David Wallace (Department of
English, University of Pennsylvania)
“November
1414: Nations, Schisms, and the Work of Literary Cultures"
November 7, 20147.30 p.m.
English
Studies Conference Room of the Graduate Center, CUNY (room 4406)
A
wine and cheese reception will follow the presentation and question time.
In November 1414, while three
popes reigned, each sure of his title, the nations of Europe began gathering in
Council at Constance. When Benedict XVI resigned in 2012 it was remembered that
no pope had done this since 1415, a year in which two popes resigned but a
third refused to go; he was excommunicated by the Council itself in 1417. The
Council of Constance is recognized as an extraordinary landmark in Catholic
history: years in which ultimate Church authority resided not in a pope, as
successor of Peter, but in the Council itself. The importance of Constance in
European literary history, however, has been grossly under-estimated. It was
chiefly through the exercise of rhetorical and literary skills, in sermons,
treatises, orations, chronicles, memos, caveats, and bills (not bulls) that bonum commune was served and the schism
mended. The thousands of literary men (few women) who converged on this small
German city, between the Rhine and the Danube, began by addressing nationhood: what was a nation, and who might speak for it?
Between formal sessions, and during downtime when the main work of the Council
went on elsewhere, as at Perpignan, these litterati
formed study circles, taught literary texts, sought out manuscripts,
learned or invented Netherlandish hybrida,
published new works and polished up old ones, pursued all things Greek,
venerated Bridget of Sweden, wrote lyrics, songs, and diaries, and invented the
nuclear patriarchal family. This last was the mission of Jean Gerson; other
prominent figures composing or inspiring original work include Guillaume
Fillastre, Manuel Chrysoloras, Jan Hus, Jerome of Prague, Oswald von
Wolkenstein, Ulrich Richental, Poggio Bracciolini, Leonardo Bruni, Pier Paolo
Vergerio, Benedetto da Piglio, Gregory Tsamblak (carrying the hopes of the
Orthodox East), and (posthumously) Bridget of Sweden. The Jews of Constance,
mindful of their own, long-established literary history, counter-processed
their Torah; the English, though buoyed by Agincourt, wondered what cultural
contributions they might make, given their eccentric and incomprehensible
tongue. Constance ended with one schism healed but another opening, a political
realignment that would outlast the Reformation and even, perhaps, the European
Union.
the
illustrated copy of Ulrich Richental's chronicle on the Council of Constance,
now in the New York Public Library. the ceremony for the re-canonization of
Bridget of Sweden.
the illustrated
copy of Ulrich Richental's chronicle on the Council of Constance, now in the
New York Public Library. Pretzel sellers and bakers on the streets of Konstanz,
meeting the needs of thousands of visitors.
