The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess: The Paths of Prophecy in Reformation Europe

Appendix 1. The First Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess

133 Appendix 1 The First Prophecy of Wilhelm Friess  The following editions of “Friess I” and “Friess II” attempt to capture on paper the complex relationships between the various versions and editions of each text and its sources. As with the transcriptions of early modern printed texts in the notes, the editions presented here use modern values for i/j, u/v, and consonantal w. Round and tall s are not differentiated, umlauted vowels use modern orthographic conventions , and words begin with one capital at most. Spelling, capitalization, paragraph breaks, and punctuation are otherwise unchanged. Obvious typographical mistakes are corrected in square brackets. Abbreviations are expanded silently, and Latin digraphs are rendered as two letters. Blank lines are used to keep the texts roughly parallel to each other and do not reflect the layout of the printed editions. The purpose of the editions presented here is to lay out the evidence for the textual historical arguments made in the chapters of this book (as well as the cases that call those arguments into question), to provide a convenient reading text, and to make available documents that would otherwise be obtainable only with considerable effort. These considerations influenced my choice of which texts to present here. For “Friess I,” digital facsimiles of the one B edition and two L editions are, at the time of this writing, readily available online, as are several of Georg Kreydlein’s editions. Readers interested in those editions will have no difficulty finding and reading them, so references to them are here relegated to the apparatus. The one edition of D is more difficult to find, however. For the N version, two early editions (N4 and N6) have equal 134 • the strange and terrible visions of wilhelm friess textual historical value, as do the very late editions published in 1686– 90 (N21–N26), but N6 has the additional significance of occupying a crucial place in the textual history of “Friess I,” as it was the parent of the many Kreydlein editions and has not suffered the numerous deletions of the seventeenth-century N editions. The following edition provides the text of both D and N6, and the notes are limited to the most significant variant readings in other editions. Orthographic or dialectal variants of the same word are not distinguished in the apparatus. Unless otherwise marked, the base lemma in the apparatus is drawn from N6. This is explicitly stated when the reading of N6 is compared with other editions of the same family. If not otherwise noted, the other N editions can be assumed to substantially follow N6, while L3 can be assumed to follow the readings of L2. Most omissions and discrepancies of N22–N26 as compared to N21 are not noted. Citations to “Ferrari” identify particular lines from Barbara Ferrari’s edition of the French Vademecum redaction in BAV Reg. lat. 1728, citations of “Brown” identify pages from Edward Brown’s 1690 edition of the Vademecum, and citations of “Egenolff” refer to the extract from Grünpeck’s Speculum as published by Christian Egenolff in his 1550 compilation of prophecies (VD16 P 5068).1 The First Prophecy of Wilhelm Freiss • 135 [a1r] PRONOSTICATIO. [a1r] PRONOSTICATIO. Etliche setlzame Prophezei[u]ng / Gepracticeret van dem olden Meister geweissaget von dem alten M. Wilhelmo Wilhelm dem Fresen van Mastricht / de nu Friesen / von Mastrich / welcher neulich kortes vorscheden unde na synem dode by 5 gestorben / die bey ihme gefunden nach em befunden ys / Angande van dem Jar seinem tode / Von 1558. biss ins 63. jar sich M.D.LVIII. warende up dat LXIII. Jar. erstreckende / in denen sehr seltzame unnd greuliche verenderung geweissaget werden. 10 Matthei am 6. Luce. 11. Acto. 21. Dein wille geschehe / wie im Himmel also Fiat voluntas Dei, sicut in coelo sic et in auch auff Erden. terra. 15 [a1v] Ich achte nichts bösers noch ungelückseligers / denn so einer allezeit in freuden lebet / unnd nye kein Creutze oder widerstandt gehat / Denn der kann sich selbst nicht erkennen. Ich achte den unselig 20 / der ohne anfechtung ist / denn das leben des Menschens ist anders nicht / (als Job [a1v] Der Minschen levendt ys nicht spricht) Denn ein steter krieg mit dem anders (alse Job secht) denn ein stryd mit Teuffel. Darumb radt ich euch / meine dem Düvel / Darumme rade ick juw leven lieben freunde / das ihr euch willig ins Fründe / dat gy juw willich tho dem 25 Creutze...