MATERIALES

Gengenbach’s first drama, Welsch Flusz, was printed shortly after the events at Dijon in September 1513 and he reprinted it only a few weeks later, so it must have found a strong resonance among the reading public. The word Fluss in German can mean river or it can also refer to a game o f cards.^ After an introductory narration the second part is indeed a card game between the various characters representing the countries active in Italian - welsch - politics. The punning heading, ‘Hie vermerck das spil’ followed by some rudimentary stage directions strongly indicate that it was intended for performance..

Shortly after came another play/dialogue, Alt Eydgnosz, which features Swiss discussions with their ally Henry VIII and it also portrays Emperor Maximilian still opposed to the French, so it is likely to have been written and printed in Spring 1514 (because he changed sides in 1514 as his grandson was to marry Louis XII’s daughter). Alt Eydgnosz was conceivably written for carnival performance before it was printed.

The two pieces, Alt Eydgnosz and Welsch Flusz, contain many o f the same characters as each other debating the Italian political situation. Both are short; Alt Eydgnosz is the longer o f the two with 373 lines compared with 284, and is much the clearer and more readily understandable in its references to events. Both are structured in the same way: there is a narrative introduction followed by a succession o f characters addressing the audience and occasionally speaking to the central character. There are seven characters common to both plays, representing the major powers who were actively engaged in

^ Gotze defines it as ‘Sequens im Kartenspiel ‘floBen” : Alfred Gotze,

Frühneuhochdeutsches Glossar, 2nd edn. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1930), p.87. In the play Gengenbach renames the game the powers are playing as flüfilifi. He plays on the word Fluss, particularly in lines 137-43, but there is no obvious reference within the text to a specific river.

Italian politics at the time: the Pope, the French King, the Emperor, the English King, Venice, the Duke o f Milan and a Swiss (Eydgnosz). Alt Eydgtiosz has only one additional character; the ju n g Eydgnosz. By contrast Welsch Flusz has several additional players - two popes rather than one (Alexander and Julius), the King o f Spain, the Bishoff von Wallisz (Cardinal Schinner), a representative of Mantua, ‘Der von Greyg’ (Greyerz), the Dukes of Savoy and Lorraine, and Charles of Burgundy.

The balance between the narrator’s introduction and the subsequent dialogue is inverted between the two plays. In Welsch Flusz the introduction, with its biblical and classical references, is more than two thirds o f the total length and the subsequent dialogue is so compressed that fifteen of the seventeen characters in it have only three lines each to say. These three lines rhyme, so depart from the simple Knittelvers - rhyming couplets - o f the introduction.

In A lt Eydgnosz, the introduction is structured like a song or ballad in five-line verses and is far more economical and comprehensible. Factors which make it more easily

understood include: the elimination of most biblical and classical references; the attempt to develop a real dialogue between the characters which is more successful; and the audience is given far more information about the different players’ relationships with the Eydgnosz character. So, although the initial conception o f Welsch Flusz as a portrayal of an imaginary game of cards between the powers is much more ambitious and full o f dramatic possibilities, the final result is the more primitive and less successful.

The similarities between the thematic content o f the two pieces make it tempting to speculate that Alt Eydgnosz was a revised version o f Welsch Flusz - early on in Alt Eydgnosz there is a close similarity to the first lines of Welsch Flusz. First, Welsch Flusz:

Welcher wil sin in disem spyl Der darff wol bruchen wiBheit vyl Dz in der fluB nit vberyl.

[p.Ain.

FlüBliB heiB ich ein niiwe spyl Darin brucht man der vntrew vyl Von dem ich ein wenig sagen wyl. [p.Aif].

And Alt Eydgnosz:

Wer zweien herren dienë wil Der darff das er brauch wybheit vyl

Dar Z Û vyl clûger sinne

Das spil sich hat gar bald vmbgwend Vnd steckt er allein dar inne.

[p.AlT

Here too is an echo on the theme of "zwytracht ' which was in der Bwidschuh, and a new idea in Alt Eydgnosz o f ‘wifiheit ’ - wisdom - that is developed at some length. But it is betrayal that is the dominant theme that recurs throughout both pieces. Gengenbach puts much o f the blame down to money, as for example in this passage from Welsch Flusz:

Kein heimlich gelt wurd nit genon Dan es verderbet lyb vnd seel Uh bringt mach biderman in quel Durch semlich miet zu aller zyt Werde betrogen gar vyl letit VergiBt auch manch man siner eer Der dar zu nimmer kummen wer Also daB gelt manchen verblendt Das er sich und die sinen gschendt (pp.Aiif-[Aiin).

The same theme o f French treachery reappears through Alt Eydgttosz - for example the character of that name tells the Pope that:

Der frantzoB har mir verbeissen vyl Der er doch keinB nit halten wil Er bat ein falschen grunde Dar ich wol innen worden bin

Vor Dysion in burgunde ,

[p.Aiv^]. I

Later, the character of the alt Eydgnosz again warns o f the corrupting power o f money and urges his son ju n g Eydgnosz to stay at home with the wife and children:

Ach du mein aller liebster son Kriegen geyt ein bosen Ion Bin ich off! innen worden

Durch gold und gelt in kurtzer zyt 1st mancher biderb man gestorben [p.Biin.

The victims of the treachery and betrayals arising from bribery and secret diplomacy are the soldiers whose lives are lost fighting for victories that are then sold away.

Gengenbach probably wrote more about soldiers than about any other social group and as has been noted Gengenbach himself may well have served in one o f Basel’s campaign contingents.^ A number of Swiss writers and artists o f the period did some soldiering - it was a reputable activity - even though the Swiss military contingents were not defending their own Cantons against external aggression, but rather were engaged in mercenary service for foreign paymasters such as the papacy and the Duchy o f Milan in pursuit of Italian political goals.

Gengenbach's picture of soldiers is not a hostile one on the whole, although he regarded non-Swiss soldiers as a lower form o f life to the Eydgenossen. This is apparent, for example, from his later portrayal o f the 'Lantzhiecht \ a mercenary from southern Germany, in Der Nollhart (1517). Notwithstanding the warning quote above from Alt Eydgnosz, he does not really discuss the negative aspects o f war in these earliest plays. There are signs of a shift in his attitudes in his next play written a year later, X Alter, where a young Swiss is warned that war can make wives and children into widows and orphans (lines 320-25).

In contrast to Gengenbach’s close interest Sebastian Brant had nothing at all to say about soldiers and their behaviour. Although Basel was not as deeply embroiled in military campaigns during the 1490's, it is inconceivable in such a relatively small city that Brant did not have contact with people who had served as mercenaries. With the dependency of the Swiss economy and the employment o f Swiss men in mercenary warfare one might have expected references to it in Das Narrenschiff.

Brant did have views about war, however, which were much more ambivalent than Gengenbach’s. On the one hand he wrote an entirely uncritical account of one battle, in the leaflet entitled, Von der erlichen schlacht der Tutschen by Salyn (1493), and in his

^ Discussed in chapter 1, la (pp.31-32). 74

leaflet, Voti der Vereinigmig der Konige und Anschlag an die Turken (1502), he urged the Christian kings to attack the Turks to the glory o f G o d / On the other hand, in chapter 46 o ïD as Narrenshiff, ‘Vo dë gwalt der narré’ (pages 112-15), Brant condemned the power politics o f the nobility who were too focussed on money and the irresponsible violence o f their armies/ In chapter 56, ‘Von end des gewalttes’, he attacked the reliance of the powers on force to achieve one’s ends. Das Narrenschiff was written at the time of the first French invasion of Italy which involved eight thousand Swiss mercenaries, an invasion which epitomised for Brant the disastrous disunity o f Christendom and

breakdown o f social order. In the letter written later to Peutinger, quoted above on page 64, he said:

Is there any wonder, then, that our society is thrown into wars and civil strife ? Like headstrong children who learn nothing without the rod we seek war in peace, and peace in war. [...] How often in this country of ours have we seen wicked rulers wrecking the peace and order o f the land ! How often have our towns and our citizens been ruined by strife! Armour is more suitable to us than the toga; we are safer on the open field than in the bed chamber.*