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The Continuation of the Middle Ages in the Early Modern Print Period. With an Emphasis on Melusine and Till Eulenspiegel

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Abstract

It is highly fashionable today to project either a very negative or a very positive image of the Middle Ages. The invention of the printing press has hence often been associated with a radical change in literature, religion, politics, and generally the public media. Indeed, we can observe an imminent paradigm shift, ultimately leading, above all, to the Protestant Reformation, which would not have been possible without the printing press. However, technological revolutions do not necessarily transform the Zeitgeist or the history of mentality, the general value systems, and hence the fundamental concepts of literature. Although many medieval romances and heroic epics were soon eclipsed by new types of prose novels, for instance, printed and sold on the early modern book markets, in many other cases the medieval narratives, such as the various versions of the Melusine novel and the jest narratives of Till Eulenspiegel, experienced an astounding afterlife and renewed interests through the printed versions, and this far into the seventeenth century. This article does not intend to diminish the huge impact of the printing press on late medieval culture, but wants to qualify further and discriminate more in detail what really changed and what remained the same within the history of literature. Both the narratives discussed here and their accompanying woodcuts demonstrate a smooth continuation of late medieval topics well into the early modern period.

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Notes

  1. See my introduction and the contributions to Paradigm Shifts during the Global Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Albrecht Classen. Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 44 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019).

  2. Stephan Füssel, Johannes Gutenberg (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1999); id., Gutenberg und seine Wirkung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004). There is, of course, a vast amount of relevant research on Gutenberg.

  3. See, for instance, Irena Erfen, “Epoche in der Literaturgeschichtsschreibung,” Von der Handschrift zum Buchdruck: Spätmittelalter, Reformation, Humanismus. Vol. 2: 1320–1572, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz and Ulrich Müller. Deutsche Literatur: Eine Sozialgeschichte, 2 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1991), 372–378; cf. also the other contributions to this volume.

  4. Uwe Neddermeyer, Von der Handschrift zum gedruckten Buch: Schriftlichkeit und Leseinteresse im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit. Quantitative und qualitative Aspekte. 2 vols. Buchwissenschaftliche Beiträge aus dem Deutschen Bucharchiv München, 61 (Wiesbaden; Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998).

  5. Bodo Gotzkowsky, “Volksbücher”, Prosaromane, Renaissancenovellen, Versdichtungen und Schwankbücher: Bibliographie der deutschen Drucke. 2 vols. Part One: Drucke des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Bibliotheca Bibliographica Aureliana, CXXV (Baden-Baden: Verlag Valentin Koerner, 1991).

  6. Jan-Dirk Müller, Gedechtnus: Literatur und Hofgesellschaft um Maximilian I.. Forschungen zur Geschichte der älteren deutschen Literatur, 2 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1982); Kaiser Maximilian I. und das Ambraser Heldenbuch, ed. Mario Klarer (Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar: Böhlau, 2019); Albrecht Classen, “The Ambras Heldenbuch—A Major Compilation of Medieval Poetry for Posterity. Habsburg Efforts at Historicizing via Literature. Austrian Literature avant la lettre?,” to appear in Athens Journal of Philology.

  7. Stephan Füssel, Gutenberg und seine Wirkung (Frankfurt a. M.: Insel Verlag, 1999); George Parker Winship, Gutenberg to Plantin: An Outline of the Early History of Printing (1926; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). See also the contributions to Printing the Written Word: The Social History of Books, Circa 1450—1520, ed. Sandra Hindman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); Print and Power in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800), ed. Nina Lamal, Jamie Cumby, and Helmer J. Helmers. Library of the Written Word, 92; The Handpress World, 73 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021). The literature on this topic is legion by now.

  8. https://www.arlima.net/ad/cycle_de_huon_de_bordeaux.html (last accessed on March 22, 2022).

  9. Max Koch, Das Quellenverhältniss von Wielands Oberon (Marburg: Elwert, 1880); online at: https://archive.org/details/dasquellenverhl00wielgoog/page/n22/mode/2up?view=theater; see also Huon of Bordeaux. First modern English trans. by Catherine M. Jones and William W. Kibler. Medieval & Renaissance Text Series (New York and Bristol: Italica Press, 2021), xxi–xxii. For the critical edition, see Huon de Bordeaux: Chanson de geste du XIIIe siècle, publiéed’après le manuscrit Paris BNF fr. 22555, ed. and trans. William W. Kibler and François Suard (Paris: Champion, 2003).

  10. Albrecht Classen, “Imagination, Fantasy, Otherness, and Monstrosity in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age,” Imagination and Fantasy in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: Projections, Dreams, Monsters, and Illusions, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 24 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2020), 1–229. Much of this information about Huon de Bordeaux I have drawn from my own article, “Huon de Bordeaux,” Literary Encyclopedia, Dec. 30, 2021 (3302 words), online at: https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=40688.

  11. There is plenty of evidence that the manuscript culture continued well into the sixteenth century; cf. Tilo Brandis, “Die Handschrift zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit: Versuch einer Typologie,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 72 (1997): 27–57; see also Leonhard Hoffmann, “Buchmarkt und Bücherpreise im Frühdruckzeitalter: Der Antoniter Petrus Mitte de Caprariis als Käufer er ersten Frühdrucke in Rom (1468/69),” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 75 (2000): 73–81.

  12. The Legend of Charlemagne: Envisioning Empire in the Middle Ages, ed. Jace Stuckey (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022); see also my Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature. Bristol Studies in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2021); as to King Arthur, see the voluminous The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed. Norris J. Lacy. Arthurian Studies (New York and London: Garland, 1996).

  13. Siegfried Grosse and Ursula Rautenberg, Die Rezeption mittelalterlicher deutscher Dichtung: Eine Bibliographie ihrer Übersetzungen und Bearbeitungen seit der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1989).

  14. See, for example, at least concerning cinematographic receptions, the contributions to The Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy, ed. Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2004).

  15. Scholars have critically engaged with this issue already many times; see, for instance, Rudolf Hirsch, Printing, Selling and Reading 1450–1550. 2nd expanded ed. (1967; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1974); Peter Jörg Becker, Handschriften und Frühdrucke mittelhochdeutscher Epen: Eneide, Tristrant, Tristan, Erec, Iwein, Parzival, Willehalm, Jüngerer Titurel, Nibelungenlied und ihre Reproduktion und Rezeption im späten Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1977); Joachim Knape, “Historie” in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit: Begriffs- und gattungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen im interdisziplinären Kontext. Saecula spiritalia, 10 (Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1984); Caroline Huey, Hans Folz and Print Culture in Late Medieval Germany: The Creation of Popular Discourse (Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012).

  16. N. F. Blake, Caxton and His World. The Language Library (London: Andre Deutsch, 1969); William Blades, The Biography and Typography of William Caxton: England’s First Printer (1877; London: Muller, 1971); George D. Painter, William Caxton: A Quincentenary Biography of England’ First Printer (London: Chatto&Windus, 1976); Lotte Hellinga, Caxton in Focus: The Beginning of Printing in England (London: British Library, 1982); N. F. Blake, William Caxton and English Literary Culture (London: Hambledon Press, 1991); see also the excellent article by N. F. Blake, “William Caxton,” in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, print edition 2004; online since 2008 at: https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-4963 (last accessed on March 26, 2022).

  17. For a comprehensive list of all of Caxton 107 print editions, see https://gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/doPrint.asp?search=1&pop=&prfont=&pr=William+Caxton&dop=&search.x=72&search.y=9&resultsize=10 (last accessed on March 26, 2022).

  18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otranto_Cathedral; Mario Cazzato, Otranto: il mosaico pavimentale della cattedrale; (XII secolo) = Das Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale = The Mosaic Pavement of Cathedral (Galatina: Congedo, 1997); Christine Ungruh, Das Bodenmosaik der Kathedrale von Otranto (1163–1165): normannische Herrscherideologie als Endzeitvision (Affalterbach: Didymos-Verl., 2013).

  19. Couldrette’s Romans of Partenay was rendered into Middle English around 1500, and survives as a manuscript version; https://www.middleenglishromance.org.uk/mer/74 (last accessed on March 26, 2022).

  20. Lydia Zeldenrust, The Mélusine Romance in Medieval Europe: Translation, Circulation, and Material Contexts. Studies in Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020), 111–12. Her discussion of the various texts is often a bit confusing, but the list of manuscripts and printed editions, 234–47, is very helpful.

  21. Claudia Steinkämper, Melusine – vom Schlangweib zur “Beauté mit dem Fischschwanz”: Geschichte einer literarischen Aneignung. Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte, 233 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007).

  22. Gotzkowsky, “Volksbücher” (see note 5), 93–125.

  23. Here I draw from the online catalog for seventeenth-century German literature, the VD 17: https://kxp.k10plus.de/DB=1.28/SET=1/TTL=2/CMD?MATCFILTER=N&MATCSET=N&ACT0=&IKT0=&TRM0=&ACT3=*&IKT3=8183&ACT=SRCHA&IKT=1016&SRT=YOP&ADI_BIB=&TRM=Th%C3%BCring+von+Ringoltingen&REC=*&TRM3=&COOKIE=U8351,K8351,D1.28,E245bf1ef-3,I0,B9178++++++,SY,QDEF,A,H12,,73,,76-77,,80,,88-90,NUNIVERSITY+OF+ARIZONA+LIBRARY,R150.135.165.106,FN (last accessed on March 26, 2022).

  24. Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth, ed. Misty Urban, Deva F. Kemmis, and Melissa Ridley Elmes. Explorations in Medieval Culture, 4 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017).

  25. For an extensive review of the relevant scholarship, though by now slightly outdated, see Albrecht Classen, The German Volksbuch. A Critical History of a Late-Medieval Genre. Studies in German Language and Literature, 15 (Lewiston, NY, Queenston, and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995, reissued 1999), 141–62; see also id., Water in Medieval Literature: An Ecocritical Reading. Ecocritical Theory and Practice (Lanham, MD, Boulder, CO, et al.: Lexington Books, 2018), 215–36, with a focus on Jean d’Arras.

  26. Here I quote from Romane des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Jan-Dirk Müller. Bibliothek der frühen Neuzeit: Abt. 1, Literatur im Zeitalter des Humanismus und der Reformation, 1. Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker, 54 (Frankfurt a. M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1990), 9–176; and see the commentary, 1012–87; cf. also Thüring von Ringoltingen, Melusine (1456). Vol. 1: Edition, Übersetzung und Faksimile der Bildseiten. Vol. 2: Kommentar und Aufsätze, ed. André Schnyder, with Ursla Rautenberg. Nach dem Erstdruck Basel: Richel um 1473/74 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2006); see also Jean d’Arras, Melusine; or, the Noble History of Lusignan, trans. with an intro. by Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012); cf. also Gareth Knight, The Book of Melusine of Lusignan in History, Legend and Romance (Cheltenham: Skylight, 2013); for comparative perspectives, see Charles Lecouteux, “Melusine,” Enzyklopädie des Märchens, ed. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich. Vol. 9.2 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1998), 556–61; Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction in Late Medieval France, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996).

  27. To avoid error in printing of this text, I have written out the superscripta representing umlauts.

  28. Albrecht Classen, “The Melusine Figure in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century German Literature and Art: Cultural-Historical Information Within the Pictorial Program. With a Discussion of the Melusine-Lüsterweibchen Connection,” Melusine’s Footprint (see note 24), 74–94; see also Hans-Jörg Künast, “Die Drucküberlieferung des Melusine-Romans in Franfurt am Main in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Eulenspiegel trifft Melusine: Der frühneuhochdeutsche Prosaroman im Licht neuer Forschungen und Methoden, ed. Catherine Drittenbass and André Schnyder. Chloe: Beihefte zum Daphnis, 42 (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2010), 325–40. See now the contributions to Die schöne Melusina: Ein Feenroman des 15. Jahrhunderts in der deutschen Übertragung des Thüring von Ringoltingen: Die Bilder im Erstdruck Basel 1473/74 nach dem Exemplar der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt, ed. Heifrun Stein-Kecks (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2012). The color reproductions are of first rate here.

  29. Juliane von Fircks, “Lieben diener v[nd] dinerinne, pfleget mit steter trewen minne: Das Wiesbadener Leuchterweibchen als Minneallegorie,” Nicht die Bibliothek, sondern das Auge. Westeuropäische Skulptur und Malerei an der Wende zur Neuzeit: Beiträge zu Ehren von Hartmut Krohm, ed. Tobias Kunz (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2008), 98–110; Classen, “The Melusine Figure” (see note 28), 89–93; see also http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCsterweibchen; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/lüsterweibchen (both last accessed on March 27, 2022).

  30. Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dil Ulenspiegel. Nach dem Erstdruck von 1515, ed. Wolfgang Lindow (1966; Stuttgart: Philip Reclam jun., 1978); see also the English translation, Till Eulenspiegel. His Adventures, trans., with introduction and notes, by Paul Oppenheimer (New York and London: Garland, 1991); Herbert Blume, Hermann Bote: Braunschweiger Stadtschreiber und Literat. Studien zu seinem Leben und Werk. Braunschweiger Beiträge zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 15 (Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2019); Albrecht Classen, “Laughter as the Ultimate Epistemological Vehicle in the Hands of Till Eulenspiegel,” Neophilologus 92 (2008): 417–89; for a summary of the most relevant research literature, see André Schnyder, “Bibliographie zum Prosaroman des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts,” Eulenspiegel trifft Melusine (see note 28, 557–609, esp. 578–86; for a critical discussion, see also Al-brecht Classen, The German Volksbuch (see note 25), 185–212. For the reception history, cf. also Georg Rollenbeck, Till Eulenspiegel, der dauerhafte Schwankheld: zum Verhältnis von Produktions- und Rezeptionsgeschichte. Germanistische Abhandlungen, 56 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1985).

  31. Bernd Ulrich Ulrich Hucker, Till Eulenspiegel: Beiträge zur Forschung und Katalog der Ausstellung vom 6. Oktober 1980 bis 30. Januar 1981. Kleine Schriften / Stadtarchiv und Stadtbibliothek Braunschweig, 5 (Brunswick: Stadtarchiv und Stadtbibliothek, 1980).

  32. Gotzkowsky, “Volksbücher” (see note 5), 468–88. For the pan-European history of the trickster, or rogue, including Till Eulenspiegel, see Alison Williams, Tricksters and Pranksters: Roguery in French and German Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, 49 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 2000), esp. 143–76; see also Albrecht Classen, “Transgression and Laughter, the Scatological and the Epistemological: New Insights into the Pranks of Till Eulenspiegel,” Medievalia et Humanistica 33 (2007): 41–61. Much recent research on Till Eulenspiegel can be found in the journal Eulenspiegel-Jahrbuch, but it is also the topic of many different studies published in other fora, or as part of many edited volumes. Oddly, however, the critical question of how to situate Till Eulenspiegel within the alleged paradigm shift seems not to have been yet fully addressed.

  33. For a good survey of the modern reception history, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Eulenspiegel#Herkunft_und_Leben_laut_Volksbuch; and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Eulenspiegel#cite_note-11 (both last accessed on March 27, 2022).

  34. See the contributions to Komische Gegenwelten: Lachen und Literatur in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Werner Röcke and Helga Neumann (Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, and Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1999); Albrecht Classen, “Witz, Humor, Satire. Georg Wickrams Rollwagenbüchlein als Quelle für sozialhistorische und mentalitätsgeschichtliche Studien zum 16. Jahrhundert. Oder: Vom kommunikativen und gewalttätigen Umgang der Menschen in der Frühneuzeit,” Jahrbuch für ungarische Germanistik (1999; appeared in 2000): 13–30; id., “Die deutsche Predigtliteratur des Mittelalters im Kontext der europäischen Erzähltradition: Johannes Paulis Schimpf und Ernst (1521) als Rezeptionsmedium,” Fabula 44.3/4 (2003): 209–36; id., Deutsche Schwankliteratur des 16. Jahrhunderts: Studien zu Martin Montanus, Hans Wilhelm Kirchhof und Michael Lindener. Koblenz-Landauer Studien zu Geistes-, Kultur- und Bildungswissenschaften, 4 (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2009); Hans Rudolf Velten, Scurrilitas: Das Lachen, die Komik und der Körper in Literatur und Kultur des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2017).

  35. Fecal Matters in Early Modern Literature and Art: Studies in Scatology. Ed. Jeff Persels and Russell Ganim (Aldershot, Hampshire, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004); Albrecht Classen, “Transgression and Laughter, the Scatological and the Epistemological: New Insights into the Pranks of Till Eulenspiegel,” Medievalia et Humanistica 33 (2007): 41–61; The Politics of Obscenity in the Age of the Gutenberg Revolution: Obscene Means in Early Modern French and European Print Culture and Literature, ed. Peter Frei and Nelly Labère. Routledge Research in Early Modern History (New York: Routledge, 2022).

  36. Herbert Blume, “Hermann Bote,” Deutsche Dichter der frühen Neuzeit (1450–1600): Ihr Leben und Werk, ed. Stephan Füssel (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1993), 217–34; Gerhild Scholz Williams and Alexander Schwarz, Existentielle Vergeblichkeit. Verträge in der Mélusine, im Eulenspiegel und im Dr. Faustus. Philologische Studien und Quellen, 179 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2003). The list of relevant studies on Eulenspiegel could be easily extended. Oddly, however, there is not even a reference to Till Eulenspiegel in the hefty volume Early Modern German Literature 1350–1700, ed. Max Reinhart. The Camden House History of German Literature, 4 (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2007).

  37. See the contributions to Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Peter A. Dykema and Heiko A. Oberman. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, LI (Leiden, New York, and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1993). Till Eulenspiegel, however, is not consulted in this context.

  38. See, for instance, Sabine von Heusinger, Die Zunft im Mittelalter: Zur Verflechtung von Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Straßburg. VSWG, Beihefte, 206 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009).

  39. Urban Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 4 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009).

  40. William C. McDonald, “Mythos Eulenspiegel—Sieg eines zwitterhaften Listreichen,” Verführer, Schurken, Magier, ed. Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich. Mittelalter Mythen, 3 (St. Gall: UVK—Fachverlag für Wissenschaft und Studium, 2001), 227–41. He is warning us, above all, to abstain from some of the infantilizing strategies by American translators of Eulenspiegel, rendering the term ‘schalkheit’ as ‘prank’ or ‘clownishness.’ Eulenspiegel is never to be trusted; he is a very roguish, hurtful, even vicious character.

  41. James Moran, Wynkyn de Worde: Father of Fleet Street. 3rd ed. (London: British Library; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2003); A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain 1476–1558, ed. Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014); see also the useful online article at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynkyn_de_Worde (last accessed on March 28, 2022).

  42. See, for instance, David Crouch, Tournament (London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2005), 125–31.

  43. The decline of medieval feudalism, knighthood, and chivalry was noticeable already in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and continued into the early modern age; see the contributions to The Rusted Hauberk: Feudal Ideals of Order and Their Decline, ed. Liam O. Purdon and Cindy L. Vitto (Gainesville, Tallahasse, et al., FL: University Press of Florida, 1994); for the role of the print culture in that context, see Jennifer R. Goodman, “Caxton’s Chivalric Publications of 1480–85,” The Study of Chivalry: Resources and Approaches, ed. Howell Chickerin and Thomas H. Seiler (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1988), 645–61.

  44. Das Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid, ed. Maike Claußnitzer and Kassandra Sperl. Relectiones, 7 (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 2019), XXXVI–XXXVIII. The text has many roots extending back to the thirteenth century, but the only surviving manuscript dates from ca. 1550 (Livonia or Stockholm); otherwise, the poem is available only in printed form.

  45. Gotzkowsky, “Volksbücher” (see note 5), offers the best bibliographical overview and presents overwhelming evidence that much of medieval German literature easily survived the printing press and then appeared on the early modern book markets. We could argue that the same situation dominated other book markets in Europe, whether in England, Spain, Italy, or France. See, for instance, the contributions to The Book History Reader, ed. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery (London: Routledge, 2006). See also Raluca L. Radulescu, Romance and Its Contexts in Fifteenth-Century England: Politics, Piety and Penitence (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2013); Anne E. B. Coldiron, Printers Without Borders: Translation and Textuality in the Renaissance (New York: Routledge, 2015). See also the contributions to Early Printed Narrative Literature in Western Europe, ed. Bart Besamusca, Elisabeth de Bruijn, and Frank Willaert (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2019).

  46. See, for instance, William C. McDonald, “‘Künig Artus oder Arturus:’ An Unattested Reference to King Arthur by Sebastian Franck (1499–1542),” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 96 (2021): 174–85.

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Classen, A. The Continuation of the Middle Ages in the Early Modern Print Period. With an Emphasis on Melusine and Till Eulenspiegel. Pub Res Q 38, 623–641 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-022-09910-4

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