Oransch
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W |
olfram von Eschenbach has a gift for describing his
scenes of action in a wonderfully vivid manner. The philologist Samuel Singer was
struck by this and illustrated it with the following passage:
The
besieging heathens march up to the castle. Their names are generally the same
as in the source, except that one name
Amis de Cordres, in Aliscans 1779 98:14, was turned into two: Amis und Cordeiz. These source names are
supplemented by earlier ones, so that their number is greater than by Wolfram.
But above all, Wolfram does not merely sum them up; each one is assigned a
special position opposite one of the five gates of the castle, which he
apparently visualized exactly according to the model of a town he knew: two of
the gates are situated in front of the palace (Wh. 97:17): gein dem palas gelegen. The third one faces the plain (Wh. 97:28): diu uz gienc gein dem plane. The
liberated Christians were ordered to defend the castle on the other side,
something that is not explicitly mentioned in the source (Wh. 96:20-24):
Willehalm
der kurteise, The
chivalric Willehalm entrusted
al
die porte und drobe die wer all
the gates and defences above
bevalh
er dem erlosten her to
the liberated Christians
daz
er in dem woldean that
he had rescued in the attack
bî
den soumen dort gewan. upon
the heathens with the baggage train.[1]
Thus, Wolfram von Eschenbach pays more attention to
detail than does his source Aliscans
and Singer assumes that Wolfram is apparently referring exactly to the model of
a town he knew.
This is
very likely. One feels at once invited to discover the town in the medieval
geography that must have served Wolfram as his model for describing Oransch.
We know
that Wolfram called himself a Bavarian, that he comes from a German town
presently called Wolframs-Eschenbach in the region of Mittelfranken near
In attempting
to reconstruct the contours of a medieval town, one soon begins to doubt
whether Singer’s supposed model could ever be found. Wolfram’s Oransch is
minutely described by the poet and, to be sure, very plausibly, but when looked
at closer, Wolfram’s town of Oransch turns out to be a rather peculiar place
indeed.
While
studying the ground plan of this accurately described town, one is hard put to
even consider it realistic. Wolfram’s indications seem to contradict each
other. He says the town has an inner as well as an outer ring and that Giburc
and her father have religious conversations there, apparently over and above an
entire part of the town. This peculiarity arises when Giburc for that purpose
goes to a window of her palace, while her father, who is besieging the town, is
standing in a field in front of the town gate, thus outside the outer rampart.
How could a conversation get started at all over such a distance?
In spite
of Singer’s assumption that Wolfram is describing a very definite and familiar
town, one is inclined to doubt the validity of his description and thus refer
his seemingly so concrete details to the fictitious realm of poetry. One could
in any case come to the conclusion that it would be better to stop trying to
identify the town that Wolfram may have used as a model for describing the
events in Oransch. The setting for the religious conversation is so improbable
that such a scene could hardly ever be located in geographical reality.
Yet this
first objection is not sufficient for refuting Singer’s assumption, for this
assumption by a present-day Wolfram researcher is confirmed by an earlier and
just as competent a judge.
Now, it
is certainly not our intention to merely bring in the opinions of authorities
or juxtapose them and – instead of judging for ourselves – believe in the
authority of such experts. In this case, it is a matter of redeeming an expert
from the past or having him join the discussion, an expert whose reliability is
unjustly being questioned. Since Simrock’s assumption that fiction is being
offered as non-fiction, the best expert on
Wolfram
assures us that in his
In his
prologue to
underswanc noch underreit No
interruption or interpolation
gevalsche dise rede nie: ever
distorted this tale.
Thus speaks a man who
like no other occupied himself with
Whoever
gives any credence to Wolfram’s assurances in his prologue to
With
respect to Parzival, Wolfram bases
himself on a source, an informant named Kyot. Nobody believes him. Kyot
adherents and sceptics are opposed like two religious confessions.
Unfortunately, historians have been unable to help either, because there are no
historical documents extant with which the truth of Wolfram’s claims can be
proven. Hence, it is believed that Parzival
is not based on any historical fact. Our historical knowledge is also
fragmentary with respect to Wolfram’s
In this
unpromising situation, philology has resorted to a measure with which the
solution to this problem can be averted. The viewpoint has been taken that in
the field of poetry every conceivable linkage of motives is possible. It is
said that Wolfram does not override poetic principles in presenting us fiction
as truth. From a philological point of view, it is not a question at all
whether Kyot existed or not, and whether the French told the truth with respect
to
Since
sidestepping the problem, philology has on the whole been concerned with more
formalistic research into Wolfram’s work. Those philologists who out of their
general scientific background are still posing questions no longer considered
to be philologically correct, are not taken seriously in professional circles.
There are therefore less and less researchers with questions concerning Kyot.
As the Kyot problem was sidetracked – philologists call it sublimation – this
issue has not received the treatment desirable from a historical as well as a
philological viewpoint. With every specialist, historian as well as
philologist, shut up in his professional field and striking problems from his
program that can only be mastered in concert with other faculties, essential
questions will remain unanswered.
We would
like to offer a solution to the Kyot problem by assuming a non-specialist
viewpoint and invite, next to the philologist and the historian, also a
geographer to join our research team.
As
historical means of comparison are missing and as, philologically speaking,
there seem to be no problems left, we have come to assess Wolfram’s references
in a new manner. We will first examine the truthfulness of his geographic
references by asking, in the first instance, whether Wolfram’s scenes of action
of the
Singer’s
assumption that Wolfram describes realities should prompt us to try to find the
scenes of action in the geographical reality with the working hypothesis that
Wolfram’s descriptions are true. We will not question his claim to be telling
the truth, because we are making an experiment: we want to see what results
from the consciously adopted viewpoint that instead of wanting to mislead us,
Wolfram is relating true events.
Kyot
opponents and Kyot followers agree on one point. Both of them equally admire
Wolfram von Eschenbach as the greatest of Middle High German poets. Both place
him alongside Goethe and rightly so. But we do injustice to these two cultural
heroes by only admiring their art of poetry and not attempting to understand
them in a field where they designated themselves superior to others. After all,
Goethe did not care much about his poetry. What mattered to him was his colour theory.
Neither did Wolfram appreciate his art of poetry all that much. But he was
convinced to be greater than others, because it was granted to him to examine
the truthfulness of the story he heard about. He admits that he can neither
read nor write. He speaks, however, of a gift for conveying the truth as an art
that is due to God’s righteousness. What he says about Kyot also applies to him
(Wh. 2:16,17):
der
rehten schrift dôn unde wort Thy
spirit has informed the sound
dîn
geist hât gesterket
and the
words of Holy Scriptures
Separating truth from falsehood is the proper task of the
historical researcher. Wolfram characterizes himself as a historian through his
aspirations to tell the truth. He is proud of being in a better position than
others to tell what is true or false regarding the French tradition of Chrétien
de Troyes.
Just as
we are discovering Goethe anew today as a natural scientist without therefore
appreciating him any less as a poet, we should also decide to recognize Wolfram
von Eschenbach as a historian without lessening his stature as a poet. Wolfram
himself is no less critical than a present-day researcher. He struggled to find
the truth of
Our task
must be to examine his research results with our present means of research and,
should they prove to be airtight, to acknowledge them.
Access to Wolfram’s frame of mind could be
found by immersing ourselves in an unbiased way in his thoughts and then
observing what insights we can gain thereby.
Our
working hypothesis is to take Wolfram seriously, to deal with his accounts as
historical facts, to first understand his references and then to linger with all
the details until they no longer contain any contradictions. Should this
experiment not succeed immediately, we have to ask ourselves what we did wrong
and look for other points of view until everything fits in without fail and is
mutually supporting.
In
this sense we now want to examine what we did wrong in supposing that no
religious conversation could have been held over a distance of two Oransch town
walls. Assuming a positive attitude we ask: Wolfram reports that Giburc and
Terramer held a religious conversation. What must the locality, the setting for
this scene, therefore be like in order for Wolfram’s references to be right?
Position of the Inner City in the
Outer Ring
Figure
1. Concentric Figure 2. Eccentric
It is certain that the inner and outer ring of
Oransch may not be represented as concentric circles (Figure 1). The outer ring
would then be a hindrance. The inner ring must lie eccentrically and the palace
from the outer ring too must be conceived as lying at the edge of the smaller
ring, close enough to the wall of the outer ring so that there are no houses
from the outer ring in between (Figure 2).
If
we imagine the palace window from which Giburc is speaking to be very high, so
high that one can see the field in front of the gate above both town walls,
then it could be possible to make oneself heard over such a distance. In that
way, Giburc and her father could shout to each other to be heard.
Yet
Wolfram does not say they shouted, but that they spoke. Concerning Giburc we
read si sprach (she spoke, Wh.
215:10) and neither did Terramer raise his voice in answering. Wolfram says
(Wh. 217:10-11):
daz ich sölh kint ie gewann, that I ever had such
a child,
sprach
Terramêr der rîche. said
the mighty Terramer.
True to our working hypothesis – to give
Wolfram credence – we must bring Terramer and Giburc a little bit closer
together.
The
special position of the inner town of Oransch in the outer ring must be
conceived as being much more extreme than we have represented it until now.
This eccentric position can be recognized in the passage describing how the
heathens were deployed. Singer’s quotation reads that two gates are situated gein dem palas (near the palace). This
is indeed more or less the case, but Singer’s representation is not yet precise
enough to satisfy Wolfram’s requirements. According to Wolfram, one gate was situated (Wh. 97:17 ff.):
…..gein dem palas ....
near the palace
dâ Gyburc selbe
ûffe was. where Giburc herself was.
The second gate was also situated on the inner
ring, not where Giburc was looking out on, but on the opposite side of the
inner ring, which Giburc could not see while speaking from Glorjet Palace with
her father. Since both city gates do not open onto the inner but onto the outer
ring, and since Giburc’s palace window – in the inner ring – is situated right
above Terramer’s army camp, the inner ring must extend at this place beyond the
periphery of the outer ring. When we conceive of the outer ring as a circle and
imagine a smaller circle, with its centre on this circle, extending half into
the larger circle and half beyond it, we then approximate the situation we need
in order to find Wolfram’s references confirmed (Figure 3). The wall of the
outer ring now runs at a right angle into the wall of the inner ring. This
inner ring is, as it were, swallowed by the wall of the outer ring. The inner
ring extends at this point beyond the outer one.
Figure
3. Ground Plan of Oransch with its Five Gates
Assuming that the wall of Giburc’s palace was
an integral part of the inner as well as the outer town wall, then her palace
has some windows still situated in the inner ring above the alley leading to
the gate; it has perhaps a window directly above the wall and the gate of the
outer ring, and it has at least one window outside the outer ring above the
ditch or above the plain in front of the city gate where Terramer has deployed
his army. When Giburc goes to this window, Terramer can come directly beneath
her window when he wants to speak with her. This matches Wolfram’s description
of the situation precisely (Wh. 97:17 ff.):
Terramêr und rois Tybalt Terramer and
King Tybalt
sich
schône leiten mit gewalt deployed their whole
army
für
die porten gein dem palas in
front of the gates near the palace
dâ
Gyburc selbe ûffe was where
Giburc herself was.
When we now follow the deployment of the
heathens further, we learn that Phereiz and Korsant andersîte lâgen (were deployed on the other side). There is
therefore a second gate in Oransch on the other side of the inner ring, where
the situation is like a mirror image. We will see later that
The third gate, which
is being besieged by King Margot Pozzidant, looks out – so Wolfram tells us –
on the plain. The location of the fourth gate is thought to be, because no
topographical details are given, opposite Giburc’s palace, beyond the outer
city furthest away from the outer town wall. This gate was delegated to Fabors
(Wh. 98:5). The fifth gate, where Halzebier is deployed, is to be found
opposite the third gate on the right side of the outer town wall.
This
ground plan of Oransch derived from Wolfram’s description shows a townscape,
which apparently does not lie on a plain. When the contours of the land do not
dictate something else, an outer ring is usually built concentrically around the
inner castle. We should therefore ask what sort of landscape there could be
that matches Wolfram’s townscape in a realistic way. Wolfram indicates
something typical: the third gate leads onto a plain. He also says that
Terramer wanted to attack the town from all sides, from the mountain and the
valley (Wh. 111:6). We thus have to reckon with a plain, a mountain and a
valley.
There
are two possible ways of explaining the eccentric position of the inner ring in
connection with these topographical elements: either this inner part of the
town lies on or against a mountain, or it is surrounded by water and lies on a
semi-peninsula. We could assume a semi- peninsula formed by a navigable river
as a special protection for the inner ring. If the river is small, we could
also consider a semi-peninsula-like terrace with a steep edge as such a
protection. However, this semi-peninsula position would hardly be conceivable
without reference to a bridge or a ford. And Wolfram mentions no such passage,
not even a river of sorts.
The circumstance that gates one and two are
situated right on the spot where both rings interpenetrate leads one to believe
that the mountain site we are looking for lies between these pair of gates. The
inner castle leans against the edge of this mountain. That the castle must be
represented as leaning against the mountain and not as standing on top of the
mountain is borne out by the fact that Terramer also wanted to attack from the
mountain, which would be impossible if the mountain were enclosed by the
rampart up as far as its very top. The mountain must lie – in order to match
Wolfram’s description – below the top, for otherwise it could not, as already
mentioned, be attacked from above. We therefore have gate one, at the foot of
the mountain but already located on the plain, which leads into the outer ring.
As its mirror image, we have gate two, and between these pair of gates we
imagine the mountain and that half of the inner ring, which, leaning against
the mountain, extends beyond the outer ring. That the third gate leads onto the
plain is expressly stated by Wolfram. The side of the valley, thus the place
where a river – a rather insignificant one – must flow by, would then have to
be represented by gate four or five. One tends to say four or five, because gate five, without the exit into a valley, must be
located as a mirror image to gate three and must also lead onto a plain. In
that way, we have reconstructed the ground plan of Oransch according to
Wolfram’s references (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Landscape with a Plain , Valley, River and Mountain
Wolfram describes even further details with
which the buildings can be reconstructed. Inner Oransch withstood Terramer’s
assault. The might of this castle is described as unique (Wh. 95:1; 111:2; 251:22): Oransch is the best of all
castles.
A
major part of this inner Oransch seems to be Giburc’s palace Glorjet. This building however has a
counterpart:
Plate
1. The Roman Theatre of Orange, France
The huge rectangular blocks of stone were
measured and hewn so exactly that they could be, without cement, stacked up
without gaps. Such Roman buildings are still standing today, with blocks of
stone – in spite of weather conditions and earthquakes – so smoothly joined
together that it is impossible to insert a piece of paper between them.
The
Franks preferred transforming Roman castles into Imperial Courts. Yet their
castles usually consisted of masonry built with cement, and not of “measured”
stones.
Now
that we have drawn with the aid of Wolfram’s references a “robotic image” of
the town of Oransch, we can try to find this town in the geographical reality.
True to our working hypothesis in regarding Wolfram’s indications as accurate
as long as we are not forced to mistrust him, the course for this search is set
out. We do not start our search anywhere within Wolfram’s world of experience,
but at the place where he himself says that one should look. Wolfram says
clearly where the scenes around Oransch occurred: in Orangis. He mentions
er ist en franzoys genant In French he is
called
kuns
Gwillâms de Orangis.
Count William of Orange.
It is generally known that Orangis is Orange
in the south of France.
We
now compare our robotic image of Oransch with the geography of Orange, and
surprise: the result indicates that Wolfram is right. Our robotic image matches
reality (Figure 5).
Surprised are naturally only those who
heretofore assumed that Wolfram used a certain version of the Bataille d’Alliscans as his source and
that his additions are drawn from his own poetic fantasy. Whoever is able to
lay this assumption aside is not surprised by the result, for according to
Wolfram’s own words, one would expect the description to match reality. Now
that the town, which according to Singer’s assumption Wolfram must have had in
mind, has been located, the unprejudiced reader would expect the additional
details from Wolfram’s description to be verified as well.
What
is the story here?
South
of the town of Orange, leaning against the edge of the Eutrope Mountain – with
the semi-circular rows of the spectator seats partly hewn into the rock of this
mountain – still stand the ruins today of the Roman theatre of Orange (Plate
2).
Plate
2. The Stage of the Roman Theatre in
This enormous structure with the 103-meter
long and 38-meter high proscenium wall built with rectangular blocks of hewn
and smoothly stacked stones is Giburc’s Palace Glorjet (Figure 6).
Figure 5. Oransch in Present-day
Orange Figure 6. Glorjet
Palace with 38-m. high Pinnacle
West
of this building we have the ruins of the Roman Gymnasium. It is somewhat
smaller than the theatre, but has almost the same ground plan. The geographer
recognizes this building – this may also be of interest to philologists – as
Willehalm’s palace Termis (Plate 3).
Plate
3. Roman Temple or Gymnasium in Orange – Site of Willehalm’s Thermis
Both
of these huge Roman monuments essentially constitute in the 9th
century the inner ring of the town of Orange called Oransch by Wolfram.
Where once the outer ring of the town ran into the inner
ring, is where today the road to Avignon passes close by the east side of the
theatre (Plate 4).
Plate
4. East Side of the Roman Theatre On the Road to
The
walls of the theatre supported the archway of the town gate leading into the
outer ring. The obliquely patched up surface against the wall of the theatre
that formed the support for the archway can still be recognized (Plate 5).
Plate
5. Archway of Gate One of the
The
moat around the outer ring went from the theatre along Rue de l’Hôpital, which
runs in a great curve to the left towards the square at Rue Saint-Florent and
Rue des Vieux Ramparts. In the Middle Ages, the street front of the buildings
facing the town on this street formed the wall of the outer ring. The facades
of the houses are standing partly on the foundations of this non-Roman town
wall (Plate 6).
Plate
6. View from the Window Recess of the Roman Theatre
This
street – Rue des Vieux Ramparts – that was built on top of the filled-up moat,
runs in a curve around the Saint-Florent quarter to the small stream Meyne. The
fifth gate was located there near a ford or a bridge. From this gate,
Halzebiers followed the town wall along the course of the Meyne in a large
curve until he reached the northern part of the town, i.e. from Wolfram’s fifth
gate to the fourth. Through this fourth gate, the street leads underneath the
Roman Arch of Triumph (Plate 7) northwards up into the valley of the Rhone.
Plate
7. Roman Arch of Triumph in Orange
In
front of this gate – the one of Fabors – the westward course of the medieval
outer ring cannot be recognised as clearly. It is possible that the walls of
the Roman stadium formed the western walls of the outer ring. In this case, the
outer ring would have run back perpendicularly to the Roman Thermal baths, respectively
to Willehalm’s Palace Termis. Perhaps
there also existed towards the plain, which extends from the town until the
Rhone, a semi-circular town enclosure with the third gate in the middle.
On
the basis of this geographical information, we would now like to analyse the
two scenes in which Wolfram describes how Willehalm approached the town after
the first battle and a second time upon his return from Munleun.
The
first time he approaches from the south where, by the sea at Alischanz, he had
done battle. From afar he already recognizes Mount Eutrope with at its foot the
mighty block of the Roman Theatre. Willehalm knows he cannot draw any
conclusions from this striking silhouette as to the situation in Oransch. This
silhouette would appear the same irrespective of whether Glorjet would be
intact or burned down. The roof of the palace is the decisive factor. This
desk-like, southwards ascending roof, overshadowed by the proscenium wall, did
not extend beyond the fireproof walls capable of withstanding any and all siege
equipment, and thus Willehalm remained in doubt about Giburc’s lot until being
in a position to recognize the roof. If Wolfram describes the situation
accordingly, he must situate the moment from which Willehalm can rest assured
at the place where he cannot only recognize the silhouette of the palace, but
also its roof. Wolfram describes this moment as follows (Wh. 82:15):
So ritt der unversagte, Then
the undaunted man rode
dass
ihn niemand erjagte, so
no one could overtake him,
und er Oransch
ersah: until
he spied Orange
ûf dem palas sîn liehtez dach. and
on the palace its gleaming roof.
Troubled by the same anxiety,
Willehalm rides a second time towards Oransch. He is returning from Munleun.
This time his anxiety about Giburc’s lot is even greater, because the burning
town gives rise to the worst scenario: will he arrive in time with his imperial
troops to save inner Oransch and Giburc? We accompany Willehalm on his charge
and wait for the moment when he can recognize whether the palace still supports
the burning roof. But this moment does not come. At the break of day, Willehalm
sees through the smoke of the burning town that the palace is still standing;
but what about the roof? Was Glorjet intact or burned out? By not saying a word
about this, Wolfram shows himself to be an expert. Willehalm comes from the
north this time. He hurries down the Rhone valley. Passing through the Roman
Arch of Triumph, he arrives at the fourth gate of the outer town. There he
discovers that Terramer’s army camp has been cleared. Between this gate and
Glorjet Palace lies the burning town. Wolfram must have known this geographical
situation exactly. He says (Wh. 226:16-19):
Terramêr von
Tenabrî Terramer
and Tenabri
und Fâbors von Mecka and
Fabors of
daz gese gerûmet
hêten dâ.
had already abandoned camp
Why does he, next to Terramer, not also
mention Tybalt or another army commander from the great number of all the
possible names? He does this for the sake of the exactness of his report.
Willehalm is now standing in front of the fourth gate and in Wh. 98:4 Wolfram
informed us that this gate had been delegated to Fabors – together with
Ehmereiz, Morgowanz and Passigweiz and their troops. Therefore, he names the
supreme commander, and besides that also the subordinate commander Fabors who
was stationed there.
From
the fourth gate, Willehalm now advances with Rennewart through the burning
town. Near the square in front of the Theatre he arrives at the closed gate of
inner Oransch. He recognizes people on the roof terrace. Now he knows that not
everyone is dead. He shouts up to the roof terrace: “Is the Queen still alive?”
Up on the roof terrace, nobody knew who had
ridden onto the square. The Queen, who knows this time that Willehalm is
wearing Arofel’s armour and no longer riding on Puzzat but Volatin, does not
recognize him. She shouts to him in a heathen language.
Why
does Wolfram go to all this trouble? Is it to make his story more exciting?
When
Willehalm came riding from the sea, Giburc recognized him by the scar on his
nose, and now when she could have recognized him by Arofel’s armour she shouts
to him in a heathen language. Why does Willehalm in this situation not simply
remove his helmet so as to identify himself by his scar? Why does he shout up
to where the lucid Giburc is, when it is she who is standing above him on the
roof terrace and had shouted to him in a heathen language?
Wolfram
is explaining to us what these circumstances are based on when he has Giburc
answer (Wh. 228:18,19):
ich wil iu fürbaz nâhen I will come
closer to you
unt
kündeclîcher werden kurc. and
show myself more plainly.
The present scene in front of the gate differs
from the previous one above all by the circumstance that Willehalm and Giburc
are much further apart this time. Giburc would have had to come closer in order to recognize him. The first time Willehalm was
standing in front of the first gate of the outer rampart. Giburc stood above
him on the defense and was in a similar position as a wife today speaking from
the window of her living room on the first floor to her husband standing in
front of her in the garden. She recognizes details like the scar on her
husband’s nose. In the second scene the situation is totally different. Now
Willehalm is not in front of one of the known gates of the outer ring, but in
front of the main gate of the inner ring, i.e. in front of the 38-meter high
proscenium wall of the Roman Theatre. Giburc had been told that an army was
seen approaching. This had been observed from the roof terrace through the
smoke of the burning town. The burning outer ring lies to the north of Glorjet
Palace and in order to see who is marching onto the town, Giburc must also
ascend to the roof terrace of the palace, i.e. onto the highest spot of the
proscenium wall of the Roman Theatre situated to the north. From there, she
sees above and beyond the smoking town the approaching horsemen riding on the
road to the Arch of Triumph.
From
below Willehalm, who rushed there in advance of his troops, shouts at this
moment if the Queen is still alive. Giburc’s position is higher than the roof
of the palace that must be thought of as hidden by the roof terrace towards the
south. From the street, Willehalm could not see this roof and he therefore does
not know the shape of the roof terrace behind it either. Giburc is standing 38
meter above him; from this height Willehalm and Rennewart appear almost like
ants. One can compare it with present-day circumstances by imagining a woman,
who previously had spoken to her husband from the first floor of her house, now
placed up on the 13th floor of a high-rise apartment building. The
roof terrace of the palace is that high. Wolfram is not specific about this,
but the whole scene is put together in such a way that everything appears
realistic only on the presupposition that Wolfram had known the exact height of
this roof palace. Giburc finally recognised Willehalm – and properly so – not
by his scar, but by his voice. Even without Giburc’s helplessness, Willehalm
would have had to wait sometime before Giburc had come down to him from her
church steeple-like height.
Using
Wolfram’s exact references, even the hall can be located today from which
Giburc spoke with her father. It is located above the eastern main spectator
entrance, but was walled up in Willehalm’s time. It is the room next to the
foyer above which the top semi-circular seating rows begin.
Standing
in its windows, one looks out on the road to Avignon directly in front of the
former town gate leading to the battlefield. We say, as Wolfram does, “in these
windows”, because he also says (Wh. 234:30):
in den vestern
wart gelegen reclined
in the window recesses
This expression is accurate; the walls of the
Roman Theatre are so massive that a window recess assumes the size of a room.
Thus,
when standing in these windows recesses, Wolfram’s descriptions prove to be
absolutely accurate and one is filled with growing respect for the realism of
his descriptions. This aspect also throws a light on the uneasiness that
overcomes Wolfram when other writers of history describe events inexactly. If
we adopt the stance of a poet it is, for example, totally irrelevant whether it
is reported that Willehalm wore tweed or Arofels’ armour. If however one
adopts, like Wolfram, the stance of a historian, then it does make a difference
whether Willehalm appeared before Loys in Arofel’s armour or in tweed.
From
these circumstances, it must be concluded that regarding Wolfram only as a poet
is not to evaluate him in a professional manner. Upon closer examination
Wolfram turns out to be just as much a historian and a geographer as a poet. He
speaks not as a specialist, but as an encompassing personality committed to the
truth. Whoever studies his biography objectively must include the whole person
Wolfram von Eschenbach in his reflections. If one comes a step closer to
Wolfram’s claim to be telling the truth, one has thereby also done a service to
a more exact philology.
We
hope that our geographical research may also be helpful to those philologists
who still view the Kyot problem as unresolved. We therefore plan to continue
this unusual course and not to rest until Wolfram’s accounts are fully
transparent.
In the foregoing pages we attempted to confirm
Singer’s presumption that Wolfram had a quite definite town in mind. This
impression becomes evident on re-examining Wolfram’s descriptions at first
hand. Wolfram really did have a quite definite town in mind, namely that
particular town in which the events according to his conviction took place: the
town of Orange in Provence.
This
is by no means proof as yet that the described events really did take place.
Wolfram could perhaps have used Orange as a setting for his Oransch. His
detailed knowledge about this town certainly presupposes that he must have been
in Orange himself. That he took his descriptions of Orange from a travel report
seems very doubtful. There is, to be sure, an instance in which a poet
incorporates a traveller’s report so skilfully that the impression arises that
the poet knows the area from first hand: Frederick Schiller’s William Tell.
In
this case, however, the traveller was indeed a very special one who, for the
purpose of writing the William Tell plot, had already looked at the localities
that must have been known by the poet. With this special traveller – the poet
Goethe – this condition was fulfilled, because Goethe originally had the idea
of adapting the William Tell saga, which he knew from Tschudi’s Swiss Chronicle, into a work of poetry himself.
With this in mind, he consciously followed Tell’s traces. How intensively he
did this, can be read by Eckerman:
Goethe related to us that in the year 1797 he had
planned to adapt the Tell saga as an epic poem in hexameters.
“In the same year,” he said, “I
visited the small cantons, and the Lake of the Four Cantons
(Vierwaldstättersee); and this charming, magnificent, grand scenery made once
more such an impression on me, that it induced me to picture the variety and
richness of so incomparable a landscape in a poem …I was quite full of this
beautiful subject, and was already humming my hexameters. I saw the lake in the
quiet moonlight, illuminated mists in the depth of mountains…I related all this
to Schiller, in whose soul my landscapes and my acting figures formed
themselves into a drama. And as I had other things to do, and the execution of
my design was deferred more and more, I gave up my subject entirely to
Schiller, who thereupon wrote this admirable play.” [2]
The adoption by Schiller of someone else’s
material does not render him less a poet, anymore than Wolfram turning historic
events into poetry.
If
Hermann of Thuringia was Wolfram’s traveller, they could well have had the same
relationship as the one between Goethe and Schiller. It was after all this
Hermann of Thuringia who first acquainted Wolfram with his material for Willehalm.
Without
Willehalm’s story as a guideline, a traveller could deliver a beautiful travel
report from Provence, yet without having looked at those specific localities
that the poet needed in order to fashion the Willehalm plot this report
would be useless.
If
I may make a personal remark here: I knew Provence for decades before I began –
relatively late – to study Wolfram’s Willehalm
more thoroughly. As a young man I climbed the row of seats of the Roman Theatre
in Orange without knowing that I was in Giburc’s Glorjet Palace. I made canoe
trips up and down the canal from Arles to Port-de-Bouc without knowing that I
was paddling on Wolfram’s Larkant, and I was standing in the large cemetery Les Alyscamps without having the
slightest notion that I had set foot on Wolfram’s battlefield Alischanz. As a matter of fact, I had
already then studied this necropolis. I had read all the travel reports and
compared them to what the place looked like now. It was thanks to such a travel
report, by Mylius, that later on, while reading Wolfram’s Willehalm, I could all at once clearly visualize the site and find
its exact location. This echo from reading Wolfram’s battle report of a
previous travel experience prompted me to do further research into the scenes
of the Willehalm plot. Prior to that,
I would not have been able to describe to a poet what details he needed for
writing his work. I therefore doubt that Wolfram had the region described to
him by a traveller, unless it had been Hermann of Thuringia. But Hermann of
Thuringia did more, he not only described Provence to Wolfram, he also showed
it to him.
Wolfram von Eschenbach knew Provence personally;
this is the impression one gets more and more clearly. He inspected all those
sites that he needed to know for marking out his Willehalm.
Why would Wolfram as a poet have gone to all
this trouble, if he – as is maintained – merely wrote a poem and for that
purpose, instead of Orange, could have chosen for example Dinkelsbühl,
Rothenburg or just only Merkendorf (Plate 8) or for that matter his (German)
hometown Eschenbach as a setting?
Plate 8.
Castle Merkendorf in
His motive choosing this complicated scenario
I see in his striving to communicate to us not his own ‘free’ poetry, but, as
he himself expressly states, a certain historical tradition, which Hermann of
Thuringia handed down to him.
It would not come as a surprise to learn that
Wolfram together with Hermann of Thuringia had visited the scenes of the Willehalm plot as “pilgrims” then and
there. The more one re-examines his references, including those concerning the
battlefield of Alischanz, the less it becomes possible to avoid this
impression.
We have chosen Orange as the first example of
Wolfram’s encompassing detailed knowledge, because Glorjet Palace is still
standing there today – after its reconstruction as a Roman Theatre – in the
approximate form again it must have had in the days of Willehalm. Yet, Orange
could prove to be an exception. We therefore want to also get an impression of
a setting from the Willehalm plot that is situated in open country. This
brings us to the battlefield of Alischanz.
***