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Bibliotheca Hagiotheca · Series Colloquia I

Saint Nobody

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Bibliotheca Hagiotheca · Series Colloquia I

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Identity and Alterity in Hagiography and the Cult of Saints: Proceedings of the 2nd Hagiography Conference organised by Croatian Hagiography Society 'Hagiotheca' and held in Split, 28-31 May 2008 Edited by Ana Marinković and Trpimir Vedriš Bibliotheca Hagiotheca · Series Colloquia Series editors: Ana Marinković and Trpimir Vedriš First published 2010 Croatian Hagiography Society 'Hagiotheca' Vrbanićeva 6, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia Copyright © 2010 by the publisher and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN 978-953-56205-0-1 A catalogue record for this book is available from the National University Library under number 739648 (CIP)

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Identity and Alterity

in Hagiography and the Cult of Saints

edited by Ana Marinković

and Trpimir Vedriš

h HAGIOTHECA · ZAGREB

2010

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Abbreviations

1. Shifting Identities: From a Roman Matron to Matrona Dei in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis

Thomas J. Heffernan 1

2. Martyr Cult and Collective Identity in Fourth-Century Rome

Marianne Sághy 17

3. Passio Sancti Justi Martyris: A Late Antique Statement of Roman Identity vis-à-vis Domination from the East

Luciana Cuppo 37

4. The Theological Other: Religious and Narrative Identity in Fifth to Seventh Century Byzantine Miracle Collections

Ildikó Csepregi 59

5. The ‘Odor of Sanctity’: Defining Identity and Alterity in the Early Middle Ages (Fifth to Ninth Century)

Martin Roch 73

6. Absolute Alterity in the Cult of Saints: Saint Nobody

Lucie Doležalová 89

7. Building a British Identity: Jocelin of Furness’s Use of Sources in Vita Kentigerni

Lindsay McArthur Irvin 103

8. Regionalism and Identity: Localizing the Cult of Mary in Medieval Wales

Jane Cartwright 119

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9. The Cult of St Barbara and the Saxon Community of Late Medieval Transylvania

Maria Crăciun 137

10. Hungarians as ‘Saintly Pagans’ in late Medieval Western Literature

Dávid Falvay 165

11. Tamquam lupi rapaces: Dynamics of the Image of Venetian Army in the Hagiography of Trogir

Ana Marinković 179

12. Family vs Order: Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Dominican Habit in the Narrative Tradition of the Order

Marika Räsänen 201

13. Necromancers and Saints from Simon Magus to Albertus Magnus: The Medieval Background to a Fifteenth-Century Problem

David J. Collins 219

14. Anti-Jewish Motifs in the Poetry of Blessed Władysław of Gielniów (c. 1440 – 1505)

Rafał Wójcik 235

15. Closing the Borders: St Francis at Orta

Cynthia Ho 245

16. The ‘Significant Other’ in Canonizations in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century

Raeleen Chai-Elsholz 261

Contributors 283

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Acknowledgements This volume arose from the conference held in Split (Croatia) in May 2008. The conference was co-organised by the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, and the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and financially supported by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia. We are grateful to Ana Šverko and Goran Nikšić for their precious help, as well as to Sandra Ivović and Mirko Sardelić, members of the organising board.

We are indebted to Neven Budak and Igor Fisković for having financially supported the publication of this volume through their respective projects at the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia. Further thanks are due to the reviewers, who had generously accepted the task of preparing the final version of the manuscript for publication.

AM & TV

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Preface Croatian Hagiography Society “Hagiotheca” was founded in 2004 by several (then) graduate students of Medieval Studies Department at the Central European University in Budapest. Since then, under the discrete guidance of Gábor Klaniczay, “Hagiotheca” has organised two conferences dealing with topics related to hagiography and the cult of saints. The first, held in Dubrovnik in 2005, was conceived as an opportunity for diagnosing the status questionis of Croatian “hagiology”, and resulted in a volume of proceedings entitled Hagiologija: Kultovi u kontekstu (Hagiology: Cults in Context). The second of our meetings took place in Split in 2008 and gathered scholars from a dozen countries (nearly all of them contributing to the present volume), discussing problems of identity and alterity in the creation and practice of the cult of saints. The idea of applying those concepts to the field of hagiography, and questioning the notion of the Self and the construction of the image of the Other in and through saintly cults, was actively supported and developed by Gerhard Jaritz, eventually the keynote lecturer of the Split conference. As evident from the cross-acknowledgements in the footnotes throughout the volume, the symposium in Split succeeded in establishing a fruitful scholarly network, starting from the lively discussions in the Milesi Palace, and – fortunately – not ending with this volume, but (in the wake of the third meeting, as now we can say for sure) continuing the exploration of the new aspects of the vast and rich field of the cult of saints.

Zagreb, May 2010

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Abbreviations

AASS Acta Sanctorum, Antwerp – Brussels.

BHG Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, Brussels.

BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, Brussels.

CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout.

CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna.

MGH AA Monumenta Germaniae Historica Auctores Antiquissimi, Berlin.

MGH EP Monumenta Germaniae Historica Epistolae, Berlin.

MGH SS Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores, Hanover

MGH SRM Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, Hanover.

PG Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca, Paris.

PL Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina, Paris.

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ABSOLUTE ALTERITY IN THE CULT OF SAINTS: SAINT NOBODY

Lucie Doležalová

There was a man in the East named Nobody, and that man was like another Job among all the people of the East. For this holy Nobody was great in race and lineage, great in power, great in knowledge, great in mercy and compassion, great in honor and reverence, and great in daring. And all of these things are confirmed in the Holy Scripture. Firstly, I say that this holy Nobody was great in race and lineage, like Adam, who was neither created nor begotten, but formed, as it is said by the prophet: The days will be formed and Nobody in them. He was also of a military lineage, according to the saying of the apostle: Nobody being a soldier to God. ... And he was of a race of no other kind than royal, Ecclesiasticus 5: Nobody took his birth from kings... it is read that he will reign eternally with God himself, Ecclesiastes 11: Nobody will reign forever. Secondly, this Nobody was great in power. For he opens that which God closes, according to that: God shutteth and Nobody openeth... He also builds up what God destroys, Job: If God pulls down, there is Nobody that can build up. Likewise, he overcomes and conquers God himself, Ecclesiasticus 5: Nobody conquers God... And while no one is able to serve two masters, this one is useful in service, according to... the Gospel: Nobody can serve two masters. Thirdly, this Nobody was great in knowledge... he was great in arithmetics, according to the Revelation: Nobody could number that multitude. He was great in music, in Revelations: Nobody could sing the canticle... He was also a great prophet, according to Matthew: Nobody is accepted as a prophet in his own land. He was also great in mercy and in compassion... he was merciful to Lazarus the beggar, who asked to be filled with the crumbs which fell from the table, and Nobody gave him... He was also the comfort of the poor, whence Ecclesiastes 11: I turned myself to other things, and I saw the oppressions that are done under the sun, and I found Nobody a comforter... In addition, so that I may conclude with brevity on the worthiness of his soul, it was this holy Nobody whom the Lord honored with a singular honor, sending his greetings to him through his disciples when he said: Salute Nobody on the way. In addition, it was granted to him, as a special honor that he might enter into wedlock with

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two women, according to the decree: Nobody is permitted to have two wives... And also, so I may bring the account of his dignity to a conclusion, this man, seeing the vanities of this world, ascended to the heavens, according to the words of the evangelist: Nobody ascended into heaven. Which may he deign to bring about for us. Amen.1

This specific text can be interpreted in many ways and contexts. Here and today, it will be considered in the framework of the conference as an example of alterity in the cult of saints. Saint Nobody can do what no one can do. He is by definition different from anybody else. He is the ultimate “other”. Thus, here we are facing absolute alterity.

In the context of the cult of saints, the case of St Nobody is rather an extreme one. Should we, even if only for the sake of intellectual exercise, approach this contextualization seriously, St Nobody can be compared to saints who are accessible to us today only through textual sources, sometimes merely through a single vita. Saints’ lives (as well as sermons or any other literature on them) are literary pieces and their authors had a clear agenda on their minds. The rules of this literary type and its main aim – to promote a person – govern the contents and structure of the specific texts. Thus, there are certain types of information that are regularly provided and others that are avoided. And, obviously, there is a high degree of intertextuality, borrowing, re-writing, and adjusting among the individual texts.2 For these reasons, it has long been a scholarly tendency to avoid trying to reconstruct what a particular saint was “really” like. Instead, it is the construction of a cult that is discussed. By doing this, the focus is placed on the forces behind the text, on their motivation and nature, as well as their results and implications, rather than on the inaccessible “reality,” and it is legitimate for a researcher to avoid the question of the actual life of the person. In our case, Nobody’s existence is, after all, witnessed by the Scripture itself, so there is not much reason to doubt it. We can thus concentrate on the construction of his cult.

The first sermon on Nobody unfortunately has not survived. It was written by a monk called Radulphus and given as a present to Cardinal-Deacon Caetani (later to become Pope Boniface VIII). We know about it from another gift to the same cardinal – a refutation of the sermon by a

                                                            1 Martha Bayless, ed., “The Short Nemo,” in: ead., Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 300-301; the Latin original is edited on pages 292-300. 2 The subject of rewriting in hagiography is addressed in detail in excellent study by Monique Goullet, Écriture et réécriture hagiographiques. Essai sur les réécritures de Vies de saints dans l’Occident latin médiéval (VIIIe–XIIIe s.) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005).

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certain Stephanus, written in 1290 and entitled Reprobatio nefandi sermonis editi per Radulphum de quodam Nemine heretico et dampnato, secundum Stephanum de Sancto Georgio christiane fidei defensorem (The refutation of the abominable sermon put forth by Radulphus, about a certain Nobody, a heretic and damned).3 This is a curious piece, since it first negates the existence of the saint as such, but then proceeds to explain that Nemo – Nobody – is actually a bad person, which the author proves with quotations from the Scripture.4

The cult of St Nobody, however, survived this serious attack and spread further. It achieved popularity especially in the fifteenth century. There are several versions of the text: the Long, the Short, the Abbreviated Long, the Combined, and two very specific ones: the Cambridge and the Zurich Nemo.5 They differ in the sources their authors used (quoting either only the Scripture or also some ancient authorities), as well as the amount of sophistication and commentary added to the quotations, but they all agree in the basic statement: Nobody is unique and the most powerful of all saints, he is the only person who may even contradict God.

Besides the sermons, evidence of the cult is scarce. There are several portrayals (an empty frame with the caption Figura Neminis quia Nemo in ea depictus – A Picture of Nobody, since Nobody is depicted in it)6 but no biographies, no churches dedicated to him, no feast days, or anything like that. There are historiae of Nobody, which, however (unlike the sermones) explicitly ridicule the Saint – they make him participate at the drinkers’ masses and pray to the cup (ad cuius beatitudinem et gloriam qui sine fine bibit et restat, nos vosque pervenire concedat per omnia pocula poculorum).7

                                                            3 Edited by Heinrich Denifle, “Ursprung der Historia des Nemo,” Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters 4 (1888): 340-348. 4 For an analysis, see Hannes Fricke, Niemand wird lesen, was ich hier schreibe: Über den niemand in der Literatur (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1998), 63-72. 5 This division was made by Bayless who is also the author of the most recent editions of these texts; Bayless, Parody, 259-310. For older editions, see, for example: Wilhelm Wattenbach, ed., “Historia Neminis,” Anzeiger für Kunde der deutsche Vorzeit N. F. 13 (1866): 360-367, and 393-397, and 14 (1867): 205-207, and 342-344; Johannes Bolte, “Die Legende vom heiligen Niemand,” Allemania 16 (1888): 193-201, which contains edition from Ms. Augsburg SuSB rar 58 (it is reprinted by Otto Clemen, “Zu Huttens Nemo,” Theologische Studien und Kritiken 79 (1906): 308-312). 6 Michael Braun, Untersuchungen zu ‘Niemand’. Beitrag zur Geschichte einer paradoxen literarischen Figur und ihrer Darstellung im Bild, Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik 287 (Stuttgart: D.-H. Heinz, 1994). For details on the portrayals after 1500, see Gerta Calmann, “The Picture of Nobody: an Iconographical Study,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 23 (1960): 60-104. 7 This distinction was made by Heinrich Denifle, “Ursprung”. I am not sure it is a very sharp one.

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With the rise of the vernacular, Nemo was renamed “Nobody” in the English speaking environment and “Niemand” in the German one. His role was gradually transformed, too. In the early sixteenth-century Germany, “Niemand” was sometimes portrayed among a heap of broken things and instruments – damage for which nobody accepted responsibility and thus Nobody was blamed. Nobody’s cult gradually disappeared among those nations whose languages used double negation: it was an environment Nobody couldn’t survive in. In Czech, he followed the German model, but was renamed: he became “Nevím” (“I do not know”). He was no longer the all-powerful saint, but a poor innocent creature on whom everything was blamed: when something was broken or destroyed, people who were asked “Who has done it?” keep replying “Nobody, I do not know.” Thus, Nevím and Niemand were scapegoats suffering for all the other people’s sins.8

Later on, Nobody’s cult was completely forgotten. This can be exemplified by an analysis of Heinrich Denifle from 1888 or George Gordon Coulton from 1907, who saw Radulphus’ discovery of the saint within the Bible as an example of medieval naivety, and the subsequent success of the sermons, despite the “correct” attempts at their refutation, as a sign of striking silliness and lack of criticism in those unfortunate, misguided medieval people.9 In the twentieth century, Nobody existed almost exclusively in the scholarly context. He was reduced to a mere literary character within the genre of parody. Although the most powerful saint of all, he eventually disappeared.10

* * *

This “analysis” was not included here as a mere intellectual exercise. It draws attention to the thin borderline between interpretation and overinterpretation, which can be shown particularly nicely on this text. Sermo de sancto Nemine was indeed interpreted in the past both as serious and as funny, both as a part of medieval naïve, but honest spirituality and as a part of specific medieval humor. The source of the problem that its interpretation raises is clear: it is the lack of context. The sermon itself offers little more than briefly introduced biblical quotations, and thus gives no clues whatsoever to its author’s intentions. The context it is placed in is

                                                            8 See Sigrid Metken, “Geschichte eines Sündenbocks: Niemand – Nemo – Nobody,” Kunst und Antiquitäten 4 (1993): 48-51. 9 Denifle, “Ursprung,” 330-339. 10 This brief overview does not do full justice to the saint, whose story is much more complex. For details, see Fricke, Niemand; Bayless, Parody, 86.

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simply not explicit enough: it is a sermon written according to the usual rules, and nothing in its form suggests that it was not meant seriously. And as far as the content is concerned, it remains ambiguous.

The basis of the sermon is a language twist, the ultimate source of which is also literary: In the Odyssey, Ulysses used the trick of introducing himself to the Cyclops as Nobody. When he then burned the Cyclop’s only eye, the latter cried for help saying that Nobody had harmed him – and thus his friends did not come to his aid and Ulysses managed to escape with his companions.11 This linguistic pun may be seen as pointing to the limits of language as such, and thus may be interpreted on the philosophical level.12

Interpreting it in the context of Biblical exegesis, the case of Nobody can be seen as an example of the most literal sense possible – the word “nobody” is read as a “real” subject, that is, an active agent of each sentence it appears in. And since the structure of the sermon copies the structure of the scholastic discourse, it could also be seen as mocking the scholastic method of argumentation: St Nobody is an example of an approach to the Bible that is diligent, logical, and organized, but so pedantic that it loses its meaning. At the same time, though, there is an inherent satisfaction that the reader gets from some of the biblical quotations which are reversed in this sermon: so, after all, somebody is allowed to have two wives, somebody is accepted as a prophet in his own country, etc.

In the context of medieval theology, the sermon can be seen as playing with the crucial concepts, such as a verbum caro factum est (Jn 1:14) – word becoming a man. Nobody can be seen as a glimpse into the future world, where the present order will be reversed: not only that the first will be the last, but nobody will be somebody. It may, however, also be interpreted as relativizing or undermining the biblical narrative.

Still in the context of the cult of saints, one could interpret the sermon not only as a joke, but also as criticism: by going to the extreme, the author shows that the figures of saints are constructed in an unnatural way, as some sort of supermen (and superwomen), and that the whole business is just mistaken: competition among the saints might eventually lead to nonsense.

All these possibilities share one aspect: the interpretation oscillates between the idea that the whole is a light verbal joke and the possibility that it aims at a deeper criticism of the medieval society, its habits, and

                                                            11 Odyssey IX, 369. 12 Also Fricke discusses issues like the logic of speech, the problem of reference, and eventually also the notion of identity; Fricke, Niemand, esp. 23-46, and 209-220.

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institutions. In a way, the text is on the edge – the edge of language and the edge of interpretation. Is there a way to tell the difference between interpreting and overinterpreting it?

Religious humor has long been perceived in the context of the opposition of the sacred and the profane, and the learned versus popular culture, established by Mikhail Mikhailovic Bakhtin.13 The notion of carnival to which it is connected is most frequently seen as sometimes subversive to the established culture, but at other times re-confirming it. Whereas anthropological attitudes stress the tension-relief function that humor can play in a society, psychological approaches point out its necessity for the healthy development of an individual.14 In line with our contemporary individualism and appreciation for diversity, it is often emphasized that religious humor can have a variety of functions in different contexts. From this viewpoint, it does not seem necessary to decide whether the sermon on St Nobody was meant as a simple joke or as a criticism of the medieval establishment. The more interesting question would be: how was the sermon on St Nobody actually “consumed”?

* * *

Tracing the transmission of a particular text is a type of contextualization, too. It offers information on the variation the text undergoes, as well as on its “environment” – the other texts that the medieval compiler would consider appropriate or desirable in its vicinity, the texts that the reader would have encountered and perceived together with it. The various versions of Sermo de sancto Nemine survive in at least 30 manuscripts, which have not been analyzed from this point of view yet. I will concentrate here only on a small part of the transmission – the spread of the sermon in Central Europe. It was the above-quoted version, the so-called “Short Nemo,” which was copied in this region. This recension is indeed shorter than the others and has a very simple, clear structure: after enumerating the characteristics in which Nemo excels, each of them is discussed in succession and illustrated by a number of scriptural quotations.

                                                            13 Mikhail Mikhailovic Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, tr. Hélèene Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984). 14 There is ample literature criticising or further developing Bakhtin’s ideas. See, for example, Michael Gardiner, The Dialogics of Critique: M.M. Bakhtin and the Theory of Ideology (Oxford: Routledge, 1992); Gary Saul Morson and Caryl Emerson, ed., Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Challenges (Chicago: Northwestern UP, 1989).

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Martha Bayless, who has edited the text, knew six manuscripts and one early print of this version.15 I have found six more manuscripts16 without searching thoroughly. All of them come from the fifteenth century, mostly from its second half; the “Short Nemo” variant itself was probably written only in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Since many copies are transmitted without a title, it is rather certain that there are still many more manuscripts waiting to be discovered, and thus the present discussion can offer only some preliminary considerations.

There are textual differences among the individual manuscript copies of the text, but they are not very dramatic: some biblical quotations may be excluded or new ones added, but the structure of the whole remains the same. I have not encountered any marginal notes revealing the nature of the reception of the text: if there are marginal notes, they usually merely specify more precisely the biblical line quoted, or correct scribal mistakes. The copy of the “Short Nemo” from the monastery of Rajhrad (Brno, MZA, E 6, MS H e 19 mentioned above) has a note just following the title (Vita sancti Nemonis): Si non credis tunc palpa (“If you do not believe, then touch”). Stretching the joke further, it encourages the reader not to be like the disbelieving Thomas, since he believed what he saw with his own eyes, but “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (Jn 20:29).” In any case, we do not find much evidence on interpretation here.17

                                                            15 They are Augsburg SuSB rar 58 (olim D.L.388); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Ms. Boruss., fol. 720; Brno, MZA, E 6, Benedictins of Rajhrad H e 19 (olim Raigern MS i.I); Munich, BSB clm. 903; Salzburg, Bibliothek der Erzabtei St. Peters b.V.15; St. Florian, Stiftsbibliothek MS. XI.619; Vienna, ÖNB Cod. 3282. See Bayless, Parody, 292. 16 They are: Graz, Universitätsbibliothek 874 (36/17 4o), fol. 1; Graz, Universitätsbibliothek 904 (38/3 4o), fol. 175;kPrague, Národní knihovna III.E.27, fol. 63-64; Prague, Národní knihovna XI.E.6, fol. 93r-v; Salzburg, Bibliothek der Erzabtei St. Peters b.III.10/12; Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka I Q 169, fol. 68. 17 A version preserved in manuscript Prague National Library III E 27 has a variation at the end (fol. 64): Nemo ascendit in celum ubi gaudet eternaliter regnaturus. Cuius gaudii eos particeps [!] efficiat, qui singulari honore ipsum honorant et venerantur, nunc et semper. Amen (Nobody ascended in heaven where he rejoices reigning forever. He will make those people participate in his joy, who honour and worship him by special honour, now and always, Amen). One could interpret this as more stress placed on the actual cult and claim that it is a proof that medieval Christians prayed to Nobody. Perhaps not out of naiveté but out of opportunism – praying just in case Saint Nobody really exists and is indeed so powerful. In the same way as opportunism works today, the cult of Saint Nemo could have been the hidden cult of the hopeless who have already tried everything and have nothing to lose by trying this saint as well. There is, obviously, no evidence for this interpretation, as there is for none of the others; it could, again, be simply an overinterpretation.

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As far as the codex contents are concerned, most of the copies of Sermo de Sancto Nemine appear in miscellanies.18 This is a tricky “type” of codex: the term itself does not seem to have a fixed meaning and depends instead on the categories and types one uses, or may result simply from the cataloguer’s inability to classify.19 A typical example is the codex number 904, kept at the University Library in Graz, which originally came from the Benedictine monastery of St Lambrecht. Besides Sermo de Sancto Nemine, it also includes an ars dictandi by Otto de Lüneburg, various biblical concordances, verses, a commentary of John of Garland, the apocryphal Life of Adam and Eve, a summa of Gratian’s decrees, a life of St Emma, and meteorological notes.20 In a codex of Czech provenance now kept in Vienna under the shelfmark 3282, which contains a number of prophecies and texts concerning the Hussite movement, the sermon on St Nobody is placed between a Czech herbarius [!] and a Latin chronicle of Bohemia.21 Another manuscript from the Benedictine monastery of Rajhrad (now kept at the Moravian Regional Archive in Brno, H e 19)22 includes a Czech law collection by Ondřej of Dubá, a Czech translation of Maiestas Carolina, Vita Caroli IV, copies of charters concerning the Czech kings and kingdom from 1212-1355, and a number of shorter notes. Just preceding Sermo de Nemine, there is a text called Exemplum de Romanis, which explains the success of pagan Rome through two enigmatic verses provided by Apollo’s oracle at the time when the Romans were losing against Carthage: Ter tria ternam senam undenam que bicenam/ Et scito percipies urbs tua magna ruet.23

                                                            18 Although some miscellanies are composite codices (that is, they were created by binding together fascicles previously transmitted individually), it still makes sense to discuss their contents if they were bound already during the Middle Ages. I addressed this topic in Reception and Its Varieties: Reading, Re-Writing, and Understanding Cena Cypriani in the Middle Ages. Bochumer Altertumswissenschaftliches Colloquium 75 (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2007), 89-97. 19 There are two collective monographs addressing the unity or a concept which is frequently hidden behind the seeming variety of miscellanies: The Whole Book: Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany, ed. Stephen G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996); and Medieval Manuscript Miscellanies, ed. Luciana Cuppo, Lucie Doležalová, and Kimberly Rivers (Trieste: EUT, in print). 20 See the online manuscript catalogue at: http://ub.uni-graz.at/sosa/katalog/ (last accessed 10 February 2010). 21 See Tabulae codicum manu scriptorum praeter graecos et orientales in Bibliotheca Palatina Vindobonensi asservatorum, ed. Academia Caesarea Vindobonensis, vol. 2 (Vienna: Gerold, 1864-1899), Cod. 2001 - Cod. 3500, pp. 251-253. 22 See the catalogue: E 6 Benediktýni Rajhrad, vol. 5, p. 642, no. 3187. 23 Fol. 140r-v; I have not identified the origin or source of this text yet (inc.: Ad hoc declarandum adduco quoddam exemplum quorundam virorum gentilium ex quorum dictis et exemplis sepissime est argumentandum [...]).

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Immediately following the sermon on Nobody, there is a brief account on the seven wonders of the world.24

The variety of transmission of Sermo de Sancto Nemine does not allow us to make clear conclusions. At the same time, it suggests that the text was not perceived as part of a particular literary type or tradition, but as fitting a number of different contexts.

Sermo de Nemine is also found among biblical concordances and mnemonic verses and tools. A good example is MS Prague, National Library, XI.E.6, a miscellany from the fourteenth-fifteenth century, which includes, among other things, a Summarium Biblie (a curious biblical mnemonic poem generally attributed to Alexander de Villa Dei),25 a Latin-Czech biblical dictionary,26 and shorter biblical notes and mnemonic aids.27 This type of manuscript transmission encourages us to connect Nobody’s appearance with the emergence of biblical concordances and other tools designed for facilitating preaching.28

On the other hand, the well established link between Nemo and mock sermons, or the joyous art of preaching,29 seems to be limited to the French and English environments; it is absent from the Central-European                                                             24 Fol. 142r-v, De septem mirabilibus mundi manufactis, inc.: Primum mirabile est Rome. 25 On fol. 1-11v with interlinear explanatory glosses. For a recent discussion of the text, see, for example, Lucie Doležalová, “Biblia quasi in saculo: Summarium Biblie and other medieval Bible mnemonics,” Medium Aevum Quotidianum 56 (2007): 1-35. 26 On fol. 14-37v, edited based on this manuscript by Václav Flajšhans, “Mammotrekt klementinský” (Mammotrectus of Clementinum), Listy filologické 20 (1893): 216-234, 290-312. 27 Among these, there is on fol. 112 a brief text combining the ten plagues of Egypt with the ten comandments (inc. Prima rubens unda – quia deum non crediderunt/ ranarum plaga secunda – quia nomen dei blasphemaverunt/ unde colix tristis – quia sabbata dei contempserunt), and on fol. 112v, a text combining the twelve prophets with twelve lines of Credo and with twelve apostles entitled Concordancia prophetarum cum apostolis in Simbolo (the same text including a Czech translation is copied in another manuscript from the Rajhrad monastery, MS. Brno, MZK, R 373, fol. 238r-v). 28 See, for example Nicole Bériou, L’avénement des maîtres de la Parole. La prédication à Paris au XIIIe siècle, vol. 1 (Paris: Institut des études augustiniennes, 1998), 204-212. 29 See Siegfried Wenzel, “The joyous art of preaching, or the preacher and the fabliau,” Anglia 87 (1979): 304-325; Siegfried Wenzel, ed. and tr., Fasciculus morum. A Fourteenth-Century Preacher’s Handbook (London: The Pennsylvania UP, 1989); Jelle Koopmans and Paul Verhuyck, “Quelques sources et parallèles des sermons joyeux Français des XVe et XVIe siècles,” Neophilologus 70 (1986): 168-184; Jelle Koopmans and Paul Verhuyck, Sermons joyeux et truanderie: Villon, Nemo, Ulespiègle (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), chapter 2; Jelle Koopmans, Recueil de sermons joyeux (Geneva: Droz, 1988); Sander L. Gilman, The Parodic Sermon in European Perspective (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1974); Jean Delumeau, “Les mentalités religieuses saisies à travers les farces, les sotties et les sermons joyeux (XVe-XVIe s.),” in: La piété populaire au Moyen Age. Actes du 99e Congrès National des Sociétés savants (Besançon, 1974), vol. 1 (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1977), 181-195; I. James, “Sermons joyeux,” Dictionnaire des Lettres françaises (Paris: Fayard, 1992), 1375-1376.

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manuscript transmission. The text does appear among sermons, but in Central Europe these are all “serious” collections. For example, in Graz, Universitätsbibliothek 874, it is found on the front flyleaf of a miscellany opening with a sermon collection;30 while in a codex preserved at the University Library in Wroclaw, cod. I Q 169, it precedes a sermon on St Agnes by Franciscus de Legenitcz.31 In addition, I have not found any evidence on the actual pronouncing of the sermon in a church, or its being connected to a particular feast. One might imagine a carnival setting, but there are no proofs for that.

In addition, although Nobody can be encountered among various brief verses and ioca,32 this purely literary context is much less frequent in the Middle Ages than it is in modern scholarship.33 Besides, I am not sure whether the usual explanation, saying that the humorous elements are present in religious literature in order to draw the attention of the public in order to be able to edify them also on more solemn subjects, which they could otherwise follow only with great difficulty, is a plausible one. It stems from contrasting the sacred and the profane which, in my opinion, results in considerable simplification. There are many opuscula of this type that may seem to us as balancing on the border between piety and blasphemy, or even transgressing the border to a degree which strikes us as unacceptable; and yet, they were accepted by the Middle Ages. But this may be our own problem – our prejudice and expectation that the Church should only be solemn and serious.

One particular miscellany including a great variety of texts, namely MS Prague, National Library III E 27, offers a very specific case for discussing this issue. Here, the sermon on Nobody follows a mock passion narrative. They are both written in the same hand and separated by some empty folia from the remainder of the miscellany. The mock passion is entitled Passio raptorum de Slapanicz secundum tortorem Brunensem Bartoss (The Passion of the robbers of Šlapanice [a village near Brno], according to Bartoš, the executioner of Brno), and seems to survive in this manuscript

                                                            30 See the online manuscript catalogue at: http://ub.uni-graz.at/sosa/katalog/ (last accessed 10 February 2010). 31 See Katalog rękopisów dawnej Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej we Wrocławiu (Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Former Universtiy Library in Wroclaw), vol. 15 (I Q 121-249), 92-93. 32 For example, in the already mentioned codex Graz 904. Or, ms. Prague NL XI.E.6 includes Carmen pauperum scholarium, inc. Inconstans fortuna omnibus non una. The poem is, however, copied on a flyleaf by a different hand, so its connection to Nobody is not very close. 33 See Bayless, Parody, 57-92; the classic Paul Lehmann, Die Parodie im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1963), 176-177; and especially Fricke’s detailed study of Nobody in literature from Homer to the late twentieth century; Fricke, Niemand.

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only.34 The juxtaposition of the two texts invites a search for parallels between them, which is, I believe, particularly revealing as far as the trickiness of interpretation is concerned.35

The Passio raptorum is a narrative describing an event which, although it is not evidenced elsewhere, most probably indeed took place on March 28, 1401. On this day, the citizens of Brno supposedly took arms and attacked a group of robbers settled in a church at nearby Šlapanice. They burnt the church and captured 56 of the robbers. The plan was to attack another group of robbers in Měnín, but the persecutors found a barrel of wine and decided to drink instead. Brought to Brno, the captured robbers were imprisoned and hanged on the following day.36 The story is narrated in a special way: it is composed in parallel to the Passion narratives from the Gospels. The overall style is thus very solemn and a number of biblical allusions and quotations are used. Especially elaborated in this sense are the scenes of the council in Brno and the considerations of the burghers when preparing the attack, as well as the speeches made by the robbers when attacked, or mocking the captured robbers at the prison of Brno. Thus, for example, one of the robbers, a scribe (!) called Caspar, asked that the chalice would avoid him:

Obsecro, mi domine, ut si fieri potest, transeat a nobis calix iste, calix inquam presentis periculi et futuri patibuli [...] Verum non sicut nos volumus sed sicut tu vis fiat voluntas tua!

There are elements obviously meant to be funny, such as the scene in which the captured robbers see the gallows and all shit into their trousers – an incident immediately followed by a biblical line describing the darkness falling over the whole land:

                                                            34 An edition of the text (containing many mistakes) was made by František Šujan, “Passio raptorum de Slapanicz secundum Bartoss tortorem Brunensem,” Sborník historický 3 (1885): 245-252; his analysis of the text follows on pages 301-303. 35 To my knowledge, there is no analysis of the two texts. It is partly due to a strange mistake of Šujan, who speaks of Sermo de sancto Nemine as of a text “on the sufferings of Job” and thus claims that the author of both the texts was a cleric rather than a burgher. Šujan probably read only the first sentence of the text: Vir erat in Oriente nomine Nemo et erat vir ille ut alter Iob (There was a man in the East named Nobody, and that man was like another Job); Šujan, “Passio” 303. This “information” was then taken over by others, e.g. František Hoffmann (see the next footnote). 36 František Hoffmann is using the text in an attempt to reconstruct the real event, to identify the mentioned protagonists with documented people etc. in his “Pašije šlapanických loupežníků” (Passion of the robbers of Šlapanice), in: K poctě Jaroslava Marka. Sborník prací k 70. narozeninám prof. dr. Jaroslava Marka (In Honor of Jaroslav Marek. Collection of essays for the 70th birthday of Prof Dr Jaroslav Marek), ed. Lubomír Slezák and Radomír Vlček (Praha: Historický ústav, 1996), 149-167.

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[...] Viso patibulo [...] exteriti sunt et facti sunt sicut mortui ita, ut cogerentur totum egerere, quod in unius anni spacio per ingluviem devorarant. Unde accidit, quod velum femoralium ipsorum scissum est in duas partes, a summo usque deorsum, ita ut preses preconum miraretur vehementer. Postea tenebre facte sunt super universam terram [...]

The supposedly funny shift lies in the fact that the high, solemn biblical style is used for describing the punishment of robbers. Thus, a contrast is created between the unimportance of the event and the way it is narrated. And obviously, while Jesus died innocent, the robbers are punished justly.

Although it may not seem that funny to today’s reader, who will probably feel a bit uneasy about the described violence (which seems to be the main concern and even delight of the author), Passio raptorum could – in a literary context and with reference to the different taste of medieval people – be interpreted as an innocent joke. However, there is another, older variant of the mock passion narrative originating from the Czech lands: Passio Judaeorum Pragensium secundum Johannem rusticum quadratum (The Passion of the Jews of Prague according to John the Countryman).37 It describes a big pogrom in Prague at Easter 1389,38 a real event mentioned in a number of historical sources.39 To a today’s reader, who perceives it in the post-holocaust context, there is just nothing funny about this story, which gives all the details on killing the Jews and presenting the incident as a just punishment imposed on the sinners, taking place with God’s approval, in a mocking opposition to the innocent sacrifice of the son of God.

How innocent is all this mocking? How near are we, in this case, to the parody playing a significant role outside its usual literary context? Like the Passio raptorum (and the passio as a literary type in general), Sermo de Nemine is based on the Bible and plays with distorting the text and changing its context. In this respect, the two mentioned texts are completely alike and it is no surprise to find them side by side. Yet, there is a difference between the texts which may remain unnoticed if the texts are analyzed merely from a literary viewpoint.

                                                            37 Edited by Paul Lehmann, Parodistische Texte (Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1923), 36-41. 38 See Pavel Trost, “A Mock Report on the Prague Pogrom in 1389,” Slavica Hierosolymitana 7 (1985): 239-240; Václav Vladivoj Tomek, “Passio Judaeorum Pragensium,” Zprávy královské české společnosti nauk 19 (1877): 11-20; František Graus, Struktur und Geschichte. Drei Volksaufstände im mittelalterlichen Prag (Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 1971), 50-60; Miri Rubin, Gentile Tales: the Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 135-140 (chapter “Clerical Parody and Jewish Lament, Prague 1389”). 39 Tomek quotes nine mentions in chronicles; Tomek, “Passio,” 11-12. Yet, this very mock narrative is the longest and the most detailed source on the event.

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Texts are inevitably social phenomena, and they were particularly so in the Middle Ages, when the notion of literature differs from our one. Yet, unlike the Passio, the sermon on Nobody does not seem to be an attempt at propaganda or at constructing a particular image of contemporary events. Due to the lack of evidence, its social role can only be implied: there is no proof that there was ever a cult of Saint Nobody, not to speak of a possible threat such a cult would present to a cult of another saint or to the Christian cult of saints as such. Nobody is indeed very closely tied to the text and to language, he is a figure at the edge of language, in a way. On the other hand, he is by no means a “purely literary figure”. Perhaps he should rather be situated within the context of the social and cultural role of language. Or perhaps he should successfully continue to escape simple categories and puzzle his readers.