Wahre Wunder: Tiere als Funktions- und Bedeutungsträger in mittelalterlichen Gründungslegenden by Leonie Franz (review)

Leonie Franz studies the function and relevance of animals, specifically that of the stag and boar, in medieval foundational legends. With this premise in mind, she discusses the hybrid stance of the narratives that hover between fact and fiction. The aim of the study is to elucidate the specific nature of fictionality and authenticity in order to arrive at a more precise definition of the genre itself. She bases her arguments on Peter Johanek’s idea of narrativity and its unifying nature in medieval historical writings. Furthermore, she explores Brigitte Burrichter’s differentation between “functional fictionality” and “autonomous fictionality,” one being historical narratives and the other freely invented accounts. She shows that both narrative types flow seamlessly into each other. She cites Ulrich Müller and Alois Wolf who cover fictionality in epic and saga, drawing the comparison to the foundational legends. The “retro-fictional” nature of the legends assumes a semihistorical narrative that does not base the foundation of a city, abbey, or church on historical facts, rather it narrates the events in a way they could have or even should have been (p. 18).

She argues convincingly that the foundational legends would not have been questioned as to their “retro-fictional” character or their authenticity by the medieval audience. Because she maintains that as long as the fictional is implied as authentic and real, the narratives achieve the status and significance of foundational legends. Only then do they attain their legimitate function that has been accorded them in medieval chronicles and historical research (p. 19).

In the light of the sheer amount of material, she limits her analysis to texts that discuss two of the most prevalent animals in the medieval foundational legends, the stag and the boar, and frames this within the well-known motif of the hunt. Her corpus encompasses legends from different European countries and focuses on a comparative method, showing that motifs were shared and repeated and were connected through Latin Christendom, not divided by regions or countries. The appendix features a comprehensive list of selected legends, categorized alphabetically by location, featuring the animal and the manuscript source.

Even though she focused on the stag and boar legends in the latter chapters, she fronted her analysis with a diachronic look at animals in foundational legends from the early middle ages to the early modern period in the second chapter. Due to the formulaic nature of the legends, she wisely selects the most important animal narratives. At the heart of her anaylis is Chapter Three in which she lays out her argument by following the etymological heritage of place names in relation to stag and boar legends. A thorough analysis of both animals provides the reader an in-depth look at the behavior and function of the animals, as well as the symbolism of the hunt in relationship to space and naming of places. By choosing various legends that bear the hunting motif (she also looks at the animals in their function as architects and builders), such as the ones for Frankfurt, Eberbach, Notre-Dame de Bouxière, Cerfroid, to name a few, she provides a multidimensional and cross-cultural approach to the function of the animal and by extension the significance of the legend to the medieval audience.

Chapter Four extends her argument into the realm of romances, where she analyzes the function of the hunt of the white stag. There are four selected texts, the lai Guigemar of Marie de France and the hunt for the white stag in the writings of Chrétien de Troyes, Hartmann von Aue, and Gottfried von Strassburg (Tristan und Isolde). Other than the foundational legends, Leonie Franz finds that the fictionality of the romance genre supports a narrative flow that is not interrupted by the appearance of the animal. The existence of the stag does not need an explanation, unlike in the retro-fictional...