Separated at birth II

As I've been checking the works of practica authors in VD16/17, I've come across a few more authors that appear to be the same person recorded under different names, just like Nikolaus Weise/Wyse, Lukas von Köln/Cöllen, and Werner/Berner Hartmann. New candidates for having one entry too many in the Personennamendatei include the following.

Unless there were two student astrologers in Ansbach in the late sixteenth century whose names differed by only one letter, a misprinted title page appears to have led to a dual entry:

• Georg Kaeslinus - PND 129822523. Author of VD16 K 9 (Practica Auff das 1596. Jahr ... Gestellet durch Georgium Kaeslinum Onolsbacheneium studiosum Philosophiae et Mathematicae). Frankfurt/Main: Johann Kollitz, 1596.
• Georg Kreslin - PND 120811375. Seventeen entries in VD16/17, including VD16 ZV 18224 (Bergk Practica oder Prognosticon ... Durch Georgium Kreslinum Onolspachensem, Studiosum Astronomiae). Nürnberg: Valentin Fuhrmann, 1597.

Treating umlauted vowels differently, and the VD16/17 divide, lead to another pair:

• Sebastian Köstner - PND 119735253. Author of VD16 ZV 22595 (Prognosticon astrologicum ... durch Sebastian Köstner von Waldenfels inn Francken). Nürnberg: Valentin Fuhrmann, 1599.
• Sebastian Koestner - PND PND 124834248. Author of VD17 23:287276V (Prognosticon Astrologicum ... Durch Sebastian Cöstner von Waldenfels inn Francken). Nürnberg: Fuhrman, [1604].

Even Strasbourg isn't big enough for two astrologers named Onuphrius. Yet another VD16/17 pair:

• Onuphrius Callus - PND 119635410. Two entries in VD16, including VD16 ZV 22587 (Prognosticum astrologicum ... durch M. Onofrium Callum Theologastrosophum). Straßburg: Anton Bertram, 1599.
• Onofrius Callus - PND 120774364. Author of VD17 3:655331B (Prognosticum Astrologicum ... durch M. Onofrium Callum, Argentinensem). Straßburg : Bertram, [1607].

Umlauts and the VD16/17 divide team up to create three astrologers named Josias Müller active in Parchim in Mecklenburg in the late sixteenth/early seventeenth centuries:

• Müller, Josias - PND 119763966. Two entries in VD16, including VD16 ZV 22590 (Practica ... Durch D. Iosiam Mullerum Astronomum et Medicum zu Pergim / im Fürstenstenthumb Mechelburg residerende). Nürnberg: Alexander Philipp Dietrich, Johann Lauer, 1598.
• Mueller, Josias - PND 119768852. Author of VD16 ZV 22598 (Practica ... D. Iosiam Mullerum Astronomum et medicum zu Pergim / in Fürstenstenthumb Melchelnburg residerende). Nürnberg: Abraham Wagenmann, Johann Lauer, 1600.
• Müller, Josias - PND 12925035X. Two entries in VD17, including VD17 12:651957A (Practica ... Durch D Iosiam Mullerum Astronomum et Medicum zu Pergim). Nürnberg : Lauer, Wagenmann, [1605].

And, finally, Paul and Paulus Engricensis, both astrologers from Gräfenhainichen:

• Paul Engricensis - PND 119663627. Three entries in VD16, including VD16 ZV 5042 (Prognosticon ... Durch Paulum Engricensem, Vom Gräffenhänichen /Astronomum). Eisleben: Urban Gaubisch, 1597.
• Paulus Engricensis - PND 12034467X. Author of VD17 12:640731Y (Prognosticon ... Durch Paulum Engricensem vom Gräffenhenichen/ Astronomum). Eisleben: Hörnigk, [1601].
  

From Avignon, to Antwerp, to Nuremberg and Strasbourg and Basel: The strange paths of the prophecies of Wilhelm Friess

I mentioned not long ago that the first prophecy of Wilhelm Friess, with most of its many editions printed in 1558, was in fact an abridgment and reworking of Johannes de Rupescissa's Vademecum of 1356. Now I've found language I had thought was specific to Friess in a later vernacular manuscript of the Vademecum, which plugs Friess even more directly into the reception of Rupescissa.

Now that I have a better understanding of the first and second prophecies of Wilhelm Friess, I think the most significant questions regarding these prophecies, the most popular German prophetic pamphlets of the second half of the sixteenth century, are as follows:

1. Where does the first prophecy come from (answer: Rupescissa, with an important stop in Antwerp), and how are the four different versions of the first prophecy related?
2. What was the context for its transmission, and why did the prophecy achieve such popularity in Nuremberg in 1558?
3. How are the first and second prophecies of Wilhelm Friess related?
4. How are the three redactions of the second prophecy related, and what was the historical context for their origin? Who wrote them, and where, and when, and what did the nightmare vision of the second prophecy mean in context?
   
5. And what does this tell us about printed prophecies in early modern Germany?

I think I have answers to all these questions at this point, and the answers turn out to be fairly interesting, although not at all what I expected when I first started working on what I thought would be a neat little follow-up article to Printing and Prophecy back in 2010.

A comparison of comets

Recently I've been working on extending my examination of practicas (annual astrological prognostications) into the decades beyond what I examined in Printing and Prophecy, or beyond 1550. While I've been looking at later decades, I've noticed that comet booklets turn up intermittently, as do comets, but also that the response can vary wildly. Some comets generate a few editions, while others are the occasion for dozens. The comet of 1618-19, which appeared just as central Europe was sliding into the Thirty Years War, appears to have seen a typographic panic attack of unprecedented proportion. By searching VD16/17 for "comet*" for years that I already knew had 7 or more comet editions, I came up with the following graph:

1531 was Halley's comet, followed in quick succession by the appearance of two other comets in the following years. The comet of 1577 was particularly visible, although it would be worth investigating what about its historical context made comet prognostications such a hot commodity. And the comet of late 1618 is in a class by itself. This graph hardly even counts as preliminary work, of course, but it might point the way to some interesting projects.

Teaching materials: Homework for research links

For my course on medieval and early modern German literature and culture that I taught last fall, I wanted to introduce students to the research tools that I use frequently. The most experienced of the students were completing a minor at most, while for many students, this would be the only German literature or culture course they would ever take, so I wanted the assignments to be useful but approachable for undergraduates.

I've left the assignments (available here as a single zip file) as MS Word documents rather than turning them into PDFs because I'll need to make sure that nothing has changed when I next teach the course - the VD16 interface has been updated since I wrote the assignment for it, for example, and I didn't yet have access to the Nachträge volume of the Verfasserlexikon when I wrote the VL assignment. The assignments cover the following resources:

• Handschriftencensus.de
• Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke and ISTC
• VD16
• Verfasserlexikon
• Grimms Wörterbuch and the Wörterbuchnetz
• MLA database, Regesta imperii, and WorldCat

Anyone who would like to use them is free to do so. For the last three assignments, I've also included answer keys. I'll probably have to revise the assignments a few more times before I'm completely happy with them.

Separated at birth

As I mentioned earlier, I am fairly confident that Nikolaus Weise and Nikolaus Wyse are the same person, although they have separate entries in the Personennamendatei of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (PND 119866811 and PND 119875667, respectively). Occasionally I'll come across other authors where the names, titles, and dates of publication suggest that a single author's name has been recorded in two different forms. This one, for example, looks like a duplicate entry in VD16:

• Cöllen, Lukas von - PND 119643081. Author of VD16 ZV 3751, 3752. ZV 3751 is ALmanach vnde Practica vp dat Jar...M.D.LXXX, Bibliograph. Nachweis: BC 2213.
  
• Köln, Lukas von - PND 119730855. Author of VD16 ZV 2550, 9095. ZV 9095 is ALmanach vnde Practica vp dat Jar...M.D.LXXX, Bibliograph. Nachweis: BC 2213.
  

It can also happen when an author's works show up in both VD16 and VD17. In this example, both Werner Hartmann and "Berner Hartmann" describe themselves as disciples of Leonhardt Thurneysser zum Thurn:

• Hartmann, Werner - PND 119699729. Author of VD16 ZV 7384 (PROGNOSTICON Astrologicum, Auff das Jahr...M.D.XCVII). Erfurt: Jakob Singe, 1597
• Hartmann, Berner - PND 121734994. Author of VD17 23:285570G (Deutsche Practica/ Auff das Jahr ... M.DC.X). Erfurt: Singe, [1609]

Even more Zengg

I've updated the list of "Dietrich von Zengg" editions by adding Ain Practice / Oder Weyssagung ains gelerten mans mit namen Jeremias von Pariß... ([Straßburg: Johann Knobloch d.Ä. um 1525], VD16 J 231) whose text at first glance is that of the "Zengg" rather than the "462" version, as noted by Heike Talkenberger (Sintflut, 468).

Also, Courtney Kneupper's dissertation has now appeared on Proquest, and it looks excellent. Hopefully she'll find a publisher soon for the revised version. The dissertation focuses on prophecy in the formation of German national identity among the laity during the late Middle Ages, with extensive consideration of "Gamaleon," "Bruder Sigwalt," and "Auffahrt Abend." She also mentions an upcoming project on "Dietrich von Zengg," which I'd very much like to see. The bibliographic appendices on prophecies circulating in late medieval Germany look to be especially useful.

Flacius reads Zengg

Update 3 May 2013: The mystery I refer to below has now been solved.

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Matthias Flacius included "Dietrich von Zengg" as one of his witnesses to truth in his 1556 Catalogus testium veritatis (VD16 F 1293, p. 937):

Theodericus primum minorita, postea episcopus Croatiae, vixit anno 1410. In fine suae prophetiae, una cum aliis Rhythmicis prophetiis impressae, praedixit fore, ut Romana sedes, quae simonia et libidinibus esset contanimatissima, corruat...

It's clear that Flacius was reading the same prophecy that we know, where one finds at the end (VD16 T 736, a4r):

Auch so hat wol geredt die Kriechisch zung vonn der blindtheyt der Simoney / vnd vonn der vnkeüsch der Römischen priester / darvon der Römisch stůl wirdt fallen...

But there are a few mysteries. Flacius says that Theodericus/Dietrich lived in 1410, and refers to an edition of Zengg printed with other prophecies in verse. The printed editions consistently date Zengg to 1420, however, and none of them appear at first glance to combine Zengg with verse prophecies. Was Flacius reading an edition of Zengg that's now lost?

No. He was referring to Melchior Amberbach's 1548 Vom Ende der Welt (VD16 A 2161).

I don't think so. I suspect that Flacius is instead inexactly describing - or misremembering? - the most recent edition, printed in 1546 by Hans Guldenmund in Nuremberg (VD16 C 953), the only  an edition that combines Zengg with another text. In this case the other prophecy is the "Hidden Prophecy" of Johann Carion and the interpretation of the same that had begun circulating that same year (or a decade after Carion's death). Guldenmund's edition of 1546 repeats the title formulation of Hieronymus Andreae's edition of 1536 (VD16 T 737), so the dating of Zengg to 116 years earlier by Andreae keeps Zengg in 1420, while Guldenmund's title page moves Zengg to 1430 by failing to update the title formula. Flacius moves in the opposite direction, placing Zengg ten years earlier.

Guldenmund's edition of Carion and Zengg is also not entirely lacking in verse. Carion's "Hidden Prophecy" is prose, but the "Interpretation of the Hidden Prophecy" inserts sixteen lines of verse before the "Hidden Prophecy" ("Es ist am tag / man hats erfaren // Das groß trübsal vor tausent jaren"), and includes two short extracts of Latin verse in the interpretive section. I wouldn't have immediately thought of the "Interpretation of the Hidden Prophecy" as verse prophecies, but Flacius may have remembered it that way.

"Dietrich von Zengg" is also excerpted by Wolfgang Lazius in his Fragmentum vaticinii of 1547 (VD16 ZV 9507), which contains many prophecies in verse, but the excerpt doesn't include the section summarized by Flacius, and doesn't identify the author by name or by nation. I suspect the mysterious reference in Flacius is not to Lazius or to a lost edition of Zengg, but to an imperfectly remembered edition of 1546.

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I have a number of presentations coming up soon, so posting may be light in February.