Lübeck's Dance of Death

Jacob von Melle (1659-1743)

Jacob von Melle, the vicar who transcribed the text from the old painting in 1701, was more than qualified for the job.

Jacob von Melle's epitaph.

He was born 17^th June 1659 in Lübeck and studied theology, philosophy, philology, history and natural science at the university in Kiel. In 1684 he was appointed preacher in St. Mary's Church in Lübeck and in 1706 he was appointed vicar - a position he retained until his death 13^th June 1743.

von Melle knew 10 languages and published countless books - among these a Low German dictionary with 20.000 entries and a book about the so-called "guldgubber" on the Danish island, Bornholm ("guldgubber" (gold old men) are tiny pre-historic gold-plates with a stamped human image).

von Melle is considered the father of Lübeckian historiography and in two of his books he has described the dance of death - namely his hand-written "Ausführliche Beschreibung der kayserlichen, freyen, und des H. Römischen Reichs Stadt Lübeck" and "Lubeca religiosa".(1)

How reliable a witness was Jacob von Melle?

"guldgubber" from the Danish island Bornholm.

Jacob von Melle is our only source for the original Low German text and fortunately it would seem that he did a good job. von Melle was able to read 4 lines at the beginning of the painting and they resemble the fragment in Tallinn. The few differences that exist are probable caused by the different dialects(2) in Lübeck and Tallinn, rather than misreading.

On the other hand it seems that von Melle has passed on his notes in a chaotic and disorderly way. For instance it's quite puzzling that below the headline »Der Tod zur Jungfrauen« (Death to the maid) Death says, »En junk Man sik bi Tiden ker To Gade«.

The problem here is that the structure of the two dances of death are very different:

Nathanael Schlott's new text is constructed very simple: Death speaks his 4 lines to the human and the human answers with another 4 lines.
In the old text it's the humans who start with 8 lines - after which Death answers with 7 lines. In the 8^th and last line Death calls the next dancer. This means that Death's verse is locked together with both the preceding and the following verse (like the dancers in the chain dance).

Jacob von Melle, Death to the doctor.

It's hard to believe that such a learned man as von Melle could miss such a fundamental fact, but take a look at the verse to the right: The heading is "Der Tod zum Arzte", which is High German (in Low German it would be "De Dot to deme Arstede"). It seems incongruous to have High German headings in a Low German text and when we add to this that there are no headings on the painting in Tallinn, we must conclude that the headings were added by von Melle.(3)

But the heading is wrong since the first 7 lines are Death's answer to the preceding dancer. Only the 8^th line, "Follow after, Master Medicine", addresses the physician.

So the first problem is that Jakob von Melle has adorned his notes with headlines that are taken from the new painting — disregarding the fact that the structure is different. But even if we take these confusing headlines into account there is yet another problem.

Everything indicates that in the copy made by Anton Wortmann in 1701, some of the persons appear in another sequence than they did on the old painting from 1463. The first person to point this out was Wilhelm Mantels, who suggested that the old painting had been on wooden panels, and that these panels had been shuffled during the process of replacing them.

Today we know that the old painting was on canvas just like the new one, which means that Wortmann must have made this shuffling deliberately. And this in turn means that Jakob von Melle must also have re-arranged his notes deliberately. For more details, see the page about Mantels and the notes about mayor and nobleman and merchant and craftsman.

The conclusion is that when von Melle published his "Ausführliche Beschreibung" in 1713, he was so influenced by the new painting - which by then had been hanging in the church for 12 years - that not only did he copy the new (High German) headings, but he also arranged his notes according to these new headings - no matter whether the text would make sense or not.

Sources

Jacob von Melle og de bornholmske guldgubber, published by Colbergs Boghandel, 1997
Wilhelm Mantels' book from 1866, Der Todtentanz in der Marienkirche zu Lübeck
Hartmut Freytag et al, Der Totentanz der Marienkirche in Lübeck
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 1885 (vol. 21, 297-298)
Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein und Lübeck, 1991 (vol. 7, 183-184)
Neue Deutsche Biographie (vol. 7, 19-20)
Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie (vol. 8, 680)

Further information:

The text from the painting in St. Mary's Church from 1463.
The new text from 1701
The sequence of dancers
Anton Wortmann who copied the painting in 1701
Nathanael Schlott who wrote the new text in 1701
Wilhelm Mantels and the wooden tablet theory
Timeline - the history of the church and the painting
The dance of death in Tallinn.

Footnotes: (1) (2) (3)

After the 2^nd World War, Lubeca religiosa was among the many thousands of German books that were distributed all over the Soviet Union as spoils of war.

In 1997 the president of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, decreed that Georgia's share of the spoils should be returned. Among of the books that were thus returned to Lübeck was Lubeca religiosa.

For details, see this eksternal link: Aus Georgien zurück, Ein Beispiel für Restitution von Bibliotheksgut. Thanks to Mischa von Perger for alerting me to this story.

A thorough analysis of the language(s) in the two paintings by Robert Damme can be found in the book Der Totentanz der Marienkirche in Lübeck by Prof. Hartmut Freytag et al.

Just as the headings on the present site, "Death answers the physician", are added by me to facilitate the reading.