to the ‘embarrassment of riches’, but this remains speculative.136
In conclusion, we can say that for transnational literary circulation there must be an infrastructure of printers and booksellers, of playwrights working in or for institutions such as schools and theatres, but the subjects must also be attractive and adaptable to new circumstances. For transnational transfer, there must be a resonance in subject, form or content.
Table 5.1
Schematic representation of some features of Everyman plays discussed in this chapter
|
Date |
Title |
Language |
Herald of Death |
Protagonist |
Means of salvation |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Virtue |
Contrition |
Good deeds |
Virgin Mary |
Faith |
Penance |
Priest |
|||||
|
c. 1475 |
Elckerlijc |
Dutch |
Die Doot |
Wealthy young man |
|||||||
|
c. 1510 |
Everyman |
English |
Death |
Wealthy young man |
|||||||
|
1536 |
Ischyrius Homulus |
Latin |
Mors |
Wealthy young man |
|||||||
|
1539 |
Macropedius Hecastus |
Latin |
Nomodidascalus |
Rich merchant |
|||||||
|
1540 |
Gennep Der sunden loin … |
German |
Der Engel / Der Tod |
Rich merchant |
|||||||
|
1540 |
Naogeorgus Mercator |
Latin |
Lyochares |
Riper merchant |
|||||||
|
1549 |
Sachs Ein comedi … Hecastus |
German |
Der Legat |
Rich merchant |
|||||||
|
1549 |
Rappolt Hecastus |
German |
Nomodidascalus |
Rich merchant |
|||||||
|
1584 |
Stricker Düdesche Schlömer |
Low German |
Engel / Dodt |
Holstein nobleman |
|||||||
For the ‘herald of death’, see also Best, ‘Heralds of Death in Dutch and German Everyman plays’.
11 Appendix—Bibliography of Primary Sources
1 anon., Elckerlijc (Dutch)
Den spieghel der salicheit van Elckerlijc: Hoe dat elckerlijc mensche wert ghedaecht Gode rekeninghe te doen (The Mirror of Salvation of Everyman: How Every Man is Summoned to Give Account Before God).
[c. 1496] [Den spieghel der salicheit van Elckerlijc] Delft [Christiaen Snellaert]
-
The first known edition, of which only one copy is known; it lacks the title page and three leaves.137 The first page begins: Hier beghint een schoen boecxken ghemaect in een maniere van enen spele oft batimente op Elckerlijck (Here Begins a Beautiful Booklet made in the Way of a Play or Farcical Play on Everyman).
-
STCN 101220804
-
Copy: KBR, INC A 1620
-
Modern edition: R.J. Vos, Elckerlijc (1967), pp. 34–103.
[c. 1501] Den spieghel der salicheit van elckerlijc [Antwerp: Govaert Bac]
-
Of this printing also only one copy is known; the last leave, containing the last four lines and the colophon, is lacking.
-
STCN ID: 329372890
-
Copy: KB The Hague, KW 231 G 51.
[c. 1525] Den spyeghel der salicheyt van elckerlyc Antwerp: Willem Vorsterman, Jr.
-
The third known edition of which only copy is known, which is also the only complete copy.
-
STCN 353260452
-
Copy: University Library Leiden, 1497 H 14
-
(
https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Facsimiles/Elckerlijc1525/index.htm ) / (https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Elckerlijc1525.html ) -
Modern edition: Ramakers, Mariken van Nieumeghen & Elckerlijc (1998), pp. 152–223.
Manuscript of Elckerlijc
-
c. 1593–1594 Den Spiegel der salicheyt. Een schoon spel van Elckerlyck mensche P. Wilms
-
A copy, probably of a printing that is closer to the original, but of which all copies seem to be lost.
-
Copy: Royal Library Brussels, MS IV-592, fols. 90r–96r.
-
Modern edition: Willems, Elckerlyc-studiën (1934), pp. 120–158.
The transmission of the Elckerlijc play is corrupted. In the first two editions, leaves are lacking, only the last (Vorsterman) edition is complete, but has a corrupt text with many typographical errors and verses without rhyming pair. A modern synoptic edition of the three extant editions and the manuscript in: de Haan and van Delden, De Spiegel der Zaligheid (1979).138
2 anon., Everyman (English)
Here begynneth a treatyse how the hye fader of heuen sendet dethe to summon euery creature to come and gyue a counte of theyr lyues in this worlde / and is in maner of a morall playe (Here begins a treatise how the high Father of Heaven sends Death to summon every creature to come and give account of their lives in this world, and is in the manner of a moral play)
[c. 1510–1525] London: Richard Pynson
-
Only one copy is known, a four-leave fragment.
-
Copy: Oxford, Bodleian Library
-
STC 10604; USTC 501308
-
(
https://www.proquest.com/eebo/docview/2240875954/fulltextPDF/A4EFB66A3DAF4513PQ/1?accountid=163371&sourcetype=Books ).
[c. 1525–1530] London: Richard Pynson
-
Only one copy is known, which lacks sign. A (twelve leaves)
-
Copy: British Library
-
STC 10604.5; USTC 501897
-
(
https://www.proquest.com/eebo/docview/2240908350/AF4CF3FA25E64074PQ/2?accountid=163371&sourcetype=Books&imgSeq=1 ) -
Modern edition of the two Pynson fragments / editions: Greg, Everyman (1910).
[c. 1525–1530] London: John Skot
A treatyse how the hye fader of heven sendeth dethe to somon every creature to come and gyve a counte of theyr lyves in this worlde and is in maner of a morall playe
-
Only one copy is known, which is complete.
-
Copy: Britisch Library Huth 32
-
STC 10606; USTC 502061
-
(
https://www.proquest.com/eebo/docview/2240908350/3572D382A6E04446PQ/2?accountid=163371&sourcetype=Books&imgSeq=1 ) -
Modern editions: Farmer, Everyman (1912) (facsimile); Greg, Everyman (1909).
[c. 1530–1535] London: John Skot
A treatyse how the hye fader of heven sendeth dethe to somon every creature to come and gyve a counte of theyr lyves in this worlde and is in maner of a morall playe
-
Only one copy is known, which is complete.
-
Copy: Huntington Library 14195
-
STC 10606.5; USTC 502713
-
(
https://www.proquest.com/eebo/docview/2240852680/99849862/1?accountid=163371&sourcetype=Books ) -
Modern editions: Greg, Everyman (1904); Davidson, Walsh and Broos (2007) (as in n. 1), pp. 17–77; Wiemken (1965) (as in n. 33), pp. 1–77.
-
A list of Everyman editions in Davidson, Walsh and Broos (2007), p. 101.
3 Ischyrius, Homulus (Latin)
Homulus Petri Diesthemii, Comoedia in primis lepida & pia, in rem Christiani hominis adprime faciens, Antuerpiae quondam in public ciuitatum Brabanticarum conuentu vulgariter acta, palamque adepta. Homulus haec inscribitur comoedia, quod in ea hominis Christiani vita, & cuiuslibet voluptatis carnalis graphice depingitur
1536 Cologne: Jaspar van Gennep
Homvlvs Petri Diesthemii, Comoedia in primis lepida & pia, in rem Christiani hominis adprime faciens, Anuerpiae quondam in publico ciuitatum Brabanticarum conuentu uulgariter acta, palmamque adepta.
-
VD16 D. 1469 (
https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Homulus_Petri_Diesthemii_Com%C5%93dia_in_pri/guxoAAAAcAAJ ) / (https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Facsimiles/IschyriusHomulus1536/index.htm ) / (https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/IschyriusHomulus1536.html ) -
Modern edition: Roersch, Homulus (1910).
1537 Cologne: Jaspar van Gennep
Homvlvs Petri Diesthemii: Comœdia in primis lepida & pia, in rem Christiani hominis adprime faciens, Anuerpiae quondam in publico ciuitatum Brabanticarum conuentu uulgariter acta, palmamque adepta. Homvlvs hæc inscribitur comœdia, quod in ea hominis Christiani vita, & cuiuslibet voluptatis carnalis fugacitas graphice depingitur
-
VD16 D 1470
-
(
https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb11377619?page=,1 ).
1538 Antwerp: Joannes Steelsius
Homulus Petri Diesthemii, Comoedia in primis lepida & pia, in rem Christiani hominis adprime faciens, Antverpiae quondam in publico civitatum Brabanticarum conventuvulgariter acta, palmamque adepta. Homulus haec inscribitur comoedia, quod in ea hominis Christiani vita, & cuiuslibet voluptatis carnalis fugacitas graphice depingitur.
-
(
https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Facsimiles/IschyriusHomulus1538/index.htm ) / (https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/IschyriusHomulus1538.html ) / (https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Homulus_Petri_Diesthemii_Com%C5%93dia_in_pri/rkBoAAAAcAAJ ).
1539 Cologne: Jaspar van Gennep
Homvlvs Petri Diesthemij, Comoedia in primis lepida & pia, in rem Christiani hominis adprime faciens. Homulus haec inscribitur comoedia, quod in ea hominis Christiani vita, & cuiuslibet voluptatis carnalia fugacitas graphice depingitur.
-
VD16 D 1471
-
(
https://dl.ub.uni-freiburg.de/diglit/dorlandus1539 ).
1540 Krakow: Helena Unglerowa
-
Mentioned by Dowlaszewicz, ‘Hoe Nederlands is Elckerlijc?’ (2011), p. 93.
1541 Homulus Petri Diesthemii, Comaedia in primis lepida et pia, in rem Christiani hominis adprime faciens, Antverpiae, quondam in publico civitatum Brabanticarum conventu vulgariter acta, palmamque adepta Krakow: Helena Unglerowa and Hieronim Wietor
-
(
https://www.dbc.wroc.pl/dlibra/publication/2930/edition/2917/content ).
1546 Antwerp: Joannes Steelsius
Homulus Petri Diesthemii, comoedia in primis lepida & pia, in rem Christiani hominis adprime faciens, Antuerpiae quondam in publico ciuitatum Brabanticarum conuentu vulgariter acta, palmamque adepta. Homulus haec insciribitvr comoedia, quod in ea hominis Chritiani uisa, & cuiuslibet uoluptatis carnalis fugacitas graphic depingitur.
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=zFW6clMH6gAC ).
4 van Gennep, Homulus / Der sunden loin ist der Toid (German trans.)
1540 Cologne: Jaspar van Gennep
Der sünden loin ist der Toid. Rom vi. Comedia Homuli, gemehr und gebessert mit personen und sprüchen. Dairin angezeigt wirt was loins die sündt gibt, nemlich den Toid, vnd wie den menschen van all creaturen verlasissen, Alleyn syn Duigt stät ihm dan by. Gar nützlich und lieblich zu lesen
-
VD16 D 1474
-
(
https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht/?PPN=PPN844770000 ).
1548 Cologne: Jaspar van Gennep
Homulus, Eyn schön Spyl, in wölchem menschlichs lebens vnsicherheit, vnd der welt vntrew erzeigt wirt, vnd wie dem menschen im Todt niemant dan seyn Dügd beystaht. Kurtzweilich vnd nützlich zu lesen
-
VD16 D 475
-
(
https://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ160325609 ) Modern edition: Wiemken (1965) (as in n. 33), pp. 79–161.
1554 Cologne: Jaspar van Gennep
Homulus. Eyn schöne Comedi, in deren menschlichs lebens vergancklicheit vnd der welt vntrew angezeigt wird. Auch wie den menschen in todes nöten alle creaturen verslassen. Kurtzwelich vnd nützlich zu lesen
-
VD16 D 1472
-
Modern edition: Norrenberg (1873) (as in n. 44).
1569 Nuremberg: Michael Endter
Homulus. Ein sehr schön Comedi, in der angezegetwird, die Vergänglichkeit desmenschlichen Lebens, samt der Welt Untreu, auch, wie den Menschen in Todsnöthen alle Creaturen verlassen, und allein seine Tugent ihm beystehet
-
Mentioned by Gottsched, Nöthiger Vorrath, 1 (1757), p. 116.
[c. 1590] Magdeburg: Johann Francke
Homulus. Ein sehr schöne Comädia, in welcher angezeiget wird, die Vergenglichkeit desz Menschlichen Lebens, sampt der Welt Untrew. Auch wie der Mensch in Todesnöten von allen Creaturen, vnd sonderlich von seinen … verlassen wird, vnd ihme die Tugend allein in der letzten hinfahrt beysteh
-
VD 16 ZV30765
-
(
https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht/?PPN=PPN847302520 ).
1592 Cologne: Heinrich Nettesheim
Homulus. Ein sehr schöne Comedi, Jn der angezeigt wirdt, die vergengligkeit deß Menschlichen lebens, sampt der Welt vntrew. Auch wie den Menschen in Todtsnöten alle Creaturen verlassen, vnd allein seine Tugent jm beysteht. Mit sonderlichen fleiß corrigiert, vnd was in dem vorigen außgelassen ist, wider hin zu gethan.
-
VD16 D 1473
-
(
https://diglib.hab.de/drucke/156-6-poet-as/start.htm ).
5 anon., Homulus (Dutch trans. of van Gennep’s play)
1556 Nijmegen: Peter van Elzen
Van Homulus, Een schoene Comedie, daer in begrepen wort hoe inder tijt des doots- der menschen alle geschapen dinghen verlaten dan alleene die duecht, die blijft bij hem, vermeerdert ende ghebetert, ende is seer schoon ende ghenuechlijck om lesen
-
Modern edition: Serrure (1857) (as in n. 89).
6 anon., Homulus (Dutch trans. of van Gennep’s play)
1606 Utrecht: Herman Borculous
Van Homulus: Een schoene comedie
-
Modern edition: van Bart (1904) (as in n. 89).
1633 Amsterdam: Gerrit Hendriksz. van Breughel
Homulus, Comedie ofte spel, daer in bethoont werdt, wat loon dat de Sonde gheeft
-
Copy: Bibliothèque Nationale de France FRBNF32039610.
1647 Amsterdam: Cornelis Dircksz. Cool
Een comedie oft spel van Homulum daer in bethoont werdt wat Loon dat de Sonde geeft, namelijck de Doodt, ende hoe den Mensche van alle Creatuyren verlaten wordt, alleen sijn deucht staet hem daar by. Seer ghenoechlijck ende kortswylich voor alle Menschen, ende seer nuttelijck om te weten. Van nieus oversien ende verbetert. Der Sonden loon is de doodt. Rom. 5.
-
STCN 140477373
-
Copy: London: British Library 11754.a.73:1.
1656 Amsterdam: Otto Barentsz. Smient
Een Comedia ofte Spel van Homulus, daer in betoont werdt, wat loon dat de Sonde geeft, namelijck de Doot, ende hoe den Mensch van alle creatueren verlaten werdt, alleene sijne deucht staet hem daer by. Seer ghenoechelijck ende kortswyligh voor allen Menschen, ende seer nuttelijck om te weten. Der sonden loon is de doot. Rom. 5.
-
STCN 092841090
-
Copy: Library of the University of Amsterdam 1365 F 18
-
(
https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Facsimiles/Homulus1656/index.htm ) / (https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Homulus1656.html )
1656 Amsterdam: Otto Barentsz. Smient
Een comedia ofte spel van Homulus
-
STCN 840787715
-
Copies: National Library, The Hague 3172 G 5 / Library of the University of Leiden 1097 F 87.
1661 Amsterdam: Otto Barentsz. Smient
Een Comedia ofte Spel van Homulus, daer in betoont werdt, wat loon dat de Sonde gheeft, namelijck de Doot, ende hoe den Mensch van alle creatueren verlaten werdt, alleene sijne deucht staet hem daer by. Seer ghenoechlijck ende kortswylich voor allen Menschen, ende seer nuttelijck om te weten. Der sonden loon is de doot. Rom. 5.
-
(
https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Facsimiles/Homulus1661/index.htm ) / (https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Homulus1661.html ).
1701 Amsterdam, wed. Gysbert de Groot
Een comedie, ofte spel van Homulus, daer in betoont werdt, wat loon dat de sonde geeft, namelijk de doot, ende hoe den mensche van alle creaturen verlaten werdt, alleene sijne deucht staet hem daer by. Seer ghenoechlijck ende kortswylich voor allen Menschen, ende seer nuttelijck om te weten. Der Sonden loon is de dood. Rom. 5.
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=khMUAAAAQAAJ ).
[c. 1672?] Amsterdam, Jacobus Konynenburg
Een Comedie of Spel van Homulus, Daer in getoond werd wat loon dat de sonde geeft, namelyk de dood, ende hoe den mensche van alle Creaturen verlaten werd, alleen sijne deugd staet hem daer by. Zeer Genoegelyk en kortswylig voor alle menschen, ende zeer nuttelyk, om te weten. Der Sonden loon is de Dood, Rom. 5.
-
Mentioned by Serrure (as in n. 89), p. vii; van Bart (as in n. 89), pp. LIX–LX.
-
STCN 118927698
-
STCN 419244913
-
Copy: Norrköping, Stadsbibliotek: Finnspong Collection 6356:1.
s.a. Amsterdam: B. Jansz.
Een comedie ofte spel van Homulus
7 Mettengang, Homulus (German trans. of Ischyrius’s play)
1648 Bremen: Brauer
Homulus: das ist eine Comoedie oder Spiel …
-
Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel Microfiche 1545.
8 Macropedius, Hecastus (Latin)
1539 Antwerp: Michael Hillen
Hecastvs Macropedii, fabvla non minvs pia, qvam ivcvnda, in qua facinorosus quisque mortalium (dummodo salutis suae rationem habebit) tanquam in speculo quodam contemplari poterit quemadmodum per Christum post ueram suorum criminum poenitudinem ad beatam adeoq́ue laetam mortem perueniat
-
Copies: KBB: 6.000 A; UBGent: BL 1621:2:g; UBTilburg: KOD 1538 ’s-Hert 1:2.
-
Modern edition: Dammer & Jeßing (2007) (as in n. 58), pp. 34–263.
1539 Cologne: Johannes Gymnicus
Hecastvs Macropedii, fabvla non minvs pia, qvam ivcvnda, in qua facinorosus quisque mortalium (dummodo salutis suae rationem habebit) tanquam in speculo quodam contemplari poterit quemadmodum per Christum post ueram suorum criminum poenitudinem ad beatam adeoq́ue laetam mortem perueniat
-
VD16 L 393
-
(
https://digital.ub.uni-leipzig.de/mirador/index.php ) / (https://books.google.nl/books?id=6pNXAAAAcAAJ ).
1540 Cologne, Johann Gymnich
Hecastvs Macropedii, fabvla non minvs pia, qvam ivcvnda, in qua, tanquàm in speculo, contemplari licet, quemadmodum ex animo poenitentes, per Christum, ad foelicem uitae exitum perducantur
-
VD16 L 393
-
Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel P 1692.8 Helmst. (2).
1540 Antwerpen
-
Mentioned by Van der Haeghen, Bibliotheca Belgica, as indicated by Bolte (1927) (as in n. 15), p. xv.
1541 Basel: Nicolaus Brylinger
Hecastvs Macropedii, fabvla non minus pia, quam iucunda, in qua facinorosus quisque mortalium (dummodo salutis suae rationem habebit) tanquam in speculo quodam contemplari poterit quemadmodum per Christum post ueram suorum criminum poenitudinem ad beatam adeoque laetam mortem perueniat, in Comoediae ac tragoediae aliqvot ex Novo et Vetere Testamento desvmptae, quarum catalogum proxima pagella indicabit, pp. 534–612
-
VD16 C 4657
-
(
https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10190216?page=,1 ) / (https://www.e-rara.ch/bau_1/doi/10.3931/e-rara-2073 ).
1541 Antwerp: Michael Hillen
Hecastvs Macropedii, fabvla non minvs pia qvam iucunda, in qua facinorosus quisque mortalium (dummodo salutis suae rationem habebit) tanquam in speculo quodam contemplari poterit, quemadmodum per Christum post ueram suorum criminum poenitudinem ad beatam adeoque laetam mortem perueniat.
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=P3YTAAAAQAAJ ) / (https://books.google.nl/books?id=ZHNk4JVo8hwC )
1549 Dortmund: Melchior Soter
Hecastvs Macropedii, fabvla non minvs pia qvam ivcunda, in qua tamquàm in speculo, contemplari licet, quemadmodum ex animo poenitentes, per Christum ad foelicem uitae exitum perducantur.
-
VD16 ZV 25947
-
Erfurt, Universitätsbibliothek LA. 8 00560 (02).
1549 Weimar
-
Mentioned by Bolte (1927) (as in n. 15), p. xv.
1552 Utrecht: Harmannus Borculous
Hecastvs Macropedii, fabvla non minvs pia qvam ivcvnda, in qua facinorosus quisque mortalium subitari morte praeoccupatus, tanquam in speculo quodam contemplari poterit, quemadmodum per Christum, post veram suorum criminum poenitudinem, ad beatam adeó-que laetam mortem perueniat. Revised edition in Omnes Georgii Macropedii fabulae comicae, denuo recognitae …, sig. b[1]r-h2[1]v.
-
STCN 832798266
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=HzUL7pp5jokC ).
1571 Frankfurt a.M.: Christian Egenolf Sr
Hecastvs. Fabvla non minvs pia qvam ivcvnda, in qva facinorosus quisque mortalium (dummodò salutis suae rationem habebit) tanquam in speculo pellucido contemplari pote||rit, quemadmodum per Christum, post veram suorum criminum poenitudinem, ad beatam adeóque laetam mortem perueniat.
-
VD16 L 394
-
(
https://onb.digital/result/105D379B ) / (https://books.google.nl/books?id=_7dTAAAAcAAJ ).
1573 Frankfurt
-
Mentioned by Bolte (1927) (as in n. 15), p. xv.
1586 Strasbourg: Anton Bertram
Hecastvs Georgii Macropedii, fabvla non minvs pia qvàm ivcunda: in qua, tanquàm in speculo, contemplari licet, quemadmodum ex animo poenitentes, per Christum ad felicem vitae exitum perducantur
-
VD16 L 395
-
Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel QuN 741 (2)
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=m8hNsWQQwqwC ).
Manuscript of Macropedius, Hecastus
-
Vienna, Codex 3 226 (16th / 17th c.)
9 Sachs, Ein Comedi van dem reichen sterbenden Menschen, der Hecastus genannt (German trans. of Macropedius’ play)
1549 [staged]
Ein Comedi von dem reichen sterbenden menschen, der Hecastus genant, hat neunzehn Personen und V. Actus zu Spielen
1560 and 1570 Nuremberg: Heußler
Sehr herrliche … Gedicht, 2, fol. XXXr–LXIIIr.
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=jV5uiAO2YRsC ). -
Modern edition: Wiemken (1965) (as in n. 33), pp. 163–218; Dammer & Jeßing (2017) (as in n. 58), pp. 35–183.
10 Rappolt, Ein schön christlich Spiel, Hecastus genant (German trans. of Macropedius’ play)
1552 Nuremberg: J. Daubman
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=QCFLAAAAcAAJ ).
11 Spangenberg, Hecastus (German trans. of Macropedius’ play)
1564 Erfurt: Georg Baumann d.Ä.
Hecastus Ein schön geistreich Spiel, darinnen der Mensch, wider die Sicherheit, Busse zu thun,/ vnd sich auff ein seligen Abscheid zubereiten, Exempel weise, trewlich gewarnet vnd erinnert wird. Gestellet in Latin, durch Georgium Macropedium. Vnd Christlich verdeutscht vnd gebessert, durch M. Ciriacum Spangenberg
-
VD16 L 396
-
Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel H: QuH 158.1 (3).
1564 Schmalkalden: M. Schmuck
-
Mentioned by Bolte (1927) (as in n. 15), p. xvi.
12 Rebenstock, Hekastus (German trans. of Macropedius’ play)
1568 Frankfurt: N. Bassaeus
Hecastus, ein geistlich Spiel von Ampt vnd Beruf eines jeden Menschen, verteutscht durch Henricum Petrum Rebenstock
-
Mentioned by Bolte (1927) (as in n. 15), p. xvi.
13 Saurius, Hecastus (German trans. of Macropedius’ play)
1591 Marpurg
-
Mentioned by Cless, Elenchus (1602) (as in n. 108), p. 410.
14 Schreckenberger (German trans. of Macropedius’ play)
1589 Strasbourg: Anton Bertram
-
(Dresden) (mentioned by Bolte (1927) (as in n. 15), p. XVI)
15 Manuscript of Danish translation (beginning 17th c.) of Macropedius’ play
-
Gamle kong. Samling 794 fol.
16 Stricker De Düdesche Schlömer
De Düdesche Schlömer. Dat ys, Ein Geistlick Spil, darinne affgemalet, gewarnet, vnd tho warer Bothe vormanet werden alle Gades vorgetene, wilde, rökelose vnde sekere Minschen, vp dat se mit dissem Schlömer bekeret, vnd Salich werden möchten. Allen Vnbothferdigen tho trüwer vorwarninge vnde warschuwinge/ Ock allen Angefochtenen, sunderlick in Dodes nóden tho troste gestellet
1584 Lübeck: Johan Balhorn d.J.
-
VD16 S 9573
-
(
https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht/?PPN=PPN840972849 ) -
Modern edition: Bolte (1889) (as in n. 110); Berger (1926) (as in n. 110).
1588 Magdeburg: Ambrosius Kirchner
Der Deutsch Schlemmer. Das ist, Ein Geistlich Spiel, darinne abgemalet gewarnet, vnd zu warer Busse vermanet warden, alle Gottes vergessene, wilde, ruchlose vnd sichere Menschen, auff das sie mit diesem Schlemmer bekeret vnd selig werden möch
-
VD16 S 9576
-
(
https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN63309630X?tify=%7B%22pan%22%3A%7B%22x%22%3A0.496%2C%22y%22%3A0.738%7D%2C%22view%22%3A%22info%22%2C%22zoom%22%3A0.317%7D ).
1593 Frankfurt an der Oder: Nikolaus Voltz
-
VD16 S 9574 and VD16 S 9575
17 Dalius, Hecastus (trans. of Rappolt’s trans.)
1681 Götheborg: Larsz Lörnbohm
Hecastus, först på Latijn anstält aff H:r Georgio Macropedio, sedan på Tysk affsat och agerat vthi Nürnberg vthaff Poeten Larentio Rapholt.
18 Naogeorgus, Mercator
1540 Ingolstadt: Alexander Weissenborn
Tragoedia alia nova Mercator sev Ivdicivm, in qva in conspectum ponuntur Apostolica & Papistica doctrina, quantum utraq́ue in conscientiae certamine ualeat et efficiat, et quis utriusq́ue futurus sit exitus
-
VD16 K 998
-
(
https://collections.thulb.uni-jena.de/rsc/viewer/HisBest_derivate_00002480/BE_0690_0617.tif ).
1560 s.l.: s.n.
Tragoedia alia nova Mercator, sev Ivdicivm, in qva in conspectum ponuntur Apostolica et Papistica doctrina, quantum utraque in conscientiae certamine ualeat et, efficiat et quis utriusque futurus sit exitus.
-
VD16 K 999
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=Gfdcj7YNPe8C ).
1590 s.l.: s.n.
Tragoedia alia nova Mercator sev Ivdicivm, in qva in conspectvm ponvntvr Apostoli|ca & Papistica doctrina, quantum utraque in conscientiae certamine valeat & efficiat, quis utriusq́ue & futurus sit exitus
-
VD16 K 1000
-
(
https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb11104089?page=,1 ) / (https://books.google.nl/books?id=tpJXAAAAcAAJ ).
19 Rulich, Der Kauffmann (German trans. of Naogeorgus’s play)
1595 Lindau: Johann Ludwig Brem
Der Kauffman, oder das Gericht. Ein Geistliche Tragoedi, darinnen der vnderschid Apostolischer vnd grob Papistischer Lehr vnd trots in schweren Geistlichen kampff dess Gewissens nutzlich, den einfältigen zu vnderricht fürgestellt vnd abgebildet wirdt.
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VD16 K 1003
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(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=-847AAAAcAAJ ) -
Modern edition Wiemken (1965) (as in n. 33), pp. 219–417.
20 anon., Der Kauffman (German trans. of Naogeorgus’s play)
1560 Straßburg: Paul Messerschmidt
Eine schöne nutzliche Tragedi, oder schawspiel, der Kauffman genennet. Darinn die Apostolische vnd Päpstische lehre vor augen gestellet würdt, wie vil bede im streit des gewissen vermöge vnnd ausrichte, vnd was es für ein ende beder halben haben werde
-
VD16 K 1002
-
(
https://onb.digital/result/104A4AE4 ).
21 anon., Comedie oft Spel vanden bekeerden Coopman (Dutch trans. of Naogeorgus’ play)
1583 Antwerp: Niclaes Mollijns for Jaspar Troyens
Een seer schoon Comedie oft Spel vanden bekeerden Coopman, waer inne die warachtighe wel ghefondeerde ende oock die valsche ongehfondeerde ende verkeerde Religie, oft kercke deen vanden anderen naer d’leuen claer ghepresenteert ende af gemaelt wordt: om te verstaen welck haerlieder viertuyt, cracht is. Om te bestryden elcx Conscientie (die welcke haer sal gaen met eenen yeghelijcken ende hem volghen) ten wtersten oordeele ons Heeren Jesum Christi.
-
(
https://books.google.nl/books?id=sCQXFMZSdkgC ) / (https://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Facsimiles/BekeerdenCoopman1583/index.htm ).
The theme appears, for example, in the ‘History of Barlaam and Josaphat’, a Greek version of which was attributed to Johannes Damascenus (7th or 8th c.), a story that was also told in Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea (c. 1265), and included by Vincent de Bovais’s Speculum historiale XV, 16. On the early examples of the Everyman theme, see, e.g., Christoph Brandhuber and Franz Witek, ‘Der erste Salzburger “Jedermann” ’, Grazer Beiträge, 27 (2010), pp. 91–129, esp. pp. 95–98, citing the Latin text and a German translation of the relevant passage of the Legenda aurea (nr. 176); Clifford Davidson, Martin M. Walsh, and Ton J. Broos, ‘Everyman and Its Dutch Original: Introduction’, in id. (eds), Everyman and Its Dutch Original, Elckerlijc (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007), pp. 9–10, citing William Caxton’s English translation of the passage of the Legenda aurea on pp. 97–98. On the relationship between Barlaam and Josaphat and Elckerlijc, see also Jan Hendrik Meter, ‘Elckerlijc e Barlaam: Una proposta di lettura’, Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli: Sezione Germanica, N.S. 10 (2000), pp. 109–147. On the Speculum historiale XV, 16, see also Brandhuber and Witek, ‘Der erste Salzburger “Jedermann” ’, p. 97.
We may think of, for example, Johannes von Tepl’s dialogue Der Ackermann aus Boehmen (c. 1401), see Gudrun Thiel, ‘An unusual encounter between Man and Death in the Middle Ages as portrayed in Der Ackermann aus Boehmen’, Literator, 8.3 (1987), pp. 39–50, and Maurice O’Connell Walshe, ‘Der Ackermann aus Böhmen and Elckerlijc’, in Peter K. King and Paul F. Vincent (eds), European Context: Studies in the History and Literature of the Netherlands presented to Theodoor Weevers (Cambridge: The Modern Humanities Research Association, 1971), pp. 52–59, who in his comparative study (p. 54) excludes a direct connection between Ackermann and Elckerlijc.
On the cultural area of Northern Europe, see Anston Bosman, ‘Translating Renaissance Drama: Networks, Platforms, Apps’, in Matthew McLean and Sara Barker (eds), International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016) Library of the Written Word, 51, pp. 306–328, esp. pp. 306–307; on North Sea culture, see Juliette Roding and Lex Heerma van Voss (eds), The North Sea and Culture (1550–1800): Proceedings of the International Conference Held at Leiden 21–22 April 1995 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1996).
On justification, see, e.g. Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 8 (1995), coll. 882–903, s.v. ‘Rechtfertigung’, esp. coll. 889–895 (V. Theologie- u. dogmengeschichtlich) and 895—(VI. Systematisch-theologisch) (written by Otto Hermann Pesch).
On the morality play, see, e.g., Pamela M. King, ‘Morality Plays’, in Richard Beadle and Alan J. Fletcher (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 22008), pp. 240–264.
Jeroen Jansen, Literair vermaak in de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024), p. 287.
On these Rhetoricians, see Wim M.H. Hummelen, ‘The Drama of the Dutch Rhetoricians’ in Donald Gilman (ed.), Everyman and Company: Essays on the Theme and Structure of the European Moral Play (New York: AMS Press, 1988), pp. 169–192; Elsa Strietman and Peter Happé, ‘Introduction’, in id. (eds), Urban Theatre in the Low Countries, 1400–1625 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 1–28, esp. pp. 1–24; Anne-Laure van Bruaene, ‘ “A wonderfull tryumfe, for the wynnyng of a pryse”: Guilds, Ritual, Theater, and the Urban Network in the Southern Low Countries, ca. 1450–1650’, Renaissance Quarterly, 59 (2006), pp. 374–405, and Arjan van Dixhoorn, Samuel Mareel, and Bart Ramakers, ‘The Relevance of the Netherlandish Rhetoricians’, in id. (eds), The Knowledge Culture of the Netherlandish Rhetoricians, special issue of Renaissance Studies, 32.1 (2018), pp. 8–22.
The plays of this contest have been edited by Benjamin H. Erné and Leendert M. van Dis, De Gentse spelen van 1539, 2 vols (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982).
On the motif of the Freundschaftsprobe, see, e.g. Karl Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus: Ein Beitrag zur internationalen Literaturgeschichte (Hanover: Carl Rümpler, 1865), pp. 7–11. It is also a theme in the Book of Job, where Job’s friends give him advice that turns out to be of no use to him in the end.
See, for example, John J. Parker, ‘The Development of the Everyman Drama from Elckerlyc to Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann’, Ph.D. thesis Perth, University of Western Australia, 1970, p. 11.
See above, pp. 54–79, esp. p. 75. Andreas Fabricius (1520–1581) composed his Evangelicus fluctuans (1569) as a Counter-Reformation counterpart of Elkcerijc and Naogeorgus’s Mercator; with thanks to Jim Parente. See also Bloemendal, ‘Neo-Latin Drama in the Low Countries’, pp. 338–339.
See also Bosman, ‘Translating Renaissance Drama’; on the meaning of translation, pp. 319–320.
Ibid., p. 315.
Ibid.
On these plays see, e.g., (for Der Ackermann aus Böhmen:) Thiel, ‘An unusual encounter’, O’Connell Walshe, ‘Der Ackermann aus Böhmen and Elckerlijc’; (for the French morality:) Stéphanie Le Briz, Éclairer la foi: Le cas de la Moralité de Bien advisé, Mal advisé, ms. Bnf Rothschild 2797 (Paris: Université Paris X Nanterre, [2007]); (for the Munich Play:) Hansjürgen Linke, ‘Das Münchner Eigengerichtspiel’, in Katja Scheel (ed.) Et respondeat: Studien zum deutschen Theater des Mittelalters: Festschrift Prof. Dr. Johan Nowé (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), pp. 131–144, Günter Gurst a.o. (eds), Lexikon der Renaissance (Leipzig: VEB Bibliographisches Institut, 1989), p. 364 (Herbert Greiner-Mai); Hellmut Rosenfeld, ‘Das Münchner Eigengerichtsspiel von 1510, Hans Schobsers Druck von 1510 und seine Illustrationen von Jan Pollack: Mit sechzehn Abbildungen’, Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 57 (1982), pp. 225–233, Johannes Bolte, Drei Schauspiele vom sterbenden Menschen (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1927), pp. 1–62; (for Euripus:) Jean-Marie Valentin, ‘Aux origines du theatre néo-latin de la Réforme Catholique: l’Euripus (1549) de Livinus Brechtus’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, 21 (1972), pp. 81–188. Euripus is based on the biblical passage about the wide and narrow roads to eternal damnation or salvation (Matthew 7, 13–14); there is a 1555 edition by Jaspar von Gennep, probably on the occasion of a performance in Cologne. A translation by the Augsburg schoolmaster Cleophas Distelmayer was printed in 1582. This translation is printed alongside the 1555 Latin text in Lateinische Ordensdrama des XVI. Jahrhundert mit deutschen Übersetzungen, ed. Fidel Rädle (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1979), pp. 27–277.
See Jacob Bidermann, Cenodoxus, ed. and trans. D.G. Dyer; co-trans. Cecily Longrigg (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1975), Edinburgh Bilingual Library, 9.
A widespread phenomenon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the Wandertruppen or travelling companies. English comedians, German Schauspieler, Italian companies of the Commedia dell’arte, the French comedians, and Dutch gezelschappen (all of which often also hired actors from other countries) travelled across Europe, performing plays or abridged plays from London to Warsaw, from Munich and Amsterdam to Copenhagen, from Graz to Gdánsk. However, as far as we know today, Everyman plays were not part of their repertoire. On the itinerant troupes, see, e.g. Anston Bosman, ‘Renaissance Intertheater and the Staging of Nobody’, English Literary History, 71 (2004), pp. 559–585.
On this play and Everyman, see, e.g. Parker, ‘Development’, pp. 4–23.
Clara Strijbosch and Ulrike Zellmann (eds), Elckerlijc—Jedermann (Münster: Agenda Verlag, 2013), p. 93.
G.J. van Bork and Piet J. Verkruijsse, De Nederlandse en Vlaamse auteurs van middeleeuwen tot heden met inbegrip van Friese auteurs (Weesp: De Haan, 1985), pp. 177–178 and ADB 5, p. 153 (Wilhelm Scherer and Jacob C. van Slee).
Herman Brinkman, ‘De const ter perse: Publiceren bij de rederijkers voor de Reformatie’, in Herman Pleij and Jo Reynaert (eds), Geschreven en gedrukt: Boekproductie van handschrift naar druk in de overgang van Middeleeuwen naar moderne tijd (Ghent: Academia Press, 2004), pp. 157–175, esp. pp. 161–164, and Pleij, Het gevleugelde woord: Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1400–1560 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2007), pp. 534–535.
On these Rhetoricians, see above, n. 7.
Davidson, Walsh, and Broos, Everyman and Its Dutch Original, pp. 17–18.
Davidson, Walsh, and Broos, Everyman and Its Dutch Original, pp. 20–21.
Davidson, Walsh, and Broos, Everyman and its Dutch Original, pp. 76–77.
Cf. Elisabeth Meyer, review of Strijbosch and Zellmann (eds), Elckerlijc—Jedermann, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 144 (2015), pp. 96–98, esp. p. 97.
Davidson, Walsh, and Broos, Everyman and its Dutch Original, pp. 76–77.
Helen Adolf, ‘From Everyman and Elckerlijc to Hofmannsthal and Kafka’, Comparative Literature, 9 (1957), pp. 204–214, esp. p. 206.
Parker, ‘Development’, pp. 5 and 7, resp.
Parker, ‘Development’, p. 15, referring to Lawrence V. Ryan, ‘Doctrine and Dramatic Structure in Everyman’, Speculum, 32 (1957), pp. 722–735, esp. p. 730.
Thomas W. Best, ‘Heralds of Death in Dutch and German Everyman plays’, Neophilologus, 65 (1981), pp. 397–403, esp. p. 397.
Max J.M. de Haan, ‘Elckerlijc is niet iederéén’, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, N.S. 56 (1975), pp. 286–291; Roger A. Ladd, ‘ “My condicion is mannes soule to kill”—Everyman’s Mercantile Salvation’, Comparative Drama, 41 (2007), pp. 57–78.
For modern editions, see, e.g. Davidson, Walsh, and Broos, Everyman and its Dutch Original; Arthur C. Cawley (ed.), Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays (London: Dent; New York: E.P. Dutton, 1922 and many reprints), Everyman’s Library, 381, pp. 205–234, and Helmut Wiemken (ed.), Vom Sterben des reichen Mannes: Die Dramen von Everyman, Homulus, Hecastus und dem Kauffmann (Bremen: Carl Schünemann Verlag, 1965) Sammlung Dieterich, 298, pp. 1–77. For a discussion of the play, see, e.g., Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 33–42, and Parker, ‘Development’, pp. 4–23. On Everyman, see, e.g., King, ‘Morality Plays’, pp. 255–258.
See, e.g., Davidson, Walsh, and Broos, ‘Everyman and its Dutch Original: Introduction’, in their Everyman and its Dutch Original, pp. 1–14, esp. p. 1. See also Elsa Strietman, ‘The Middle Dutch “Elckerlijc” and the English “Everyman” ’, Medium Aevum, 52 (1983), pp. 111–114, who discusses E.R. Tigg, The Dutch ‘Elckerlijc’ is Prior to the English ‘Everyman’ (London: privately printed, 1981).
On Pynson, see, e.g., Pamela Neville, ‘Richard Pynson, King’s Printer (1506–1529): Printing and Propaganda in Early Tudor England’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, Warburg Institute. 1990) and her entry ‘Pynson, Richard (c. 1499–1629/30), printer’ in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), online, and Peter W.M. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company and the Printers of London, 1501–1557, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 68–70.
Strijbosch and Zellmann (eds), Elckerlijc—Jedermann, p. 97.
Janet Ing Freeman, ‘Skot (Scott), John’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and Blayney, The Stationer’s Company, vol. 1, pp. 179–183. Skot often collaborated with the more famous London printer Wynkyn de Worde.
I derive this information from Bosman, ‘Translating Renaissance Drama’, pp. 312–313.
See also Parker, ‘Development’, pp. 16 and 17, and p. 18 on the equation of virtue and good deeds.
Ibid., p. 19. Compare Elckerlijc 360–362 and Everyman 394–397. Verdel A. Kolve saw a connection between Everyman and the Parable of the Talents from Matthew 25, 14–30, in the sense that Everyman did not use his talents well, see Kolve, ‘Everyman and the Parable of the Talents’, in Jerome Taylor and Alan H. Nelson (eds), Medieval English Drama: Essays Critical and Contextual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), pp. 316–340.
Parker, ‘Development’, p. 20.
On the relativity of this success, see Joseph A. Dane and Rosemary A. Roberts, ‘The Calculus of Calculus: W.W. Greg and the Mathematics of “Everyman” Editions’, Studies in Bibliography, 53 (2000), pp. 117–128.
For Gennep, see below, pp. 109–119; on Johannes Steelsius, see C.J. Nuyts, ‘Jean Steelsius, libraire anversois (1533–1575)’, Bulletin de bibliophile belge, 14 (2nd series, 5) (1858), pp. 1–10; 87–102, 199–210, 339–345, 396–401; 15 (2nd series, 6) (1859), pp. 1–8, 65–72, 175–182.
Wiemken, Vom Sterben des reichen Mannes, p. XIV; Jaspar von Gennep, Homulus (Der sunden loin ist der Toid): Geistliches Schauspiel, ed. Peter Norrenberg (Viersen: Bädeker’s Verlag Franz Fluß, 1873), Bibliothek der niederrheinischen Literatur, 1, p. 32.
On the literary pleasure of drama, see Jansen, Literair vermaak (as in n. 6), esp. ch. 7 (‘Op de planken’ [‘On Stage’]), pp. 287–337.
Ischyrius, Homulus (1536), sig. Aijv. See also Jan Bloemendal, ‘Transfer and Integration of Latin and Vernacular Drama in the Early Modern Period: The Case of Everyman, Elckerlijc, Homulus, and Hecastus’, Arcadia, 44 (2009), pp. 274–288, esp. p. 281.
See above, p. 89.
Bloemendal, ‘Transfer and Integration’, p. 281.
See, for example, Erasmus, Opera omnia, vol. VII, 2, ed. Jan Bloemendal (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018), p. 48, n.l. 172 and p. 75, n.l. 2981.
Besides the prologue, a few lines are added in which God recounts the creation of man (I, 1, ll. 45–47); Death complains about man’s disregard for heaven (I, 1, ll. 161–165). There is also a mimed confession scene, and a scene (V, 5) in which little devils (the ‘sinnekens’ from rhetoricians’ drama) complain that they have lost Homulus’s soul. For a brief summary of all changes, see Bernadette Verschelde, ‘Macropedius’ Hecastus (1539), Ischyrius’ Homulus (1536) en Elckerlijc’, in Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuidnederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis, 37 (1983), pp. 235–254, esp. p. 237 and n. 7. See also Bloemendal, ‘Transfer and Integration’, pp. 281–282.
Best, ‘Heralds of Death’, p. 397.
Ibid., p. 402, n. 4.
Already observed by Verschelde, ‘Macropedius’ Hecastus (1539), Ischyrius’ Homulus (1536) and Elckerlijc’, p. 237 and n. 9.
Parker, ‘Development’, p. 29.
See, e.g., John Bowden (ed.), Encyclopedia of Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 1060–1071, s.v. ‘Sacraments’ (Joseph Martos).
On the editions by Steelsius, see Nuyts, ‘Jean Steelsius, libraire anversois’; on his orthodoxy, the Antwerp sheriff Jan van Immerseel wrote about Steelsius on 19 april 1562 that he was ‘de bien bonne conduicte et renommée, lequel depuis quelque temps enca aussi est decedé de ce monde; duquel après son deces at este faict ung bien solempnel sermon et exeques’, quoted after Bernard A. Vermaseren, ‘De Spaanse uitgaven op godsdienstig gebied van M. Nutius en J. Steelsius: Een voorlopige oriëntatie’, De Gulden Passer, 50 (1972), pp. 26–99 (p. 81).
On Macropedius, see Thomas W. Best, Macropedius (New York: Twayne Publishers, [1972]) TWAS, 218; Henk Giebels and Frans Slits, Georgius Macropedius 1487–1558: Leven en werken van een Brabantse humanist (Tilburg: Stichting Zuidelijk Historisch Contact Tilburg, 2005), on Hecastus, pp. 252–266 (and specifically on Gennep’s reworking, pp. 264–266); Guillaume van Gemert, ‘Macropedius, Georgius’ in Klaus Kipf (ed.), Frühe Neuzeit in Deutschland: literaturwissenschaftliches Verfasserlexikon, vol. 4 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), cols 238–252.
Goedeke, Every-man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 55–73; Giebels and Slits, Georgius Macropedius, pp. 252–266; Raphael Dammer and Benedikt Jeßing, Der Jedermann im 16. Jahrhundert: Die Hecastus-Dramen von Georgius Macropedius und Hans Sachs (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), Quellen und Forschungen zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte, 42 (276); Benedikt Jeßing, ‘Zur Rezeption des morall play vom “Everyman” in der neulateinischen und frühneuhochdeutschen Komödie. Georg Macropedius, Hans Sachs’, in Reinhold F. Glei and Robert Seidel (eds), Das lateinische Drama der Frühen Neuzeit: Exemplarische Einsichten in Praxis und Theorie (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2008), Frühe Neuzeit, 129, pp. 87–99.
First edition Antwerp, Michael Hillen, 1539; reprints: Cologne, Johann Gymnich, 1539, 1540; Basel 1541 (the Brylinger Comoediae ac Tragoediae collection); Antwerp, Michael Hillen, 1541; Cologne, 1542 (listed by Bolte, Drei Schauspiele vom sterbenden Menschen); Dortmund, Melchior Soter, 1549; Weimar, 1549 (Bolte); Nuremberg, 1552 (Bolte); Utrecht, Herman van Borculo, 1552 (and in Omnes fabulae; Frankfurt am Main, Christian Egenolff the Elder, 1571); Frankfurt, 1573 (Bolte); Strasbourg, Anton Bertram, 1586. On the Brylinger collection, see James A. Parente, Jr., ‘The Anthology as Site of Transnational Literary Exchange in the German Empire and the Low Countries’, Medievalia & Humanistica, 48 (2023), pp. 41–62. See also Dinah Wouters’s chapter ‘The Circulation of Humanist Drama from the Low Countries in Print’, above.
On the 1552 music. see Wil H.J. Dekker, Georgius Macropedius: Verzameld toneel: Koren en liederen (Amersfoort: Florivallis, 2012), pp. 45–49; on the 1586 edition, see Giebels and Slits, Georgius Macropedius, p. 263.
An elaborate summary is given by Verschelde, in ‘Macropedius’ Hecastus (1539), Ischyrius’ Homulus (1536) and Elckerlijc’, pp. 238–242.
See Verschelde, ‘Macropedius’ Hecastus (1539), Ischyrius’ Homulus (1536) and Elckerlijc’, pp. 243–244.
Ibid., pp. 244–245.
See Henry G. Liddell, R. Scott, and Henry S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, many editions), s.v.
Verschelde, ‘Macropedius’ Hecastus (1539) …’, pp. 245–251.
See Jeßing, ‘Zur Rezeption des morall play’, p. 91, referring to Christoph Burger, ‘Devotio Moderna’, in Hans Dieter Betz a.o. (eds), Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, vol. 2 (Tübingen: Herder, 19994), col. 776, and to Irene Crusius, ‘Brüder und Schwestern vom gemeinsamen Leben’, ibid., vol. 1 (1998), cols 1781–1782.
See above, p. 102, n. 59; Wiemken, Vom Sterben des reichen Mannes, pp. XVII–XX; Bloemendal, ‘Neo-Latin Drama between Nationality and Transnationality’, pp. 129–130.
Otto W. Tetzlaff, ‘Holländische neulateinische Dramen in ihrer Einwirkung auf das Deutschland des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts’, Doctoral thesis University of Texas, Austin, 1969, p. 69.
On Macropedius and the 1539 Ghent contest, see Frank Leys, ‘L’ “Hecastus” de Macropedius et le “Landjuweel” de Gand (1539)’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, 37 (1988), pp. 267–268. On the contest, see also Anne-Laure van Bruaene, ‘ “A wonderfull tryumfe, for the wynnyng of a pryse” ’, esp. p. 398.
For the additions in the 1552 edition, see Dammer and Jeßing, Der Jedermann im 16. Jahrhundert, pp. 184–193 (text) and pp. 255–263 (translation).
Preface to the 1552 edition, Dammer and Jeßing, Der Jedermann im 16. Jahrhundert, p. 184.
Macropedius, Omnes fabulae (Utrecht: Hermannus Borculous, 1552), sig. b2r–v.
In this 1552 addition to the prologue, Macropedius also uses, as Ischyrius had done, the Erasmian term ‘resipiscere’ for ‘poenitere’, as he also did in an extra chorus added to the first Act, which begins: ‘Foede peccator, resipisce tandem’ (‘foul sinner, come to your senses/repent at last’). For this choice of word, see also above, p. 17#.
The slightly altered edition of 1548, Homulus. Eyn schön Spyl/ in wölchem menschlichs lebens vnsicherheit/ vnd der welt vntrew erzeigt wirt/ vnd wie dem menschen im Todt niemant dan seyn Dügd beystaht. Kurzweilich vnd nützlich zu lesen, is edited (with a modernised spelling) by Wiemken, in Vom Sterben des reichen Mannes, pp. 79–161, and in Gennep, Homulus, ed. Norrenberg. The 1554 edition had the title: Homulus. Eyn schöne Comedi, in deren menschlichs lebens vergencklicheit, vnd der welt vntrew angezeigt wirt, Auch wie den menschen in todes nöten alle creaturen verlassen. Kurtzweilich vnd nützlich zu lessen with a new preface to the reader from Gennep. This was reprinted in Magdeburg, by Johann Francke, c. 1590, and in Cologne by Heinrich Nettesheim in 1592. On the printer Gennep, see, e.g., Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) 8, pp. 793–794 (Jacob Franck and Ernst Kelchner); Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) 6, pp. 189–190 (Günter Gattermann); Frank Fürbeth, ‘Jaspar von Gennep’, in Walther Killy (ed.), Literaturlexikon: Autoren und Werke deutscher Sprache, 4 (Gütersloh and Munich: Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, 1989), pp. 113–114; NDB 6, pp. 189–190 (Günther Gattermann), and Anita Benger, Drucke des Kölner Buchdruckers Jaspar von Gennep in der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf, 1994). For a discussion of the play, see, e.g., Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 46–55; Wolfgang Schmitz, ‘Die Überlieferung deutscher Texte im Kölner Buchdruck des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts’, Habilitationsschrift, University of Cologne, 1990, pp. 226–228 (on Homulus) and pp. 383–393 (on the printer Gennep); Willy Scheel, Jaspar von Gennep und die Entwicklung der neuhochdeutschen Schriftsprache in Köln (Trier: Lintz, 1893), Westdeutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst, 8, pp. 8–10; 43–63 (a linguistic and lexicographical comparison of the 1548 and 1554 editions of Gennep’s Homulus); Tetzlaff, ‘Holländische neulateinische Dramen’, pp. 76–89, and Parker, ‘Development’, pp. 49–64. Tetzlaff (pp. 76–77) refers to Gennep’s reputation as a pirate printer, who sided with orthodoxy in the dispute between the orthodox Cathedral Chapter and the Lutheran sympathiser Archbishop Hermann von Wied.
See ADB 4, p. 639 (Julius Hartmann d. J.); Matthias Wilhelm Senger, Leonhard Culmann: A Literary Biography and an Edition of Five Plays: as a Contribution to the Study of Drama in the Age of the Reformation (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1982), Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica, 35; Leonhard Culmann, Ein Christenlich Teutsch Spil wie ein Sünder zur Buß bekärt wirdt: Von der sünd Gsetz und Evangelion, zugericht und gehalten zu Nürnberg (Nuremberg: Hans Guldenmundt, 1539); reprint by the same printer in 1544, and in Strasbourg by Jacob Frölich in 1550. A modern edition in Senger, Leonhard Culmann, pp. 255–328. See also Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 104–190. Gennep may also have borrowed from Pamphilus Gengenbach’s Ein schön Spiel von den zehen alter dieser Welt (Basel, 1515) in Jörg Wickram’s 1531 version, which was published anonymously. Its full title is: Die Zehen alter d’welt. Nach gemeinem lauff der welt, mit vil schonen newen historien begriffen, uß der Bibel gezogen, fast nützlich zů lesen, vnd zu hören. Vnd sindt disse Zehen alter, von wort zů wort nach jnhalt der matery vnd anzeygung der figuren von newem gespylt, gemert vnd gebessert worden, durch ein / ersame burgerschafft einer loblichë Statt | Kolmar etc. im jar. M.CCCCC.XXXI ([Strasbourg: Jacob Frölich, 1531]). On Wickram’s authorship and its likely printing history, see the introduction to Georg Wickram, Werke, vol. 5, ed. Johannes Bolte (Tübingen: Litterarischer Verein in Stuttgart, 1903), Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, 232, pp. xxxi–xxxvii.
An element borrowed from Elckerlijc and Hecastus.
Mary also appears on the 1540 title page with the banner ‘Ave gratia plena’.
Gennep, Der sunden loin (1540), sig. Bij; see also Wiemken, Vom Sterben des reichen Mannes, p. XVI.
Parker, Development, p. 69.
For the exact borrowings from Macropedius, Culmann and Gengenbach, see Goedeke, Every-man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 48–53 and Norrenberg’s edition of Gennep’s Homulus, pp. 40–49. In the colophon the Gengenbach play is called ‘Faßnacht Spil’.
For the use of Elckerlijc by Gennep, see Henri Logeman, Elckerlijc-Everyman: De vraag naar de prioriteit opnieuw onderzocht (Ghent: Librairie Vuylsteke: 1902) Université de Gand: Receuil de travaux publiés par la faculté de Philosophie et des lettres, 28, esp. pp. 21–24.
I.e. specified penance, corresponding to the nature and gravity of the sin, prescribed by confessors in the sacrament of penance, and listed in penitential books. See Catholic Dictionary online:
Quoted after the 1548 edition; see also Wiemken, Vom Sterben des reichen Mannes, pp. 155–156. It is the first choral song, Reuchlin, Henno, ll. 144–152, see furthermore Reuchlin, Scaenica progymnasmata, ed. Jan Bloemendal (Trier: WVT, 2024) Bochumer Altertumswissenschaftlicher Colloquia, 116, pp. 64–65. As far as I know, this connection has not been recognized before.
See above, pp. 85, 101 and 103.
Gennep, Der sunden loin ist der Toid, title page verso; Carl Niessen, Dramatische Darstellungen in Köln von 1526–1700 (Cologne: Verlag des Kölnischen Geschichtsvereins e.v., 1917), Veröffentlichungen des Kölnischen Geschichtsvereins e.v., 2. pp. 74–75.
On Hermann von Wied, see, e.g., Andrea Badea, Kurfürstliche Präeminenz, Landesherrschaft und Reform: Das Scheitern der Kölner Reformation unter Hermann von Wied (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2009) Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 154; Rainer Sommer, Hermann von Wied: Erzbischof und Kurfürst von Köln, 3 vols (Cologne: Rheinland-Verlag, 2000–2023) Schriftenreihe des Vereins fur Rheinische Kirchengeschichte, 142, 183 and 189.
See on him ADB 14, p. 511 (J. Franck) and NDB 10 (Karl Stamm), p. 603.
(Peter Jordan), Comedia Josephs, des frommen und Gottsförchtigen Jünglins/ wie er von seynen brüderen verkaufft. In Egipten unschuldiglich inn gefengnus kommen/ von dem König Pharaone erledigt/ und in hohe wirdigkeyt gesetzt worden ist ([Cologne: Jaspar von Gennep, 1540]). See Niessen, Dramatische Darstellungen, pp. 49–52, and Alexander von Weilen, Der ägyptische Joseph im Drama des XVI, Jahrhunderts (Vienna: A. Hölder, 1887), pp. 63–72.
The 1556 Nijmegen version by Peter van Elzen or Petrus Elsenius, which was never reprinted, was edited by Constant Serrure (Ghent: C. Annoot-Braeckman, 1857). For a modern edition of the early seventeenth-century printing of the Utrecht translation Een comedia ofte spel van Homulus, see Jan Willem van Bart, Een Comedia ofte spel van Homulus: Herdrukt naar de uitgave van Harmen van Borculo, met inleiding, Ph.D. thesis, University of Utrecht (Utrecht: De Boer, 1904). Van Bart consulted the copy (the only copy still extant, as far as is known) of the Duke of Arenberg in Brussels. See also Wiemken, Vom Sterben des reichen Mannes, p. XVII.
See also Wiemken, l.c.
For a list of the editions of this translation between 1556 (Nijmegen: Peter van Elzen) and 1701 (Amsterdam: Gijsbert de Groot), see Bart’s edition, pp. LVI–LX. An edition by Broer Jansz., also in Amsterdam, can be added to this list.
A modern edition can be found in Wiemken, Vom Sterben des reichen Mannes, pp. 163–218, and in Dammer and Jeßing, Der Jedermann im 16. Jahrhundert. For a comparison of Macropedius’s Hecastus and Sachs’s Von dem reichen sterbenden Menschen, der Hecastus genannt, see Tetzlaff, ‘Holländische neulateinische Dramen’, pp. 67–76. See also Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 73–76`; Parker, ‘Development’, pp. 74–82, and Benedikt Jeßing, ‘Zur Rezeption des morall play vom “Everyman” in der neulateinischen und frühneuhochdeutschen Komödie: Georg Macropedius, Hans Sachs’, in Reinhold F. Glei and Robert Seidel (eds), Das lateinische Drama der Frühen Neuzeit: Exemplarische Einsichten in Praxis und Theorie (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2008) Frühe Neuzeit, 129, pp. 87–99. The date of 8 September probably refers to the date of the completion of the play.
Hans Sachs, Sehr herrliche schöne und wahrhaffte Gedicht geistlich und weltlich allerlei Art, vol. 2 (Nuremberg: Christoph Heußler, 1560), fols. XXXr–XLIIIr.
Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 74–75. This added to the drama of the piece; on Sachs’s dramatic technique see, for instance, Brigitte Stuplich, Zur Dramentechnik des Hans Sachs (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1998) Arbeiten und Editionen zur Mittleren Deutschen Literatur, 5.
Quoted after Dammer and Jeßing, Der Jedermann im 16. Jahrhundert, pp. 124 and 125; see also Parker, ‘The Development of Everyman’, p. 74.
Ibid., p. 75.
Dammer and Jeßing, Der Jedermann im 16. Jahrhundert, pp. 142–143; Parker, ‘Development’, p. 80.
See, e.g., Wolfgang F. Michael, ‘Hans Sachs’, Daphnis, 20 (1999), pp. 422–431. However, Hugo Holstein assumed that Sachs knew Latin well: Allgemene Deutsche Biographie, vol. 27, p. 302, s.v. ‘Rappolt’. On Rappolt, see below.
Parker, ‘Development’, p. 81.
See Jeßing, ‘Zur Rezeption des morall play’, p. 93.
See Niklas Holzberg, review of Dammer and Jeßing, Der Jedermann im 16. Jahrhundert, in Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 136 (2007), pp. 540–542 (542), who refers to Hermann Habicht, ‘Ein halbes Jahrhundert aus dem Theaterleben Schmalkaldens’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hennebergische Geschichte und Landeskunde zu Schmalkalden, 3 (1888), pp. 3–30 (20); and Moritz Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, vol. 1 (Dresden: Rudolf Kuntze, 1861), p. 107: ‘Comödie vom stolzen Jünglinge Eucasto’.
Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus, p. 73, is convinced that Rappolt, who administered a school in the Carthusian monastery in Nuremberg, is not the translator, but he gives no alternative.
Ibid., p. 74.
ADB 30, p. 12, s.v. ‘Hans Sachs’ (Edmund Goetze); ADB 27, p. 302, s.v. ‘Rappolt’ (Hugo Holstein). See also Tetzlaff, ‘Holländische neulateinische Dramen’, p. 71.
It was printed in Erfurt by Georg Baumann d.Ä. in 1564 (with thanks to Hartmut Beyer (Herzog August Bibliothek) for sending photos of the title page, the dedication and the dramatis personae). On Spangenberg, see, e.g., Tim Lorentzen, ‘Spangenberg, Cyriacus’, in Klaus Kipf (ed.), Frühe Neuzeit in Deutschland: literaturwissenschaftliches Verfasserlexikon, vol. 6 (Berlin: De Gruyter. 2017), coll. 49–64.
See ADB 27, p. 479 (Hugo Holstein).
See ADB 32, p. 467 (Johannes Bolte).
See Bloemendal, ‘Neo-Latin Drama between Nationality and Transnationality’, in Cornelis van der Haven a.o. (eds), Literature without Frontiers: Transnational Perspectives on Premodern Literature in the Low Countries, 1200–1800 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2023), Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 346, pp. 112–144. p. 132, and ADB 30 (1890), pp. 419–420 (Reimer). Bolte, Drei Schauspiele, mentions Saur’s translation, referring to Johann Cless, Elenchus unius saeculi … ab anno Domini 1500 ad 1602 (Frankfurt, 1602), p. 410: ‘Comoedia germanica Hecastos seu Homulus. Marpurgi 1591 8.’ Friedrich Wilhelm Strieder, Grundlage zu einer hessischen Gelehrten und Schriftsteller-Geschichte, vol. 12 (Cassel and Marburg: s.n., 1799), pp. 207–215, esp. p. 215 mentions, besides the Latin comedy Agapetus (1592) this German play; ‘Hecastus sive Homulus, eine deutsche Comödie’. I have not been able to locate a copy.
See Bandhuber and Witek, ‘Der erste Salzburger “Jedermann” ’ (n. 1), pp. 91–129, esp. pp. 108–113 and pp. 113–126 (with thanks to Florian Schaffenrath for pointing this reference and providing a copy).
It was printed in Lübeck by Johann Balhorn d. J. in 1584. A modern edition was made by Johannes Bolte, De Düdesche Schlömer: Ein niederdeutsches Drama von Johannes Stricker (1584) (Norden and Leipzig: Diedr. Soltau’s Verlag, 1899), Drucke des Vereins für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung, 3. Bolte’s edition was printed again with a new introduction and emendations by Arnold E. Berger, ‘Johann Stricker und sein Drama “De Düdesche Schlömer” (1584)’, in id. (ed.), Die Schaubühne im Dienste der Reformation, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Philipp Reclam, 1936) Deutsche Literatur in Entwicklungsreihen, Reihe Reformation, 6, pp. 136–347. See also Parker, ‘Development’, pp. 83–98, on which I mainly base my analysis, and Best, ‘Heralds of Death’, pp. 400–401; Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 77 and 111–131. On Stricker and his play, see also ADB 36, pp. 579–580 (Johannes Bolte).
Parker, ‘Development’, p. 83.
The Early High German version of 1588 had the title: Der Deutsch Schlemmer. Das ist, Ein Geistlich Spiel, darinne abgemalet gewarnet, vnd zu warer Busse vermanet warden, alle Gottes vergessene, wilde, ruchlose vnd sichere Menschen, auff das sie mit diesem Schlemmer bekeret vnd selig werden möchten (Magdeburg: Ambrosius Kirchner, 1588), with two verse prologues (‘Prologus, darin des Spels inholdt vormeldet wert’) and a verse epilogue (‘Epilogus, darinne disses Spels frucht vnd nütticheit angetöget wert, allen Minschen thor warning vnd lere’); the 1593 reprints in Frankfurt an der Oder by Nikolaus Voltz contain several additions, mostly likely not from Stricker, a verse prologue (‘Eine Vorrede an den Christlichen Leser’), and an ‘Epigramma ad Asotos’ in distichs by the Lutheran theologian Christoph Pelargus. The additions in the 1588 and 1593 editions are fully unrelated (with thanks to Henrietta Danker of the Herzog August Bibliothek for providing me with reproductions of the Vorrede and the Epigramma).
See above, p. 111.
See Edda Fuhrich-Leisler, Gisela Prossnitz and Fritz Fuhrich (eds), Jedermann in Europa: Vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart: Eine Ausstellung der Max Reinhardt-Forschungs- und Gedenkstätte (Salzburg: Max Reinhardt-Forschungs- und Gedenkstätte, 1979), p. 22.
In the edition by Bolte, pp. 25 and 26, resp. For a list of the sources of De Düdesche Schlömer, see the ed. Bolte, pp. *15–*45.
Edition Bolte, p. 34. Cf. Martin Luther: ‘Mater igitur hipocritarum et causa hipocrisis est ipsa securitas’ (‘Complacency itself is therefore the mother of hypocrites and the cause of hypocrisy’), Luther’s Vorlesung über den Römerbrief 1515/1516, ed. Johannes Ficker (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1925), p. 116.
Edition Bolte, p. 75.
See also ADB 38, pp. 579–580 (Bolte).
Thomas Naogeorgus, Mercator (1540) Tragoedia alia nova Mercator seu Iudicium … (Ingolstadt: Alexander Weissenborn I, 1540). A modern edition in Bolte, Drei Schauspiele, pp. 161–319, and in Thomas Naogeorg, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 2, Dramen 2: Tragoedia alia nova Mercator: mit einer zeitgenössischen Übersetzung, ed. Hans-Gert Roloff (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1982), which contains excerpts from the translations by Jacob Rulich and Doede van Amsweer; the German translation by Jacob Rulich can also be found in Wiemken, Drei Schauspiele vom sterbenden Menschen, pp. 219–417. See also Arthur Hübner, ‘Studien zu Naogeorg’, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 54 (1913), pp. 297–338, esp. Pp. 320–338; Leendert Strengholt, ‘Kooplui in conflict met hun geweten’, De Nieuwe Taalgids, 62 (1969), pp. 340–343; Parker, ‘Development’, pp. 65–73; Goedeke, Every-Man, Homulus und Hekastus, pp. 109–110; Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, ‘The Renaissance Meets the Reformation: The Dramatist Thomas Naogeorg (1508–1563): Traditions, Texts and Performance’, in Thomas F. Earle and Catarina Fouto (eds), The Reinvention of Theatre in Sixteenth-Century Europe: Traditions, Texts and Performance (London: Legenda, 2015), pp. 317–331.
See Hübner, ‘Studien zu Naogeorg’, p. 322. For a list of resemblances between Mercator and Homulus, and Mercator and Hecastus, see ibid., pp. 323–326.
The word ‘alia’ should be deleted according to the list of errata at the end of the play (sig. H3[2]v).
Against Strijbosch and Zellmann, Elckerlijc—Jedermann, p. 96. In the third Act of Mercator, the depiction follows step by step the individual stages of the process of salvation according to the Lutheran doctrine: the contritio of the sinner is followed by his desperatio, the infusio gratiae that is granted to the Merchant as one of the electi: the turning towards God, the awakening of hope, the complete submission to God’s will, the acceptance of the verbum Dei and the fides that arises from it. See Hübner, ‘Studien zu Naogeorg’, p. 321.
See the Prologue, l. 7; Mercator, ll. 2, 492–494, 496.
For this summary, cf. Parker, ‘Development’, p. 65, and for the equation of Lyochares and Death, pp. 71–72.
Parker, ‘Development’, p. 68.
See, e.g., the second choral ode, which begins: ‘Ille ter prorsus miser est quaterque, | Cui salus et spes tenues in auras | Cedit edocto male sana tantum | Dogmata Papae’ (‘He is utterly wretched, three and four times, whose hope and salvation vanish into thin air, having been taught only the unsound doctrines of the Pope’) and ends with Christ as the only source of salvation: ‘Christus est finis positus salutis | Solus, et legis Colophon fideli, | Absque quo nulli bene facta prosunt | Totius orbis’ (‘Christ is appointed the end of salvation, the sole Summit of the Law for a faithful, without whom no good deeds benefit anyone in the whole world’) (Naogeorgus, Mercator (1540), sig. D5[2]r and D5[3]r).
Ibid. See ed. Roloff, pp. 282–338. For an excellent, concise discussion of Luther’s concept of justification, see Alister McGrath, ‘Luther’s Doctrine of Justification’, Evangel, 7.1 (Spring 1989), pp. 16–17 (
Parker, ‘Development’, p. 70, and Hübner, ‘Studien zu Naogeorg’, pp. 330–333.
Een seer schoon Comedie oft Spel vanden bekeerden Coopman … (Antwerp: Niclaes Mollijns, 1583). On the name of the translator, Frans Leerse, see Strengholt, ‘Kooplui in conflict met hun geweten’, p. 343.
Jacob Rulich, Der Kauffmann oder das Gericht: Ein Geistliche Tragoedi, darinnen der underschid Apostolischer und grob Papistischer Lehr und trosts im schweren Geistlichen kampff des Gewissens nutzlich, den einfältigen zu underricht fürgestellt und abgebildet wirdt: Vor etlichen Jaren in Latein beschriben durch Thomam Naogeorgum, sonst Kirchmeyr genant, von Straubingen: An jetzo aber in Teutsche Reyman gebracht ([Lindau am Bodensee: Johann Ludwig Brem], 1595).
See Strijbosch and Zellmann, Elckerlijc—Jedermann, p. 96.
See Strengholt, ‘Kooplui in conflict met hun geweten’, esp. pp. 341–342. On Coornhert’s plays, see Anneke C.G. Fleurkens, Stichtelijke lust: De toneelspelen van D.V. Coornhert als middelen tot het geven van morele instructie (Hilversum: Verloren, 1994). His plays are edited by Paul van der Meulen in D.V. Coornhert, Het roerspel en de comedies van Coornhert (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1955), pp. 15–79.
See Joanka van der Laan, Performative Religious Reading in the Low Countries (c. 1470–1550) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2025), esp. pp. 63–64.
Diarmaid McCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490–1700 (London: Allen Lane, 2003).
See above, p. 82 and the contribution by Andrea Peverelli, p. 75.
Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (New York: Knopf, 1987).
See Elckerlijc, ed. Elslander (1985), p. vii.
For a bibliography of editions, see Strijbosch and Zellmann, pp. 109–110; Elslander, pp. xix–xxiii.