Wessobrunn Prayer

The Wessobrunn Prayer (German: Wessobrunner Gebet, also Wessobrunner Schöpfungsgedicht, "Wessobrunn Creation Poem") is among the earliest known poetic works in Old High German, believed to date from the end of the 8th century.

Provenance and reception The poem is named after Wessobrunn Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria, where the sole manuscript containing the text was formerly kept. The abbey was dissolved in 1803 and its library incorporated into the Bavarian Royal Library in Munich, where the manuscript was given the identifier "Clm 22053". The script of the Latin title is uncial, that of the text Caroline minuscule. Paleographic characteristics of the script support production in Bavaria, with some Swabian influence, consistent with an origin in southern Bavaria, likely in the Diocese of Augsburg. The manuscript was probably not written at Wessobrunn, however (the original monastery at Wessobrunn having been destroyed in a Magyar raid in 955). Suggestions for the origin of the manuscript include Regensburg, Benediktbeuern, Staffelsee and Augsburg itself. The manuscript is a convolution of five parts, with a total of 98 folia (numbered to 99, fol. 8 missing). The poem is contained at the end of the second fascicle (foll. 22-66), on foll. 65v/66r, following a collection of Latin excerpts on theology, geography and metrology. The date of composition is put in the reign of Charlemagne, roughly in the 790s (estimates range from "shortly after 772" to "shortly after 800"). The manuscript itself was written in the early 800s, most likely the years just predating 814. The language has some Bavarian characteristics (cootlîh, paum, pereg) besides traces of Low German or Anglo-Saxon influence, specifically in the first line (dat is Low German; gafregin ih parallels OS gifragn ik and AS ȝefraeȝn ic). Anglo-Saxon influence is further suggested by the scribe's representation of the word enti "and" (with one exception) by Tironian et (⁊), and by the use of a "star-rune" ᚷ⃒ (a bindrune combining g and i) to represent the syllable ga- shared by only one other manuscript, also Bavarian, viz., Arundel MS 393 in the British Library. This rune is analogous to the gilch rune in the so-called "Marcomannic runes" of Hrabanus Maurus (De Inventione Litterarum); also comparable in shape is the Old English io rune (ᛡ) and the Younger Futhark h rune (ᚼ). Perrett (1938) went as far as attempting the reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon original of the poem. The text was printed, without attempts at an interpretation, by Bernhard Pez in 1721, again in Monumenta Boica in 1767, under the title De Poeta * Kazungali, and again by Johann Wilhelm Petersen, Veränderungen und Epochen der deutschen Hauptsprache (1787). The first edition of the text with philological commentary and translation is due to F. D. Gräter (1797). Gräter also included a facsimile of a copy by Wessobrunn librarian Anselm Ellinger (1758–1816). Gräter's edition was improved upon by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. The word Kazungali printed in the 1767 transcription was interpreted as the name of the poem's author, but this was recognized as mistaken by Docen (1809). Rather, the word kazungali (equivalent to modern German Gezüngel) is a gloss for "poetry". It is not found on the page of the poem, but four pages earlier (fol. 63r), where [ars] poetica is glossed with "ᚷ̶ kazungali" (with an "asterisk" symbol reminiscent of the "star-rune" but with horizontal bar). The editors of Mon. Boi. were thus inspired to transfer the Old High German gloss for "poetry" to the poem's Latin header.

Text The poem is in two sections: the first is a praise of creation in nine lines of alliterative verse. This is followed by a prayer in prose: Grimm (1812) and Massmann (1824) made attempts at the reconstruction of alliterating verses in the second part, but following Wilhelm Wackernagel (1827:9), the second part is now mostly thought to be intended as prose with occasional alliteration. Some features in the first section reflect the language and idiom of Germanic epic poetry, using alliteration and poetic formulae known from the Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxon traditions (ero ... noh ufhimil, manno miltisto, dat gafregin ih). The cosmological passages in the poem have frequently been compared to similar material in the Völuspá, and in the Rigvedic Nasadiya Sukta. Against this, Wackernagel (1827:17ff) holds that the emphasis of a creatio ex nihilo is genuinely Christian and not found in ancient cosmogonies.

Grimm (1812) and Massmann (1824) agree in the analysis of the first six verses, as shown above. They differ in their analysis of verses seven to nine, and they attempt to restitute an alliterative structure in the "prose" portion (for a total of 15 and 17 verses, respectively), as follows:

Musical settings The poem has been set to music many times in the 20th century. Arrangements include those by Heinrich Kaminski as part of the work Triptychon for voice and organ (1931), and by his pupil Carl Orff, published as part of the series Schulwerk (1950–54). Other settings include those by Hans Josef Wedig, op. 11, (Version 1) (1937), for male choir and organ, and a 1951 motet by Leopold Katt (1917–1965), Mir gestand der Sterblichen Staunen als der Wunder grösstes... (a free translation of the opening line based on the translation by Karl Wolfskehl). One of the most unusual settings is by the German composer Helmut Lachenmann in his Consolation II (1968), in which component phonetic parts of the words of the prayer are vocalised separately by the 16 solo voices in a texture of vocal 'musique concrète'. More recent interpretations by composers in the classical tradition include those by Felix Werder in 1975 for voice and small orchestra, and by Michael Radulescu in two works: De Poëta in 1988 for four choirs and bells, and in another arrangement of 1991 re-worked in 1998 for soprano and organ. Medieval folk groups have adapted the text, including Estampie in their album Fin Amor (2002), and In Extremo in Mein rasend Herz (2005).

References

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