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Before Thomas Nugent visited Lübeck, he wrote several (imaginary) letters from Hamburg.
Here he had visited, among other things, the then cathedral (demolished 1805). The cathedral was of particular interest to Nugent's English readers, because it was under the direct protection of the King of Great Britain, who was both Duke and Bishop of Bremen.
Inside the church, Nugent found an enigmatic grave slab:
| But the
most curious monument in the dome, is an
ancient stone fixed in the south wall, representing
an ass playing on a bag-pipe, with several
inscriptions in monkish characters. The
stone is an oblong, about five or six feet high,
and three broad; on the top of it are the
following words in Low German, which is the
dialect of Hamburgh; but I will give you them
only in English.
I first, thou afterwards: poor and miserable I was born. Here is more got than lost. Near the ass is represented a globe with a cross upon it reversed, and the inscription, The world is turned topsy-turvy; therefore I, poor ass, have learned to pipe. Underneath is represented a man sitting in a flasket(1), with this inscription: God be merciful to me, a poor sinner. And about the border of the whole are written the following words: The Tuesday after Michaelmas, died the late Gesche Vanden Holten. And farther, Hans Lange for himself and his children. As there is no date, it is impossible to determine the time of erecting this tomb; neither have we any account of the above-mentioned persons. The legend-mongers tell us, that the above monument was erected to a spendthrift, whose friends having often warned him, that poverty would be the consequence of his extravagance, he made answer that it was as impossible for their predictions to be verified, as for an ass to play on the bag-pipe; but, finding himself afterwards reduced to want, he looked one morning out of his window, and saw the stupid animal playing on that instrument. Fortune afterwards smiled upon him, so that he grew rich again, and proved a considerable benefactor to this church. The stone is very ancient, and the character appears to have been written in monkish times; yet the language is much the same as that which is still spoken in this city (Thomas Nugent, Travels Through Germany, 1768, vol. I, pp. 40-42) |
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I'm including a long quote from Nugent, because he describes the tombstone pretty accurately (unfortunately, he doesn't supply us with a picture).
The donkey playing the bagpipes is an example of "Die verkehrte Welt" — the inverted / twisted world. The text on the ribbon beginning at the donkey's mouth says:
De werelt heft zik ummekert
darumme zo hebbe ik arme etzel pipen ghelert
In English: "The world has turned upside down / that's why I, poor ass, have learned to play the bagpipes". The word for "world" is not written in letters, but with an image of an imperial orb: a globe with a cross (pictured left). Nugent points out that the globe is reversed. This is true, but only in the sense that the rest of the text also stands upside down right here where the ribbon winds.
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Below the donkey are two shields. On the left is a man in a basket(!), who kneels and holds out one hand. The photograph shows two things that are not apparent from many of the drawings: He is naked under the basket and there are three squares above his hand.
Nugent cites "the legend-mongers" for a tall tale about a haughty rich man whose world was turned upside down; when the rich man became poor, he saw that a donkey had learned to play the bagpipes. The little squares could represent pieces of bread, so in some versions of the story the man was reduced to stealing breadcrumbs from the chickens in their basket.
Some historians instead suggest that the basket is a kind of punishment. In the Middle Ages, public humiliations (cuckings / duckings) were practiced as punishment for minor crimes (such as drunkenness, small theft and prostitution). See the image of the Spanish Mantle on the page about Copenhagen's Dance of Death. The little squares look like dice, so maybe the man was punished for the sin of gambling?
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The second coat of arms is simple: a long-necked bird and a six-pointed star in two halves. This shield is quite flat and it is agreed that an older shield has been chiseled away.
The top and the right side of the slab(2) say that in the year of the Lord 1516, the Tuesday before Michaelmas, died blessed [Mrs.] Geske van dem Holte:
A[nn]o D[omin]i M
vcxvi des dinxtedages vor micheli starf / szelighe Geske van dem holte
At the bottom of the stone is carved: »Anno d[omi]ni. Mvc«, so we can imagine that the artist has waited to write the text on the right side until the exact year of death of Geske's husband, Jakob van dem Holte, was known.
But instead the left side says that this is where Hans Lange and his children lie (»hans lange: und sine kinder 1537«). This is carved in simpler (newer) letters, and it is assumed that the simple shield with the bird was chiseled at the same time.
The Cathedral-builder's accounts show that in 1547 a barber (perhaps a barber surgeon?) named Hans Lange paid 1 Mark to lay a son under Jacob van dem Holte's stone. »Hans Langhe, de Barberer, vor eynen Sohne in de Kerken vnder den Steen Jacob van dem Holte . . . 1 M«. However, the builder immediately adds that the church owns the stone. It is inscribed solely with the names of Jacob van Holte and his wife Gesken: »Not. Item de Steen iß der Kerken, he ludeth allene vp Jacob van dem Holte vnd Gesken, syne Hußfruwen«. Three pages later, he says that the barber Hans Lange has a stone that does not belong to him, but it is available: »Hans Langhe, de Barberer, hefft eynen Steen horth ome nich tho, is ock frich«.(3)
The grave was not for perpetual ownership, and when the payment stopped, the grave could be used again. On the other hand, the stone belonged to the church. It is not known when Hans Lange carved his name into it (and replaced one coat of arms with his own). The number 1537 is obviously not his own year of death, since he bought a place in the grave for his deceased son in 1547.
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Nowadays, it may seem frivolous that a tomb in the cathedral is decorated with a musical donkey, a naked man in a basket and with a snail
(right after »A[nn]o D[omin]i M«).
This was also the case in the olden days: For ordinary people and traveling craftsmen, the donkey with the bagpipe was a landmark: Once you had seen it, you knew that now you were in Hamburg. For the learned and pious, the matter was different.
The simplicity and stupidity of many of the clergy often went so far in the tenth and following centuries that they even had ridiculous and annoying pieces put up in their churches,
such as one finds in the cathedral of Hamburg,
where on a gravestone a donkey with a bagpipe can be seen, and the following inscriptions can be read:
Johann Andreas Wallman, 1776(4)
But the donkey is no more "ridiculous and annoying" than the decorations in the medieval books of hours (pictures left and right), and the presence of these so-called "drolleries" did not prevent the rest of the content from being both sober and Christian. On the tombstone, the four evangelists are depicted in the four corners, and the first line (above the donkey) reads:
Ick för du na f n v t
If we forget for a moment the last 4 letters, it says: "I (went) before, you (follow) after".
The next line (below the donkey) reads:
Naket bin ik ghebaren
hie is mer ghewunnen as vorlaren
I.e.: "naked was I born / here more is gained than lost". The first half is from (Job 1,21): »Naked came I out of my mother's womb«. However, this is hardly an allusion to the naked man in the basket.
If "here" ("here is more gained than lost") is to be understood as down here in the grave, then it fits with Paul's words that »For to me […] to die is gain« (Philippians 1:21). The dead man now knows the true wisdom of God and sees the folly of this upside-down world. As Paul wrote: »hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?« (1 Corinthians 1:20).
Finally comes a pious Christian prayer: "Oh my Lord and God. Be merciful to me poor sinner".
O min her und got wes barmhartich mi arme sunder.
The ass represents "Die verkehrte Welt", while the prayer and the four gospels show the true world.
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The first line ends with 4 letters: »Ick för du na F N V T«.
Nugent skipped them, and that is understandable, because the meaning is unclear. To begin with, one can discuss whether there have been more than 4 letters (the spaces are of different sizes), whether the third letter is a "U" or "V", and whether the distinct squiggle over the V has a meaning or is just to be ignored.
From the beginning, it was believed that the four letters were an abbreviation of a motto related to "Ick för, du na". E.g.: "fuimus nos ut tu" or "fiat nobis voluntas tua". A suggestion from Lappenberg was: "Frede nert, Unfrede tert" (Peace nourishes, discord destroys; see external link, page 93, footnote 2). However, Lappenberg had no explanation as to why it had to be this particular sentence and how it was related to "Ick för du na".
Another suggestion is that it might be the initials of a person who was already in the grave, when Geske van dem Holte and Hans Lange took over the place.
The best suggestion comes from Christoph Walther. He drew attention to 3 mysterious letters at the end of the book Henselyn: »Merke wat dar is D N D« (picture to the right). Here there is agreement that the three letters should be interpreted as a rebus, and should be pronounced: "de ende" (the end). The solution is therefore: »Merke wat dar is de ende« (take notice of what is there: the end).
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Walther suggested that "F N U T" should be pronounce as "effen ute". "effen" is the same word as English "even". But Walther lacked a good explanation of what this was supposed to mean. His best explanation was that because this sentence was shorter than the others, the sculptor had added the 4 letters to "even out" so the sentences became of "even" length.
Four years later — in 1881 — Walther returned: On an old tombstone in Amsterdam was depicted a pair of old-fashioned slippers, and underneath were the words "effen uit". The legend behind this stone was that a rich man knew he would only live so and so long, and that he therefore happily lived in excess. When he died, only the slippers remained.
A further 5 years later, Walther followed up on his hypothesis: In a war in 1426, 600 Flemings had worn the letters FF on their sleeve and they had stuck a comb for grooming horses underneath. The two F's were to be read as "effen" and the rebus meant that all were "over the same comb". It's a common expression in Germany and Scandinavia: To cut people over the same comb (a barber ignoring that people have different head-shapes, hair-quality and fashion-taste) means to regard a group of people as all alike. The meaning is normally negative (to regard everyone in a group as equally bad), but in this battle it meant that both the mighty and the poor were as brothers, in victory as well as in death.
The solution to the ribbon over the donkey is therefore: "I (who lie here in the grave) went before; you follow. Everything on Earth has the same exit."
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Walther's solution is not the slam-dunk that he might have believed himself.
The comb in question was, as he himself quoted, a comb for grooming horses, and while another scholar, Hofmann, agreed that it was a rebus, he argued that "effenkam", was simply Flemish for "horse-comb", a straight comb.
Die nächsten Zeilen enthalten einen Rebus, glücklicher
Weise mit der Auflösung. Die Fläminge trugen auf ihren
Aermeln ff und einen Kamm, wie ihn die Stallknechte führen
und das bedeutete effen (Plural von f) + Kamm, also Effenkamm,
wörtlich Glattkamm, das flämische Wort für Pferdekamm.
(C. Hofmann, Ueber einen französischen Text zur Geschichte der Herzogin Jakobäa, 1865, page 214)
Thus, the connection between "FF" and the common destiny becomes more uncertain.
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A more fundamental problem is the letters "d n d" / "de ende" in Henselyn, which are the basis of Walther's three articles. The three letters are followed by a small skull, and according to Walther it had originally been suggested that it should be read as »Dy nalt de Dod« (Death approaches you). This means that the skull was part of the sentence, just like the image of the orb in the donkey's text above.
But at a meeting in Vereins für Niederdeutsche Sprachforschung, a certain dr. Matsen had protested and instead proposed to pronounce the letters as "de ende". The assembly was so convinced by this simple and understandable solution, that all the members immediately agreed.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to read anywhere, which arguments Dr. Matsen had presented, and who originally had proposed »Dy nalt de Dod«.
A big problem with this proposal is that it actually says "D U D". And a former owner of the book obviously agrees with me here, because he has used the page for pen exercises and has written "D D" and "D u D" (on the reverse side, a pipe is drawn in the mouth of the peasant). In addition, the owner has written the u very small: "D u D", so perhaps he has interpreted it as "Dod unde Duvel" (Death and Devil)?
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And it's not just me and the previous owner who read it as "D U D". The same applies to experts such as Conrad Borchling & Bruno Claussen, Albert Schramm, Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber and the authors of Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke.(5)
But there is a single argument that is both "simple and understandable": Another book from the same printery, namely "Dat narren schyp" (the ship of fools) ends with a similar skull (the Mohnkopf printery had three of these skulls). The text is: "Merke den ende" (picture to the right).
This motto is very similar to "Merke wat dar is d[e] [e]nd[e]", so maybe this was Dr. Matsen's argument? The only person to my knowledge who has seen the similarity between these two books is Timothy Sodman in his reprint of Dodendantz (page 54, footnote 16), but only as a reference, and not an argument. The discussion apparently ended before it had begun — in 1877.
As a curiosity, it can be added that the motto, "I lead, you follow" is reminiscent of the motto »all hernach« (all here after). In the "Wiener Heiltumsbuch" from 1502 and 1514 this motto is also accompanied by mysterious letters that defies explanation (see last paragraph and footnote on the page about the end of the dance in Füssen).
Footnotes: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Right side . . .: for the sake of clarity, I use the words right and left in the normal sense: right and left on the paper/screen.
Many of the authors (see the external links) apparently use a "heraldic" right and left, where you look at the plate from the owner's side — that is, down from the grave.
is ock frich . . .: If one wonders that the stone "is also free", the explanation is that the original source had just mentioned two other available stones.
Translated from: Abhandlung von den schäzbaren Alterthümern […], Johann Andreas Wallman, 1776.
Die Einfalt und Dummheit vieler von der Klerisen ist öfters in den zehnten und folgenden Jahrhunderten soweit gegangen, daß sie auch in ihren Kirchen lächerliche und ärgerliche Stücke anbringen ließen, wie man dergleichen in der Domkirche zu Hamburg findet, woselbst auf einem Leichensteine ein Esel mit einer Sackpfeife zu sehn, und dabey folgende Umschriften zu lesen sind:
Conrad Borchling, Bruno Claussen Niederdeutsche Bibliographie, vol. 1, cols. 135-136, no. 305.
Albert Schramm, Der Bilderschmuck der Frühdrucke, vol. 12, page 7.
Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber, Manuel de l'amateur de la gravure sur bois et sur métal au XVe siècle, vol. 5.1, page 282, no. 4202 (an American IP-address is needed).
Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, Henselyn, no. 12267.
Dansk 
The dance of death
Miscellanea
Donkey and pipes