Konrad von Ammenhausen's 'Chess-Book': A Case Study of Late Medieval Book Production and Readership

Description

This study is concerned with Konrad of Ammenhausen’s ‘Schachzabelbuch’. Konrad, a Benedictine monk and priest at Stein a. Rh., translated the chess-allegory from Jacobus de Cessolis’ Latin ‘Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium ac popularium super ludo scaccorum’ in 1337. The text remained popular for more than 150 years, until ca. 1500, and 22 mss. are still extant. With the help of these manuscripts, this study attempts to sketch an image of the work’s sociological context(s), including the circumstances of its production and its reception by medieval audiences. The first chapter provides background information on the history of the chess- game and the development of its literary allegorization, which culminates in Jacobus de Cessolis’ Latin chess-allegory and its translation into almost all European vernaculars. Special attention is given to the three German verse translations besides Konrad’s ‘Schachzabelbuch’. The second chapter provides information on Konrad von Ammenhausen’s life, his historical and cultural background, as well as his work and techniques as a translator. As a result, Konrad’s chess-book is described as a ‘three-in-one-florilegium’, treating morals, learning, entertainment. The third chapter offers an introduction to the procedures and techniques of lay professional manuscript production in late medieval Germany as it became relevant for the production of most of the extant Konrad-manuscripts. After introducing and placing the ‘Schachzabelbuch’-scribes into their sociological contexts, the chapter closes with an overview of the manuscripts’ various pictorial programs. In the fourth chapter, the manuscripts’ codicological characteristics and other indicators gathered in appendix 1 (manuscript descriptions) are used to create a picture of the manuscripts’ historical and cultural situatedness and to answer the questions of their patrons’ ranks, historical contexts, and possible interest in the text. By attending to questions on the manuscripts’ ‘place in life’, such as ‘modes of production’, the social contexts of their owners, or their use by their readers, this study offers another piece to the puzzle of cultural and readership studies, as well as to regionality studies and the investigation of medieval mentalities,