Elias on Minnesang: Reception and Reassessment

Abstract

The explosion of activity in Medieval Studies, particularly over the past two decades, has led to a burgeoning of research and publication, particularly in the full range of humanities disciplines. What was once a mere prelude or “background” to the study of later poetry, literature, music, drama, painting, sculpture, and architecture, is more then ever before taking its place and accorded recognition as a significant chapter in European history. This unprecedented growth in the last third of the twentieth century has given rise to a fundamental change of attitude towards the European Middle Ages, as a result of opportunities which have been afforded to re-visit and revise primary source materials, and to make them available in more accessible format. In enabling others who may lack the requisite linguistic or palaeographic skills to explore their content and symbolic meanings, the publication of reliable editions and translations of medieval texts has contributed significantly to an altogether more “humanising” approach to the history and artistic products of the long centuries of European existence between Late Antiquity and the dawn of the Renaissance.

„In der Soziologie wie in anderen Menschenwissenschaften spielt das Verhalten, oder das Handeln der Menschen eine zentrale Rolle. Aber Psychologen und Soziologen gleichermaßen sagen sehr oft, daß man nur über das Verhalten der Menschen in der Gegenwart gesicherte Aussagen machen kann, denn das Verhalten der Menschen, die schon tot sind, kann man nicht mehr im Laboratorium überprüfen. Ich habe schon gesagt, daß für mich Geschichte eigentlich nicht Geschichte im Sinne von historischen Tatbeständen ist. Geschichte heißt für mich die Entwicklung der Menschheit, und die Entwicklung der Menschheit stellt zugleich ein Laboratorium dar. Ich fand nun also Material, anhand dessen ich zeigen konnte, wie und warum sich das Verhalten der Menschen im Laufe der Jahrhunderte änderte (...).“ (Elias 1999, pp. 62–63)

Earlier versions of this paper were read at the Norbert Elias Centenary Conferences in March 1997 at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and in June 1997 at the Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung (ZiF), Universität Bielefeld. For their invitations to participate, and for their financial support, I wish to acknowledge the UBC Programme in Comparative Literature, the Goethe-Institut Vancouver, The Norbert Elias Foundation, and the Department of Sociology, Universität Bielefeld.