Heise "quotes" Gotthard von Hansen

Summary: A false theory about the painting in Tallinn being a remnant of Lübeck's original painting from 1463.
Heise would like to quote Gotthard von Hansen for saying that there used to be exactly 11 humans on the fragment in Tallinn.

Heise's "knowledge" about the painting in Tallinn is based on one, single source: Gotthard von Hansen's "Die Kirchen und ehemaligen Klöster Revals" from 1873 (reprinted 1976).

The empress from Tallinn - before the restoration.

Heise quotes Gotthard von Hansen for saying that the painting originally was longer - but that "Bischof, Herzog, Abt, Ritter, Karthäuser und Bürger" had perished because of damp.(1)

Heise postulates that Gotthard von Hansen has made a mistake - it should be "Bürgermeister" (=burgomaster /mayor) instead of "Bürger". Heise has just used Jacob von Melle to "prove" that the first part of the painting - until the Carthusian monk - had disappeared from Lübeck, and now he has "proved" that the fragment in Tallinn used to end with the mayor. The jigsaw puzzle is complete!

There's one problem though: Gotthard von Hansen never said that the painting in Tallinn ended with the burgomaster. "Bürger" means citizen - or citizens. In other words: after the non-local clerics and noblemen followed a number of burghers from Lübeck.(2)

German-speaking scholars don't like to admit that they were fooled: Max Hasse denies (page 20) that von Hansen could have meant burghers because in that case he (Gotthard von Hansen) would have written die Bürger. Presumably Hasse finds it more credible that von Hansen writes "Bürger" when he means "Bürgermeister" than that he should have omitted the "die" in "die Bürger".

Hasse "forgets" that von Hansen just (page 38) had written »[...] dann wieder ein Tod und der Pabst, ferner Kaiser, Kaiserin, Kardinal, König und jedesmal dazwischen der Tod.". Here too, von Hansen omits the "die" in "die Kaiserin".

A more important argument that Heise (and everybody else in the totentanz-business) "forgets", is that von Hansen tells us that after the burghers came several age levels(3) - which probably means old man (hermit), young man, young woman and baby. In other words: still more people hanging in both Tallinn and Lübeck.

Conclusion: Gotthard von Hansen never said that the fragment in Tallinn used to end with the mayor. Quite on the contrary.

Next section: Heise reads Gotthard von Hansen uncritically.

(1) After having described the painting and quoted the text, G. von Hansen ends with: "Die folgenden Bilder und was der Bischof, Herzog, Abt, Ritter, Karthäuser und Bürger zu sprechen haben, wie die Worte, die der Tod an sie richtet, mußten leider im Laufe der Zeit, da sie unbeachtet an der feuchten Wand in dem Raume, wo alte Kirchengerätschaften und die Bahren standen, vielleicht Jahrhunderte lang hingen, eines nach dem anderen zu Grunde gehen." (p. 45)

(2) Paradoxically it took a Dane, Erik Moltke, to point this out (in the book "Bernt Notke's Altertavle i Århus Domkirke og Tallinntavlen").

(3) G. von Hansen: "Hier fehlt nun mancher Stand und auch die verschiedenen Altersstufen sind nicht vorhanden, während in Lübeck 24 Bilder vorgeführt werden" (p. 39).