Beschreibung:

LITERARY SAMMELBAND, including Minne tales, Klopfan verses, toasts, hunting texts, the language of flowers, obscene poems and fables, in German, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER
LITERARY SAMMELBAND, including Minne tales, Klopfan verses, toasts, hunting texts, the language of flowers, obscene poems and fables, in German, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER [West Swabia and Bavaria, mid- to late 15th century] 205 x 145mm. 86 leaves: 1 1 4 , 2-3 1 2 , 4-5 8 , 6-7 1 0 , 8 1 2 , COMPLETE, modern pencil foliation excluding first blank leaf followed here, written in several cursive German hands; the manuscript is written in distinct sections ff.1-9v, followed by blank leaves 10-13; 14-19, followed by blank leaves 20-25; 26-37v; 38-73; 74-end. The first two sections appear to be the work of the same two scribes and initials and line-breaks are touched red (wormholes in upper inner corner of first eight leaves, affecting legibility of inner two words of upper line of first 3 folios, occasional spotting and inconsequential stains, very slight cropping of a few letters on first four leaves, f.73 missing section of lower margin and tear into text). CONTEMPORARY BINDING OF GREEN-TAWED SKIN over wooden boards, metal clasp, paper archive label (defective, faded, losses to leather, spine and catch missing). PROVENANCE; 1. Wilhelm Werner Graf von Zimmern (1485-1575), historian and jurist: a note on the front pastedown by Christoph Mellinger, dated 6 November 1553, records his receipt of the book as a gift from Zimmern, 'a lord most attentive to me', describing it as 'this ancient little book written many years ago by the hand of his father or grandfather'. Zimmern was a judge in the Reichskammergericht in Speyer, and author of a chronicle of the archbishopric of Mainz and its suffragan bishoprics as well as of a number of genealogies of noble Swabian families. Mellinger's intriguing attribution of the hands of the earlier gatherings in the present manuscript to Wilhelm Werner's father or grandfather, Johann Werner von Zimmern the elder (1454-1495) and Werner von Zimmern the younger (1423-1483), is presumably based on information supplied by Wilhelm Werner and is plausible on chronological grounds, though it seems more likely that one or both simply had a hand in the assembling of the materials. Certainly Wilhelm Werner seems to have devoted close attention to the volume: Jacob Klingner attributes to him the frequent emendations and annotations to the Minne poems, which witness a marked connoisseurship in the genre, supplying missing lines and making other textual corrections, and on three occasions noting next to a title 'Das hab ich'. The presentation of the volume (perhaps to mark Wilhelm Werner's retirement from the Riechskammergericht , which took place a few months later), as well as Mellinger's formal and eloquent inscription acknowledging it, indicate the high value Wilhelm Werner placed upon this visually unassuming compilation of vernacular literature. The Zimmern family is particularly notable for the survival of the Zimmern Chronicle (composed c.1559-1566), an important source for the culture and values of the nobility of south-west Germany which was for a time attributed to Wilhelm Werner von Zimmern himself, though the author is now considered to be his nephew, Froben Christoph (1519-1566). Given the speculation as to Wilhelm Werner von Zimmern's influence on the composition of the Chronicle, it is of particular interest to find a compilation of comparable popular literary material in his hands in the years immediately preceding its composition. 2. The jurist Dr Christoph Mellinger (d.1577) would have encountered Werner during the years 1548-1555 when he represented Austrian interests at the Reichskammergericht ; he later represented Emperor Ferdinand I in a number of legal questions as a special commissioner, before returning to his native Tyrol where between 1567 and 1570 he was a member of the privy council of the ruling Archduke Ferdinand II. 3. On his death Mellinger left his papers, including the present manuscript, to the Brandis family, prominent members of the Tyrolean nobility in whose library it has rem