Der Doten dantz mit figuren
Der Doten Dantz, 1488
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Der Doten Dantz, the child
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Der Doten Dantz mit figuren is among the very oldest printed dances of death.
Among the German incunables(1)
we only find the two editions of Der Doten Dantz mit figuren from ca. 1488 and 1492,
together with the two editions of Des Dodes Dantz from Lübeck 1489 and 1496.
The dance primarily exists in four variants: Three printed and one manuscript.
The first person to transcribe the text, Max Rieger,(2)
called the dance »Der Jüngere Todtentanz«, and sometimes it's known as
»Jüngerer achtzeiliger Totentanz« to distinguish it from
the Oberdeutscher vierzeiliger Totentanz.
A third name is »Mittelrheinischer Totentanz«,
because of the language, places of publication and certain characters, like for instance
the innkeeper from Bingen.
The oldest of the printed versions is from ca. 1488 and was printed in Heidelberg.
This gives the dance one more name: "Heidelberger Totentanz", not to be confused with
Heidelberg's block book.
The opening page shows a full page dance (picture to the left),
where the happy corpses urge the reader to enter "this dance-house".
The next page shows even more dancing corpses, but also a body in an open coffin, who is regretting that
he died unexpectedly and unprepared.
Then starts the proper dance with 38 scenes. Oddly enough there is no peasant,
even though he is normally a staple character in these dances,
but on the other hand, the last scene addresses
all ranks —
all those who are not yet in the dance.
The layout can be seen on the picture to the right: Death's complaint to the left and the human's answer to the right.
The text flows around the big initials.
The dance ends with another full-page woodcut, reminiscent of the two at the beginning, and
a longer text about how everyone becomes equal in
the ossuary.
1492, the physician.
Notice the space reserved for the big initials.
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1520, The pope
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The order of dancers is very illogical, but this may be related to the fact,
that there are two different artists. One has cut the two initial woodcuts,
the dance-house
and
the man who died unprepared,
and the first 24 dancers up to and including
the gambler,
while the other has produced the last 14 dancers beginning with
the thief,
and also
the final scene in the ossuary.
In the next printed version, from ca. 1492, printed in Mainz, the order has been
changed to make it a little more logical.
As the picture to the left shows, the typographer has made room for the big initials,
but he evidently has discovered in the middle of the work that he did not have these initials.
The third edition from ca. 1520, printed in Munich,
follows almost the same order as in 1492. The typographer no longer lets the text flow around large initials,
so instead each line starts separately. This layout gives more space for the text,
and there are quite a few small and large deviations.
Kassel, the pope is accompanied by a "portative".
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The canon is taken away accompanied by a harp.
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The last of the primary witnesses is a manuscript in Kassel.
The manuscript is richly illustrated (pictured left) and has the same text as in the printed 1488 and 1492-editions.
The manuscript lacks the opening and closing scenes at the ossuary, and they may never have existed.
There are only 35 of the 38 dance scenes: The doctor is missing,
the chaplain has been turned into a priest,
while the knight is transformed into the duke (i.e. the chaplains' and the knight's own dialogues are missing).
One thing that characterizes Der Doten dantz mit Figuren is the very large number of musical instruments that Death handles.
Out of 38 scenes, there are only three where Death is not
handling one instrument or another: Trumpet, organ, harp, triangle, bells, etc.
The same goes for Kienzheim and for Kassel. On the picture to the left Death meets the pope with a "portative",
a small hand organ.
The man who died unprepared, notice the long snakes
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Zimmern's Vergänglichkeitsbuch, the maid
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Another thing that characterizes the printed books and the dance in Kienzheim is the long snakes,
constantly sticking out of the dead (picture on the left) combined with toads and mice.
Der Doten Dantz mit figuren is thought to have been inspired by the
French Danse Macabre, but the similarities are not so great:
The child has some parallels;
the man who died unprepared (picture to the left) may reflect
the dead king, who finishes the dance in Paris;
and both dances have eight-line verses.
The king has a fleur-de-lis on his banner,
but
Holbein's king
also has such a decoration, and for that matter so has King Ahasuerus.
Maybe it also means something that a
doctor from Paris appears?
These four primary editions of the "Doten Dantz mit Figuren" are part of a larger familiy called the Mittelrheinischer Totentanz.
To this family belongs the copy written by
Count Wilhelm Wernher von Zimmern
and which he illustrated in his "Vergänglichkeitsbuch" ("book of perishability", pictured right).
Count Zimmern's "Vergänglichkeitsbuch" was later copied by three others
including the Donaueschingen 123.
There once was a large and well-executed mural in Kienzheim,
although today we unfortunately only have the text along with a thorough description of the scenes.
This dance has to a large extent been inspired by the Doten Dantz mit Figuren.
Finally we have a manuscript (no illustrations) of a
North-Bohemian dance of death
and four fragments of a written dance of death from the area around
Kleve.
Der Doten dantz mit figuren
Figuren: Dance-house
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Figuren, Ossuary
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Figuren: Pope
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Figuren: Cardinal
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Figuren: Bishop
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Figuren: Official
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Figuren: Canon
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Figuren: Priest
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Figuren: Chaplain
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Figuren: Abbot
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Figuren: Physician
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Figuren: Emperor
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Figuren: King
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Figuren: Duke
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Figuren: Count
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Figuren: Knight
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Figuren: Nobleman
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Figuren: Armor-bearer
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Figuren: Robber
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Figuren: Usurer
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Figuren: Citizen
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Figuren: Craftsman
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Figuren: Young man
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Figuren: Child
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Figuren: Innkeeper
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Figuren: Gambler
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Figuren: Thief
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Figuren: Evil monk
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Figuren: Good monk
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Figuren: Hermit
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Figuren: Doctor
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Figuren: Mayor
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Figuren: Senator
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Figuren: Lawyer
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Figuren: Scribe
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Figuren: Nun
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Figuren: Citizeness
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Figuren: Young woman
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Figuren: Merchant
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Figuren: All ranks
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Figuren: Ossuary
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Kassel: Pope
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Kassel: Young woman
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Kassel: Mirror
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Kassel: Robber
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Kassel: Citizeness
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Figuren: Pope
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Figuren: Child
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Figuren: Pope
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Ressources
- Der Jüngere Todtentanz, article and transcription by M. Rieger. Germania n0. 19, 1874.
The article starts on page 257, the transcription on page 263. Rieger's text particularly follows the manuscript in Kassel.
Remember, that
A somewhat illogically is the 1492-edition,
B is the 1488-edition, while
C is the Kassel-manuscript
(Rieger was not aware of the 1520-edition).
Totentänze […] Die Deutschsprachigen Spätmittelalterlichen Totentänze unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung der Inkunabel, Des dodes dantz, Lübeck 1489 by Brigitte Schulte.
Pages 180-186. Schulte does not examine Zimmern's Vergänglichkeitsbuch
and the section about Kleve was written shortly before three more fragments were found.
Can be downloaded:
Des dodes dantz - LWL
- Memento mori: Bild und Text in Totentänzen des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit.
by Susanne Warda, 2011. Pages 140-199.
- Der tanzende Tod by Gert Kaiser, 1983, pages 108-193.
A short introduction, a reproduction of the dance from the 1488-edition (Munich's exemplar rendered in black and white) and a (modern) German translation.
- Der Heidelberger Totentanz von 1485 by Manfred Lemmer, 1991:
Reproduction of Albert Schramm's facsimile of the 1488-edition, transcription of the text and a translation into modern German.
The short introduction (pages 105-119) starts with a general discourse on poems about death.
The section about dances of death is in particular based on Helmut Rosenfeld.
On page 112 the reader is informed that
»Auch die mittelrheinische Totentanzüberlieferung als deren erste Zeuge
eine Kasseler Pergamenthandschrift (um 1460) gilt, weist
Verbindungen zur französischen Totentanzliteratur auf, […]«,
but the reader is not told that the dance of death that is the subject of the entire book
also belongs to the family "mittelrheinische Totentanz",
or that the manuscript in Kassel contains precisely the same text.
- See the individual subsections for more specific links and resources.
In this section
Footnotes:
(1)
(2)
incunable . . .: "cradle print" -
a term for books printed with movable type before 1501.
Heidelbergs block book is even older, but is not an incunable,
since block books are not printed with movable type.
Max Rieger in 1874. See the external link.
The text published by Max Rieger primarily follows the manuscript in Kassel,
but is collated with the printed versions from 1488 and 1492.
Rieger was unaware of the edition from 1520.
The dance of death
Doten dantz mit figuren
