Portrayals of The Vita Christi

Portrayals of the Vita Christi in the Medieval German Marienklage: Signs of Franciscan
Exegesis and Rhetoric in Drama and Music

Author(s): Peter Loewen
Source: Comparative Drama , Fall 2008, Vol. 42, No. 3, Special Memorial Issue in Memory
of Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Fall 2008), pp. 315-345
Published by: Comparative Drama
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/23038069
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Portrayals of the Vita Christi in the
Medieval German Marienklage:
Signs of Franciscan Exegesis and
Rhetoric in Drama and Music
Peter Loewen
The compassion thea theme

crucified Son was Virgin Mary
that mustbiblical
fascinated haveexegetes
felt for the suffering of her
throughout
the Middle Ages. The seeds of this Mariological tradition sowed by Origen
and Sts. Chrysostom and Augustine grew in the twelfth century through
the mediations of Anselm of Canterbury, Hugh of St. Victor, and Bernard
of Clairvaux. And in the following centuries, the tradition continued to
flourish in the Latin and vernacular exegeses of their diligent followers,
especially among writers in the Franciscan and Carthusian orders. Like
their predecessors, these later commentators transmit the scriptural nar
rative while elaborating on details not present in the canonical texts. These
details, however, direct the attention of their audience more forcefully
than their predecessors toward the drama of Christ's final agony and his
mother's overwrought emotional state. The justification for this is confi
dently stated by the fourteenth-century Franciscan John of Caulibus, one
of the most important contributors to this Mariological tradition, who
in his Meditaciones vite Christi admits that "the Evangelists did not write
down everything."1
Mary Stallings-Taney asserts that John of Caulibus's Meditaciones
vite Christi was"[o]ne of the most influential and widely read Franciscan
works," and that it "exerted an incalculable influence on medieval spiri
tuality, literature, and art."2 John of Caulibus probably composed the text
in Tuscany for the spiritual direction of a Poor Clare nun.3 But judging
from its substantial dissemination in more than 110 copies in Latin and
315

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316 Comparative Drama
at least 100 in vernacular languages, it is clear that Johns Meditaciones

vite Christi spoke to audiences well beyond the convent walls.4
For the past more than 150 years, scholars have considered the deep
impression the Meditaciones made on the portrayal of affective piety in
medieval Christian aesthetics, particularly in drama. In the 1890s, Ales
sandro d'Ancona and Eduard Wechssler identified the work as one of
the central models for Italian laude drammatiche and French lyrics in the
Passion play of Arnoul Greban.5 The esteemed French art historian Emile
Male makes long and frequent reference to John's meditations on the
Passion of Christ in his seminal study of medieval religious art in France.
Considering John's expression of pathos for the agonies of the Virgin
Mary and her son, he exclaims that "[h]ad it not been for this book, the
Mystery plays would lack some of their best scenes."6 Nearly eighty years
later, Sandro Sticca echoed these sentiments in his study of the Planctus
Mariae. In his view, the "spontaneous and agitated" dwelling on the suf
ferings of the Virgin Mary in medieval Latin and vernacular dramas may
be attributed to the huge influence of the Meditaciones vite Christi.7 And
according to David Jeffrey, the high degree of verisimilitude and focus
on the "affective, pietistic ideals of Franciscan spirituality" in medieval
English cycle dramas points to the influence of this work.8
The body of extant Franciscan literature composed in the German lands
and the Netherlands between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries offers
strong evidence that this school of Franciscan authors was also vibrant
and prolific. Among their works we find, for example, translations of the
Meditaciones vite Christi (especially the Passion segment); vernacular
sermons and devotional texts by Berthold of Regensburg, Heinrich of
Burgus, and Hendrik Herp; and the theological tracts of David of Augsburg
and Bartholomaeus Anglicus.9 Kurt Ruh's examinations of medieval Ger
man religious literature have suggested to him that Franciscan spirituality
deeply affected writers beyond the ranks of the order itself, including
members of other orders and the secular clergy.10 Yet it remains to be
determined whether and, if so, how this volume of Franciscan literature
influenced the history of German religious drama and its music. This is
speculative work, since there are only a few religious dramas that can be
securely attributed to Franciscan authors or compilers.11 But this seems
not to have deterred scholars as long ago as Franz-Joseph Mone and as

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Peter Loewen 317
recently as Walther Lipphardt, Rolf Bergmann, and Antonius Touber

from drawing connections between examples of Franciscan didactic
literature and iconography, and textual details in the medieval German
Latin Passion Plays and Marienklagen.12
Following in their footsteps, I hope to prove that works of Francis
can Passion exegeses, chiefly the Meditaciones vite Christi, influenced the
composition of texts in the medieval German dramatic lament known as
the Marienklage. A close textual comparison between works of Franciscan
provenance and a representative example from the repertory of Marien
klagen—the Fussener Marienklage from the monastic library of St. Mang
in Fiissen—will show that the monodies the Virgin Mary sings at the Cru
cifixion convey the penitential spirituality associated with the Franciscans.
They do so by using typical Franciscan methods of exegesis: extra-scriptural
elaboration on the Passion narrative, affective and didactic expressions of
piety through poetry and music, and compassionate contemplation on holy
suffering. Moreover, analysis of the music in these lyrics through the lens of
Franciscan theology and music theory will show that the rhetoric of music
emphasizes and resonates with the spiritual meaning of Marys texts.
I. Franciscan Theology and Literature in the Marienklagen

The tradition of portraying in lyrical form the Virgin Mary's reaction to
the Crucifixion appears to have begun some time between the late twelfth
and early thirteenth centuries, with the addition of certain Planctus Mariae
to the liturgy for Good Friday.13 The vernacular Marienklagen of the thir
teenth and fourteenth centuries seem to have derived from this model, as
Anton Schonbach has shown,14 and evolved in the German lands at a time
that coincides with a period of exceptional growth in the early Franciscan
missions there.15 The Marienklage appears to have developed in two (not
necessarily consequential) phases. The first involved a process of transla
tion and elaboration of stanzas from the Planctus Mariae, principally the
sequences "Planctus ante nescia," possibly by Godefroy of St. Victor,16 and
"Flete fideles animae."17 The earliest extant example of this transmission
occurs in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 4660 (the so-called
Carmina Burana), within a series of Latin and German monodies that make
up what is known as the Grofies Benediktbeurer Passionsspiel (c.1250).18
In another phase of development, probably beginning some time in the

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fourteenth century, composers' interests in portrayals of the Compassio

Mariae blended with their taste for vernacular exegesis to create works
that further abstracted the Marian lament from the scriptural narrative of
the Passion. This drama of the Virgins lament appears to have outgrown
the confines of the Passion play and is often preserved in manuscripts as
a discrete composition. The German songs Mary sings still resemble the
Latin planctus, but compilers seem to have become interested in only their
most poignant and didactic passages. These lyrics were integrated into a
more deeply moving and intensely realistic portrayal of the Crucifixion,
and set to music mostly unrelated to the Latin planctus.19 In them, the
Virgin Mary meditates on the human agony of her son. She cries out at
the terrifying spectacle of his torture, proclaims her desire to suffer and
die with Jesus, and frequently implores her audience to weep in compas
sion for his misery and to repent.
The fact that most of the approximately seventy-five extant Marien
klagen from this period exhibit similar content suggests they draw their
material from a common fount.20 Ulrich Mehler, continuing the work of
earlier scholars, identified thirty-three stanzas that make up what he calls
the "'Sicheres' Corpus" of the Marienklage.21 They appear to be textual
elaborations of the earlier Latin sequences. However, the compilers of
the Marienklagen use familiar methods of Franciscan vernacular exege
sis when they combine these lyrics with others that direct the audience
forcefully toward the subjects of human agony, compassion, and penance.
What I propose is that the author-compilers of the Marienklagen created
their dramas on the basis of the older established textual tradition of the
Planctus Mariae while under the influence of Franciscan Passion exegeses,

especially its most famous example in the Meditaciones vite Christi.
To demonstrate, I have selected, from among the many examples,
the Marienklage from Fiissen, Augsburg, Universitatsbibliothek, Cod. II,
1,4°,62 (see the appendix of Selected Texts and Music from the Fiissener
Marienklage, below). The so-called Fiissener Marienklage consists of thirty
eight stanzas of German song, copied probably in the first half of the
fifteenth century near the city of Heilsbronn.22 It is a work of particular
importance because its texts and music so well represent the repertory
as a whole: nineteen of its stanzas correspond to the "'Sicheres' Corpus"
of the Marienklage-, and all but six of its stanzas have musical notation.

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Peter Loewen 319
Like the author of the Meditaciones vite Christi, the German author
compiler of the Fiissener Marienklage develops his interpretation of the
Crucifixion through realistic portrayal of human suffering and compas
sion of the Virgin Mary. Over the first ten stanzas (11.1-52) of the drama,
one follows the Virgin Mary as she makes her way to the scene of the
Crucifixion. Her initial expression of grief is startling, but her emotional
state becomes overwrought after the apostle John describes to her the fate
of her son (stanzas 5, 7, and 9; 11.29-32, 37-40, and 45-8). Mary reels at
the horrible spectacle. The rest of the lament—roughly two-thirds of the
drama—consists of her meditation on the physical agony of Jesus and its
spiritual meaning for herself and her audience. In stanzas 11-17 (11.54-78),
Mary weeps and begs her dead or dying son to comfort her.23 Then, taking
a more didactic tone in stanza 18 (11. 79-88, not set to music), she draws
the members of her audience into the drama by imploring them to take
heed of her motherly compassion and to weep with her.
The text of the Meditaciones follows a similar pattern of alterna
tion—that is, shifting between commentary on the Passion narrative and
instructions to the reader. John of Caulibus frequently asks his pupil to
consider diligently the events of the Passion. In his "Meditation on the
Passion at Terce," he describes the shouting of the crowd of Jews, their
ridicule and mockery of Jesus, and asks his pupil to "Pay careful attention
here and think about his demeanor in each and every thing he does
You will see a fine young man: very noble, most innocent, and very loving,
but thoroughly whipped and splattered with blood and bruises.... Watch
him closely, and be moved to both devotion as well as compassion."24
In his "Meditation on the Passion at Sext and None," Friar Johns view
shifts to the tools of Jesus' torture and the response of the Virgin Mary.
He directs the reader to various details of the imminent execution: "In
your mind's eye, you can see some arranging the cross on the ground,
others getting the nails and hammers ready, some others preparing the
ladder and tools needed, others directing what has to be done, and still
others stripping him."25 The author imagines the scene through Mary's
eyes as she anticipates the "onslaught of death's agony" in the wretched,
naked countenance of her son.26 Friar John describes in morbid detail the
hammering, stretching, and how "Streams of his most sacred blood flow
on all sides from those huge wounds."27 For the next six chapters John

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of Caulibus goes on in this way, devoting himself to intensely realistic

accounts of physical violence and the distraught emotional state of the
Virgin Mary
In a similar way, the author-compiler of the Fiissener Marienklage
considers the tools of the Crucifixion through the eyes of the Virgin Mary
The subject is omnipresent because of her many references to the Cross
and various pointed objects run through the flesh of Jesus, but the details
are most striking in Mary's lyrics in stanzas 22,23, and 25 (11.101-8 and
113-16) and 36-38 (11.159-62). She surveys the tools the Roman soldiers
used to torture the body of Jesus and considers the cross, nails, spear, and
finally the blood that colors his body. Then, taking the role of the preacher,
the Virgin Mary uses the shocking display to induce her audience to
repent.
The Franciscan preacher Berthold of Regensburg (c.1210-72), too,
was noted for his morbid theatrics. The chronicler Salimbene tells us
how Berthold once preached to an audience of burghers from a pulpit he
had erected next to a gallows, where swung the corpses of three recently
hanged thieves.28 An even more direct encounter with the themes of
the Marienklage occurs in the early fourteenth-century devotional al
legory Der Seek Rat by the Franciscan preacher and confessor Heinrich
of Burgus.29 Heinrich spends nearly the first 600 lines of his 6548-line
text attacking the vices of vanity and lechery. Various allegorical figures
such as Lady Confession (Fraw Peichte), Lady Atonement (Fraw Puesse),
Lady Contrition (Fraw Rewe), and Jesus, attempt to convince the human
body and soul to give up their vices and to repent. Approximately half
way through the text, the Soul finally takes to heart the counsel of Lady
Atonement and sings to the crucified Christ:
Sulen dein heiligen hende Should your holy hands be
Zudes chreuces wende nailed to the cross
Genagelt durch mich werden for my sake, and should
Und dein wluet [sic] zuder erden your purest blood
Also reines vliessen, flow to the ground,
Solt mir das nich schiessen should it not pierce me
Tieffe in das hercze mein, deeply into my heart,
Bluetes ran ein michel bach, The blood flowed like a great stream
Das man durch dein seiten stach when someone stabbed you through the side
Dannoch do du ware tot, although you were dead.

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Peter Loewen 321
Und das di selben not And this anguish

Dein reinew mueter muest an sechen, that your virgin mother had to observe,
Und was sy mochte dar zue jehen, she had to confess,
Das was ir unvervangen, was useless to her.
Du mueste vor ir hangen, You had to hang before her;
Sy mochte dir nicht zestaten kemen, she could not help you.
Ir was dew chraft mit dir benomen, Her strength was taken away with yours.
Ob ich von herczen minne dich, If I love you with my heart,

Sider dw pidest umb mich then you will petition on my behalf.
Und vor dem vater dein And before your father
Bistu der vorspreche mein, you are my advocate.
Dein heiliges bluet das reiniget mich, Your holy blood purifies me.
Jesw Christ, des lob ich dich.30 Oh Jesus Christ, for this I praise you.
Finding such similar nuances in the penitential rhetoric of Der Seele

Rat as in the Marienklage and the Meditaciones of John of Caulibus sug
gests that they share the same view of the Crucifixion. Indeed, the devo
tional verses of the penitent soul in Heinrich's allegory would form a perfect
response to the Virgin Mary's didactic verses in the Marienklagen.
Corollary evidence in visual art from the German lands of this period
helps one recognize the Franciscan perspective in these exegeses of the
Crucifixion. Walther Lipphardt has already pointed out the example of the
Christus Patiens miniature in a thirteenth-century Psalter from Wiirzburg
(fig. 1). Its vivid, hyperrealistic detail depicts the compassion and, indeed,
conformity of the Virgin Mary and St. Francis to the physical agony of Jesus.
Mary swoons, pierced through the heart with the sword Simeon prophesied,
while St. Francis exposes the marks of his stigmata. The orthodoxy of the
artist's vision is suggested by the presence of the allegorical figure Ecclesia,
who stands behind Francis and clutches his elbow, as if showing her reli
ance on his witness to the Crucifixion.31 A fourteenth-century historiated
panel of the Vita Christi from the convent of Poor Clares in Cologne
(fig. 2, now at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum) depicts the Crucifixion with
similar interest in the portrayal of brutality as one finds in the Marienklage.
Around the gory figure of Christ, in the center panel, we find displayed the
long spears, swords, whips, and nails that both the Virgin Mary and John of
Caulibus detail so exquisitely.32 The depiction of Sts. Agnes of Bohemia and
Clare and Francis of Assisi in the lower right panel declares the Franciscan
provenance in this interpretation of the Passion of Christ.

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Fig. 1: Christus patiens with St. Francis of Assisi. Courtesy of

Augsburg, Universitdtsbibliothek, Cod. I,2,4°,24, fol. 13' (c.1250).

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Peter Loewen 323
Fig. 2: Devotional Panel of the Life of Christ. Convent of Poor Clares, Cologne
(second third, 14th century). Courtesy of Wallraf Richartz-Museum, Cologne.
Another important element in the exegesis of John of Caulibus is his

interpretation of the Virgin Mary's empathetic suffering for her son. In his
"Meditations on the Passion at Sext and None," he writes that "Virtually
she was hanging on the cross with her son; and she would have chosen
rather to die with him than live on."33 And in his "Meditation on the Pas
sion at Vespers," he recalls Simeon's prophecy of the sword at the Temple
of Jerusalem and writes, "Now truly, the sharp edge of the lance pierced
her son's body and his mother's soul."34
In stanza 23 of the Fussener Marienklage (11. 105-8), the Virgin im
plores Death to allow her to die with her son rather than suffer with the
knowledge of his final agony. The portrayal of Marys empathetic suffering
in the Passion is more vivid in stanza 19 (11. 89-92), where she imagines
the wounds of Christ biting into her own flesh. In the following stanza
(11.93-96), the Virgin Mary realizes the mystical truth of Simeon's words
as she feels the cut of the sword he prophesied. Here, once again, we find

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ourselves in the shadow of earlier Mariology, including the"Planctus ante

nescia." However, one may discern the Franciscan view within through
its intense dramatic realism, vernacularization, and didacticism.
Perhaps the most memorable scene in the Meditaciones is the lament
of the Virgin Mary at the "Meditations on the Passion at Compline." After
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea lower the body of Jesus from the Cross,
they allow his mother to embrace his head and shoulders before preparing
him for burial. They attempt to shroud the body but the Virgin Mary resists.
With her cheek pressed tenderly against his face, she laments:
My most beloved son, I hold your dead body on my lap. Harsh is the separa
tion of death. Our life together was joyful and delightful. Although you were
slain as a criminal, we lived among others without quarrel and offense. I
served you faithfully, my son, as you did me, but in this, your painful battle,
your Father deigned not to help you, and I could not. You abandoned your
own self because of your love for humanity, whom you wished to redeem.
Harsh, painful, and excessively costly is that redemption. And although I
rejoice in the salvation of humanity, I am grievously afflicted by your suf
ferings and death, for I know that you never sinned, and they have inflicted
on you, an innocent man, a death so very shameful and bitter. Now, my son,
our sweet companionship is now torn asunder, and I must be separated
from you. I, your most anguished mother, shall bury you.... How can I live
without you? I would much rather be buried with you: wherever you were,
I would also be with you. Although I cannot be buried bodily, I will bury
my spirit with you. I shall bury my soul in the tomb with your body, I give
it over to you, I place it in your care. O son of mine, how tortuous is this
separation of ours.35
Hendrik Herps commentary on the Passion in his Theologia Mystica

shows how much more intensely fascinated Franciscan exegetes had be
come, by c.1450, with the human agony of Jesus and his mother. Herp's
meditation on the Crucifixion follows Caulibus rather closely, but Herp
exceeds his brother friar in the vigor of his portrayal. If Caulibus's aim
was to kindle his readers compassion for holy suffering, Herp's was to
overwhelm it. In chapter twenty-nine of Theologia Mystica, Herp surveys
the many wounds that covered Christ's body. He then shifts into the
rhetorical mode of impersonation, where Mary says,
To be looked upon as beautiful before the sons of men was the great joy
of my heart. Now, however, all things have been turned into bitterness for
me. Think, therefore, how bitter I was and filled with sorrows, how greatly
I was vexed by the sobbing of my heart, with what great sorrows my mind
was vexed; it would have been a great solace for me to die in his place.

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Peter Loewen 325
Unhappy and miserable, I saw my son hanging on the cross.... All beauty
had departed from his face, and I seemed to be forsaken by the child I bore.
Thus, my voice died away, my strength vanished, senses withdrew, and the
boundless adversity subdued me.... Oh my son, who shall yield to me so that
I may die for you? My only son dies. Why was this most dejected mother
of his not killed with him? Oh my son, what shall I do now, where shall I
go, to whom shall I turn? ... Oh most gentle son, I now beg you not to be
harsh with your mother—you who were accustomed always to be kindly
to all things—and take me, your mother, with you onto the cross so that
those who live with one heart, and love each other with one love may also
die with one death. For my life is killed, my health is extinguished, and all
of my hopes are carried off from the world.36
Herp reminds Mary that the sword, spear, nails, and the points of the
thorns that cut into her son's flesh also cut open her heart and soul.37 He
then proclaims, "your Son's wounds are your wounds, your son's cross is
your cross, your son's death is your death."38 Herp intensifies the image
for us by emphasizing Mary's distress over her separation from Jesus.
Unable to reach up to his crucified body, she catches the downward flow
of blood from his wounds and kisses them so frequently that her face
becomes bloodied from the slaughter.39
The poignant image of the Virgin Mary embracing the body of her
dead son was a great inspiration to artists, writers, and musicians from the
late Middle Ages onward. Thus, it comes as no surprise when one finds
the character of these laments embedded in the German Marienklagen.
The first two stanzas of the Fiissener Marienklage give the audience its
first inkling of Mary's compassion, but in the third stanza of her lament
(11.18-24), she proclaims her desire to die and to be buried with her son.
Mary communicates similar intentions later in the drama, as I have already
shown. The lyrics that immediately follow the death of Jesus express a
degree of compassion that matches the feverish pitch of her rhetorical
mode in the Theologia Mystica. In stanzas 28-29 (11. 125-32) of the Fiis
sener Marienklage, she begs death again, this time emphatically, to allow
her to accompany Jesus into death. She then imagines herself in complete
conformity with her sons gruesome agony and death when she sings
"his blood reddens me, his death kills me, his pain anguishes me, indeed,
together with him" (11.129-32). One suspects that the author composed
these ardent lyrics to persuade the listener to embrace Marys sense of
compassion for the Passion of Christ. In fact, there can be no doubt of
their didactic purpose when one considers her homily on penance at the

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end of the drama (stanzas 36-38). Here, the Virgin Mary beseeches her
audience once more to consider her witness of the Crucifixion, particularly
these heartrending details of human agony, and to repent.40
II. The Music of Franciscan Rhetoric

in the German Marienklage
It is in light of these parallels between programs of literary exegesis in
the Marienklagen and Franciscan meditations on the Passion, that one
may recognize more readily the connections between Franciscan com
mentaries on music and rhetoric and the melodic settings of these Marian
laments. The friars were certainly not alone in their view that music had
the power to evoke the spiritual meaning of text. Fritz Reckow has shown
that medieval theorists from at least the time of the Musica enchiriadis
(mid-ninth century) had formed a concept of movere animos or movere

affectus in music that had meaning for cosmology and ontology, and
a practical function in their idea of rhetoric.41 Guido of Saint-Denis
(c. 1300), the anonymous author of the Tertium Principale (second half of
the fourteenth century), and others who followed in this tradition, up to
the fifteenth century, describe in detail how composers could manipulate
elements of range, rhythm, prolongation, and variation in a melody to
imitate and intensify the affectus and eventus inherent in words.42 Jody
Enders draws the evidence of rhetorical discourse into her study of litur
gical drama, and is thus able to connect the ars memorandi to medieval
practices of liturgical elaboration.43 Franciscan writers on the subject of
music elaborate on the ideas of earlier thinkers, both ancient and medieval,
especially those who appreciated its rhetorical properties. Moreover, by
joining the model of St. Francis himself to this tradition, they placed the
rhetoric of music squarely in the service of preaching, scriptural exegesis,
and drama. It is a theology of music that parallels their program of liter
ary exegesis in vernacular lyric and Magdalene drama, as I have shown
elsewhere, and will shed light here, too, on the rhetoric of music in the
Marienklagen.44
The nativity play St. Francis and his companions performed at Grec
cio in 1223 may serve as a foundation for this study of music in the
Marienklagen. In his account of the event, Thomas of Celano makes a
point of describing the high degree of nuance in Francis's singing voice

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Peter Loewen 327
while performing the Gospel from the Mass, and how this musical practice
evoked in his audience the mysteries inherent in Scripture.45 Encounters
with music in preaching are concentrated in the last few years of Francis's
life. The first involves a sermon Francis gave before a group of noblemen
at Montefeltro some time before receiving the stigmata, perhaps in 1224.46
Converting the refrain of a secular song he heard performed for the gath
ering, he taught his audience about the meaning of holy suffering in the
words "so great is the good that I hope for that all pain delights me."47 The
significance of delight in penitential suffering, and its connection to music,
becomes clearer through an account of Francis's convalescence from illness
while staying at the convent of S. Damiano. Here, Francis had a vision in
which God told him that it was because of his physical suffering that he
had earned his place in heaven. Rapt with spiritual joy, he composed the
music and text of his "Canticle of the Creatures" and taught it to his friars.
He bade Brother Pacifico, a professional composer, to teach the friars how
to use songs in their sermons to convert listeners to a state of true penance.
Francis then ordained his friars joculatores Domini—minstrels (jongleurs)
of the Lord who evoke spiritual joy in people's hearts.48
The musical ideas of Francis resonate among the writings of the
thirteenth-century Franciscan schoolmen, above all St. Bonaventure,
Roger Bacon, Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Aegidius of Zamora, and David
of Augsburg. Bonaventure's aesthetic treatise De reductione artium ad
theologiam (composed perhaps as early as the 1250s) describes how one's
delight in music and poetry in the context of drama can lead to revela
tion of divine mystery.49 On the authority mainly of Hugh of St. Victor's
Didascalicon, Bonaventure argues that mechanical arts such as weaving,
armor-making, agriculture, hunting, navigation, medicine, and drama
work in consort with sense perception and sacred Scripture to "reduce"
humans to a mystical and charitable union with God, the supreme Artist.
Bonaventure declares, however, that among these mechanical arts "theatrica
est autem unica" because it offers humans both consolation and comfort
and "embraces every form of entertainment including song, instrumental
music, poetry, or pantomime."50 Later in his treatise, Bonaventure explains
that the power of art inheres in its "product," "effect," and "fruit," which,
because of their relationship to Scripture, function as tools of exegesis
parallel to the allegorical, moral, and anagogical.51 The "fruit" of a work of

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art is the goal of both the product and the effect, just as anagogy is the goal
of allegorical and moral interpretations of Scripture. Thus, in his words,
If we consider the fruit, we shall find there the union of the soul with God, for
every artisan who fashions a work does so in order to derive praise, benefit,
or delight from it.... It was for these three reasons that God made the soul
rational, namely, that of its own accord, it might praise God, serve God,
find delight in God, and be at rest; and this takes place through charity ... a
wondrous union and from that union comes a wondrous delight.... Behold
how the illumination of the mechanical arts is a path to the illumination
of sacred Scripture.52
Roger Bacons commentary focuses more concisely on the subject of

rhetoric in preaching. In his Opus tertium, composed on papal commis
sion in 1267, Bacon uses his knowledge of ancient pagan and Christian
Scriptures to make connections between the arts of music and rhetoric.
Taking St. Francis as his model, Bacon extols the evocative powers of
melody, which he says "can be so exquisitely shaped that the power of
music can arouse Christian people to devotion."53 Turning to the role
of music in preaching, he writes that sermons should consist not only
of divine knowledge but also of affections, gestures, and movement of the
limbs. He continues:
But, one might ask, what has this to do with the nature of music? Certainly,
in fact it is the essential part.... For Aristotle and all of his disciples bear
witness in their books about speeches, that these speeches should be grace
ful and ornamented in the highest degree; and they mean this not in the
prosaic sense, according to which every type of color and embellishment
should be present, but also to the quality of time, and persons, and places,
and subject matter that the sermon deals with. These speeches ought to be
adorned with every type of meter and rhythm, so that the soul is carried
away into a love of goodness and hatred of evil, insofar as a human caught
completely unawares is both elevated beyond his own powers and does not
have power over his own mind.54
Bacon concludes his study of music in preaching by boldly stating, "And

therefore since one who argues for honesty and goodness ought to have
pleasing and fitting gestures of this sort... it is clear that in these matters,
music is necessary for arguing moral principles."55
Bacons concept of music stakes out a wide province of thought. It
encompasses physical gesture, impersonation, melody, and the cadence of
speech. Indeed, taken as a whole, it is an art form similar to drama, very
much like Bonaventure's concept of theatrica. Moreover, it appears to be

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Peter Loewen 329
the necessary formula for a successful rhetorical practice. In essence, he

argues that without musical integrity, no sermon will affect human souls.
Bacon goes on to lament the low level of musical skill among preachers,
but, remarkably, praises the German Franciscan Berthold of Regensburg
for his outstanding model of musicianship.56
Little information about Berthold's use of music remains extant.
David Jeffrey conjectures that Berthold probably did insert songs and
short dramas in his sermons, but that most of these were lost when his
sermons were converted to conventual use.57 Nevertheless, if one turns to
the views of Berthold's teacher David of Augsburg and his contemporary
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, we discover there perhaps the foundation upon
which Berthold and many other friars established their musical practice.
David of Augsburg completed De exterioris et interioris hominibus
compositione around 1240, probably while serving as lector at the Fran
ciscan studium in Regensburg. The first two books of David's treatise
direct the young friars external behavior through admonitions about
discipline and service. Much of the study of music occurs in the context
of his examination of prayer and praise in the third and final book, which
is aimed at the novice's internal progress toward spiritual perfection. In
chapter 53, on vocal prayer [de vocali oratione], David considers various
methods of performance—what really amounts to a practice of singing
chant and devotional song. Like Roger Bacon, David concentrates on the
rhetoric of music, but instead of placing it in the office of preaching, he
considers the nuance of melody in the performance of "psalms, hymns
and collects in the Divine Office, or other prayers and hymns [laudes]
composed to foster devotion."58 When discussing their forms and for
mulas, he says they "should be recited carefully and distinctly that they
may deserve the name and win the fruit of prayer."59 One must attend
carefully to what one says and sings [orat velpsallit], he says, like an astute
advocate pressing his case before God. He likens this kind of care for the
rhetoric of music to the behavior of a man before a prince, which must
be appointed with the proper fashion of dress and gestures of eyes, hands,
and feet if his petitions are to succeed.60 It is performative exegesis that
inheres in one's practical [superficialis], literal [lateralis], and mystical
[intellectualis] attention to psalmody. Whereas the practical concerns the
organization of psalms, antiphons, and versicles, the literal addresses the

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meaning of their words, and the mystical, their spiritual meaning. Quot
ing Deuteronomy 32:13, he writes that the mystical attention in singing
psalms "consists in drawing out the sweetness of spiritual meaning from
the written word. The affection of devotion wells forth like honey out of
the rock and oil from the hardest stone!'61
David of Augsburg's instructions concerning the performance of
chants and devotional songs accord with (indeed, anticipate) the herme
neutics of Bonaventure, as he places music in the role of evocator in one's
sensual perception of the divine mysteries inherent in Scripture. His
taxonomy begins with one's attention to the formal organization of texts
and the meanings of written words. Ones mystical attention in singing,
then, seems to concern the art of music itself, whose nuances reveal the
sweet delight hidden in the meaning of both forms and words.
It is a view that coincides remarkably with Bartholomaeus Anglicus's
encyclopedic treatment of music in De proprietatibus rerum (c.1242-47),
composed while serving as lector at the Franciscan studium in Magdeburg.
As I have shown elsewhere, Bartholomaeus relies on Isidore of Seville's
definition of music as a rhetorical force within the quadrivium to launch
his theological interpretation: "For music, which is the knowledge of
correct performance in sound and singing, is clearly necessary to the
mysteries of sacred Scripture."62 His definition of music reflects on David
of Augsburg and precedes Bonaventure, and offers us more details about
the affective qualities of the singing voice. Taking Isidores voxperfecta
as his model—high, sweet (that is, delicate, thick, clear, high, and per
spicuous), and clear63—Bartholomaeus defines a'perfect voice"as highly
nuanced with the rhetorical power to delight, attract, and convert the souls
of listeners "by caressing them."64 It is a performative interpretation of
music akin to David of Augsburg's voice of prayer, with details that direct
readers' attentions to the penitential goals of Franciscan preaching.
When considering the relevance of these thirteenth-century Francis
can commentaries for the Marienklagen, it is important to emphasize that
they were familiar to readers well into the late Middle Ages. The writings
of Bartholomaeus Anglicus and David of Augsburg were particularly
well known to readers in the German lands in the era that produced the
German Marienklagen.65 Armed with the knowledge that Franciscans
recognized music as a form of rhetoric closely connected to drama and

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Peter Loewen 331
essential to the art of devotional songs and sermons, we now consider how
this might guide our spiritual understanding of words in the Marienklagen.
The Fiissener Marienklage reveals a varied strophic form with thirty-two
stanzas set to eight different melodies. The form is somewhat reminiscent
of chant sequences or versus with multiple cursus, since most of the melo
dies are used for more than one stanza. Indeed, one melody in particular
returns several times in the course of the drama. The Marienklage differs
from these forms of chant, though, because their repeating melodies are
often highly varied, and the scheme of melodic repetition in the drama
does not exhibit the formal regularity of late medieval sequences or versus.
The hymns and sequences of Hildegard of Bingen also deviate from the
regular forms for these genres and exhibit pious exuberance similar to
the Marienklagen, but further study of those connections must remain for
another occasion. One might further construe connections between the
Marienklage and the German Leich, which typically uses more than one
melody for its strophic text. Comparison between the Marienklagen and
the Leiche of Fraunlob (Heinrich of Meissen), for example, holds exciting
prospect for further research in this vein, since his verses invoke themes
of Franciscan piety and refer to the practices of Franciscans, especially
the preaching of Berthold of Regensburg.66
Most of the melodies in the Fiissener Marienklage are in one of the two
F modes (modes 5 and 6). This is true of many of the extant Marienklagen
that preserve their melodies, as Ulrich Mehler has shown in his study of
their thematic typology Mehlers Type 1 melody appears in stanzas 12
and 13; Type 2 in stanzas 17 and 22; Type 3 in stanzas 10 and 11; Type 11
in stanzas 4-9; and Type 5 in stanzas 14-16,19-21,23-26, and 35-38.67
The mode-5 melodies for stanzas 1 and 28-30 bear slight resemblance to
examples in Mehler s catalogue, but as a whole they are not represented
in his typology. Only one stanza of the Fiissener Marienklage (stanza 3)
is in mode 4 (on E).
These melodies have varied contours with melismas, repeated pitches,
ornaments, and changes of range placed on words that are important
to the verbal rhetoric and, hence, spiritual meaning of the drama. For
example, melismas in the mode-3 setting of "Awe, awe, dez ganges dez
ich ge" (stanza 3; see the appendix below) elongate the exclamation "Awe,
awe" (Alas, alas), which seems to impress on the memory Mary's feeling

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of grief. Notated ornamentation does not preclude the possibility that

further spontaneous ornamentation occurred in performance, as was
the norm for medieval song, but the scribe of the Fiissener Marienklage
appears to have been interested specifically in communicating those
slight nuances. Indeed, the scribe may be transmitting the spontaneous
variations that occurred in an actual performance. Clearly the question
of scribal intention is more complex than can be dealt with adequately
here. Nor do I mean to imply that scribes' intentions could ever be known.
What I propose is that, in the case of the Fiissener Marienklage, the prac
tice of notating variations in a recurring melody is consistent with the
rhetorical design of the drama. The persistence of this practice in other
Marienklagen strengthens this argument and suggests, moreover, that
musical nuances were important to their performance and, therefore,
their musical rhetoric.68
Examining the mode-5 melody that occurs in stanzas 19,20,23,25,
and 36-38 (Type 5 in Mehler's typology; see appendix), one finds that the
scribe of the Fiissener Marienklage considered even minor variations in
each verse to be worthy of notation. In stanza 19, melismas at the ends
of lines 89 and 91 draw our attention to Mary's compassion for her be
loved darling ("herczenliebes trut"). By drawing out the words "munde"
([Simeons] mouth) "gebar" (bore), and"zestunde" (this very moment) in
stanza 20, the composer or scribe may be alerting us to the connection
between Simeon's prophecy and the Virgin Mary's sudden realization of
its truth. Saving the longest melisma for last helps to bring closure to the
stanza and makes the spiritual meaning of "zestunde" seem more poignant
and immediate. One has a similar impression of the Type-2 melody in
the setting of stanza 22, where melismas underscore the rhyme and
also seem to evoke the spiritual connection between the spear leveled
("genaiget") against Jesus, and Mary's consequent feelings of being parted
("erschaidet") from him. Variations in the Type-5 melody in stanza 23
elongate the words "stich" and "herczen min," which seems to draw atten
tion to the mystical association between the stake and the pain it inflicts
on Mary's heart. Further melismatic elongation of "genagelt" (nailed),
"sinen tod" (his death), and "marter" (torture) in stanza 25 unite these
words, perhaps to drive home the association between Christ's physical
pain and the tools of his torture.

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Peter Loewen 333
The stanzas that begin "Tod tod tod nu nim uns baide" (stanza 28)
and "Sin plut mich rotet" (stanza 29) are set to variations of a new melody
that begins by exploring the upper range of mode 5. The change of range
is stirring, as if the music were suddenly pulling the listener up to the
feverish pitch of Mary's feeling of compassion for Christ's physical torture.
The climax comes at the beginning of the line where she pleads with death
("Tod") by invoking its name on repeated pitches. Mary then decorates F
with a melisma on "baide," as if to underscore her desire to join her son in
death. The final melodic flourish at the bottom of the modal range seems
to expire and shudder with Mary as she considers how horribly ("jamer
chleichen") the spirit of her son departs from the world. The melody for
"Sin plut mich rotet" descends more quickly from the high F and trains
its melodic decoration on "rotet" and"im geliche." In this way, it seems the
composer reminds the listener of the spiritual connection between the flow
of blood, so vividly described by Heinrich of Burgus and Hendrik Herp,
and Mary's mystical union with Christ's suffering "mit im geliche."
The music for the three-stanza sermon that concludes the Fiissener
Marienklage returns to Mehler's Type 5 melody and its distinctive mode-5

formula of the ascending F-A-C triad. In these variations of the melody,
melismas seem less important. The melodic design here, as a whole, appears
to promote speech declamation. Still, melodic decoration gives nuance
to words such as"armes" (poor, 1.159),"zarten" (pure, 1.160),"iemerlich"
(horribly, 1.161),"crucze" (cross, 1. 163), and "sunden" (sin, 1.167), which
reminds the audience of the spiritual purpose of the play: that Mary's
portrayal of compassion for the human suffering of Jesus should resonate
with listeners (sinners) and drive them toward contrition. It puts us in mind
again of the mandate Francis of Assisi gave his joculatores Domini, whom
he sent on their mission of song with Brother Pacifico: '"We are minstrels
of the Lord and this is what we want as payment: that you live in true pen
ance.' And he said: 'What are the servants of God if not His minstrels, who
must lift people's hearts and move them up to spiritual joy.'"69
Lucie Vrinzen argues that German religious dramas were constructed
in such a way that the emotions of the figures onstage are transferred to the
observer.70 In the Fussener Marienklage, it seems that changes in melodic
range, repetition, elongation, and ornamentation function in consort with
Marys textual rhetoric to transport her audience into a spiritual union

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with her. Indeed, the music seems to "delight" spiritually in suffering for
texts explicitly aimed at converting the sinner.
The Spanish Franciscan Johannes Aegidius of Zamora (c. 1240-1318)
brings this point into focus for us in his Ars musica (c.1300) through his
commentary on the ethos of the church modes. For his account of the
affective properties of modes 5 and 6 seems to explain the connection
between F-mode melodies in the Marienklagen and the pious rhetoric
of their texts. One should point out that Aegidius's interpretation of the
ethos of the modes belongs to a long tradition among Western scholars
of expounding the power melodic modes have over the soul. Several of
his accounts of the modes may be traced as far back as Plato.71 Aegidius's
description of mode 6 appears to derive from writings of Hermannus
Contractus and John "Cotton," who recognized in it a lachrymose char
acter.72 Aegidius says that mode 6 is "pious and lachrymose; appropriate
to those who are easily provoked to tears," which correlates well with the
literal message of many of the texts in the Marienklagen.73
Aegidius of Zamoras description of mode 5 as "modest and delight
ful; bringing joy to the sad and softening the anxious, calling back the
hopeless and the fallen" seems puzzling at first.74 Indeed, when Andreas
Traub turned to the Ars musica in 1988 to discover how medieval listeners
might have interpreted the music of the Marienklagen, he was confounded

by this description because it would appear to run contrary to what one
would expect in a setting of such plaintive texts.75 Certainly none of the
Marienklagen could be described as delightful or happy in the literal
sense; nor do they seem to cheer listeners and coax them from dejection.
But when one considers the passage in light of Franciscan hermeneutics,
one can see that Aegidius's interpretation of mode 5 falls in line with the
mission of the joculatores Domini—to bring joy, delight, and "recall" the
lapsi ("lapsos et desperantes revocans"). Medieval authors commonly used
the term lapsus to refer to a fallen Christian or heretic.76 Using mode-5
melodies in this sense to recall sinners and to delight them with the spiri
tual joy of penance would seem to resound in perfect sympathy with the
impassioned verbal rhetoric of the Virgin Mary in the Marienklagen.
One wonders how a music treatise composed by a Spanish Franciscan
might influence composers in the German lands. Of course, the friars
interested in music—Spaniards, Germans, and others—could have ex
changed ideas about the church modes at any of their chapter meetings.

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Peter Loewen 335
But since Aegidius of Zamora composed his treatise on commission from

the minister general of the order, one suspects the Ars musica would have
been a work of special import to the friars.77 Moreover, Peter Slemon has
shown that the music theorists who most consistently followed Aegidius s
discussion of the modes, well into the fifteenth century, were those native
to the German lands.78
Discovering the program of Franciscan hermeneutics at work in the
Fiissener Marienklage has implications for research that ranges beyond
the Vita Christi tradition. It opens the way to further associations between
the Marienklagen and repertories of Franciscan lyric and drama from
England, Italy, France, Spain, and the Netherlands.79 Reading the Marien
klagen in light of Franciscan discourses on the subjects of rhetoric and
homiletics also helps situate this musical repertory in a broader medieval
context. Comparing the use of music and text in the Marienklagen with
Jody Enders s study of troping, for example, demonstrates how compatible
Franciscan views of music and rhetoric are with the rhetorical program of
memory, vocal manipulation, and pictorial conception at work in liturgical
drama.80 The Franciscan theologians who place the rhetoric of liturgical
and devotional song, preaching, and drama in the service of exegesis and
homiletics might also support the connections Enders forges between
musico-rhetorical embellishment and dramatized liturgy. Studies of music
in Franciscan theology also fit in well with the research of Fritz Reckow.
Although Reckow does not consider the contributions of the Franciscan
schoolmen, their views would certainly support his thesis that audiences
in the Middle Ages recognized and appreciated the complex relationships
between music and poetry, as did audiences after 1500.
Examining the music and text of the Fiissener Marienklage through
the lens of Franciscan hermeneutics appears limiting, since it would seem
to exclude the web of other influences examined by earlier critics. It is
clear, however, that rather than exclude them, the Franciscans themselves
eagerly championed the views of earlier thinkers and integrated them into
their own program of rhetoric and exegesis. The network of Vita Christi
literature and theology and music of the Franciscans was part of the
web of influences and, indeed, shared a close orbit with the authors and
compilers of the Fiissener Marienklage and the repertory of Marienklagen
it represents.

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Selected Texts and Music from the Fiissener Marienklage,

Augsburg, Universitatsbibliothek, Cod. II, 1,4°,62
Stanza 381 (lines 18-24), fol. 143r
Alas, alas, alas, the path that I walk hurts my heart.

Come, oh death, with bitterness
and make short my heartache,
so that I may die, too,
and be buried with him.

Durch got ir frawe[n] all gelich, By God, all you women,
badiu arm vn[d] rich: both poor and rich:
ain mut[er], gedenk dar an, a mother, think of it,
wie ir laid w[er] getan, how much this would grieve her if she were
ob siu ir kind, d[a]z ir w[er] lieb, to see her child, whom she loved so dearly,
sech vor ir hang[en] als aine[n] diep hanging before her as though he were a thief,
vn[d] lid[e]n mart[er] vn[d] groze not a wretched martyr, full of anguish,
vn[d] aine[n] last[er]lich[e]n tod. and a disgraceful death.
Diu helfe geclag[e]n mir min kind. Help me to lament for my child.
Ia wist ir wol, wie lieb sie sind. Yes, you know well how dear he is to me.
Stanza 1983 (lines 89-92), fol. 145v
Sj-ne w[u]n-de tunt n ?. Mi-n[er] clag ist d[ur] noht mer, dazdu,h[er]-cz[e]n-iie - bes trut, wi-d[er] mich maht nit w[er]-d[e]n lut.
His wounds hurt me.
My complaint is increased through anguish

because you, my beloved darling,
will never again make me be pure.

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Peter Loewen 337
Stanza 2084 (lines 93-96), fol. 145v
Ain swert auch mir ge-ha[i]s - sen ward vo[n] Sy-me-o-nes mu[n] de, Ih[e-s]u Christ, da ich dich ge - bar:
A sword was prophesied for me,

from Simeons mouth;
Jesus Christ: because I bore you,
it cuts me here at this very moment.
Stanzas 2285-2386 (lines 101-8), fol. 145v-46r
Alas, who has leveled

his spear here
that he parts
me and you so unequally?
Durch sin h[er]cze gat ain stich. A-we,tod,wes spars du mich! Kum vn[d] zer brich dez h[er] - czen min, daz ich iht sech minskin - dez pin.
A stake thrusts through his heart.

Alas, death, what do you spare me!
Come and break my heart,
that I may not see my child's pain.
Thereon he is nailed.
You women, weep for his death
and behold his torture,
that they have done to his arms.
Stanzas 2888-2989 (lines 125-32), fol. 146r

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Death, death, death, now take us both

so that he does not leave
this world alone
so horribly.
His blood reddens me,

his death kills me,
his pain anguishes me,
indeed, together with him.
Stanzas 36-38 (lines 159-62), fol. 14T
Alas, me, so poor a woman,

indeed I saw his pure body
so horribly colored;
this you should all consider well.
Jch sah in ande[m]cru - cze stan vn[d] dri na-gel durch in gan, durch sin hend vn[d] durch sin fuz. A-we, a[r]-m[er) sun-d[er] boz!
I saw him standing on the cross

and [saw] three nails go through him
through his hands and feet.
Alas, poor sinners, repent!
Erhautdurchdi-sersu[n]-den notandemcrucz er-lie-tende[nJtod mitgais-selnvn[d]mit ai - nem sper. sun-d[er],dun sin nim-[mer] mer!
He has, through the pain of sin,

suffered death upon the cross
with scourging and with a spear;
sinners, sin no more!
Rice University

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Peter Loewen 339
NOTES
1 Johannes de Caulibus, Meditations on the Life of Christ, trans, and ed. Francis X. Taney,
Anne Miller, C. Mary Stallings-Taney (Asheville, NC: Pegasus, 2000), 261. References are by p
number. Stallings-Taney s Latin edition of the Meditaciones vite Christi is published in the Co
Christianorum series, vol. 153 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997).
2 Meditations on the Life of Christ, xiii.
3 Sandro Sticca identifies the Poor Clare as Giovanna Cattani, who was the prioress of the
Clares of San Gimignano (Sticca, The Planctus Mariae in the Dramatic Tradition of the Middle
trans. Joseph R. Berrigan [Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1988], 123).
4 Meditations on the Life of Christ, xxiv.
5 Alessandro d'Ancona, Origini del teatro italiano, vol. 1 (Turin: Loescher, 1891), 124-
Eduard Wechssler, Die Romanischen Marienklagen: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Dramas im
telalter (Halle: Niemeyer, 1893), 27-28; 66-76.
6 fimile Male, Religious Art in France, the Late Middle Ages: A Study of Medieval Iconogra
and Its Sources (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 40. Originally published as
religieux de la fin du moyen age en France: £tude sur I'iconographie du moyen age et sur ses so
d'inspiration (Paris: Armand Colin, 1908).
7 Sticca, The Planctus Mariae, 123.
8 David Jeffrey, "Franciscan Spirituality and the Rise of Early English Drama," Mosaic 7,
4 (1975): 20.
9 Kurt Ruh, Franziskanisches Schriftum im deutschen Mittelalter, Miinchener Texte und Unte
suchungen Zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters 11 (Munich: Beck, 1965,1985), 282.
10 Ruh, "David von Augsburg und franziskanisches Schriftum," in Kleine Schriften (Berlin
Gruyter, 1984), 48; and Ruh,"Scholastik und Mystik im Spatmittelalter," in ibid., 144.
11 The only sacred dramas with which the Franciscans have been positively connected are
Kassian play, performed in Schwaz in 1541, and a Last Judgment play, copied in a fifteenth-ce
Franciscan manuscript from Koblenz. See Bernd Neumann, Geistliches Schauspiel im Zeugnis
Zeit: Zur Auffuhrung mittelalterlicher religioser Dramen im deutschen Sprachgebiet, Munch
Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters 84 (Munich: Artemis, 198
items 3595 and 3634.
12 F. J. Mone, Schauspiele des Mittelalters (Karlsruhe: Macklot, 1846), 30. Lipphardt,"Studien zur
den Marienklagen: Marienklage und germanische Totenklage," Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen
Sprache und Literatur 58 (1934): 426. Rolf Bergmann, Studien zu Entstehung und Geschichte der
deutschen Passionsspiele des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts, Miinstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 14 (Munich:
Fink, 1972), 236. Antonius Touber, Das Donaueschinger Passionsspiel (Stuttgart: Relam, 1985), 9.
13 See Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1933), 1:504-6; Walther Lipphardt,"Marienklagen und Liturgie," Jahrbuch fur Liturgiewissenschaft
12 (1932), 198; and Sandro Sticca, The Latin Passion Play: Its Origins and Development (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1970), 125.
14 Anton Schonbach, Uber die Marienklagen (Graz: Leuschner & Lubensky, 1874).
15 See especially John B. Freed, The Friars and German Society in the Thirteenth Century
(Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1977), chap. 1 and appendix 1.
16 Various authors discuss the rationale for this attribution. For example, see E. J. Dobson's
Medieval English Songs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 116-20.
17 Schonbach, Marienklagen, 2-9; an analysis of this model takes up the remainder of
Schonbachs study.
18 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 4660, fols. 107r— 1 lr and 112v.
19 See Giuseppe Vecchi's study of "Flete fideles anime" in Offici Drammatici Padovani, Biblio
teca DeH'"Archivum Romanicum,"Seri I: Store Litteratura, Paleographia, vol.41,ed. Giulio Bertoni

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(Florence: Olschki, 1954), 48-63; and 214-19. See also John Stevens's study of "Planctus ante nescia"
in Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050-1350 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986), 131-34.
20 See Bergmann, Katalog der deutschsprachigen geistlichen Spiele und Marienklagen des Mit
telalters (Munich: Beck, 1986), 496-97.
21 Ulrich Mehler, Marienklagen im spatmittelalterlichen undfruhneuzeitlichen Deutschland, 2
vols., Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur 128-29 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997),
1:17-19, 67-83. See the earlier work of Schonbach, in ibid.; Gustav Kiihl, "Die Bordesholmer
Marienklage," Niederdeutsches fahrbuch 24 (1898): 1-75; Gottfried Weiss, "Die deutschen Marien
klagen, Quellen und Erwicklung" (Ph.D. diss., Prague, 1932). Schonbach himself points out that
a complete record of this body of lyrics exists nowhere, but its remnants may be seen scattered
throughout the extant Marienklagen.
22 The Fussener Marienklage appears on fols. 143r-48r of a paper manuscript that also includes
Latin grammatical texts, and a calendar of feasts associated with a Cistercian convent in Heilsbronn.
This manuscript, first discovered in the monastic library of St. Mang in Fiissen, bears the date of
1467, but codicological evidence suggests the gathering that includes the Marienklage was copied
in the first half of the fifteenth century. In 1803 the manuscript was transferred to the Fiirstlich
Oettingen-Wallerstein'sche Bibliothek und Kunstsammlung Schloss Harburg fiber Donauworth,
and since 1980 it has been part of the collection of the Universitatsbibliothek in Augsburg (Cod. II,
1,4°,62). See Dietrich Schmidtke et al., eds., Das Fussener Osterspiel und die Fussener Marienklage,
Universitatsbibliothek Augsburg (ehemals: Harburg), Cod. II, 1,4°,62, Litterae, Goppinger Beitrage zur
Textgeschichte 69 (Goppingen: Kummerle, 1983), 4 and 7; and Dietrich Schmidtke, Ursula Hennig,
and Walther Lipphardt,"Fussener Osterspiel und Fussener Marienklage," Beitrage zur Geschichte der
deutschen Sprache und Literatur 98 (1976): 231-88,395-423. See also Bergmann, Katalog, 52-53.
23 My numbering of the stanzas departs from Schmidtkes edition at stanza 12. I have divided
what he labels as stanza 12 into two—stanzas 12 and 13—because the capitalization of the initial
"W" of "Waine" (1.60) and the recurrence of music at this juncture suggests that this is a new stanza.
See Schmidtke, 17 and fol. 144v of the Ftissen manuscript.
24 Meditations on the Life of Christ, 249.
25 Ibid., 252.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., 253-54.
28 The Chronicle ofSalimbene deAdam, Joseph L. Baird et al., eds. (Binghamton, NY: Medieval
& Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1986), 569.
29 Hans-Friedrich Roesenfeld argues that Heinrich of Burgus was probably a Franciscan at
tached to the convent at Brixen and served there in the capacity of confessor to a community of Poor
Clares. He composed his text between 1301 and 1319. See Heinrich von Burgus der Seele Rat aus der
Brixener Handschrift, ed. Hans- Friedrich Roesenfeld, Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters Herausgegeben
von der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 37 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1932), xi-xvi.
30 Ibid., 11. 3603-9,3613-22, and 3649-50. The translation is my own.
31 Lipphardt, "Studien zur den Marienklagen," 426. Helmut Engelhart proposes this same
female saint may be St. Clare, in Wiirzburger Buchmalerei im hohen Mittelalter (Wiirzburg: Ferdi
nand Schoningh, 1987), 256.
32 E. Vara, commentary, "Andachtstafel mit dem Leben Christi," in 800 Jahre Franz von Assist:
Franziskanische Kunst und Kultur des Mittelalters, Krems-Stein, Minoritenkirche 15. Mai-17. Oktober
1982 (Vienna: Amt der Niederosterreichische Landesregierung, 1982), 606-7. See Farbtafel, 42.
33 Meditations on the Life of Christ, 254.
34 Ibid., 258.
35 Ibid., 262. Compare the early fifteenth-century German translation in Ruh, Franziskanisches
Schrifttum, 1:282.

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Peter Loewen 341
36 "Inspicere speciosum forma prae filiis hominem, erat cordis mei plenum gaudium. Nunc
autem omnia mihi versa fuerunt in amaritudinem. Pensa igitur quia amaris eram repleta doloribus,
quantisquem vexabar in corde singultibus, tantis enim in mente vexabar angustiis, que pro eo mori
mihi fuisset solatium singulare. Aspiciebam infelix & misera filium meum in cruce pendentem,...
& de vultu illius omnis decor abscesserat, & ab eo videbam me deseri quem genueram. Ideo vox mea
periit, omnis virtus mea euanuit, sensua recessit, et immensa me calamitas oppersit.... O fili mi, quis
mihi dabit ut pro te moriar? Moritur unicus filius meus, cur secum non moritur haec moestissima
mater eius? O fili mi, ultra quid faciam, quo vadam, quo me vertam?... O benignissime fili, desine
nunc quaeso durus esse matri, qui cunctis benignus semper esse consueuisti, & suscipe me matrem
tecum in cruce ut qui uno corde viuunt, & uno amore se diligunt, etiam una morte pereant. Nam
vita mea moritur, salus mea perimitur, & omnis spes mea de terra tolitur" (Hendrik Herp [Henricum
Harph], Theologia Mystica [Cologne: Melchior Novesiani, 1538; repr., Westmead: Gregg, 1966]), 29,
fol. 27r_v). References are by chapter and folio. Translations are my own.
37"Revera viscera tua penetrat gladius, configunt animam tuam lancea & clavi, laneant mentem
tuam spinarum aculei, lacerat cor tuum aspectus amorosi filii tui" (Herp, 31, fol. IT).
38 .. vulnera filii tui sunt vulnera tua, crux filii tui crux tua, mors filii tui mors tua" (ibid.).
39 "Cum igitur vocem filii animam suam patri commendantis, & morientis cor maternum
percepit, angustiis vehementissimis aestuare coepit, & animam fidelissimae matris gladius doloris
pertransivit, manus suas sursum extendit, prae cordis desiderio tangere cupiens dilectum, ut vel sic
dolori & amori melius consulere potuisset. Et cum aliud solatium non haberet, sanguinem ex eius
vulneribus profluentem, 8c usque ad terram stillantem, nimia cum aviditate suscipiebat, ilium crebrius
deosculans, in tantum ut facies matris de sanguine occisi filii sanguinolenta redderetur" (ibid.).
40 In this respect, the Fiissener Marienklage is like several other German religious dramas com
piled in the fifteenth century. For example, the Trierer Osterspiel (11.156-79) ends with a penitential
sermon delivered by Mary Magdalene. See the Trierer Marienklage und Osterspiel, Codex 1973/63
der Stadtbibliothek Trier, Ursula Henning and Andreas Traub, eds., Litterae: Goppinger Beitrage
zur Textgeschichte (Goppingen: Kummerle, 1990). The Proclamator's speech that introduces the
Alsfelder Passionsspiel points to the suffering and death of Jesus and then calls on the audience to
help bear his cross. The Proclamator concludes his speech, "May God grant that we perform this
play, so as to honor him with it and convert all sinners who see and hear it!" (dorzu sollet er uwer
hercze keren, / ir man und auch erfrawen! / mit andacht sollet er difi schawen / und in alle uwern
tagen / Jhesu syn crucae helffen tragen / mit wiczen und synnen! ... got gebe, das mer das spiel Co
triben, / das mer got damidde eren/ und alle sunder / und synderyn bekeren, / die disfie horen und
sehen!). See The Alsfeld Passion Play, Larry E. West, ed. and trans., Studies in German Language and
Literature 17 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 11.50-55 and 76-79).
41 "Offenkundig ist jedenfalls.dafi schon zu Beginn der europaischen Kompositionsgeschichte
im friihen Mittelalter die Idee des movere animos bzw. movere affectus—Seite an Seite mit dem
kosmologisch-ontologisch begrundeten Wirk-konzept—auch in ihrer rhetorischen Dimension
erortert und als pragmatische Aufgabe an der Musiker (opportet) so prazise wie anschaulich for
muliert ist" (Fritz Reckow, "Zwischen Ontologie und Rhetorik: die Idee des movere animos und
der Ubergang von Spatmittalter zur friih Neuzeit in der Musikgeschichte," Traditionswandel und
Traditionsverhalten [1991]: 153). I wish to thank Dr. Charles Atkinson for drawing to my attention
Reckow's research on this subject.
42 Reckow, 154-59.
43 Jody Enders, Visions with Voices: The Rhetoric of Memory and Music in Liturgical Drama,
Comparative Drama 24 (1990): 34-54.
44 Peter Loewen, "The Conversion of Mary Magdalene and the Musical Legacy of Franciscan
Piety in the Early German Passion Plays," in Speculum Sermonis: Interdisciplinary Reflections on
the Medieval Sermon, ed„ G. Donavin et al. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004): 235-59; and "Francis the
Musician and the Mission of the Joculatores Domini in the Medieval German Lands," Franciscan
Studies 60 (2002): 251-90.
45 Thomas of Celano, The Life of St. Francis, in Francis ofAssisi: Early Documents, ed. Regis
J. Armstrong et al., 3 vols. (New York: New City Press, 1999-2001), 1:254-55.

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46 The story appears in both The Deeds of Blessed Francis and His Companions, in Francis
of Assisi: Early Documents, 3:453, and I Fioretti di Sancto Franciescho (Rome: Ermanno Loescher,
1902), 167, but only the latter source offers a date.
47"Tanto e quello bene ch'io aspetto ch'ogni pena m' e diletto" (Fioretti, 167).
48 A Mirror of the Perfection of the Status of a Lesser Brother, in Francis of Assisi: Early Docu
ments, 3:348.
49 Joshua Benson argues that De reductione artium ad theologiam is part of Bonaventure's

principium, and dates the work, therefore, to the mid-1250s ("Identifying the Literary Genre of
the De reductione artium ad theologiam: Bonaventure's Inaugural Lecture at Paris" [unpublished
manuscript, 2007]).
50 St. Bonaventure, St. Bonaventure's On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology [De reductione
artium ad theologiam], trans., intro., and commentary by Zachary Hayes, vol. 1 of The Works of
St. Bonaventure, ed. George Marcil (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1996), 2. Citations
are by chapter.
51 Ibid.
52 Bonaventure, De reductione, 14.
53 "Et certe possent tam exquisete excogitari, et cum tanta poetia musicae, quod ad omnem
gradum devotionis, quem vellemus, excitaretur populus Christianus" (Fr. Rogeri Bacon, Opera
Quaedam Hactenus Inedita. I.—Opus Tertium. II.—Opus Minus. III.—Compendium Philosophiae,
ed. J. S. Brewer [London: Longman, 1859; repr. London: Kraus, 1965], 298.). References are by page.
"Possent" in this case refers to the subject of Bacon's previous discussion about enharmonic music
(enharmonicus) and its many layers (multos gradus). All translations of Bacon are my own.
54 "Sed diceret aliquis quid haec ad musicae proprietatem? Certe multum, immo principaliter....
Aristoteles enim et omnes ejus expositores in libris de his sermonibus testantur, quod hi sermones
debent esse in fine decori et sublimes; et hoc non solum prosa'ice secundum omne genus coloris
et ornatus, sed pro qualitate temporis, et personarum, et locorum, et materiae de qua fit sermo,
debent ornari omni genere metri et rythmi, ut animus subito rapiatur in amorem boni et odium
mali; quatenus homo totus sine praevisione rapiatur et elevetur supra se, et non habeat mentem
in sua potestate" (ibid., 306-7).
55 "Et ideo cum persuasor honesti et boni debet habere hujusmodi gestus suaves et conformes,
sicut exposui in quinta parte Moralis Philosophiae, manifestum est quod in his musica sit necessaria
moribus persuadendis" (ibid., 308).
56 Ibid., 310. Bacon identifies him as Bertholdus Alemannus, but Patricius Schlager identifies
him as Berthold of Regensburg in Die deutschen Franziskaner (Regensburg: Manz, 1907), 42.
57 David Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1975), 161 n. 53. See also my study of music in Berthold's sermons in "Francis the
Musician," 278-83.
58 Spiritual Life and Progress by David of Augsburg, Being a Translation of His "De exterioris
et interioris hominis compositione," trans. Dominic Devas, 2 vols. (London: Burns Oats & Wash
bourne, 1937), 2:130. To clarify Davids meaning, I include the Latin from the Quaracchi edition
(1899), 296-300.
59 Spiritual Life, 130.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid., 131; original emphasis.

62 "Nam musica, que modulationis in sono et in cantu est peritia, sacre scripture mysteriis
valde est necessaria" (Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum: De musica sive Modula
tione Cantus, [Frankfurt: Richter, 1601; repr. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1964], 1251). References are by
page. Translations are my own. Compare Isidore who writes, "Musica est peritia modulationis sono
cantuque consistens" (Etymologiarum sive originum, ed.W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols. [1911; repr. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1985], 3:15). References are by book and chapter.

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Peter Loewen 343
63 "Suaues, inquit, voces sunt subtiles & spissae & clarae, acutae & perspicuae" (De propri
etatibus rerum, 1253). Isidore writes, "Subtiles voces sunt subtiles et spissae, clarae atque acutae"
(Etymologiarum, 3:22).
64 "Perfecta autem vox est alta, suavis, fortis, et clara. Alta ut in sublimi sufficiat, clara ut aures
impleat, fortis ne trepidet aut deficiat, suavis sive dulcis ut auditum non deterreat, sed potius ut
aures demulceat et audiencium animos blandiendo ad se alliciat et convertat" (De proprietatibus
rerum, 1254). Isidore writes,"Perfecta autem vox est alta, suavis et clara: alta, ut in sublime sufficiat;
clara, ut aures adinpleat; ut animos audientium blandiat. Si ex his aliquid defuerit, vox perfecta
non est" (Etymologiarum, 3:22).
65 There are more than 160 extant manuscript copies of De proprietatibus rerum preserved in
European libraries, 65 of them in the German lands. A further eleven published editions appeared
between 1472 and 1492 (see M. C. Seymour, et al., Bartholomaeus Anglicus and his Encyclopedia
[Aldershot: Variarium, 1992], 257-63). The popularity of De exterioris et interioris hominibus
compositione is attested in no fewer than 400 manuscript copies from the late Middle Ages and
numerous German and Dutch translations from the early Renaissance (see Georg Steer,"David von
Augsburg und Berthold von Regensburg: Schopfer der volkssprachigen franziskanischen Traktat
und Predigtliteratur," in Handbuch der Literatur Bayern von Fruhmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, ed.
Albrecht Weber [Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1987], 100).
66 On the connections between the Franciscans and Frauenlob, see Loewen, "Francis the
Musician," 283-88. See also Barabara Newmans analysis of Frauenlob's Marienleich, in Frauenlob's
Song of Songs: A Medieval German Poet and his Masterpiece (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2006).
67 Ulrich Mehler, Marienklagen im spatmittelalterlichen und friihneuzeitlichen Deutscha
land, Amsterdamer Publikationen zur Sprache und Literatur 129 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997),
283-309.
68 See the appendix below for information about the other extant readings of the lyrics in
the Fussener Marienklage.
69 See n. 49, above.
70 Lucie Vrinzen, "Theater wissenschaftliche Notizen zu den deutschsprachigen geistlichen

Spielen des Mittelalters " Amsterdamer Beitrage zur alteren Germanistik 30, no. 1 (1990), 119.
71 See Plato, Republic, 398d-e, trans. Desmond Lee (London: Penguin, 1955; revised, 1987);
and Plutarch, "On Music," in Moralia, trans. Benedict Einarson and Phillip H. De Lacy, Loeb Cla
sical Library, 17 vols. (London: Heinemann, 1976), 14:385.
72 Hermannus in Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica, ed. Martin Gerbert, 3 vols. (St. Blasien: Typis
San Blasianis, 1784), 2:148; see trans. Leonard Ellinwood, Musica Hermanni Contracti (Rochester
University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 1936), 65. John "Cotton," De Musica, 16, in
Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music: Three Medieval Treatises, trans. Warren Babb (New Haven; Yale
University Press, 1978), 133. One should be aware that Guido of Arezzo perceives the same mode—in
his words the Tritus plagalis—as having a "delightful" character (Guido d'Arezzo, Micrologus, 14).
73 "Et notandum quod sextus tonus est pius et lacrimabilis, conveniens illis qui de facili ad
lacrimas provocantur" (Johannes Aegidius de Zamora, Ars Musica, ed. Michel Robert-Tissot, Corpus
Scriptorum Musica 20 [Middleton, Wis.: American Institute of Musicology, 1974], 15). References
to the Ars musica are by chapter. Translations are my own.
74 "Et notandum quod quintus tonus est modestus et delectabilis, tristes et anxios laetificans
et dulcorans, lapsos et desperantes revocans" (Ars Musica, 15).
75 Andreas Traub,"Zur Musik der Trierer Marienklage und des Trierer Osterspiels," Beitrdge
zur Geschischichte der deutsche Sprache und Literatur 110, no. 1 (1988): 89-90.
76 J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Brill: Leiden, 1997), 581.
77 In the prologue of his Ars musica Aegidius writes, "Reverendo et in bono Iesu patri sibi
carissimo domino et amico, domino fratri Iohanni Ordinis Fratrum Minorum generali ministro,
suus frater Iohannes Aegidius, lector in sufficiens Zamorensis, quid quid oboedientiae, reverentiae

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ac honoris, salutis et pacis, commodi et amoris. Musicam, absque demonstrationibus quae melius
novistis, iuxta mandatum vestrum brevius ac puerilius, ut potui, ex dictis philosophorum praesenti
bus, scribo vobis." Michel Robert-Tissot has established by a process of elimination that John of
Mirovalle is the only minister general of the order who could have commissioned the Ars musica.
There were only three other ministers general of the order whose names were John and who were
active during the thirteenth century: John Parenti (1227-32); John of Parma (1247-57); and John
of Mirovalle, (1296-1304) (Robert-Tissot, ed., Ars Musica, p. 7).
78 peter slemon,"Adam von Fulda on Musica Plana" (PhD diss., University of British Columbia,
1994), 119. Gobelius Person, Coussemaker's Monachus Carthusiensis, Johann Amons Anonymous,
and Adam of Fulda all follow Aegidius of Zamora. It is evident that some of these German theorists
did not realize that it was Aegdius's model that they were using. Adam of Fulda, for example, faith
fully transmits the modal ethos of Aegidius in the form of a Latin verse, but attributes its origin
to Guido d'Arezzo. He may be quoting a document that is no longer extant, but as Slemon writes,
this verse is not in any treatise of Guido's, nor is this pattern of modal ethos known to exist in any
treatise earlier than the Ars musica of Aegidius of Zamora (ibid.).
79 The bibliography here is enormous. For an overview, see John V. Fleming, An Introduction to
the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1977). For English stud
ies see Rossell Hope Robbins,"The Earliest English Carols and the Franciscans," Modern Language
Notes 53 (1938): 239-45; Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric; Jeffrey, "Franciscan Spirituality," 17-46;
Jeffrey,"St. Francis and Medieval Theatre," Franciscan Studies 43, no. 21 (1983): 321-46. For Italian
studies, see Franca Ageno, Laudi: trattato e detti Jacopone da Todi (Florence: Le Monnier, 1953); and
Cyrilla Barr, The Monophonic Lauda and the Lay Religious Confraternities of Tuscany and Umbria
in the Late Middle Ages, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series 10 (Kalamazoo: Medieval
Institute Publications, 1988). For French studies see Arnoul Greban, The Mystery of the Passion the
Third Day, trans. Paula Giuliano (Asheville: Pegasus, 1996). For Spanish studies see the overview
in Samuel Eijdn, Nuestros Juglares del Sehor: La Poesia Franciscana en Espana, Portugal Y America
(Siglos XIII-XIX) (Santiago de Compostela: El Eco Franciscano, 1935). For studies of Franciscan
literature in the Netherlands, see Benjamin de Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica
Ante Saeculum XVI, 2 pts. in 3 vols. (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1974). For studies more specific to the
subject of Franciscan lyric and preaching, see Siegfried Wenzel, trans, and ed., Fasciculus morum:
A Fourteenth-Century Preacher's Handbook (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1989); Stephen R. Reimer, ed. The Works of William Herebert, OFM (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1987); J. Zupitza, ed. ,"Die Gedichte des Franziskaners Jakob Ryman]' Archivfur
das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 89 (1892): 167-93; and Brian J. Levy, Nine Verse
Sermons by Nicholas Bozon: The Art of an Anglo-Norman Poet and Preacher, Medium Aevum Mono
graphs, n.s. 11 (Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature, 1981).
80 Enders, "Visions with Voices," 35.
81 See Ernst August Schuler, Die Musik der Osterfeiern Osterspiele und Passionen des Mittelalters
(Kassel: Barenreiter, 1951), item 129. Schuler's catalogue shows that this lyric appears in three other
known dramas, all compiled in the fifteenth century (see his entry under Docen's Marienklage, Eger
Fronleichnamspiel, and Erlau VI in item 129). The text after the first line and its musical setting in Erlau
VI, however, does not follow the same tradition as this lyric in Fiissen. Compare Wolfgang Suppan
and Johannes Janota, eds., Texte und Melodien der "Erlauer Spiefe"Musikethnologische Sammelbande
11 (Tutzing: Schneider, 1990), 189,1.120. Schuler does not include the Fiissener Marienklage, since
it was discovered after his catalogue was published. See also stanza 14 of the "'Sicheres' Corpus" in
Mehler's Marienklagen, 1:78. The music is notated on four-line staves with F- and C-clefs in what
Walther Lipphardt has identified as "cursive gothic chant notation in'Hakchenform'" (Das Fiissener
Osterspiel, 8). The music transcriptions and text translations are my own.
82 Schuler, item 681, shows that this lyric appears in six other dramas.
83 Schuler, item 113, shows that this lyric appears in eight other dramas. See stanza 4 in Mehler,
Marienklagen, 1:75, and compare to stanza 2b of "Planctus ante nescia."
84 Schuler, item 112, shows that this lyric appears in seven other dramas. Four others have
similar texts to this one. See stanza 6 in Mehler, Marienklagen, 1:75, and compare to stanza 6 of
"Planctus ante nescia."

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Peter Loewen 345
85 Schuler, item 141, shows that this lyric appears in nine other dramas. See stanza 12 in Mehler,
Marienklagen, 1:77, and stanza 7b of "Plantus ante nescia."
86 This appears to be the only known copy of this lyric.
87 This appears to be the only known copy of this lyric.
88 Schuler, item 140, indicates that this lyric appears in nine other dramas. See also stanza 8
in Mehler, Marienklagen, 1:76, and stanza 7b of"Planctus ante nescia."
89 Schuler, item 133, shows that this lyric appears in eight other dramas. See also stanza 18
in Mehler, Marienklagen, 1:78.
90 These appear to be the only known copies of these lyrics.

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Portrayals of The Vita Christi

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Portrayals of the Vita Christi in the Medieval German Marienklage: Signs of Franciscan

Exegesis and Rhetoric in Drama and Music

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/23038069

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The compassion thea theme

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at least 100 in vernacular languages, it is clear that Johns Meditaciones

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recently as Walther Lipphardt, Rolf Bergmann, and Antonius Touber

I. Franciscan Theology and Literature in the Marienklagen

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fourteenth century, composers' interests in portrayals of the Compassio

Planctus Mariae while under the influence of Franciscan Passion exegeses,

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of Caulibus goes on in this way, devoting himself to intensely realistic

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Und das di selben not And this anguish

Ob ich von herczen minne dich, If I love you with my heart,

Finding such similar nuances in the penitential rhetoric of Der Seele

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Fig. 1: Christus patiens with St. Francis of Assisi. Courtesy of

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Another important element in the exegesis of John of Caulibus is his

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ourselves in the shadow of earlier Mariology, including the"Planctus ante

Hendrik Herps commentary on the Passion in his Theologia Mystica

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II. The Music of Franciscan Rhetoric

(mid-ninth century) had formed a concept of movere animos or movere

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Roger Bacons commentary focuses more concisely on the subject of

Bacon concludes his study of music in preaching by boldly stating, "And

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the necessary formula for a successful rhetorical practice. In essence, he

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of grief. Notated ornamentation does not preclude the possibility that

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Marienklage returns to Mehler's Type 5 melody and its distinctive mode-5

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might have interpreted the music of the Marienklagen, he was confounded

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But since Aegidius of Zamora composed his treatise on commission from

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Selected Texts and Music from the Fiissener Marienklage,

Stanza 381 (lines 18-24), fol. 143r

Alas, alas, alas, the path that I walk hurts my heart.

Stanza 1882 (lines 79-88), fol. 145r

Stanza 1983 (lines 89-92), fol. 145v

His wounds hurt me.

My complaint is increased through anguish

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Stanza 2084 (lines 93-96), fol. 145v

A sword was prophesied for me,

Stanzas 2285-2386 (lines 101-8), fol. 145v-46r

Alas, who has leveled

A stake thrusts through his heart.

Stanza 2587 (lines 113-16), fol. 146r

Stanzas 2888-2989 (lines 125-32), fol. 146r