Der Codex Manesse und die Entdeckung der Liebe: Eine Ausstellung der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, des Instituts für Fränkisch-Pfälzische Geschichte und Landeskunde sowie des Germanistischen Seminars der Universität Heidelberg zum 625. Universitätsjubiläum (review)

This attractive book is the catalog for an exhibition held at the University Library in Heidelberg to mark the 625th anniversary of the founding of the university—an exhibition featuring one of that library's most prized possessions, the Codex Manesse, or Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift [Large Heidelberg Song Manuscript] (cpg 848). The well-conceived exhibition, held in the Fall and Winter of 2010-2011, brought together a marvelous variety of medieval manuscripts and modern responses to them. Far more than a description of the items in the exhibition, the catalog provides a thorough introduction to the theories (both medieval and modern) and the literature and art of love in the Middle Ages.

The manuscript at the center of the exhibition, made in Zürich between 1300 and 1340 for the patrician Manesse family, collects around 5400 song stanzas and 36 Leiche, attributing those to 140 different authors and dedicating "portraits" to 137 of those authors. It is by far the single most important document of medieval German lyric poetry, and its illustrations make it one of the most famous medieval manuscripts. Clearly, the codex, which was brought to Heidelberg by Friedrich IV, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, in 1607 (hence the designation "codex palatinus") and returned there after a long absence in 1888, is one of the great treasures of the Heidelberg University Library, and an exhibition devoted to it is an excellent way to celebrate a university jubilee.

The exhibition and its catalog were designed not only to showcase a famous manuscript, but also to provide an introduction to the literature and art of love in the high and late Middle Ages, and to develop an argument about the "discovery of love." The idea that romantic love, or at least one way of thinking about it, was discovered or invented in the high Middle Ages has been around since at least the early 1980s (it is particularly associated with a 1981 article by Peter Dinzelbacher). In this catalog's introduction, Carla Meyer and Christian Schneider offer a good discussion of the question "wurde die Liebe im Mittelalter entdeckt?" (p. 9). The first answer offered appears careful and reasonable: love certainly existed before the twelfth century, but in that era it began to be thought about, talked about, and written about in new ways (p. 9). This idea is well developed in the subsequent pages, with discussion of the classical heritage, the influence of Christianity, and the development of "courtly love" as a phenomenon of both medieval literature and modern medievalist scholarship. "Courtly love"—insofar as it means anything more than "love in the art and literature of the court"—is a problematic term, as is well discussed here. Covered succinctly and intelligently are the invention of "courtly love" in a certain narrow and overly influential sense by the nineteenth-century French medievalist, Gaston Paris; the "ministerials theory" of Erich Köhler; and the "civilizing process" theory of Norbert Elias (pp. 20-22).

Overall, the catalog handles the idea of "the discovery of love" well, using the idea of new and evolving ideas of love as a framework for presenting a large amount of fascinating material, without overstating or overly ballyhooing the idea. The many views of love that may be encountered in medieval literature are well illustrated. For example, a picture from the Parzival manuscript cpg 339, made in the Diebolt Lauber workshop in the 1440s, leads to a good discussion of the complex love relationship between Gawain and Orgeluse and how that relationship is radically simplified or, one might...