Medievalia et Humanistica, No. 42 by Glei Reinhold F.;Goth Maik;Tomaszewski Nina;

Author:Glei, Reinhold F.;Goth , Maik;Tomaszewski, Nina; [Glei, Reinhold F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Frangatis ei dentes, quia theologicus1

Ulrich von Hutten’s Contribution to the Emergence of Religious Language in the Reformation Period2

Knut Martin Stünkel

Abstract

The contribution of the humanist and knight Ulrich von Hutten (1488–1523) to the reflection on religious language in the Reformation period has not been properly acknowledged. In his numerous publications, by means of a speaker-centered linguistic turn, Hutten introduces formal elements that comprise meta-communicative acts such as meta-scheming, thus including the opposing and contradicting individual as a witness of truth into religious language itself. Hutten’s public speech-acts evoke partition and establish the public sphere that is to judge contesting claims of truth.

I. Contradiction and Objection

It might be necessary to justify the subject matter of this article as it focuses on a man who is well-known among the religious thinkers of the Reformation period, but whose contribution to the contemporary reflection on religious language has not been truly acknowledged, nevertheless. In fact, in some histories of the period, and in those focused on Luther’s writings and actions in particular, the subject of this article, Ulrich von Hutten, only serves as a warning example of how not to think and behave. Even the more favorable history of reception has mainly been a sad one for Hutten, who has been notoriously claimed and exploited by the wrong people up to this very day. Therefore, admittedly, the very reference to Hutten in the context of religious language may be surprising, but I, nevertheless, hope to demonstrate his relevance in the following.

To that end, let me first examine one of the rare highlights of reception that have occurred during the five-hundred-year-period after Hutten’s death. I am referring to the poem written by the Swiss poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer entitled Huttens Letzte Tage (Hutten’s Last Days) from 1871, which is considered to be his poetical breakthrough.3 The two lines “. . . ich bin kein ausgeklügelt Buch, / Ich bin ein Mensch mit seinem Widerspruch” (“I am not a sophisticated book, I am a man with all his contradictions”) are not only the best-known lines from this long Verserzählung (narrative poem) (they became Meyer’s own biographical motto as well), but also seem to be of superior importance to its interpretation. They are presented as an utterance of the poem’s hero, the knight and humanist publicist Ulrich von Hutten (1488–1523), whose arrival, stay, and death on the Ufenau Island near Zurich is described, as well as his contemplation on his life and times. Of course, in his poem Meyer follows his own agenda with all the time-related implications that cannot be analyzed in this article. It would, e.g., be necessary to consider the significance of the year 1871 with regard to German history: i.e., the war against France and the foundation of the Second Empire. The fact that Hutten was appropriated by German nationalist circles especially explains his rather dubious or even bad reputation.

The two lines do not only appear in the text itself, but Meyer also uses them as a motto for the poem in general.

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