The Visio Tnugdali is a 12th-century religious text reporting the otherworldly vision of the Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 knight Tnugdalus (later also called "Tundalus", "Tondolus" or in English translations, "Tundale"). It was "the most popular and elaborate text in the medieval genre of visionary infernal literature" and had been translated from the original Latin forty-three times into fifteen languages by the 15th century, including Icelandic and Belorussian. The work remained most popular in Germany, with ten different translations into German, and four into Dutch. With a recent resurgence of scholarly interest in Purgatory

Purgatory

Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...

 following works by Jacques Le Goff

Jacques Le Goff

Jacques Le Goff is a prolific French historian specializing in the Middle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries....

, Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Jay Greenblatt is a literary critic, theorist and scholar.Greenblatt is regarded by many as one of the founders of New Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as "cultural poetics"; his works have been influential since the early 1980s when he introduced the term...

 and others, the vision has attracted increased academic attention.

The Latin text was written down shortly after 1149 by Brother Marcus, an Irish itinerant monk, in the Scots Monastery, Regensburg

Scots Monastery, Regensburg

The Scots Monastery is a Benedictine abbey of St James in Regensburg, Germany. It was founded by Hiberno-Scottish missionaries and for most of its history was in the hands of first Irish, then Scottish monks, whence its name The Scots Monastery is a Benedictine abbey of St James (Jakobskirche) in...

. He reports having heard Tnugdalus' account from the knight himself and to have done a translation from the Irish language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 at the Regensburg abbess' request. The story is set in Cork, Ireland

Cork (city)

Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...

 in 1148.

The visio tells of the proud and easygoing knight falling unconscious for three days, during which time an angel guides his soul through Heaven

Heaven

Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

 and Hell

Hell

In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

, experiencing some of the torments of the damned. The angel then charges Tnugdalus to well remember what he has seen and to report it to his fellow men. On recovering possession of his body, Tnugdalus converts to a pious life as a result of his experience.

The Visio Tnugdali with its interest in the topography of the afterlife

Afterlife

The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...

 is situated in a broad Irish tradition of phantastical tales about otherworldly voyages, called immram

Immram

An immram is a class of Old Irish tales concerning a hero's sea journey to the Otherworld . Written in the Christian era and essentially Christian in aspect, they preserve elements of Irish mythology....

, as well as in a tradition of Christian afterlife visions, itself influenced by pre-Christian notions of the afterlife. Other important texts from this tradition include the Visio St Pauli, Visio Thurkilli, the Visio Godeschalci

Visio Godeschalci

Visio Godeschalci is a 12th century text relating the vision of a peasant of Harrie, now Großharrie in Holstein, named Gottschalk. In December 1189, during the siege of Segeberg castle, Gottschalk fell ill, and during five days was presumed dead....

 and the Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii

Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii

Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii is a Latin text authored in c. 1180-84 by a monk who identifies himself as H. of Saltrey...

 (an account of a visit to Saint Patrick's Purgatory) or "Owein Miles".

The Latin "Tundalus" was swiftly and widely transmitted through copies, with 172 manuscripts having been discovered to date. During the Middle Ages, the text was also a template for Middle Low German

Middle Low German

Middle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League...

 and Middle High German

Middle High German

Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...

 adaptations such as the rhymed version of "Tundalus" by Alber of Kloster Windberg (around 1190), or the "Niederrheinischer Tundalus" fragments (around 1180/90).

The English “Vision of Tundale”

The Vision of Tundale was a version in Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....

 octosyllabic or short couplets composed by an anyonymous translator around 1400 working from the Anglo-Norman text. Five 15th-century manuscripts survive: three are complete (National Library of Scotland, Advocates 19.3.1; BL Cotton Caligula A.ii and Royal 17.B.xliii); while two are partial (Oxford Bodley 7656 (Ashmole 1491) of 700 lines and MS Takamiya 32, formerly Penrose MS 6, acquired by Prof. T. Takamiya of Keio University Tokyo, of 1600 lines). There are two modern editions of the Middle English text.

Two editions of this text are

The French “Visions du Chavelier Tondal”

The Getty Les Visions du chevalier Tondal

Getty Les Visions du chevalier Tondal

Les Visions du chevalier Tondal is an illuminated manuscript from 1475, now at the Getty Museum, of a French version of the "Visio Tnugdali", of which it is the only fully illuminated manuscript to survive. It has 20 miniatures by Simon Marmion and elaborate borders with "CM" for the initials of...

 is the only fully illuminated version to survive. It contains 20 miniatures by Simon Marmion

Simon Marmion

Simon Marmion was a French or Burgundian Early Netherlandish painter of panels and illuminated manuscripts...

 and elaborate borders with the initials of Margaret of York

Margaret of York

Margaret of York – also by marriage known as Margaret of Burgundy – was Duchess of Burgundy as the third wife of Charles the Bold and acted as a protector of the Duchy after his death. She was a daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the sister of...

, duchess of Burgundy

Duchy of Burgundy

The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...

 and wife of Charles the Bold. The text was scribed by David Aubert

David Aubert

David Aubert was a French calligrapher, who transcribed and adapted courtly romances and chronicles for the court of the Duke of Burgundy...

 in French (Les Visions du chevalier Tondal).

There were also printed editions, twenty-two in German alone, some illustrated with woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s. A scene from the Visio was painted by Hieronymous Bosch, whose many scenes of Heaven and Hell were probably influenced by the work.

Further reading

• Eileen Gardiner, Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante (New York: Italica Press, 1989), pp. 149–95, provides an English translation of the Latin text.

External links

• TEAMS Introduction and text of a Middle English annotated transcription of the Vision of Tundale found in early-fifteenth century manuscripts. Ed. by Edward E. Foster.
• The Vision of Tundale Modern English translation of the Middle English version
• The Getty Museum manuscript in full
• Bibliography on the Vision of Tundale.