"Hovezuht": Literarische Hofkultur und höfisches Lebensideal um Herzog Albrecht III. von Österreich und Erzbischof Pilgrim II. von Salzburg (1365–1396) (review)

A slightly revised version of Schneider's doctoral dissertation (Heidelberg, 2007), this book contributes to the scholarly discussion of the constitution and development of court societies in Germany and Europe. Given the interrelationship between cultural/aesthetic activities and social and political structures involved in courts, this discussion has been a strongly interdisciplinary one, and Schneider's book follows suit. In the first part of his four-part book, Schneider arrives via a consideration of some of the most influential views of court societies (including Norbert Elias, C. Stephen Jaeger, Joachim Bumke, and others), and in view of Niklas Luhmann's view of social systems in terms of communications systems and Cassirer's idea of symbolic communication, at his own critical point of departure:

So gilt es zu fragen, inwieweit die literarische Inszenierung höfischer Verhaltensideale und Leitwerte im spielerisch-geselligen Rahmen der literarischen Hofkultur auf eine Oberschichteninteraktion zielt, die auf einer symbolischen Ebene—nämlich über den Weg der literarischen Inszenierung der Oberschichteninteraktion und ihrer Semantik—die Stabilität und Kohärenz des höfischen Gesellschaftsgefüges herzustellen versucht, indem sie sie als eine bereits existierende Wirklichkeit wahrnehmbar zu machen versucht.

(p. 38)

This inquiry is directed toward two concrete cases from the latter part of the fourteenth century, the courts of Prince Albrecht III of Vienna and Archbishop Pilgrim II of Salzburg. Besides offering a wealth of information about cultural, social, and political structures, these courts reveal the development of such structures during the later Middle Ages, and their study addresses a relative dearth of research on court societies during this period (p. 11).

A survey of the political and social aspects of the courts of Albrecht and Pilgrim that were connected to two related but distinctive literary cultures is the topic of the second part of the book. Common to both courts is that they continue more accurately to be considered in terms of constellations of interaction (social, political, artistic) over which the princes preside, which continue to be in motion (as courts earlier in the Middle Ages were), but which also demonstrate a broader tendency—more typical of courts in the later Middle Ages—to be associated with geographically fixed sites such as cities and universities. Correspondingly, the constellations of courtly interaction have increasingly come to involve burghers, along with secular and ecclesiastic princes with households, noble lords, clerics, and knights. While the social spectrum is broader, the courts of Albrecht and Pilgrim are starkly hierarchical and controlled by a small group of powerful individuals occupying the most important political offices (Kanzler, Hofmeister, Kammermeister, Hofmarschall, etc.). In Vienna the positions of power tended to be filled with noble lords of the laity, whereas in Salzburg they were filled by clerics (often selected by Pilgrim from his extended family). The predominant poets—Heinrich der Teichner and Peter Suchenwirt at Vienna and the "Monk of Salzburg" (one or more authors not known by name)—are introduced in this section, along with an elaboration of the somewhat counterintuitive characterization of the literature at the more worldly court of Albrecht as more religious-pedagogical and that at the more clerical court of Pilgrim as more worldly (particularly in the "Monk's" love lyrics).

The term hovezuht, evocative of the emphasis placed on self-control and formation/education, anticipates the final findings of this study and headlines the book's third part, which focuses on social expectations, and external and internal facets of individual conduct. The discussion here capably picks up and gives historical detail to some of the psychological and social dynamics that will be familiar to readers from the work of Norbert Elias: self-discipline and social control, the development of a sense of shame, physical beauty and hygiene, and gender relations. Schneider also dwells in this part on the qualities of the ideal courtier, and those of its...