Der humanistische Autordiskurs im Schnittfeld von neulateinischer und volkssprachlicher Mittelalter-Rezeption: Die Barbarossa-Vita des Johannes Adelphus Muling

The Barbarossa. Ein wahrhafftige beschreibung des Lebens und der Geschichte Kaiser Friedrichs I., composed by the humanist and doctor Johannes Adelphus Muling and first printed in Strasbourg in 1520, was the most widespread source on the history of the Emperor Frederick I in the Early Modern Period. Its emergence fits into the national historical debate conducted by contemporary humanists, especially by the Alsazian Circle around Jakob Wimpfeling and Sebastian Brant. The text is a compilation of sources from different genres and cultural provenances. In addition to the mostly Latin texts, both medieval and contemporary, Muling also advertised an excerpt of the Volksbuch vom Kaiser Friedrich Rotbart, first printed in 1519. He thus acted as a mediator of the Latin Barbarossa literature into the vernacular (he himself considered his work as a translation). By connecting different literary discourses, Muling set the course for the formation of the Barbarossa myth, the narratives of which, as is well known, were continued and extended into the modern age. On the basis of an analysis of the formal and content-related text structures, in particular of the complex paratextual apparatus, the interfaces between humanistic and vernacular discourse are pointed out and the text itself is related to Muling’s self-conception as an author.