Dobozy, Maria

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THE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE REFERENTS OF MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN riche Maria D:)bazy University of Illinois at Chicago Circle Dictionary definitions hove long been known tJ be insufficient for clarifying the use of words in context. Grimm's Deutsches Worterbuch lists several referents for the Middle High German word, .rtche, some of which are 1 mutually exclusive, such as 'inhabitants of a territory, 1 "territory," "ruler," a.nd "commonwealth. 111 This list corresponds to Manfred Hellmann's (1969) list of mean-ings in his study of rfche· in the Herzog Ernst epic. Since the commonwealth is one of the basic concepts under-lying most medieval epics, the historical perspective reflected in the Middle High German epic can only be understood when the word, rtche, representing this con-cept is properly defined. How is it possible to recon-cile these conflicting referents? It is apparent that a. dictiona.ry study of a word a.bstra.cted from its syntac-tic and semantic environment cannot account for the full range of meanings and connota.tions associated with a. word in context. The method suggested is to define the entire set of referents and connotations associated with rtche by restricting the context in which the word appears. 1l'he twelfth century Middle High German pre-courtly epics, Herzog ~ (HE), Rolandslied (Rl), and Konig Rother, (KR) were chosen for the comparative study of riche be-cause they sha.re the same themes (crusade and courtship) and the same basic plot structure, thereby limiting con-text. The various references have been grouped accord-ing to semantic and grammatical categories. These three semantic categories are: 1. inanimate object, 2. human agent, 3. abstract concept. Since it is rarely possible to assign a. single referent to a given occurrence at sentence level, it ~-s assumed that in each occurrence the meaning of the word ma.y be composed of several pos-sible referents. 1. Evidence for rfche as ~bject 111 112 1980 MALC Previous studies by Eberhard Nellmann (1963) and Manfred Hellmann (1969) list almost as many referents for the term as Grimm does. They all agree that in many instances the referent is clearly inanimate and the ob-ject of some type of action. Evidence for this is found in various syntactic constructions such as verbs of motion: 1. us diseme riche versant (Rl 1385) 'banished from this r ••• 1 2. s8 muoz dir der helt balt/r\lmen din rtche (HE 851) 'then the courageous hero must quit your r •• ' 3. er ladet uch in sine riche (Rl 7683) 'he will invite you into his r ••• 1 With prepositions such as fiz, zu, and in which indicate that a geographical territory"-Ts implied, even when -rtche is applied to God's realm (see eg. 1 and 3): 4. zu dem gotes riche (Rl 3949) 'zu God's r ••• ' 5. haim in sin riche (Rl 2794) '(that he flee) home to his r ••• 1 Constructions such .as a possessive adjective, genitive phrase, or a verb of ownership indicate that rtche can be possessed and controlled by people. It oc~often as the object of verbs meaning 1 take'or 1 give 1 (nemen, geben). ~~ 6. Adjective: see examples 2 and 5. 7. Genitive: des rtches Herrn (HE 6765, Rl 8748) 'lord of the r ••• ' 7.b. des rtches vogt und herre (HE 355) 'overseer and lord of the r ••• ' 8. Verbs: das er mir min riche neme/un iz einem andem gebe,/un iz habe der mit gwa.lt (Rl 2261) 'that he take from me my r •• ~, give it to another, and ha.ve control over it' DOB07.Y Thus far, rtche has been shown to designate a geo-graphical territory i·1hich is c::mtrollcd by a. lord or a master and can be owned or given away in the manner of a fief. As an object of possession, it con be attacked or protected in war. Verbs of warfare include: hern, 'ta wage wa.r, ' gewel tigen, 'ca.pture, subdue, ' schI'riil'en, 'protec~' and behuoten, 'pr::>tect:' 9. so geweltige du sine riche (Rl 5209) 'then capture his r ••• (plural)' 10. ze schirmen diniu riche (Rl 6727) 'to protect your r ••• (plural)' As long a.s only phrases and sentence fragments a.re con-sidered (as above) in the manner of Hellma.nn's and Nellma.nn's work, the territorial meaning is clear: 11. I<a.rl mit sinem gra.wen parte/hat manigiu riche pedwungen (Rl 5208) 'Ka.rl with his gra¥ beard has conquored many r ••• (plural}' If we look at the continuation of the sentence, the list of conquests reveals the additional connoto.tions of the term: 11. b. di al swa.rzen Unger,/Pulle unt Latran 'the black Hungarians, Apulia and the La.tere.n' The term denotes territory with regard to ApuliD. a.nd 113 the Lateran, but !Inger refers to people. If this struc-ture is accepted as parallel, then it must be a.ssumed that the term subsumes both people and territory. The procedure suggested is to accept the most precise re-ferent possible until proven wron~ by the examples. In this case it is also possible to assume that part of the connotation ~f rtche includes people and that the author slipped into non-parallel constructi·:m for this reason. Final judgement must be reserved for later. 2. Evidence for rtche as agent 114 1980 MALC As the subject of a sentence, r~che is often active and even if it is the object of a. transitive verb, the connotation of some verbs often implies active partici-pation :m the pa.rt of the object. It is necessary, there-fore, to seek an agentive, animate referent. The verb, vernemen, 1hear, 1 implies an animate, thinking subject. Duke Ernst gives out such good advice that the king and the entire ~ \'lish to know it: 12. daz ez vernemen mohte/der kunic und al daz rtche (HE 620) 'that the king and the entire r ••• would like to hear it' 'rhe active participation of ~ is implied even when it is the object of the verb. WiderstSn, 'resist' im-plies that an active offensive must be countered: 13. ich mac leider mere/niht dem riche wider-st&n (HE 1773) 'unfortunately I can no lon~er resist the r ••• 1 Willekomen, 'welcome' implies human feelings: 11~. do was er groze willekomen/den fursten und dem rtche (HE 444) 'he was welcome to the lords and the r ••• ' The riche also appears to be able to take a wife: 15. do diu herzoginne Adelheit/ze frowen dem r1:che wart gegeben (HE 466) 'when the duchess A. was gi ve.n to the r... as wife' This translation is not satisfying, because a more precise referent is needed. Previous studies have a.ssumed that the referent is the husband. In order to deter-mine to whom she was indeed given, other sections deal-ing with a wife need to be investigated. In the process of choosing a wife for the emperor, it becomes clear that the riche has a will and can make requests: 16. riches bete, 'request of the lords DOBOZY a.nd emperor' 17. tuot des iuch der k.eiser bite/und o.1 die filrsten s1ne man/des muest ir immer ere han~/ob ir leistet des riches bete (HE 338 J 'If you do a.s the emperor nnd all all thehrds ask, then you will be honored and have prestige when you ful-fill the request of the r ••• ' In addition, several things owned by the r:tche are ex-pressed with rtche in the genitive case: 18. kuniginne des r1ches, 'queen of the r •• ' 19. r1ches krone, 'crown of the r •• ' 20. des riches van, 'the banner of the r •• ' 115 Ma.nfred Hellmann's (1969) analysis of the usage of r!che in the HE attempts to distinguish tx:?tween instances where the term refers to lords excluding the king and those in which it refers to the king alone. He reasons that only a single man, such as the king, can marry. He is equally sure that the crown and banner belong to him personally, excluding the lords. However, the king is a. member of the group of lords and is defined as the first among peers. Even in Hellmann's examples (18-21), the king ca.nnot be distinguished from the group. Hellmann finds the clearest use of the term ref erring to the king alone in the genitive phrase: 21. des r!ches tilr, 'the door of the r •• ' In this scene Otto and his nephew are sitting alone in council when Ernst bursts through the door ('of the r •• '). He kills the nephew while the king escapes into the next room. Hellmann expects the king's door to be the door to his private chamber. This need not be the case. The general context of this situation is a council. The king is holding court at this time and place and has assembled all his advisors (lords) to this court. This was Ernst's reason for coming as well. It is reasonable to assume that if the emperor is in council with someone, he is conducting official business and is seated in the great 116 1980 MAT~C hall. Des r'tches tiir would then indicate an access to the official group which sits in council. From examples 18-21 we may deduce the common official or ceremonial aspect of the people or objects denoted. It is likely that no single person, not even the emperor, owns the crown, nor the banner, nor the queen. These thin~s are owned by a group C;'.)llectively, and it is probably the same group that makes requests and decides on a wife. The referent the~ must be a collective noun referring to a. specific group of pe;'.)ple, perhaps to the lords of the realm who make decisions jointly. In 17, the duchess as wife of the rtche merely fulfills her function as part of the group (as C;'.)nsors regni). If this is so, then the referent in all examples where riche is animate includes the ruling group a.nd the en-tire sentence in each case stresses the official capacity of both the lords and the ruler. If the narrowest meaning for king or emperor is accepted as the sole referent, too many examples do not apply, such as examples 12, 15, 17, 19. If the collec-tive referent of lords is accepted in situations which p.:>rtra.y official activity, it applies to all cases. In order for the group of lords to act as riche, their act must be a public and official one. The lords decide to give Ernst their goodwill when they say: 22. nu st im vergeben/a.l da.s er uns habe get~n./wir sulen dem edelen man helfen umb des rtches hulde/.o •• /und des keisers hulde gewinnen (HE 5734) 'now let him be forgiven for all tha.t he has done to us. We shouM help the noble man to regain the goodwill of the r ••• I .... /and win the go;'.)dwill of the emperor' Apparently Ernst is not reinstated by the lords with-out the kin~ and it must be done publicly. Most of the examples cited by Hellmann where ap-parent distinction ls made between the riche and the emperor are actually formulaic, in tha.t they a.re used DOIJOZY 117 not to contra.st, but to intensify whatever is being de-scribed. This CJnstruction consists of the conjunction 'and' which connects any two expressions as lone; as par-allelism is ma.intained. An example of V-and-V construc-tion is: 23 •••• die fUrsten gest~nt,/daz sie wol r"ttent unde gent/gen dir gewaltecltche (HE 794) 'the lords admit that they are riding and walking a6ainst you with force' The entire expression simply refers to the attacking group, whether it actually consisted of both berldden knights and footsoldiers or not. The double verb is not meant to literally describe the movement of the knights, but to intensify the description of military aggression. The two parts connected by 'and' often repeat the same situation in different words, or they mention dif-ferent aspects of one situation or concept. In either case, the meaning of the two ports is closely related. N-and-N constructions are most abundant: 24. da ist walt unt m6s (Rl 2689) 'there is forest and moss' 25. da waren ti@re unt uogele (Rl 3327) 'there were animals and birds' Often para1lel phrases of almost equivalent meaning are doubled: 26. vil manic recke balt/muost den ltp von in verliesen/und den grimmen t8t kiesen (HE 5020) 'many a courageous warrior had to lose his life and accept bitter death' If such synonymous phrases are not redundant, and the denotation of one encompases the denotation of the other, 'and' constructions with rtche are probably intended to be understood the some way: 118 1980 MALC 27. do was er groze willekomen/den fiirsten und dem riche {HE 444) 'after that he was quite welcome to the lords and the r ••• ' 28. beide mir und dem r1che/gedienet so willecltche {HE 729) spoken by emperor: 'he had served both me and the r ••• so willingly' 29. swer m:lch und daz r1che minnet {HE 1164) spoken by emperor: 'whoever loves me and the r ••• 1 If these examples are analysed as the previous formulae (23-26) were, then the entire group of men who compose the ruling body must be understood as the referent of r'tche, thereby making it a collec.tive noun. This eli-minates the problem of having to define r!che as king in 27 and as lords in 28 and 29. The referent of r'.tche includes both the entire group of lords even when -a----single use stresses the individual in the collective group. In comparing segments larger than the sentence the same syntactic distinction between king and rtche can found, but again, there is no compelling evicrence that the referent for riche is king only. When Karl is told that Genelun's peace ta.lks with the heathen went well, he vows to keep the promises Genelun has officially ma.de. First, he makes his vow in his prayer to God: 30. ich ne lazze in nicht unterwegen,/swa er sine truwe hat gegeben./er hat dem riche wol gedienet {Rl 2841) 'I won't let him down with respect to whatever assurances he gave them. He has served the r ••• well' Later he addresses Genelun b,y repeating the content of the prayer in an official declaration in front of the entire assembly. In this statement, the personal pro-noun, .!!!l£.h., has replaced the rtche: 31. Genelun, liber ma.n,/du hast DOBOZY getruweliken widir mich getan (Rl 2895) 'Genelun, dear va.ssal, you have acted with loyalty to\mrd me' ll!J The act of serving the r"i.che (30) is equivalent to loy-alty to 'mich. ' The king may be understood as the rep-resentative of the group, in which case, the pronoun may be interpreted as a. pars pro toto expression. 3. Evidence for r1che as an abstract concept This term is often used with verbs indicating legal or moral obligation where the referent is neither a con-crete object nor an animate a~tor. When someone serves the r1che, he may serve the entire group of lords or perhaps the entire feudal system. Service, dienen, as used in example 30 refers to military service owed by the vassal to the lords. In other examples using dienen in military contexts and in similar constructions (HE 729 and Rl 7768) there is no reason to assume that r1che refers to anything other than the collective referenr--discussed thus fa.r. In these cases the relationship to the riche is a personal fulfillment of vassalage. However, there is evidence that such use of dienen and other terms of vassa.lage with r1:che is not a.lways per-sonal. Kar], when speaking a.bout his intention to give Marsilie half of Spain if he is willing to become a Christian a.nd a vassal of the rtche, implies this: 32. ich lihe ime halbe Yspaniam,/wirdet er deme riche undertnn (Rl 1508) 'I will enfeof him \'ti th half of Spa.in if he becomes a subject of the r •• ' Here the r!che appears to denote more than the king, indicating that even if a person becomes the vassa.l of another, he may in addition be the subject of the r!che. Thus, the narrowest definition, king + ruling lord-s-,~­does not appear justified in sa.tisfying the example above. If it is indeed possible to conceive of indivi-duals as vassals of the r!che, mea.ning commonwealth or feudal systemi then one can anticipate that any action against the riche would be a legal breach and not a per-s::ma.1 one. An example of such legal implications is: 120 1980 MAT .. C 33. s8 muget ir iuch entreden niht,/so ir ze rehte soldet stan,/irn ha.etet wider dnz rtche getin,/und belibet in der schulde (HE 920) 'should you have to answer to a court, you won't be able to exonerate your-self by saying tha.t you had done no-thing against the r ••• and then you would be considered guilty.• The possible trial discussed in this example is the re-sult of a serious offense against the rtche-~treason. Should Ernst defend his lnnds against the troops of the king's nephew, it would be considered an act of treason, and not a personal conflict with the king and his family. Such deeds must be dealt with publicly, in front of the entire rtche. Karl in the Rolandslied must follow the so.me procedure. He knows that Genelun is guilty of treason, but he must ha.ve a formal public trial, which is attended by all the lords: 34. der kaiser an daz gerichte gesaz;/ owi waz fursten uor im was!/. o •• (Rl 8729) Genelun ••• stat .... gebunden uor dem riche (Rl 8795) 'the emperor sat in court (in judgement), what a collection of lords there were before him! ••• Genelun stood bound be.fore the r ••• 1 Since we are told that Karl has assembled the lords for the trial, it is not possible for Genelun to be standing before Karl a1one. 4. Conclusion This paper accepts a.s a set the entire range of contradictory referents and connotati:ms culled from all the references. The three specific referents are: the territory, the ruline group, and the feudal system of vassalage. This set defines the word, r!che. The concrete referents tend to delimit the meaning, whereas the connotations broaden it by allowing for many possible associations. When this set is treated a.s one concept, llOBOZY it is no longer necessary to assign a specific meaning to each instance of use. Example 11 ca.n now be under-stood as a non-parallel construction due to the range of meanings subsumed under rtche. In order to regain parallelism the translation would have to read: 11.c. 'Karl ••• conquored the territory of the black Hungarians, Apulio, and the Lateran' 121 When the totality of the concept, r1che, is understood, the. range of connotations a single--u8emay evoke in con-text can also be interpreted with greater accuracy. In the crusading epic.s compared, the word is understood to be the feudal institution through which man makes his contribution to history, since commonwealth, em-pire, territory, ruling group and monarch are nll sub-sumed under the single word, rlche. NOTES 1 See Grimm, Deutsches W5rterbuch, "rtche," vol. 8 for all 11 separate definitions. The brothers at-tempted to be both exact and exhaustive. However, a list of meanings implies that one must choose one single definition for each use of the word. REFERENCES Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. 1893-1980. Deutsches Worterbuch. Leipzig: Verlag Hirzel. Hellmann, Manfred. 1969. Furst, Herrscher und Fursten-gemeinschaft: Untersuchungen zu ihrer Bedeutung als politische Elemente in mittelhochdeutschen Epen. Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Uni-versitat. Nellmann, Eberhard. 1963. Die Reichsidee in deutschen Dichtungen der Saller- und frlihen Stauferzelt. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. 

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE REFERENTS OF MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN riche

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MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE REFERENTS OF MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN riche

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