bavarikon4UDescription
The "Weltchronik" by Heinrich von München is the most complex compilation of world chronicles in the late Middle Ages with 56,000 to 100,000 verses. The text collection is preserved in 18 manuscripts; the name of the otherwise unknown Heinrich only appears in eleven manuscripts from an editorial office. The content of the "Weltchronik" ranges from the beginning of the world to the time of Louis the Pious (778-840) or Frederick II. (1194-1250). The basis are older chronicle parts and chronicles (e.g. Kaiserchronik, Cgm 37; Rudolf von Ems, Cgm 8345; Christherre-Chronik, Cgm 5) but also numerous other (pseudo-)historical representations. Biblical tales, legends and rhyming texts are just as much a part of it as ancient world novels and epics from the tradition of the Chanson de geste (Wolfram's "Willehalm", Cgm 193,III). Behind the mixture of fiction and history lies the claim to provide people who cannot read Latin with the most complete book knowledge possible. In this respect, the world chronicle is a "layman's bible, historical compendium, real encyclopaedia and anthropological, didactic event in one" (Dorothea Klein). This parchment manuscript from the Benedictine Kremsmünster monastery in the first half of the 14th century contains opaque colour pictures, gold leaf initials and pen drawings. Datum: 2016
Author
Peter Czoik