This religious author who wrote in Middle High
German composed two verse narratives, Von des
todes gehugde (On the remembrance of death)
and Priesterleben (On the life of priests). He identifies himself in the epilogue to the former as
“Häinrîchen, dînen armen chnecht” (Henry,
God’s lowly servant, v. 1031), and he also begs
God for the salvation of Abbot Erkenfried
(Erchennenfride) of Melk in Upper Austria, who
governed from 1122 to 1163 (v. 1033). Heinrich
characterizes himself as a lay person, a conversus
who had not taken the vows to join the convent as
a monk and was associated with the monastery
of Melk only indirectly.
Both of Heinrich’s texts are preserved in the Vienna miscellany manuscript cod. 2696, Von des
todes gehugde without any text loss (1,042 verses),
but Priesterleben only in fragmentary form (746
verses, probably a loss of 1,900 verses). In the first
poem Heinrich addresses a lay audience and reminds them of their imminent death, admonishing them to change their lives now to meet God’s
demands and to save their souls. His religious appeals address people of all social classes, but above
all, he is concerned with the clerics who have failed
in paying attention to God’s words. According to
Heinrich bishops tend to assign church offices and
parishes to the highest bidder (a sin called simony);
priests, when preaching, would attack only the
poor and spare the rich; and all of them would lead
an almost secular lifestyle. Moreover Heinrich criticizes knights for their blood feuds, he attacks
ladies and their lovers for their decadence and arrogance, and finally, he laments the loss of all
virtues and values at his time, especially since
money and material wealth dominate the world.
The second part of Von des todes gehugde consists
of a gloomy lament about the temporality of
human life and the worthlessness of external, secular glories (a theme called memento mori).
In his Priesterleben, Heinrich intensifies his attacks on the ethical and moral decay of the clergy,
and emphasizes, for instance, their disregard of
celibacy. His criticism also targets those women
who become priests’ concubines. Insofar as Heinrich refers to the common practice of COURTLY
LOVE songs that did not emerge until after 1163,
Abbot Erkenfried could not have been the poet’s
patron. Both Heinrich’s poetic language and the
content suggest that he wrote his poems in the
1170s or 1180s.
Bibliography
Egert, Eugene. “Notes on Heinrich von Melk’s
Priesterleben,” Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren
Germanistik 19 (1983): 147–157.
Gentry, Francis G., ed. A Companion to Middle High
German Literature to the 14th Century. Leiden,
Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
Heinrich von Melk. Von des Todes gehugde. Mahnrede
über den Tod. Mittelhochdeutsch/Neuhochdeutsch.
Edited and translated by Thomas Bein and Susanne
Kramarz. Stuttgart, Germany: Reclam, 1994.
Maurer, Friedrich, ed. Die religiösen Dichtungen des
11. und 12. Jahrhunderts. Nach ihren Formen besprochen. Vol. 3. Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer,
1970.
Mitchell, Earl Douglas. Heinrich von Melk: A Diplomatic Edition. A Translation, and a Commentary.
Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1967,
1969.
Albrecht Classen