The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany | Page 4

(1316-1318),[9] Friar Jordanus
(1321-1323, and 1330)[10] and Giovanni de Marignolli (1347).[11] In
the fifteenth century Henry III of Castile sent Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo
as ambassador to Timur, and towards the end of that century several
Venetian Ambassadors, Caterino Zeno (1472), Josaphat Barbaro (1473)
and Ambrosio Contarini (1473), were at the Persian Court in order to
bring about united action on the part of Venice and Persia against the
Turks.[12] These embassies attracted considerable attention in Europe,
as is shown by numerous pamphlets concerning them, published in
several European countries.[13] In this same century Nicolo de Conti
travelled in India and the account of his wanderings has been recorded
by Poggio.[14]
As we see, most of these travellers are Italians. We know of but one
German, before the year 1500, who went further than the Holy Land,
and that is Johann Schildberger of Munich, whose book of travel was
printed in 1473. Taken prisoner while fighting in Turkish service
against Timur at Angora, he remained in the East from 1395 to 1417,
and got as far as Persia. His description of that country is very meagre;

India, as he expressly states,[15] he never visited, his statements about
that land being mostly plagiarized from Mandeville.[16]
These accounts, however, while they give valuable information
concerning the physical geography, the wealth, size, and wonderful
things of the countries they describe, have little or nothing to say about
the languages or literatures. All that Conti for instance has to say on
this important subject is contained in a single sentence: "Loquendi
idiomata sunt apud Indos plurima, atque inter se varia."[17]
In these accounts it was not so much truthfulness that appealed to the
public, as strangeness and fancifulness. Thus Marco Polo's narrative,
marvelous as it was, never became as popular as the spurious memoirs
of Mandeville, who in serving up his monstrosities ransacked almost
every author, classic or mediæval, on whom he could lay his hands.[18]
In fact a class of books arose which bore the significant name of
_Mirabilia Mundi_ and purported to treat of the whole world, and
especially of India. Such are, for instance, Les Merveilles de l'Inde by
Jean Vauquelin, Fenix de las maravillas del mondo by Raymundus
Lullius, and similar works by Nicolaus Donis, Arnaldus de Badeto and
others.[19] But the great store-house of Oriental marvels on which the
mediæval poets drew for material was the Alexander-romance of
pseudo-Callisthenes, of which there were a number of Latin versions,
the most important being the epitome made by Julius Valerius and the
Historia de Preliis written by the archpresbyter Leo in the tenth century.
The character of the Oriental lore offered in these writings is best
shown by a cursory examination of the work last mentioned.[20] There
we are introduced to a bewildering array of mirabilia, snakes,
hippopotami, scorpions, giant-lobsters, forest-men, bats, elephants,
bearded women, dog-headed people, griffins, white women with long
hair and canine teeth, fire-spouting birds, trees that grow and vanish in
the course of a single day, mountains of adamant, and finally sacred
sun-trees and moon-trees that possess the gift of prophecy. But beyond
some vague reference to asceticism not a trace of knowledge of
Brahmanic life can be found. While the Brahman King Didimus is well
versed in Roman and Greek mythology, he never mentions the name of
any of his own gods. Of real information concerning India there is

almost nothing.

From what we have seen thus far we shall not expect in mediæval
literature conscious imitation or reproduction of works from Persian or
Sanskrit literature. Whatever influence these literatures exerted in
Europe was indirect. If a subject was transmitted from East to West it
was as a rule stripped of its Oriental names and characteristics, and
even its Oriental origin was often forgotten. This is the case with the
greater part of the fables and stories that can be traced to Eastern
sources and have found their way into such works as the _Gesta
Romanorum_, or the writings of Boccaccio, Straparola and Lafontaine.
Sometimes, however, the history of the origin is still remembered, as
for instance in the famous Buch der Beispiele, where the preface begins
thus: "Es ist von den alten wysen der geschlächt der welt dis buoch des
ersten jn yndischer sprauch gedicht und darnach in die buochstaben der
Persen verwandelt,...."[21]
Poems whose subjects are of Eastern origin are not frequent in the
German literature of the middle ages. The most striking example of
such a poem is the "Barlaam und Josaphat" of Rudolph von Ems (about
1225), the story of which, as has been conclusively proved, is nothing
more or less than the legend of Buddha in Christian garb.[22] The well
known "Herzmaere" of the same author has likewise been shown to be
of Indic origin.[23] Then there is a poem of the