Fortunatus
Encyclopedia
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Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
proto-novel or chapbook
Chapbook
A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...
about a legendary hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
popular in 15th and 16th century Europe.
The tale
The tale follows the life of a young man named Fortunatus from relative obscurity through his adventures towards fame and fortune; it subsequently follows the careers of his two sons. Fortunatus was a native, says the story, of FamagustaFamagusta
Famagusta is a city on the east coast of Cyprus and is capital of the Famagusta District. It is located east of Nicosia, and possesses the deepest harbour of the island.-Name:...
in Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, and meeting the goddess of Fortune in a forest received from her a purse which was continually replenished as often as he drew from it. With this he wandered through many lands, and at Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
was the guest of the sultan. Among the treasures which the sultan showed him was an old napless hat which had the power of transporting its wearer to any place he desired. Of this hat, he feloniously possessed himself and returned to Cyprus, where he led a luxurious life. On his death he left the purse and the hat to his sons Ampedo and Andelosia; but they were jealous of each other, and by their recklessness and folly soon fell on evil days.
Like Cervantes
Cervantes
-People:*Alfonso J. Cervantes , mayor of St. Louis, Missouri*Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, 16th-century man of letters*Ignacio Cervantes, Cuban composer*Jorge Cervantes, a world-renowned expert on indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cannabis cultivation...
' tale Don Quixote, Fortunatus is a tale which marks the passing of the feudal world into the more modern, globalised, capitalist world. Not quite a morality tale in the purest sense, it nonetheless was clearly written in order to convey lessons to the reader. The moral of the story is obvious: men should desire reason and wisdom before all the treasures of the world. It is far too easy, without wisdom, to lose one's fortune, no matter how it was acquired.
Sources
According to the recent English translator Michael Haldane, Fortunatus was first published in Augsburg in 1509. It was printed by one Johann Otmar and sold in Johannes Heybler’s apothecary in that city. Many sources were integrated to create the text. These include:- The Itinerarius of Johannes von Montevilla (or John de Mandeville), 1355; translated into German 1480, the oldest extant dated editions having been printed in Augsburg (1481 and 1482).
- The Story of Wlad III Drakul (1456–62, 1476 Lord of Wallachia, or Vlad the Impaler), the oldest extant dated German accounts having been printed in Nuremberg (1488), Bamberg (1491) and Augsburg (1494).
- The Gesta Romanorum
Gesta Romanorum
Gesta Romanorum, a Latin collection of anecdotes and tales, was probably compiled about the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th...
, printed in Augsburg in 1473.
- Two accounts of St. Patrick’s Purgatory printed in Augsburg in 1489.
- Hans Tucher der Ältere, Beschreibung der Reyß ins Heylig Land [1479-80] (Augsburg, 1482).
- Bernhard von Breydenbach, Peregrinationes in terram sanctam (1486); Die heyligen reyssen gen Jherusalem (Mainz, 1486; Augsburg, 1488?).
- Rudolf von Ems, Willehalms von Orlens und Amelies. 13th C; printed in Augsburg, 1491.
- Perhaps the travels of the Bohemian nobleman Leo von Rozmital (1465–67). These can be read in: Malcom Letts (ed.), The Travels of Leo of Rozmital through Germany, Flanders England, France Spain, Portugal and Italy, 1465-67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957.
In its full form the history of Fortunatus occupies, in Karl Simrock
Karl Joseph Simrock
Karl Joseph Simrock , was a German poet and writer. He is primarily known for his translation of the Nibelungenlied into modern German.- Life :He was born in Bonn, where his father was a music publisher...
's Die deutschen Volksbucher, vol. iii., upwards of 158 pages. The scene is continually shifted—from Cyprus to Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, from Flanders to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, from London to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
; and a large number of secondary characters appear.
The style and allusions indicate a comparatively modern date for the authorship; but the nucleus of the legend can be traced back to a much earlier period. The stories of Jonathas and the three jewels in the Gesta Romanorum
Gesta Romanorum
Gesta Romanorum, a Latin collection of anecdotes and tales, was probably compiled about the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th...
, of the emperor Frederick
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
and the three precious stones in the Cento Novelle antiche, of the Mazin of Khorassan in the Thousand and One Nights, and the flying scaffold in the Bahar Danush, have all a certain similarity.
Author
The author is not known; it has been suggested that he may have been Burkhard Zink (1396-1474/5), an Augsburg merchant, councillor, chronicler and traveller. His Augsburg chronicle covers the years 1368-1468 and comprises four books, of which the third, an autobiography, is considered the best, and he is praised for giving "Einblicke von seltener Eindringlichkeit in die Lebensrealität des SpätMA" ("outstandingly penetrating insights into the reality of life in the late Middle Ages"); The most plausible suggestion to date is that Johannes Heybler—the publisher—was himself the author..jpg)
Versions
The earliest known edition of the German text of Fortunatus appeared at AugsburgAugsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
in 1509, and the modern German investigators are disposed to regard this as the original form. Innumerable versions occur in French, Italian, Dutch and English. The story was dramatized by Hans Sachs
Hans Sachs
Hans Sachs was a German meistersinger , poet, playwright and shoemaker.-Biography:Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg . His father was a tailor. He attended Latin school in Nuremberg...
in 1553, and by Thomas Dekker in 1600; and the latter's comedy appeared in a German translation in Englische Komodien und Tragodien, 1620. Ludwig Tieck
Ludwig Tieck
Johann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...
has utilized the legend in his Phantasus, and Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso was a German poet and botanist.- Life :He was born Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot at the château of Boncourt at Ante, in Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family...
in his Peter Schlemihl; and Ludwig Uhland
Ludwig Uhland
Johann Ludwig Uhland , was a German poet, philologist and literary historian.-Biography:He was born in Tübingen, then Duchy of Württemberg, and studied jurisprudence at the university there, but also took an interest in medieval literature, especially old German and French poetry...
left an unfinished narrative poem entitled Fortunatus and his Sons. Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...
included it in The Grey Fairy Book as "Fortunatus and his Purse".