| 180. Mysterious Truths and Christmas Impulses: Sixteenth Lecture
17 Jan 1918, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| 180. Mysterious Truths and Christmas Impulses: Sixteenth Lecture
17 Jan 1918, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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The things I am now presenting in a somewhat prosaic way in this last lecture, in contrast to the great vistas we have been accustomed to in these meditations, do, however, have a certain inner connection with our entire meditations and also with the present time. And in a sense it was important to me, even if it can only be done in aphoristic form for these things, and again in the form of remarks, perhaps even without further context (otherwise one would have to talk for days on the subject). Just as we tried to penetrate the period that culminated in the 8th century with a few remarks, so we want to consider today the following period, which then culminated in a certain sense in the 15th century for European life. This 15th century is extraordinarily interesting to consider in the most diverse respects, especially to see how it emerges from the European living conditions of the preceding centuries. This century is significant for the reason that it was only in the 15th century that the conditions in Europe were formed within which we are currently living. People think, one might say – we have mentioned this from other points of view – in the short term; they imagine that the way they experience the circumstances around them is constant. But it is not. Living conditions are subject to metamorphoses. And if one does not look at everything from the present-day point of view, as unfortunately happens so often in modern history, but tries to understand the nature of earlier times, which can only be done through spiritual science, especially in practical matters, one comes to the conclusion that times have changed quite considerably. I think I already mentioned in the course of these lectures that, when I recently presented something similar in a lecture, a gentleman said to me at the end: Yes, but spiritual science assumes that these epochs, as they developed, were different from one another; and history shows us that people have actually always been the same, that they have always had the same vices, the same jealousies and so on, that people have not changed significantly; what causes conflict today also caused conflict in the past. I replied to the gentleman at the time: You can go even further with this approach, you can simply take certain very obvious sources of conflict in the present and look for them among the Greek gods, who certainly have very different conditions of existence from all earthly men, and you will find that the things you are looking at can even be found among the Greek gods. Of course, certain human conditions that have been the same everywhere can be found if you look at things abstractly. Indeed, there are even some scientific observations at present that find very similar conditions, family relationships and the like in these or those animal species. Why not! If you just apply enough abstractions, you will find such similarities. But that is not the point. Such a way of looking at things is eminently impractical. Above all, people today, and truly not only people in the broader circles, but precisely influential, very influential circles, look at what national conditions are in Europe and in the educated world in general, as if these national conditions were eternal things. They are not eternal things; but precisely that form of feeling that arises from the national, for example, for today's man, is entirely dependent on what emerged in the 15th century, because before that, especially with regard to these things, Europe was something completely different. What the national structures are today, crystallizing into states, only dates back to the 15th century. And what Europe was before that has nothing to do with the national formations of today. This should be clear from a historical study of the past. If, however, the past does not go back further than the 15th century, then it might happen that someone might express the judgments that can be made about the present as if they were eternal conditions. If, for example, a state structure such as did not exist in Europe before the 15th century could only be established according to European ideas in a territory that became known for European conditions only after the 15th century, which therefore does not have a past in the sense of Europe, where one therefore only thinks in terms of a few centuries and then considers this thinking to be eternal conditions, if one were to think up state ideas or even ideas of nations with such thinking, then at least the judgments that one can make about the present would have to be expressed as if they were eternal conditions. past in the same sense as Europe has, where one thinks only in terms of a few centuries and then mistakes this way of thinking for eternal conditions. If, with such thinking, one were to conceive of state ideas or even ideas of nations, then at least the Europeans should know that such ideas of nations must necessarily have very short legs. In the 15th century, something else occurred that is connected with what I had to mention about the beginnings of Christian development in Europe, especially in the vast Roman Empire. I stated at the time that the Roman Empire had found its downfall through various forces, but that among these forces there was also the fact that there was an incredibly strong outflow of gold to the Orient, that the vast Roman Empire became poor in gold. Now this did not benefit the Romans, who were accustomed to needing gold in the institutions of their empire, and now they had none. This led to decadence. But it benefited the peoples storming in from the north. Due to the various circumstances we mentioned last time, they were organized precisely for direct natural economy. And the strange thing is that – despite the fact that certain conquerors, of whom we have already spoken, laid hold of the lands that had previously been at peace – a certain settledness emerged from the coexistence of the conquered people and the conquerors. Those who were already there in Europe loved their land in a certain sense, and those who had been drawn to it sought a plot of land. And so, out of that event which is usually called the migration of peoples, favorable living conditions arose that can be called: natural economy versus monetary economy. Europe had gradually become such that the Carolingians were forced to take into account the need to set up the conditions in such a way that, to a certain extent, the generous circulation of money could be dispensed with. The Carolingians, and even the Merovingians, these dynasties of rulers, often only meant something for the inner course of events – if you want to look at it objectively – what is called the hour and minute hands of the clock. You are also convinced, aren't you, that it is not the hour and minute hand that forces you to do this or that, and yet you do it; or when you tell the story, you say: I did this at twelve o'clock or one o'clock. - So in the historical account, it depends on the intention that one associates with it. When I say this, I mean the time, the living conditions in this time. But one must be aware that a person like Charlemagne meant something in Europe through his personality, through his outward appearance; because things are concretely different. Louis the Pious, of course, meant nothing more. And when playwrights find themselves dressing up Louis the Pious's family quarrels as grand state affairs, it's nonsense that may interest childish minds sitting in the theater; but it has nothing to do with any “history,” it is worlds away from any real history. It is different when you take the tone-setting Charlemagne and then look away from the lesser ones who came after him; sometimes they are already strangely characterized by the epithets popular in such circles; history has some strange epithets for them: “the Simple,” “the Fat,” which, well, doesn't exactly seem meaningful for something that made a world-historical epoch. But there was a certain tone, a certain tendency in Carolingian life, and this tendency had a much broader effect than perhaps the tendency of any personal center since the 15th century has been able to have. In the Middle Ages, people lived in a time when personality still had a far greater value, a far greater significance, than it had later. Now, these Carolingians had to take into account that, out of the conglomeration of the migration of peoples, settled humanity had gradually emerged over Europe. This settled way of life, which was particularly characteristic of the Saxons in Central Europe and of their descendants who then came to England, to the British Isles, was a general characteristic of the Germanic peoples – I mean in this period, in the Carolingian period, after the migration of peoples had subsided. Settledness, combined with dependence on what is produced directly on the land, thus a farming population, administered by the count in the way I have recently discussed, administered by the clergy, a population in the vicinity of the cities, administered by the bishoprics in the cities; but a population that was settled in terms of agricultural production, in terms of commercial production, and that held something dear to the place with which it was associated, because the conditions of life kept them connected to that place. Of course, trade relations were beginning to develop, but these were more towards the coastal areas. In the areas that were of primary importance for medieval life, people were settled. And the consequence of this was that they were not able to administer and manage as they were accustomed to in the Roman Empire. They had adopted the traditional practices of the educated people who knew what was customary in the Roman Empire. They had adopted this or that practice, and administered it in the Roman Empire in a certain way, and it had proved to be correct. But that was not applicable to the conditions that had developed throughout Europe. It was not applicable because the entire Roman Empire, after it had once reached a certain size, was actually built on the military system of the Roman Empire, on the military system of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is inconceivable in its size without the possibility of sending soldiers everywhere, right into the periphery. The soldiers had to be paid. I already mentioned last time that this required the circulation of gold. And when the gold circulation slowed down, it was no longer possible. And while these conditions were developing, while an empire was developing that was entirely dependent on its internal support, the possibility of its internal expansion, the possibility of developing itself, all views were formed in such a way that everything in these views was based on the military. So one could have said in the Carolingian period: I hire someone who is familiar with the administrative and legal techniques of the Roman Empire. For that had remained with them. But it did not help much, because what was built on the legion system of administrative art could not be applied where it was supposed to be applied across the whole of Europe and now also into Italy, because these conditions had developed for everything, where one had to deal with settled farmers. For at that moment, when one would have forced the peasants, or those who settled down as landlords and were only large farmers, to form legions, as was the case in the Roman Empire, then one would have deprived them of their living conditions. Under such a monetary economy as that of the Roman Empire, the legions could be sent anywhere. But conditions had gradually developed within Europe in such a way that if one had wanted to do it exactly the same way as in the Roman Empire, if the farmer had to go to war or the lord of the manor as a count had to lead the farmers in war, they would have had to take all their fields with them on their backs – which, as is well known, they cannot. The consequence of this was that, since movement was needed among the peoples, something quite different had to gradually develop, an element that is not now like the legion system in the Roman Empire. And this element that emerged came about in the following way. It came about in the following way: I am now talking about the centuries that followed the Carolingian period, because what I am telling you happened over the course of centuries. Gradually, some of the landowners attracted people who entered into their special service and became dependent on them. These were mostly those who were now surplus to requirements in the wide field of natural economy. And these people, who were redundant in the field of natural economy, could be gathered around them when they wanted to undertake military campaigns and military expeditions. These people, who were either redundant due to overpopulation there or there, or who were redundant because they had others do their work for them, these were now the people from whom, gradually, all over Europe, what is now from the Middle Ages onwards as knighthood; knighthood - essentially what one might call “quality warriors”, people who made war their trade, who thus carried out what they did in the service of this or that lord for the sake of this trade. With knighthood, then, a special people of war developed at the same time, which became a special class throughout Europe. And from this arose another necessary consequence: there existed, as it were, two circles of interests. Without realizing these two circles of interests, one does not understand the Middle Ages. There were the wide interests of those to whom it was actually absolutely indifferent whether these knights or their leaders undertook this or that, who wanted nothing more than to cultivate their soil and trade in the immediate vicinity, to pursue their trade. This interest gradually gave rise to the sentiment in Europe that was not yet present at the time of the migration of peoples, which later appeared particularly in the crafts of the cities: the bourgeois sentiment. This spread within one class of the population, and the chivalrous sentiment, which was based on the quality warrior, went parallel to it, but quite apart from the other sentiment. In this way you have given an example – if you look at world history correctly, you will find such things everywhere, only in a different form – but you have given an example of how different classes develop out of certain concrete necessities that arise over time. But that was where a discrepancy occurred. Those who gradually rose through the ranks – isn't that right? I can't tell the whole story, I can only make aphoristic comments – rose from being a landed gentry, by gradually making their surroundings dependent. The whole essence of the Merovingians came about in no other way than that large estate owners extended their networks further, making more people dependent; for when we speak of a Merovingian “state” in history today, it is almost a cliché in comparison! What we call a state today only begins after the 15th century. The Merovingians, who rose to power, initially had to deal only with the people who had joined them as a knightly population, so to speak, the supernumeraries who shared their adventures. Because the territory was a common one, they continually had the other interest groups either against them or had them beside them in such a way that they did not know how to deal with them properly. At that time there was no question of any real organization, such as a state administration, that would have reached into all aspects of life. If one speaks of princes for that time, then these princes basically only had some influence over those who had joined them. Those who sat on their own little plot of land regarded themselves as the independent lords of their own little plot and, if I may use the trivial expression, cared little about those who wanted to rule with them. They did as they pleased. When going back to the time of Louis the Pious, one should not read history today as if what is attributed to him as the “empire” could be attributed to him in such a relationship, so-called to his government, as a state is to its government today. That is not the case at all. These things must be considered in concrete terms. And so one can say that it has been shown that there were constant, diverse, and strongly differentiated interests. This must be taken into account in particular because the historical life of the Middle Ages emerges from these things. Now I said: the 15th century is remarkable for the reason that in the 15th century, again, especially through the natural development of mines and the like, gold appeared in Europe, later through the voyages of discovery; so that since the 15th century, circumstances have arisen that are fundamentally different from the previous ones in that gold has appeared again. And this 15th century, which we can also call the age of the Christian Rosenkreuz, is therefore the one through which we again sailed into the monetary economy in Europe. There is also a mighty turning point in this respect. The last times of the fourth post-Atlantic period in Europe were the moneyless ones, those of the natural economy. That is what we have to bear in mind. And now, during this time, through all the holes in that, what I have described developed, which then, from the 15th century onwards, brought about the gradual change in circumstances so that we can now speak of compact nationalities separated into states. To speak of such a contrast between Germans and French, as one can do since the 15th century, is still quite impossible for the period up to the 15th century, and is even meaningless. What can be called the French nation has only formed very slowly and gradually. Of course, the Franks were distinct from the Saxons; but the Frankish character was no more distinct from the Saxon character than I described it last time. There were tribal differences, not ethnic or national differences, no greater differences than there are today between Prussians and Bavarians, perhaps even smaller in many respects. But everything that had developed there is still connected with the circumstances we have just described. For that which then became the French kingship really emerged from landowning circumstances. And the great difference in the formation of the closed French nationality and the so-called German nationality, which was open in every direction, in the center of Europe is essentially due to the fact that the French members of the Merovingians, Carolingians and so on could more easily smooth over the differences between themselves and the others due to the tribal character; they got along better with the opposing elements. For from all that I have described, it emerged that, initially, the people who were settled on the land, the settled people in general, did not want to go along with anything, did not greet the Gessler's hat anywhere. That was already the custom throughout Europe: nowhere to greet the Gessler's hat. But even those who had become knights gradually sought to settle here and there. Of course, after they had first attained a certain position under the protection of this or that feudal lord, that is, prince, they were very inclined to become independent again. Why should one not be as powerful as the one under whose protection one had become powerful? But this meant that the one who was something like a ruler soon had to deal with unruly elements. And the period of the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries essentially developed in such a way that there was a continuous struggle between the opposing elements and those who wanted to rule over them. What had emerged from the consequences of the migration of peoples could not easily be reduced to some abstract form. One wonders how it actually came about that in what later became France a unified nationality was able to develop relatively early on? For the historical observer, this is in a sense a kind of puzzle that immediately presents itself, and one must try to solve such a puzzle. For one cannot get away from the general saying: nations develop in this or that way. In every corner of the earth, what is a nation develops differently, even if it is later called the same in each case. One asks oneself: how did it happen that from the Merovingian period until the 15th century this compact French nation was able to develop? Now, this is still connected with somewhat earlier conditions. Even when the Roman Empire was still powerful, fewer inhabitants and personalities of the Roman Empire were transferred to Central Germany than to what later became France. The western regions of Europe were actually already very, very much permeated with Romance elements at the time of the Roman Empire. And I said that many things penetrated through the gaps in these conditions. Otherwise, in principle, present-day France is no different from what it was in those centuries, but there is one difference: intermingled with the other population were many Romance elements, Romance personalities with Romance views, interests, inclinations, remnants of the old Roman Empire. And on the wings of the old Roman Empire, one might say, Christianity had gradually spread throughout Europe. Christianity came to France with the Roman element, and came in the same way as it had made its entry into the Roman Empire itself. And it was therefore of some advantage in this area if those who wanted to rule adhered to what was left of the Roman element. Because the settled people and the knights all had a characteristic that made them appear well suited for administration when there were others who were different. If, as in Central Europe, there had been no one as such for a long time, then of course these people had to be used. Right? In Central Europe they did it like this: The people of a certain area came together through purely oral agreements and from time to time they organized what was called a thing. And there, with ideas that were all from the atavistic Hell, they discussed how to punish one or the other who had done something wrong. This was arranged orally, and it was actually quite common in the areas of Central Europe to arrange these things orally. Little was written because the sedentary farmers and knights had the peculiarity that none of them could read or write. You may know that Wolfram von Eschenbach, the famous poet of the Middle Ages, could not read or write a single letter. But the Romance elements that had flooded into Western Europe could. They were also, in the sense that we call it today, educated people. The consequence of this was that, of course, those who wanted to rule made use of these “educated” people, apart from the fact that the clergy were of course taken first from this class. This also led to the connection of the administrative civil service with the spiritual element, which consisted to a large extent of the influx of the Romanic element. But with this and with the church at the same time, which was thus drawn from the Romanic, it came about that the linguistic element began to play an enormous role. And the puzzle that I have hinted at cannot be solved otherwise than by gaining an idea of the tremendous suggestive power of language. With the language that was transformed from Romance in Western Europe, but which retained the Romance style, if I may say so, with this language not only a language but an entire spirit was transferred. For a spirit lives in language with tremendous suggestive power. And this spirit had an overwhelming effect. And the arrival of the Romance spirit on the wings of the Romance language, from the Carolingian period to the 15th century, was a fact. And now the peculiar thing happens: Western Europe is now quite different from the conditions in Central Europe. In Western Europe, what language, which had gradually developed from a Romance element, has suggestively achieved in people's souls, as if from below, is complete. What lay in the broad popular consciousness, in what I have just described as the settled farmers, this settled peasantry with its ancient atavistic clairvoyance - even if these people had become Christians - with the bringing up of their, not faith, but direct insight into what was in the spiritual worlds, that did not emerge everywhere for the people who ruled or administered there above. But in Western Europe, an upper class emerged that, by shaping the language, also had a suggestive effect on the lower classes. We do not need to consider this upper class in terms of how it administered and what legal and administrative conditions emerged; but we do need to consider it as a class of civil servants, as a class of language that into the lower class and with the language the whole suggestive element, which spread as a uniform over a certain territory, before the people from below reacted against what had formed as a ruling class. Because we see until the 15th century what had formed as a ruling class, making its various manipulations; and what is below, does not care about it, remains free, until clashes occur. What rules has the tendency, after all, to draw more and more to itself. By the time the country had reached the point where the peasantry, the original folklore, reacted, the linguistic element with its suggestive power had already been vigorously effective. And you can find it particularly significant in Western Europe, you can see how the broad masses of the people react, who were still within their old spirituality, in their atavistic spirituality. The messenger, the genius of this mass of people, is the Maid of Orleans. With the Maid of Orleans, there arises that which, after language has worked through its suggestive power, is the reaction of the people from below, which forces the French monarchy to take the people into account. You see, until the 15th century, until the appearance of the Maid of Orleans, who actually made France as France, Romanesque flooding, then the appearance of the people's messenger. So that even in this way of the appearance of the folk through the shear science of Joan of Arc, it shows how what was naturally alive everywhere in this folk reacts upwards and only then actually becomes “history” for external history. There were such Maidens of Orleans throughout Europe in those centuries, not with the power of action but with the power of vision. And the foundation on which the Maid of Orleans built was the element spread over the broad peasantry and the broad masses of the people. In the Maid it only came to the surface. It is not described for the people. You have to codify Louis as stupid – no, pious – and his councils and all the stuff that is in the chronicles, what they wrote together, as “history” and you have to make people believe that these great landowners were rulers of states and the like. But basically that is outside of real concrete life. But real life was permeated with what then came to the surface in the genius of the Maid of Orleans and entered into the French character at a time when the suggestive power of language was being exercised. And thus, from below, what was national strength was poured into the French character. That is how it came about. This was not the case in Central Europe. There was no language that exercised such suggestive power. All other conditions were similar, but there was nothing that welded a larger tribal group into a national force through the suggestive power of language. Therefore, in national terms, what exists in Central Europe remains a fluid mass, and – peculiarly – can easily be used for colonization. But the colonization that is done with the population of Central Europe is different from what it is today. When colonization is done today, it is usually to acquire foreign territories. But in the past, people were sent to foreign lands – and in large numbers they were called, the colonizers – and what they then understood from their homeland, they carried into foreign lands. This is what happened in the eastern part of Europe in the broadest sense. But it remained a fluid mass. And while in the West, in particular, the suggestive power of language was effective, in Central Europe there remained the brawls, the quarrels, the differentiated interests that I have described, insubordination above all against those who wanted to rule, which then had the consequence that a widespread, uniform nationality could not develop as it could in the West. There was nothing to suggest the power of language. Therefore, in many cases, those who were the stronger as a result of the circumstances arose. Hence the territorial principalities, which had remained even beyond the 15th century, and which essentially arose because there was no such suggestive power as the power of language in the West. The other element, which now really understood how to deal with some of these circumstances, had to take them into account: the ecclesiastical element, which gradually emerged in Rome from the perished Roman Empire. This ecclesiastical element is called in occult circles the grey shadow of the Roman Empire, because it took over everything that was the way of thinking about administration and the like from the Roman Empire, but applied it to ecclesiastical conditions. This striving of the church had to go in the direction of differentiating itself into what was developing in Europe. And I have already hinted to you a few times about how they in Rome knew how to deal with the situation. From the 9th century to the end of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th century, they knew how to deal with the situation perfectly well, in that they in Rome now actually endeavored to force what they called Christianity into all these situations in an administrative form. If it was possible to convert a city into a bishop's see, then that was done; if there was a peasantry somewhere that one wanted to win over, one built a church for them so that they would gather around it; if there was a lord of the manor somewhere, one tried little by little to replace this lord of the manor by training his son or the like to become a clergyman. The church used all circumstances. And indeed: as never later was the church within these centuries put into the possibility of becoming a universal European power. This process, how the church worked in the 9th, 10th, 11th centuries, is tremendously significant because it really aims to take into account all the concrete circumstances. One must only consider this. The people who were Catholic clergy or priests at the time were not so foolish as to believe that the spirits that people spoke of in atavistic clairvoyance were not spirits; they reckoned that these were real powers, but they sought the appropriate means to fight them. While the princes were not at all able to cope with them, the church was actually able to gradually provide the ideas - which were quite justified for them - with a nomenclature. It is true that in Rome they knew very well that the atavistic clairvoyance is not all about devils, but that these demons are our opponents and we must fight them. One weapon in this fight was to label them as devils, to ascribe them to a particular category. This was a very real fight against the spiritual world that was waged in those days. It was only from the 15th century onwards that people no longer had any awareness of the spiritual powers at work. The strength of the spreading ecclesiastical Christianity lies in the fact that one knew how to deal with what is real: with the spiritual powers. And in the 11th and 12th centuries the process was actually completed to a certain extent. You will only be able to judge the history of the Middle Ages correctly if you bear in mind that all the ecclesiastical arts that were effectively applied and which were great and meaningful arts, had actually been developed in the church from the 9th century, when it was shown, for example, under Pope Nicholas I, how one reckoned strongly with the spiritual powers, how one had to reckon with everything that the people knew through atavistic clairvoyance. And the art of working in the spiritual realm is what actually made the Church great. But by the 11th and 12th centuries these arts had been exhausted. Of course, the old arts were still practiced, but new ones had not been invented, so that one can say: everything else that happens is actually in the service of this mighty spiritual struggle. For even that which appears to set the tone, the establishment of the German-Roman Empire, which passes, not truly, from the West to Central Europe under the Saxon emperors, this coupling of Central Europe with Italy, this recedes more or less in the face of the tremendous power that lies in the fact that the church in these times is pouring an international over Europe that only from the 15th century onwards becomes a national. It is only from the 15th century onwards that the conditions under which people in Europe live at present have developed, also with regard to the peoples of Central Europe. It must be emphasized again and again, for what was actually the basis of what constantly took place between the so-called Roman-German emperors and the popes? You can study this especially if you read the accounts of Henry IV, who may have been distorted in history but was very clever politically. What was at the root of it was always that it was necessary for those who wanted to rule, who should rule for my sake, to tame the unruly. The spreading church was, of course, a good means of combating the unruly - if the church helped. Hence the perpetual binding together of secular power with ecclesiastical power, which in that time could only be achieved through a certain relationship between those who were elected in Central Europe and who, precisely because of what they achieved through this election in Central Europe, had little of their rule but the powers over the unruly, the powers over those whom they actually did not want at all. Just think about it: we are dealing with an elective monarchy. The kings were elected. They were elected by the so-called seven electors. Of these seven electors, however, three were the ecclesiastical princes. The ecclesiastical princes, with the help of the ecclesiastical means, as I have just indicated, were powerful. The archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier had three of the seven votes, and they were powerful. The only other powerful figure was the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who was still in a position to deal with his vassals – as they were later called, subjects – under the circumstances that had developed. But the other three electors, so-called electors, one of whom, for example, was the King of Bohemia, who was unruly himself; the other two ruled over what were then still entirely Slavic regions, along the Elbe and so on, with a strong Slavic population. Kingship really meant nothing more than what the Carolingian Empire meant. The only difference was that Carolingianism had an easier time dealing with what was striving to the surface because the suggestive power of language was there. That was not the case in Central Europe. There is much more I could tell you about how these differences developed in detail, but you can read about it in any history book. If you follow the same points of view that we are applying here, you will read history with different eyes. When the relations that had gradually developed between the papacy and the empire had died down a little, the ecclesiastical element had become so strong that it wanted to pursue independent policies. This was essentially the case in the 11th and 12th centuries. And it is interesting that Pope Innocent III now administered the affairs of Italy, which had been anarchic until then - in a sense, the clergy were the most difficult there - from Rome. Actually, Innocent III is now, as a human and spiritual power, the creator of a national consciousness of the so-called Italians with what came from him. Innocent III is a Lombard offspring, but one can say that what came from him basically made the Italian nation, which actually also became a nation through the impulses that Innocent III laid. The nationalization process was also completed by the 15th century. So it is essentially the church itself that created the national element. Thus, in the formation of the French nation, one must look for the suggestive power of language, and in the Italian nation, directly, the ecclesiastical element. These things only confirm what is obtained in a concrete way from spiritual science, which we have already considered for the various nations. It is quite characteristic of Innocent III that he actually set very specific tasks for the Catholic Church. And one might ask: What then is the task that the papacy set itself after the great period of which I have spoken, from about the 10th, 11th or 12th century onwards, and what has been the mission of the papacy since those centuries? The mission of the papacy, in the Catholic Church in general, consists essentially in keeping Europe from recognizing what the Christ Impulse actually is. More or less consciously, the aim is to establish a church that sets itself the task of completely misunderstanding the actual Christian impulse, not to let the people know what the actual impulse of Christianity is. For wherever an attempt is made to place in the foreground some element that wants to approach the Christian impulse more closely - let us say the element of Francis of Assisi or something similar - it is consumed, but not incorporated into the actual structure of the church's power. The situation in Europe has developed in such a way that the people of Europe have gradually accepted a Christianity that is not Christianity at all. Christianity must first become known again through the spiritual-scientific discovery of Christianity. The fact that the Europeans have accepted a Christianity that is not Christianity has contributed significantly to the fact that talking about the Christian mysteries is an absolute impossibility today. Nothing can be done about this; first, long preparations are needed. For what matters is not that one uses the name of Christ, but that one would be able to properly grasp the essence of what Christianity is. But that was precisely what was to be concealed, what was to be suppressed by what popes like Innocent III did. The external circumstances were already strange, as Innocent III shaped them. For one must not forget that at that time a remarkable victory had been won by the papal side. There was – as you will know from external history – a twofold current in Central Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe: a more papal-friendly current, the so-called Guelph, and an anti-papal current, the Hohenstaufen. The Hohenstaufen were, after all, more or less always in conflict with the popes. But that did not prevent Innocent III from joining forces with the French and the Hohenstaufen to defeat the English and the Guelphs. For it had already come to the point that on the papal side they were now reckoning with the circumstances that subsequently became political. In its better times, the Church could not yet reckon with political circumstances; it had to reckon with concrete circumstances. This gives you a picture of the configuration of Europe and of the gradual insertion, insertion of the universal church into this configuration of Europe. Now, we must not forget that it was essentially a overcoming of the old clairvoyant element by the church. That was one side of it. But the old clairvoyant element continued to develop nevertheless, and you see everywhere where secular and ecclesiastical powers make their compromises that there or there the talk is of the princes or the popes having to lead the fight against the heretics. Just think of the Waldensians and so on, of the Cathars; there are heretical elements everywhere. But they also had their continuation, their development. Gradually something emerged from them, and these were the people who, little by little, looked at Christianity on its own merits. And the strange thing is that, from among the heretics, people gradually emerged who looked at Christianity on its own merits and were able to recognize that what comes from Rome is something different from Christianity. This was a new element in the struggle, which, if you follow it, can be particularly strong for you to face, as the kings of France, who were allied with the Pope, had to wage war against the Count of Toulouse, who was a protector of the heretics of southern France. And you can find something like that in all fields. But these heretics looked at Christianity and could not agree with the political Christianity that came from Rome. So while the conditions I have described were forming, there were also such heretics everywhere, who were actually Christians, who were violently opposed, who often kept quiet, founded all kinds of communities, spread secrets about it. The others were powerful; but they strove for a special Christianity. It would be interesting to study how, on the one hand, the continuous advances from Asia became occasions for what are called the Crusades. But for the papacy, at the same time, the call that was made by Peser of Amiens and others 'on behalf of the pope to the Crusades' was a kind of means of information. Even in those days, the papacy needed some kind of improvement. What had become purely political needed to create an artificial enthusiasm, and essentially the way the papacy conducted the crusades was designed to instill new enthusiasm in the people. But now there were people who actually emerged from the ranks of the heretics, who were the direct development of the heretics. Gottfried von Bouillon was particularly characteristic of these heretical people, who had, however, looked at Christianity; for Gottfried von Bouillon is always distorted in history. It is always presented in history as if Peter of Amiens and Walter of Habenichts went first, could not accomplish anything right, and then, under the same tendency, Gottfried von Bouillon went to Asia Minor with others, and they wanted to continue what Peter of Amiens and Walter of Habenichts should have done. But that cannot be the case. Because this so-called first regulated crusade is something completely different. Gottfried von Bouillon and the others associated with him were essentially - even if they did not outwardly show it - emerged from the ranks of the heretics, for the reasons that I have discussed. And for these, the goal was initially a Christian one: with the help of the Crusades, they wanted to establish a new center against Rome by founding a new center in Jerusalem, and to replace the Christianity of Rome with a true Christianity. The Crusades were directed against Rome by those who were, as it were, initiated into their real secrets. And the secret password of the crusaders was: Jerusalem against Rome. - That is what is little touched upon in external history, but it is so. What was wanted from heretical Christianity in contrast to Roman political Christianity was to be achieved indirectly through the Crusades. But that did not work. The papacy was still too powerful. But what came about was that people's horizons were broadened. One need only remember how narrow they had become in Europe since the time of Augustine. In my book, “Christianity as Mystical Fact,” you will find that Augustine is quoted as saying, and Gregory of Nazianzus and others have also said: Yes, certain things cannot, of course, be reconciled with reason, but the Church, the Catholic Church, prescribes them, so I believe it. - This version, this disastrous information, which was necessary for Europe in many respects, had, however, brought with it the fact that great points of view, which were capable of linking to great sensations, to great worldviews, were avoided. Read the Confessions of Augustine, how he flees from the Manicheans. And actually it is that in the Manichean doctrine he has a world view. One is afraid of it, one is afraid of it, one shies away from it. But over there in Asia, on the basis of what I have described in a very material way as the influx of gold into the Orient, the old Persian doctrine had blossomed and taken a great upswing. The Crusaders broadened their horizons considerably, were able to take up what had actually been buried, and thus many secrets were revealed to them, which they carefully guarded. The consequence of this was that, because they did not have enough power to carry out “Jerusalem against Rome,” they had to keep things secret. Hence, orders and all kinds of associations arose, which preserved certain Christian things under a different guise, because the Church was powerful, in orders and the like, but which are precisely opposed to the Church. At that time, the difference actually emerged that now only comes up when you have visited a church somewhere, let's say in Italy, and someone inside has just preached against the Freemasons: you see people standing there who, of course, couldn't care less about the Freemasons; they don't know any names, but the pastor rants against the Freemasons from the pulpit. This antagonism between the Church and Freemasonry, which nevertheless developed out of heresy, essentially took shape in those days. These and many other phenomena could be cited if one really wants to understand in detail what actually happened in reality back then. And you will have gathered from the whole that life was partly a very varied one, but that the most diverse spiritual interests played havoc with each other. People were confronted with such contradictions as those between the heretics, many of whom were actually Christians in the best sense of the word, and the church Christians. One could cite many other things that then led to the Reformation in Germany, for example, and the like. One could mention that the politicization of the church has led to the church losing more and more of its power, while in earlier times it would have been unthinkable that the church would not have found a way to get what it wanted. In certain areas, one must say, despite the fact that the church was able to burn Hus at the Council of Constance: Husitism has survived and as a power it actually had quite a significance. But what is the actual timbre of these medieval scholars? It is true that a religious movement spread that ultimately took on a purely political form. It's a shame that time is so short; there would be many more interesting things to be said. A religious movement spread that takes on a universal character. Due to the different circumstances, the nationalities in Europe are gradually developing. If you consider that Christianity has brought with it ideas that have become so ingrained in Europe, such as the Fall of Man, then it is possible to create plays like the “Paradeisspiel”, which was performed in large parts of Europe, especially in the 12th century. It has penetrated into the most individual, most elementary circumstances. Ideas that go deep into the heart and soul have become widespread, ideas about what man could actually have been according to – if one may say so – God's original plan and what he has become. This created an atmosphere in which, perhaps never before, and certainly not in our time, has a question been raised again and again and again, emotionally, in so wide a range, the question that is based on the difference between this world here and the world of paradise, between the world that can make people happy. This question, in the most diverse variants, already dominated wide circles. And people who were intelligent, people whose longings were intellectual, often came to direct their striving in a naive, but often also in a matter-of-fact way, towards such riddles. Just look at the whole configuration of the time. With the Roman Empire, Europe became poor in gold. The economy of nature came. Under the natural economy, conditions gradually arose that did not appear paradisiacal to the people. You only have to think of the medieval law of the jungle, of the intermarriage of the ruling families, and so on. The church had spread, for many to such an extent that they said to themselves: It is not Christianity, it is rather there to conceal Christianity, gives rather a false idea of the Christ mystery than a right one. But all this has indeed had the effect that we are not happy. The question: Why is man on earth not happy? Yes, one can say that, more than eating and drinking, this question gradually occupied people in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, especially those who felt something in the right way about the Mystery of Golgotha. Which, of course, has a deep meaning and another meaning, that connected itself with the question for people: Why are we not happy? Under what conditions can a person be happy on earth? Something emerged as a result – in the form it took, it can be traced back to the cause I am about to mention – which will be clear to you from the descriptions I have given. Europe was without gold; natural economy was the basis on which unhappy humanity developed. The Roman papacy veiled Christianity. 'But people should strive for something that is a real human goal. And so, to put it briefly, it sounds paradoxical, but in wider circles, especially in those that emerged from the heresy circle, the mood has developed: Yes, we have become poor in Europe, Romanism has gradually made us poor. And it was realized that only those work their way out who work their way out in the same way that the Roman Empire became great, who had come to gold. How can you paralyze that? How can you paralyze the power of gold? If you can make gold! Thus, the widespread art of experimenting and trying to make gold is connected with the very specific circumstances of the time when there was little gold and only a few individuals came into gold who could use it to tyrannize over others. People strove to balance this out. Because they knew that If everyone can make gold, then gold has no value. Therefore, the ideal became to be able to make gold. They said to themselves: In any case, you can only be happy in a world in which you can make gold. And it is similar with the quest for the “philosopher's stone”, even with the quest for the “homunculus”. Where interests arise as they did from family circumstances - as seen in the divisions of the Carolingians and so on - people cannot be happy. But this is connected with the natural reproduction of man. In any case, if a paradise is possible, it is more likely to be possible if homunculi are created than if ordinary reproduction with all its family relationships continues. Such things, which today sound quite paradoxical and twisted, were something that moved countless minds in those days. And you don't understand the time if you don't know that it was moved by such questions. And then came the 15th century, and that put an end to gold-seeking, of course, in that they discovered America and brought the gold back from there. And then the phenomenon I have just characterized subsided. Universally summarizing all those elements that were active in the Crusades, deepening during the Crusades, summarizing all the longings that lay in the Middle Ages - the art of making gold, of creating the homunculus , to summarize all this in a truly spiritual way so that it could become an active impulse, that was essentially what the companions of Christian Rosenkreutz set out to do. To do this, it was first necessary to come to terms with all the things that had developed up to the 15th century. The time had not yet come to draw new truths from the spirit, and so the impulses of Christian Rosenkreutz, like the efforts of Johann Valentin Andreae, ultimately remained unsuccessful. What did they lead to? They led to the emergence of what I am about to say now, and I would ask you to please pay attention and take it into consideration: Europe is differentiating itself; differentiated structures have emerged from what used to prevail there. It would be interesting, but there is no more time, for me to also tell how the British nation formed in a similar way. Even in the east, the Russian-Slavic nation formed in a corresponding way. All of this could be described. Everywhere it has happened with a reaction from below, only in France it is so significant because the genius from below had a direct character in that it appeared in Joan of Arc. In the face of this differentiation, to do something truly universalistic – for that Romanism is not suitable for being universalistic had just been shown by Innocent III, who founded the Italian nation; so the church is no longer universalistic – to find a spiritual impulse so strong that it transcends all these differentiations, and truly makes humanity a whole, that was essentially what underlay Rosicrucianism. Of course, humanity was not ripe enough to adopt the means and ways to achieve this. But it has always remained an ideal. And just as it is true that humanity is a whole, a unity, it is also true that, even if it takes some time in different forms, such an ideal must be taken up again. And history itself, the way it tends towards the fifteenth century and the way it develops the peculiar configuration in the fifteenth century, is the most vivid proof of this. There is no need to resurrect the old Rosicrucianism, but the ideal on which it was based must be taken up. These are a few aphoristic remarks that I wanted to make at the end. I really wanted to give more suggestions than anything detailed and exhaustive, now that I will have to say goodbye to you again for some time. Over the years, if I may say so, it has become increasingly difficult to say goodbye because it has always happened under less hopeful circumstances. Now, I do not need to assure you that I view the structure and everything associated with it in an honest and sincere way as something that is essentially a real factor in the aspirations that should actually become the aspirations of our time in the broadest sense. I have never seen this structure as merely the hobby of a few individuals or something similar, but I have always seen in this structure and in what it emerges from, on the basis of which it is built, something that must be the cultural ferment of our time, namely, of the future. Therefore, it can be said that a great deal depends on those who have come to understand the significance of this building to also really understand it emphatically and seriously and to represent it with all dignity. Certainly, the building is a first attempt in every respect. But if humanity is to be redeemed in the human being, if that which is trampled underfoot today is to be cultivated in humanity again, then forces will be needed that are of the same nature as those meant by our building, and that are connected with our building. Today, when old religious beliefs and the like criticize this, it sounds very strange; after all, these old religious beliefs have had quite a long time to take effect. And if humanity has reached an impasse today, then it is perhaps not unfounded to ask: If you are saying the same thing you said before, why hasn't it worked before? If it is considered correctly, this may perhaps lead to an understanding of the necessity of what is actually meant here, and what is intended here. And now, however time may change – every time I left, I asked you: May these or those circumstances arise, to the extent that you are able, hold fast to what has led to this undertaking. It is certainly true that the hostility is growing; but consider that even in this unfavorable time, in the course of the last few years, here and there and even in wider circles, some sympathy has arisen precisely for the nature of this undertaking and what is connected with it. And if one does not consider the great task of our spiritual scientific movement, the difficulties it has, the wide gap between what is to be achieved and what is there, if one finally, without becoming foolish on the one hand, but on the other hand without misjudging things, looks at what is developing - one can also look at the good for once - then it is there! Things are moving forward. If you follow with a finer feeling, for example, how such a detail as the eurythmic art has been developed here over the last few years – I think you can see that – then you can say that there is no standstill in our ranks. And if you were to look at the more intimate progress that is taking place within the creation of this building, you can speak of a certain progress. I can even say this today, when I have to say goodbye to you again for some time, with a certain inner heartfelt emotion. When the first steps were taken to create this structure, the first thing to be done was to draw the larger lines, to ensure that this or that happened. But even though we have to focus our attention with deep pain and sorrow on the way this structure has suffered from the general catastrophic conditions of humanity, something else can be said: the circumstances have led me to work much more intensively on the details that arise here at the building site. And it is precisely for this reason that I can say that I may express it here with an agitated heart: what is being built really does express more and more visibly and intimately what is connected with the greater impulses of humanity. Recently, for example, I was able to tell you about the new legend of Isis, which story is meant to be characteristic of the entire situation of the building, characteristic of what I would like to express with it, in saying that this building is meant to be a kind of – let me use the philistine expression, a landmark that separates the old, which will finally have to recognize that it is old, from the new, which wants to become because it must become if humanity is not to end up in ever more catastrophic circumstances. The time will come when people will regret that what was intended with this building was often seen as folly. For this catastrophe of humanity will also have the consequence that many things will be recognized that would not have been recognized without this catastrophe. For it speaks with very, very clear signs. That humanity can be redeemed from man precisely through such impulses as are connected with this building is really supported by many things that could be observed during its construction. Today, you will be particularly confronted with how many cultural works come about externally. Ask yourself whether wherever a church or something similar is built today - it could also be a department store - it is always built in such a way that those who build it and those who work with them are completely immersed in the purpose for which the things are built. One could build some great cathedrals in which the master builders do not really believe in the symbol that is inside. But here it is already a truth that the one works best who is most deeply connected with the matter at hand, who is able to use not only his art but his whole being, who not only works with the outer forms but who wholeheartedly not only works with this world view but lives this world view. And so I must say: It is of particular importance to me, especially this time, to express not only my outward thanks to all those who dedicate their work, their life forces, their thoughts to this building, to those who want to work with us here to bring this work to fruition, but to tell them that I really feel deeply, deeply, what it means that people have come together who want to work here on this work of culture. And out of this feeling, which indeed binds us even more deeply in times when people are as bound as they are in these, I say to you today, as we come to the end of these lectures, a kind of farewell for the time being, for the external physical circumstances. We will remain together in thought. Physical circumstances cannot separate us. But that which will connect us best will be when the power remains alive in us that wants to be built and formed into that which wants to develop into human peace in the stormy times of humanity. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 26, 1915
26 Dec 1915, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Automated Translation Show German We have let two Christmas plays pass before our soul. We may perhaps raise the thought: Are the first and second Christmas plays dedicated in the same sense to the great human cause that is so vividly before our soul these days? |
| And it is very, very significant when you see how these plays were handed down from generation to generation in handwritten form, and how, not when Christmas was approaching, but when Christmas was approaching in the distant past, those who were found suitable for this in the village prepared to perform these plays. |
| I will try to reproduce this 12th-century Christmas carol so that we can see how the simple man also grasped the full greatness of Christ and related it to the whole of cosmic life: He is mighty and strong, who was born at Christmas. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 26, 1915
26 Dec 1915, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation We have let two Christmas plays pass before our soul. We may perhaps raise the thought: Are the first and second Christmas plays dedicated in the same sense to the great human cause that is so vividly before our soul these days? The two plays are fundamentally different, quite different from each other. One can hardly imagine two plays that are more different and yet are dedicated to the same subject. When we consider the first play, we see in all its parts the most wonderful simplicity, childlike simplicity. There is depth of soul, but it is breathed through and lived through everywhere with the most childlike simplicity. The second play moves on the heights of outer physical existence. It is immediately associated with the thought that the Christ Jesus enters the world as a king. He is confronted with the other king, Herod. Then it is shown that two worlds open up before us: the one that, in the good sense, develops humanity further, the world that Jesus Christ serves, and the other world that Ahriman and Lucifer serve, and which is represented by the devilish element. A cosmic, a cosmic-spiritual picture in the highest sense of the word! The connection between the development of humanity and the writing on the stars is immediately apparent. Not the simple, primitive clairvoyance of shepherds, which finds a “shine in the sky” that can be found in the simplest of circumstances, but the deciphering of the writing on the stars, for which all the wisdom of past centuries is necessary and from which one unravels what is to come. That which comes from other worlds shines into our world. In the states of dreaming and sleeping, that which is to happen is guided and directed; in short, occultism and magic permeate the entire play. The two plays are fundamentally different. The first one comes to us, one may truly say, in childlike simplicity and innocence. Yet how infinitely admonishing it is, how infinitely sensitive. But let us first consider only the main idea. The human being who is to prepare the vessel for the Christ enters the world. Its entrance into the world is to be presented, to be demonstrated, that which Jesus is for the people into whose circle of existence he enters. Yes, my dear friends, this idea, this notion, has by no means conquered those circles so readily, within which such plays have been listened to with such fervor and devotion as this one. Karl Julius Schröer, of whom I have often spoken to you, was one of the first collectors of Christmas plays in the 19th century. He collected the Christmas plays in western Hungary, the Oberufer plays, from Bratislava eastwards, and he was able to study the way in which these plays lived and breathed among the people there. And it is very, very significant when you see how these plays were handed down from generation to generation in handwritten form, and how, not when Christmas was approaching, but when Christmas was approaching in the distant past, those who were found suitable for this in the village prepared to perform these plays. Then one sees how closely connected with the content of these plays was the whole annual cycle of life of the people in whose village circles such plays were performed. The time in the mid-19th century, for example, when Schröer collected these plays there, was already the time when they began to die out in the way they had been played until then. Many weeks before Christmas, the boys and girls in the village who were suitable to represent such games had to be found. And they had to prepare themselves. But the preparation did not consist merely of learning by heart and practicing what the play contained in order to represent it; rather, the preparation consisted in the fact that these boys and girls changed their whole way of life, their external way of life. From the time they began their preparations, they were no longer allowed to drink wine or consume alcohol. They were no longer allowed to fight on Sundays, as is usually the case in the village. They had to behave very modestly, they had to become gentle and mild, they were no longer allowed to beat each other up, and they were not allowed to do many other things that were otherwise quite common in villages, especially in those times. In this way, they also prepared themselves morally through the inner mood of their souls. And then it was really as if they were carrying something sacred around in the village when they performed their plays. But this only came about slowly and gradually. Certainly, in many villages in Central Europe in the 19th century there was such a mood, the mood that at Christmas these plays were something sacred. But one can only go back to the 18th century and a little further, and this mood becomes more and more unholy. This mood was not there from the beginning, when these games came to the village, not at all from the beginning, but it only emerged and established itself over time. There were times, one does not even have to go back that far, when one could still find something different. There you could find the village gathering here or there in Central Europe, and a cradle in which the child lay, in which a child lay, not a manger, a cradle in which the child lay, and with it, indeed, the most beautiful girl in the village – Mary must have been beautiful! – but an ugly Joseph, an ugly-looking Joseph! Then a scene similar to the one you saw today was performed. But above all: when it was announced that the Christ was coming, the whole community appeared, and each person stepped on the cradle. Above all, everyone wanted to have stepped on the cradle and rocked the Christ Child, that was what it was all about, and they made a tremendous racket, which was supposed to express that the Christ had come into the world. And in many such older plays, there is a terrible mockery of Joseph, who has always been depicted as an old man in these times, who was laughed at. How did these plays, which were of this nature, actually come into the people? Well, we must of course remember that the first form of the greatest, most powerful earthly idea, the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth, was the idea of the savior who had passed through death, of the one who, through death, won for the earth what we call the meaning of the earth. It was the suffering of Christ that first came into the world in early Christianity. And to the suffering Christ, after all, sacrifices were offered in the various acts that took place in the cycle of the year. But only very slowly and gradually did the child conquer the world. The dying savior first conquered the world, only slowly and gradually did the child conquer it. We must not forget that the liturgy was in Latin and that the people understood nothing. Only gradually did people begin to see something more in the sacrifice of the Mass, which was fixed for Christmas, besides the sacrifice of the Mass that was celebrated three times at Christmas. Perhaps not without good reason – if not for him personally, then for his followers – the idea of showing the mystery of Jesus to the faithful on Christmas night is attributed to Francis of Assisi, who, out of a certain opposition to the old forms and spirit of the church, held his entire doctrine and his entire being. And so we gradually, slowly see how the believing community at Christmas should be offered something that was connected with the great mystery of humanity, with the coming down of Christ Jesus to earth. At first, a manger was set up and figures were merely made. It was not acted out by people, but figures were made: the infant Jesus and Joseph and Mary – but in three dimensions. Gradually, this was replaced by priests dressing up and acting it out in the simplest way. And it was only in the 13th or 14th century that the mood began to develop within the communities that could be described as people saying to themselves: We also want to understand something of what we see, we want to penetrate into the matter. And so people began to be allowed to play individual parts in what was initially only played by the clergy. Now, of course, one must know life in the middle of the Middle Ages to understand how that which was connected with the most sacred was at the same time taken in such a way as I have indicated. At that time it was entirely possible out of a sense of accommodation, so that the village community, the whole community, could say: I too rocked a little with my foot at the cradle where Christ was born! — out of the accommodation of this mood. It could be expressed in this and in many other ways, in the singing that accompanied it, which at times intensified to the point of yodeling, in all that had taken place. But that which was alive in the matter had in itself the strength, one might almost say, to transform itself out of a profane, out of a profanation of the Christmas idea, into the most sacred itself. And the idea of the child appearing in the world conquered the holy of holies in the hearts of the simplest people. That is the wonderful thing about these plays, of which the first was one that was not simply there as it now appears to us, but became so: piety first unfolding in the mood out of impiety, through the power of that which they represent! The Child had first to conquer hearts, had first to find entrance into hearts. Through that which was holy in Itself, It sanctified hearts that at first encountered It with rudeness and untamedness. That is the wonderful thing about the developmental history of these plays, how the mystery of Christ still has to conquer hearts and souls piece by piece. And tomorrow we will take a closer look at some of what has been conquered step by step. Today I would just like to say: it is not without reason that I noticed how admonishingly even the simplest thing is presented in the first game. As I said, slowly and gradually that which came into the world with the mystery of Christ entered into the hearts and souls of human beings. And it is actually the case that the further one goes back in the tradition of the various mysteries of Christ, the more one sees that the form of expression is an elevated one, a spiritually elevated one. I would like to say that the further back one goes, the more one enters into a “cosmic utterance”. We have already incorporated some of this into our reflections, and in the previous Christmas lecture I showed how Gnostic ideas were used to understand the deep mystery of Christ. But even if we follow this or that even in the later periods of the Middle Ages, we find that, as late as the Middle Ages, something is present in the Christmas poems of that time that was later absent: an emphasis on the early Christian idea that Christ descends from the heights of the spirit. We find it in the 11th and 12th centuries when we bring such a Christmas carol before our soul:
Such was the tone that resonated from those who had still understood something of the cosmic significance of the mystery of Christ. Or there was another Christmas poem from the middle of the Middle Ages, a little later than the Carolingian period:
This is the tone that, I would say, sounds from the heights of more theologically colored scholarship down to the people. Now we also hear a little of the sound that rang out at Christmas from the people themselves, when a soul was found that expressed the people's feelings:
That is the prayer that the simple man said and understood. We have read the descent, now we have the ascent. I will try to reproduce this 12th-century Christmas carol so that we can see how the simple man also grasped the full greatness of Christ and related it to the whole of cosmic life: He is mighty and strong, who was born at Christmas. This is the Holy Christ. Everything that is there praises him, except for the devil, who, through his great arrogance, was sent to hell. There is much filth in hell – “much” is the old word for great, mighty – there is much filth in hell. He who has his home there, who is at home in hell, must realize: the sun never shines there, the moon does not help, nor do the bright stars. There everyone who sees something must say to himself how nice it would be if he could go to heaven. He would very much like to be in heaven. In the kingdom of heaven stands a house. A golden path leads to it. The columns are marble, that is, made of marble, adorned with precious stones. But no one enters there who is not completely pure from sin. Anyone who goes to church and stands there without envy may well have a higher life, for there are always young ones, that is, when he has finally ended his life. Remember, I once introduced the word “younger” from the ether body here. Here you have it in the vernacular! So when he is given “young” to the angelic community, he can certainly wait for it, because in heaven life is pure. — And now he who prays this Christmas carol says: I have unfortunately served a man who walks around in hell, who has developed my certain deed. Help me, holy Christ, to be released from his captivity, that is, to be released from the prison of the evil one. So that is in the language of the people:
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| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: January 3, 1917
03 Jan 1917, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| These are not actually Christmas plays or New Year's plays, as one might otherwise see them, although of course there is a similarity. |
| And after the Germanist researcher Weinhold had first begun to record the existing remains of old Christmas and New Year plays, Karl Julius Schröer in the 1850s became aware from Pressburg of special representations of Christmas and New Year plays, Paradeis plays, which took place among the local farmers near Pressburg. These Christmas plays are, of course, related to the Christmas plays and New Year plays in German-speaking areas that are otherwise collected. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: January 3, 1917
03 Jan 1917, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation on the occasion of a performance of the Paradeis-Spiel and the Christ-Geburt-Spiel for German internees from Basel and Bern. Allow me, before all else, to extend to you my warmest greetings and express our satisfaction at being able to see you in our midst today! Please accept what we are about to offer you as something quite modest. It is not intended to be a sample of an excellent performance or a special artistic achievement, but rather, I would say, more of a historical presentation. And so that expectations are not raised too high, I would just like to hint at how it came about that we have been performing these two and some other such Christmas plays, Paradeis plays and the like, in a somewhat indirect relationship with our cause for years in a simple, primitive way. These are not actually Christmas plays or New Year's plays, as one might otherwise see them, although of course there is a similarity. I myself came up with these Christmas plays because when I came to the Vienna Technical University in 1879, I met a professor there who then became a very close friend of mine: Karl Julius Schröer. I myself consider Karl Julius Schröer – he has been dead for many years – to be one of the most important Germanic researchers of modern times, although, as is the case with many important people, he has received very little recognition. He was initially a professor at the University of Budapest, then he spent a long time at the German Lyceum in Bratislava, a city on the way from Vienna to Budapest. And after the Germanist researcher Weinhold had first begun to record the existing remains of old Christmas and New Year plays, Karl Julius Schröer in the 1850s became aware from Pressburg of special representations of Christmas and New Year plays, Paradeis plays, which took place among the local farmers near Pressburg. These Christmas plays are, of course, related to the Christmas plays and New Year plays in German-speaking areas that are otherwise collected. However, I would say that the plays collected by Schröer from the Oberufer region – which can be reached on foot from Pressburg in half an hour and is a German enclave – are more genuine, to the extent that they are a historical document. They are more genuine than those in the other areas. They have been preserved in such a way that the farmers, who were considered suitable, were simply summoned by one of their elders in the fall, when there was no longer any field work to be done. And now these Christmas plays, which have been preserved traditionally, were rehearsed. I would say that they were rehearsed in a truly beautiful and solemn way, not as if it were just something artistic that one wanted to accomplish, but rather it was connected to the whole heartfelt unfolding of the people. You can see this from the fact that those farmers who were allowed to participate in the play, that is, those who were supposed to act in it, really did prepare themselves morally during the weeks when the rehearsals took place and when they were supposed to learn their lines. They should be morally worthy to perform in these plays. There were four conditions that the oldest, who had those manuscripts that were passed down from generation to generation, communicated. So those who were allowed to learn these things had to fulfill four conditions. The first was that they were not allowed to go to a Dirndl during the time when they were supposed to be learning and preparing for the performances; secondly, they were not allowed to sing Schelmenlieder, which was explicitly presented to them as a kind of catechism; thirdly, they were not allowed to get drunk, committing any kind of excess, which was otherwise, of course, common practice in these areas on Sundays; and fourthly, they had to obediently obey the one who was the oldest and who taught them these things, who rehearsed them with them, and so on. If they were found worthy, a copy was given to them, and they were allowed to keep it. The following year, those who were further designated had to have these things copied. So it was not that easy for Schröer to get them right when he found out that such things were being performed out in the country. Because the things had been copied from year to year. A Christmas play had even been very corrupted in 1809 during a flood; and it was also very difficult to read, with various passages missing in different manuscripts. But they were so ingrained in this people that, for example, Schröer, when he was making these lists, realized from certain contexts: Something must be missing there. So he called in a man who had taught the lessons and said: Think about whether something is missing. Yes, yes, said the man, and was then sometimes able to recite pages of whole verses that had been left out and forgotten for years. So, these things were rehearsed, weren't they? And as I said, in the four weeks before Christmas until Epiphany, they were performed among the farmers. And we would like to give you a kind of historical memory: with this. While the Christmas play performances can be traced back to the 11th century, they have remained in the form in which they had lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. And they remained conservative. From year to year, the same form was performed. It was then performed so that the farmers went around to the various villages; no other music was allowed to be heard. Schröer himself once saw that the farmers were received with music in a village where they went to perform the plays. They were very offended, because they said they were not comedians. They really performed it, I would say, like a kind of worship. We actually wanted to perform it in the simple, primitive way that the farmers did it, but there are some things we can't do. The farmers went around the village; the things were simply performed in an ordinary inn. And there are still many other things that we cannot do in the same way. The devil, for example, always dressed much earlier, went through the village with a cow horn, blew into the windows and told the people that they had to come. If he found a cart, he jumped up, pulled the people down and took them to the performance. And so the people went from village to village and performed these things in dialect, in an Austrian dialect, quite similar to Bavarian, a southern German dialect that is native to the areas around Bratislava. From this point of view, I ask you to take these things, preserved from earlier centuries, as unpretentiously as they are meant. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: January 7, 1917
07 Jan 1917, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| We cannot, of course, offer anything complete or perfect in any respect. These are so-called Christmas plays, but Christmas plays that differ in some respects from the others that are performed more and more every year. |
| Now, in the 1950s, after Weinhold had begun collecting various Christmas plays, especially from Silesia, Schröer discovered that in the vicinity of Bratislava, in the so-called Oberufer region, in a corner that is a German enclave, old Christmas plays are still alive. These Christmas plays were performed by the farmers directly during the so-called Holy Season in every winter. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: January 7, 1917
07 Jan 1917, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation on the occasion of the performance of the Christmas plays: the Paradise Play and the Shepherds' Play, to which guests were invited. First of all, I would like to take the liberty of welcoming our esteemed guests here today and express our satisfaction at having you here with us. I would then like to say a few words about what we actually intend with the performances that we will now attempt in a modest way. I would ask you to consider the performances as a modest attempt. We cannot, of course, offer anything complete or perfect in any respect. These are so-called Christmas plays, but Christmas plays that differ in some respects from the others that are performed more and more every year. I would like to briefly mention how I myself came to draw our friends' attention to these Christmas plays to be presented here. When I came to the university in Vienna in 1879, I met Professor Schröer, whose lectures I first attended and who then became a very good friend of mine. He is not well known outside professional circles, but I believe he has made and will continue to make outstanding contributions, particularly to the study of German dialects in Austria and, later, to research into Goethe. In the 1850s, he devoted himself not only to the study of German dialects as they existed among the individual German ethnic groups in the Austrian monarchy, but also to the study of folk customs and the various, I would say, folk cultural treasures. He was a professor at the German Lyceum in Bratislava, which is located on the line between Vienna and Budapest, and then a professor in Budapest; later at the Evangelical School in Vienna and a professor at the Technical University in Vienna. That's where I met him. Now, in the 1950s, after Weinhold had begun collecting various Christmas plays, especially from Silesia, Schröer discovered that in the vicinity of Bratislava, in the so-called Oberufer region, in a corner that is a German enclave, old Christmas plays are still alive. These Christmas plays were performed by the farmers directly during the so-called Holy Season in every winter. We know that such Christmas plays can be traced historically; but they probably go back much further, to the 10th or 11th century. They took, as we know, their starting point from the church; they were initially based on the nativity plays, on the passion plays that were performed in the churches. But then they were separated from the churches and came into the people. Since then, many such Christmas plays have been collected, later by Hartmann and other Germanists, and now, since the suggestion was made, they are being performed in the most diverse places: Palatinate, Upper Bavarian Christmas plays and so on. All these Christmas plays that you can see elsewhere differ in some way from those that Karl Julius Schröer was able to collect in the Pressburg area from the so-called Haidbauern, as these farmers were called in the Oberufer area. He developed a keen sense for these things precisely because he had devoted himself to researching the customs and institutions of these scattered German tribes in the Oberufer region, including the so-called Heanzen, a German enclave, the Zipser Germans, the Transylvanians, the Gottschee Germans, everywhere among the individual tribes that were taken out of the context of German-speaking areas and colonized in these areas, where you can find strange things. So that one can say: the Christmas plays that live in the other areas, in the closed German-speaking areas, have developed further, while here we have preserved something in these plays that dates from the 16th century, at the latest from the first beginnings of the 17th century, and has been preserved as such. The people migrated east, took the things with them, and preserved them as they originally had in their former German homeland. The things that had always been kept in such a way that they survived from year to year in certain families went through the centuries with the generations. Every year, those who were chosen by an older, experienced man to do so, and whom he found suitable among the farm boys and farm girls, had to copy them. At the time when the grape harvest was over, the people were chosen who he thought worthy of performing the things; they were then copied, and because they each had to copy them individually, the older manuscripts in particular were lost. The manuscript on which the one pastoral play that we will see today is based may perhaps date from the beginning of the 18th century; this can be determined from the fact that it contained smudged ink because it survived a flood in 1809 that threatened the area, so that, according to the copy, we have a fairly old form before us. But these things live on in the consciousness of the people in a very wonderful way. Since some of the manuscripts were corrupted, things were occasionally left out; this could be seen from the things that did not match in the beginnings and endings. And Schröer then questioned an old farmer, who had been the keeper of the lore for some time, and said: “You, remember, there must be something missing!” And then the man really did recall whole verses from his memory, which could be inserted. So the things lived on well in the people: from the 16th, beginning of the 17th century among these present-day farmers of the Oberufer region. Today, for the most part, everything has materialized; the things are actually extinct. It is possible that it can still be found in isolated areas in weak latecomers. Now it is particularly interesting that the farmers who performed it were just farmers and not artists. We are trying to set up the performance in such a way that it gives a picture of what it was like among the farmers. I myself have often talked about it with Schröer. We were both extremely interested in it, and I was able to get a picture of how things were among the farmers in the 15th century. It is interesting, however, that a certain mood was associated with the things, which is characterized by the fact that the people who were allowed to play along not only prepared themselves by learning things by heart, rehearsing and so on, but also prepared themselves morally, so to speak. Each person received a piece of paper with the rules he had to follow. If he was considered worthy to play, he had to fulfill four conditions. The performance then began with the first Sunday of Advent, continued through Christmas and into the time of the Epiphany, and some even lasted until the carnival season. But as I said, the players were given a piece of paper on which they had written their moral conditions. Firstly, those who had to play along were not allowed, and this is very important – if you have lived among farmers, you know that these four conditions are extremely important – they were not allowed, and I quote literally, to go to a girl's house during the whole time; secondly, they were not allowed to sing rogue songs or the like; thirdly, they were not allowed to lead a life that could be challenged in any way during the whole time, so they had to live a very modest life, that is, they had to prepare themselves morally, and fourthly, they had to obey unconditionally the one who, as the oldest, was their teacher and who rehearsed these things with them. Then these things were rehearsed, and they then had to perform them in an inn. The set-up was such that the benches for the audience were simply placed in a horseshoe shape, and the play was performed in the middle of the hall, so that those who listened and those who played were in the same room. People regarded it as a thoroughly festive occasion and not at all as something comical. For example, when the people were parading through the village, such a company, as they were called – a company = the whole ensemble of actors playing together, that was called the company – was once greeted with secular music. They explained that they did not want that, they were not actors, and that they should not be subjected to such treatment. Now, I would like to note that ribaldry occurs in things that one might even laugh and smile at from time to time, despite the fact that they are the highest matters of humanity in the play; this must be attributed to the overall mood from which such things arise in the peasantry. It must be clear to everyone that in the peasantry, the highest matters are not actually treated sentimentally, but that the most sacred things can be mixed with the funny and the bawdy. For the peasant mind and for the peasant soul, this does not at all desecrate the highest matters – in the areas there, I mean. The people who listened to it did not just want to listen to things with long faces and in a sentimental mood, but they wanted to have something at the same time that pushed them beyond sentimentality. If you see the Shepherds' Play, you will notice that the child is not just placed in the manger; but the shepherds were instructed by their teacher not just to worship the child, but to set up the manger like a cradle – and actually weigh something with their feet. So that a cheerful mood was actually mixed into the very serious and solemn mood. I notice that in these plays we have something that has had a balancing, harmonizing effect on the population at the same time. The population in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, when these plays were still performed, was half Protestant and half Catholic, one might say. While they were otherwise strictly separated in their religious services and religious practices, they came together in these plays. It is very strange how, when you delve deeper into what has developed from the culture of the vernacular, you find connections that point to ancient human predispositions. Just as a poet wrote a poem in the Lower Austrian German dialect that is like the Homeric Songs in Lower Austrian dialect in hexameters, we see the emergence of something that is called here: the singing of the companionship, something that, despite the differences, is reminiscent of the ancient choruses of Greek tragedy. Of course, we cannot present details that arose in connection with the farming culture here. You will see later that the devil plays a certain role in one of the plays. The devil was not just used as a fellow player. The people moved from village to village, these were the actual Oberufer village S. Martin, Salendorf, Nikolas and so on, the people moved around and performed in the inns that were designated for these things. But the devil got dressed earlier and walked through the village with a cow horn and blew it into all the windows, calling the people together. Of course we can't imitate that here, can we. When he saw a wagon coming, he would jump up and tell the people that they had to come with him to see something beautiful. These were performances that, I would say, held the whole culture together at that time. Now, we will perform two of these plays. In the peasant performances, there was always a third play, but we don't have an edition of that. It was a carnival play. Usually the sequence was that first the shepherd play was played, then the Paradeis play (we will present it the other way around here), and finally, like a kind of satirical play, which in turn is reminiscent of ancient institutions, a carnival play was performed. So it was a real trilogy. We just don't have the carnival play here. So now I ask you to listen to the things in the dialect, which is very similar to the Bavarian-Austrian dialect, but still differs in some ways. It is intended to be only a modest attempt, which is only indirectly related to our anthroposophical work, an attempt to extract the spiritual life of a particular age and to continue it historically. I would like to say: it should be a historical attempt to present a piece of culture that cannot be seen otherwise, in a modest way. The music is by our friend Mr. van der Pals, with the exception of the chorales, which are old, and was composed especially for these Christmas plays. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 30, 1917
30 Dec 1917, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Since the 16th or at least since the beginning of the 17th century, these Christmas plays have been preserved among the German farmers, the so-called Haidbauern, all in personal tradition. |
| In front walked someone carrying a so-called Kranawittbaum, a juniper tree used as a symbol of paradise or a Christmas tree. Behind him came the star-bearer, who carried the star on a pole or on a so-called “scissors”. |
| But as I said, with the old Oberufer play, this is definitely not to be taken in the same way as with the other Christmas plays. The Christmas plays, Easter plays, Passion plays and so on go back to ancient performances, which all actually originated from church celebrations. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 30, 1917
30 Dec 1917, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation on the occasion of the performance of old German Christmas plays for German prisoners of war interned in Switzerland. On behalf of all friends of our anthroposophical movement and especially those who are united here at this building, I have the deepest satisfaction today to greet you most warmly. You will believe in the sincere warmth of this greeting. After all, the feelings we have for you are imbued with everything we are experiencing as a result of those painful events of the present, which are having such a profound impact not only on the general fate of the world, but also on the fate of each individual, especially those whose visit we are meant to be here today. What we would like to offer you are Christmas plays. These performances should be taken without pretension; we ask you to bear this in mind. They are an attempt to revive old memories of European culture. And perhaps I can most easily explain what these plays are about if I take the liberty of drawing your attention to how I myself first became acquainted with them. The content of these games is not directly related to our anthroposophical movement, but this is only apparent. Only someone who misunderstands anthroposophically oriented spiritual science can believe that such tasks as those associated with these Christmas games are not within its scope. After all, the interest in everything that concerns the spiritual life and the development of humanity must be within its scope. I myself was introduced to these plays decades ago, and specifically to the plays that are to be rehearsed here today, through my old friend and teacher, Karl Julius Schröer. Karl Julius Schröer discovered precisely these plays, which are old, which have been performed somewhere, there or there, in earlier times and which are now being renewed. You can see many such games everywhere. But the two games we will be talking about today, and some others, differ from other Christmas games in quite a significant way. Karl Julius Schröer found them on the island of Oberufer in the forties and fifties of the 19th century. This is an island off the island of Schütt, which is formed by the Danube below Pressburg, where Hungary borders Austria. Since the 16th or at least since the beginning of the 17th century, these Christmas plays have been preserved among the German farmers, the so-called Haidbauern, all in personal tradition. They have been passed down from generation to generation. The Haidbauer, from whom Karl Julius Schröer took them over, had actually only copied the individual roles. A complete manuscript of these things was hardly found. They were performed every year by the Oberufer farmers, whenever they could, when the people among the farmers of Upper Hungary had the time. Let us first take a brief look at how it was done. I would like to describe it in the following way. When the autumn work, the harvest work, was done, one of the most respected farmers in the area, who had inherited these games and the right to perform them from his ancestors, would gather a group of young men and rehearse with them from October, November to December, right through to Advent. The sentiment associated with the performance of these plays is actually what is most touching about the matter. It was truly, by going to the performance of these plays revealing the biblical mysteries, that the whole thing was associated with a deep moral consciousness. This is already evident from the conditions imposed on those who wanted to play in them. The farmer who was in charge of the plays in the 1850s communicated these conditions to Karl Julius Schröer in the following way. He said: “Those boys who were allowed to perform, who were to play a role in the plays, had to fulfill the following conditions for the entire period of preparation until the festival: first, they were not allowed to visit any of the girls during that time; second, they were not allowed to sing any rogue songs; and thirdly, they had to lead an honorable life throughout the weeks, which was obviously a very difficult fact for some; fourthly, they had to follow the master unreservedly in all things related to the preparations for the games, who rehearsed them with them. That was just one of the most respected farmers. These plays were performed in front of Catholics and Protestants mixed together, and the performers themselves were too. The plays had a religious character, but not the slightest confessional character. And hostility from any side towards what was to be presented in these plays was actually only on the part of the “intellectuals” in Oberufer. Even back then, the intelligentsia was opposed to such folksy Christmas plays, to such performances inspired by that ethos. Fortunately for us, the intelligentsia at that time consisted of a single schoolmaster who was also the mayor and notary. He was a single personality, but he was dead set against the plays. And the farmers had to perform them in defiance of the local authorities. Only boys were allowed to participate in the performances as actors. For obvious reasons, we have to refrain from this practice; in fact, we cannot imitate some of the refinements associated with those performances, although we try to give an idea of what the farmers were able to offer back then through our own performances. The boys also had to play the female roles. Eva, Maria and so on were played by boys. After weeks of rehearsals, the whole procession of players set off. In front walked someone carrying a so-called Kranawittbaum, a juniper tree used as a symbol of paradise or a Christmas tree. Behind him came the star-bearer, who carried the star on a pole or on a so-called “scissors”. You will see it later: the scissors are designed so that the star can be made closer or further away by rolling up the star scissors. And so the procession moved towards the inn where the performance was to take place. The clothing of those people who played a part, except for the devil and the angel, was only put on in the inn itself. While the people were dressing, the devil, whom you will also get to know, ran around the village, making mischief with a cow horn, drawing attention to himself, speaking to people. In short, he made sure that as many people as possible appeared in the inn where the performance was to take place. The performance itself was such that the audience sat in a kind of horseshoe shape, with the stage in the middle of this horseshoe, which of course we cannot imitate either. You will see that it is essentially biblical memories that were performed. First of all – the performances were staged between three and five o'clock – the Shepherds' Christmas Play was usually performed, which we present here as the second play. It depicted the proclamation of Christ Jesus by the angel, the birth of Christ Jesus, that is, everything that our second play, the Shepherds' Play, will present. Then came the Fall of Man, which depicts the Fall of Man in Paradise – our first play to be performed today – followed, as a rule, by a carnival play. Just as in ancient Greek tragedy a satyr play always followed the drama, so here a carnival play, a comic epilogue, followed. It is noteworthy that the characters who represented sacred individuals – Mary, Joseph and so on, who appeared in the first plays – were not allowed to appear in the carnival play; a certain religious sentiment was associated with these plays. Some of the details are very interesting to follow. If you watch the Shepherds' Play – the second to be performed – today, you will see three innkeepers, at whom the wandering Joseph, who is portrayed as an old man in all these plays, seeks shelter for himself and Mary. They are rejected by the first two innkeepers and led to the stable by the third. This was originally different, but it is still portrayed as such in Oberufer: originally there was an innkeeper, a landlady and her maid. And the idea was linked to that: the innkeeper rejects Joseph and Mary, as does the landlady, only the maid offers them shelter in the stable. Because it probably became difficult to find the necessary young people to play the innkeeper and her maid during the performances, the roles were then transferred to two other innkeepers, so that we now have three innkeepers. But as I said, with the old Oberufer play, this is definitely not to be taken in the same way as with the other Christmas plays. The Christmas plays, Easter plays, Passion plays and so on go back to ancient performances, which all actually originated from church celebrations. In the churches, the clergy originally performed all kinds of things related to the Holy History after the Christmas celebrations, Easter celebrations and so on. Then, in particular due to the fact that the audience grew larger and larger and that the stories were translated from Latin into the vernacular, the games gradually moved from the ecclesiastical to the secular and were performed outside of the church by farmers. And so we present these games to you here. They have been preserved in their original form, which they probably took on in the 16th century. They have been preserved because they most likely originated in southern Germany during the early days of German development, namely in the Lake Constance area. When the various tribes that originally came from the Lake Constance area of southern Germany migrated to Austria and Hungary in earlier centuries, they took these games with them. These games were also present in the homeland, but in the homeland they were constantly changing. There were numerous people, clergy, scholars, who had influence over these things, and the things were corrupted. They were preserved unadulterated under the care of those who, in the midst of the Slavic and Magyar populations, had to rely on themselves and who, over the centuries, preserved things in their original form. That is why it was a real find for Schröer when he discovered these games among the Germans of Upper Hungary in the forties and fifties of the 19th century. For those with a more refined sensibility, they are not at all what the Christmas plays that are so frequently performed today, which have changed over the centuries, are. Rather, they are truly something that takes us back to a part of Europe's past in centuries past. Karl Julius Schröer was particularly suited to preserve something like this. He was truly an exemplary man, a remarkable man, and his memory must be preserved with such things; he was deeply imbued with the idea of how such and similar things actually created the cement that culturally held together this state structure of Austria on the land that was created by those colonists who migrated from the Rhine, from southern Germany, from central Germany, migrated to Upper Hungary, migrated from west to east; also to Styria, to the more southern regions of Hungary, migrated as the Zipser Saxons to Transylvania, migrated as Swabians to the Banat, which, I would like to say, tragically gave up the land on which this culture developed. Now, Schröer was completely imbued with this cultural idea when he refreshed the old memories contained in the Christmas plays. He did many other things as well. And when you immersed yourself with him in his cultural studies, which were so devoid of all coloration of chauvinism but which were deeply imbued with the cultural mission associated with them, you first recognized the full value of the life's work of this man, who collected everything that had already been more or less eradicated from these areas by the mid-19th century due to the spreading cultural trends that dominate this area today. He left us his grammar and dictionaries of the German dialects in Hungary and the Spiš region, which he had carefully prepared, and the Heanzen and Gottscheer dialects, which he treated based on the grammar. His life's work, which he dedicated to literary history and Goethe, actually left a wonderful description of everything that brings together the entire German element, which underlies all cultural areas of this Central European state of Austria as the actual cultural cement. And that is what lives on as a special idea in the research of Karl Julius Schröer. So that we do not just have the product of philological or linguistic scholarship before us, but something that has been collected with heart and mind for that which lives as spirit in these things. And that is why it is so satisfying to be able to refresh these things a little. Our friend Leopold van der Pals has tried to refresh the musical element of these things a little, and with his music you will see the performances here. So one can say that what we are offering you here is the product of the real mystery plays, the various Christmas plays, as they were spread throughout Europe in earlier centuries. But they should not be preserved in the form in which, for example, the world has caricatured the so-called Oberammergau Passion Plays. There is nothing left of what was actually intended in those ancient times. However, some things cannot be revived. For example, a special way of reciting the play, which was still practised among the farmers in the old way, even in the 1950s, cannot be revived. With the exception of particularly solemn moments, when God the Father speaks and the like, everything that was presented was presented by the actors in such a way that they spoke in the spirit of their verse. The verse had four uplifts, he appeared, the tone moved by one tone on the fourth uplift. A certain person, let's say: Joseph, whom you will find later, the husband of Mary, for example, spoke the first heave in the pitch C, then E, then F, then went back again on the fourth heave. The other characters spoke in such a way that they began with a C, and then had the pitch E three times, then went back to C again. With great art, but with a simple, restrained art, these things were presented and one really felt the Christmas and Easter mood with transitions into the secular, without sentimentality, without any element of sentimentality. So in these things is contained what people felt and sensed as their spiritual life when they stepped out of the church into the world. Some passages that may be more difficult to understand will also be explained. The whole thing was of course presented in the local dialect, and there are many things in it that may not be immediately understandable. For example, in the Paradise play, God the Father is referred to as “a Reeb.” When it is said: Eve was made from a rib, you must not think that it is a wrong pronunciation here, when it is said that Eve is created by God the Father from a rib of Adam. The farmer really does not say rib, but rib. The devil then reports in the course of the Herod play once, he has a few rats. Ratten is a corruption of Ratten. Then perhaps it is not generally known the word “Kletzen”.
Now, Kletzen is something that was always eaten at Christmas in the area where the plays were performed: it is made from dried plums and pears. This is said so that people have something to latch onto that they already know. Then there is the word frozzeln, which the devil uses. It means to tease, to mock, to make fun of. There are a number of expressions in both games that may not be immediately understandable. So you will see that one saying in particular is used by the innkeepers:
One might think that the innkeeper thinks he is an innkeeper of a particular stature, shape and has power in his house. But this refers to rank. I, as an innkeeper of my rank, of my standing. He who is so well-positioned, has such prestige, has power in his house, namely the power to attract customers to his inn. So, an innkeeper who knows how to give his house such a reputation as I do, has the power to bring his house into such a reputation that it has many people as guests. That is what is meant by this expression. Clamor means rumor; the farmer uses the word for a rumor that spreads. The angel says: Elizabeth is in the rumor that she is barren. - So it means: the rumor is that she is barren. But the farmer says: rumor, he does not say: the rumor. Then you will hear the word from one of the shepherds: all around. That happens often, it is the custom. I lent him my gloves, as I often do. Then you will often find the word bekern among the shepherd's speeches. This is common in the area where the games were played for something that has happened; a story that has been told. When they see each other, they say: they were cold, frozen; or the expression: the ground is as smooth as a mirror. An especially pretty word is the way one shepherd is made aware that it is already late, that the birds are already chirping – in the farming language, that is piewen.
In the second line, Gallus says:
Kleschen, that's cracking the whip. The carters are already cracking their whips on the road. These are some of the remarks I wanted to make at the beginning of our performance. Overall, the plays speak for themselves. They are the most beautiful reflection of everything that took place in earlier centuries throughout Central Europe, in such festive plays. For example, there is the St. Gallen manuscript, which consists of 340 verses. There are plays that go back to the 11th century. But I believe that all that exists in this regard cannot quite match the intimacy that lies precisely in the Oberufer plays, which were preserved in the Pressburg area until the 1850s. It is fair to say that these games are among those things that have unfortunately been lost, that have disappeared and that one would so much like to revive. For they are truly such that through them one remembers what is so intimately connected with the development of our spiritual life. That is what I wanted to say to you before the performance. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: January 6, 1918
06 Jan 1918, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| It is precisely because they were found in this German colony that they are particularly interesting; more interesting than similar other Christmas and Easter plays, of which there are many, especially now that they are performed here and there. |
| The angel was already dressed, but the other actors had not yet dressed at the teacher's house; the actors then carried a large, as it was said, Kranawittbaum, which is a juniper tree that served as a Christmas tree. So they went, singing all kinds of Christmas carols, from the master's house to the inn, where the things were to be played. |
| There will be a short break between the plays. In between, we will play some Christmas music by Corelli and an Adagio from the first Bach sonata. I have taken the liberty of saying the most important thing about the Christmas plays at the beginning. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: January 6, 1918
06 Jan 1918, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation On behalf of all those who are involved in the construction and the work on the building, and on behalf of all those who work in our Anthroposophical Society, I would like to warmly welcome you as our dear guests and express our great joy that you want to take a look at these unpretentious games of ours – Christmas games. I will take the liberty of saying a few words about these games and will start by describing how we actually came up with these games, the performance of which is somewhat loosely connected to our endeavors, but which, as you will see, are in fact properly integrated into our endeavors. The plays that we will present to you come from the former German region of Upper Hungary, from western Upper Hungary, from Oberufer. They came to Oberufer through immigrants who migrated from more western areas to this eastern part of Central Europe, probably as early as the 16th century, or at least at the beginning of the 17th century. It is precisely because they were found in this German colony that they are particularly interesting; more interesting than similar other Christmas and Easter plays, of which there are many, especially now that they are performed here and there. The ones we are presenting were collected by my dear old friend, the late Karl Julius Schröer, in the 1850s and 1860s in Oberufer near Pressburg among the local farmers. That is to say, he learned from his residence in Pressburg that the so-called German Haidbauern, who had immigrated centuries ago, would perform certain plays in the manner that I will describe in a moment when the Christmas season approached. He then often participated in such plays. He liked them very much and was then able to write down what the individual farmers, who were fellow players, copied down as roles for such plays. And then he was able to put the pieces together. Karl Julius Schröer's intention was to preserve the spiritual heritage that had been preserved in such regions from ancient times – for such things are indeed ancient times. Because the times when Karl Julius Schröer found these plays there were also the times when this old culture was already dying out, replaced by the newer form. And all those similar plays that are performed more in the west of Europe and that, if one has only a rough sense of them, can indeed remind one of the older Christmas plays, as we will hear and see them today, are less interesting because in the areas where they were performed, they were later changed from decade to decade and, one might say, increasingly modernized, so that they no longer have the genuine, exemplary form. On the other hand, we have preserved the genuine form of these games in the 16th century in the games of the farmers in the Zipser and other areas of Hungary, where German farmers settled and preserved German culture as a kind of cultural ferment. It was the case that these people continued to play these games in the exact same way from decade to decade, and that is why they could still be found in the 19th century in the same form in which they had been introduced in the 16th century. That is why these games, which we are trying to present to you in this weak attempt, are particularly interesting. The institutions that Karl Julius Schröer found at the time were that some family in the village of Oberufer – Oberufer is on an island off the island of Schütt, which is formed by the Danube just below Bratislava and is from Bratislava, so that it can be reached by cab in just half an hour. In this village of Oberufer, which was a rich farming village in those days, a respectable farming family would generally own these games. And when the harvest work was over in the fall, the farmer would gather the people, older and younger boys from the village, who were to play. Women were not allowed to play, I must explicitly note that, which of course must be different for easily understandable reasons in our performance today. The older and younger boys who were to play had to learn their roles in October and November until Advent. That these plays were performed with great seriousness, but without any sentimentality, can be seen in particular from the following. It was by no means a matter of playing a mere comedy, but those boys who were to play had to fulfill conditions that were perhaps not so easy for some of them. They had to commit themselves to leading a completely honorable life during the weeks in which they had to prepare for the games; not to sing any rogue songs during that time, and so on. Furthermore, during all this time, they had to follow the instructions given to them by the master of the game to the letter. Under these conditions, the roles were then assigned and learned. The roles of Mary and Eve were also always played by a younger boy. When Christmas time approached, when everyone had learned everything, it was arranged that the angel, whom you will also see here, who led the whole group with a star, dressed up and that the procession of players set off from the teacher's house. The angel was already dressed, but the other actors had not yet dressed at the teacher's house; the actors then carried a large, as it was said, Kranawittbaum, which is a juniper tree that served as a Christmas tree. So they went, singing all kinds of Christmas carols, from the master's house to the inn, where the things were to be played. While they were parading with their big tree, the devil, who had also already dressed and whom you will also get to know in the plays, was meanwhile busy doing all sorts of stupid things. He ran through the whole village with a cow horn, through which he blew terribly, and shouted into all the windows that people had to come to the play. When a wagon passed by, the devil jumped up on the wagon and shouted and tooted from above down, and so on. Then this procession moved little by little towards the inn. There it was arranged that the guests were seated on a number of chairs arranged in horseshoe rows. In the middle was the playground, the stage. And then these plays were performed, which we will see and hear here. Usually the shepherds' play was performed first, which you will see here as the second play. In reality, it was performed first in Oberufer; we are performing it second here. Then came the Paradeis play, which we are performing first. And then came a carnival play, which we have not been able to perform so far because we have not learned it yet, but we may perform it again. Just as in ancient Greece, a so-called satyr play, a comic play, followed the serious performances, a carnival play followed there as well. It is interesting that those people who played the holy characters had a certain prestige from playing Mary and Joseph and the others, and that they were not allowed to play in the carnival play. So the matter was already held sacred. The plays were very well received by the farmers of Oberufer at the time. Only: the entire intelligentsia – as is sometimes the case with such things – was hostile to the performance of these plays. This intelligentsia believed that there was nothing cultured about the plays. So the whole intelligentsia was against it. It was only good for the village that this whole “intelligentsia” consisted only of the schoolmaster, the notary and the municipal council official. But they were all gathered in a single person. So this intelligentsia was indeed unanimous, but it consisted of only one person. These plays were performed. They are basically the real continuation of the way such things have been performed throughout Europe for centuries, but which had been lost by then. We can prove that as early as the 12th century an Adam and Eve play was performed throughout Europe. At the Council of Constance in 1417, such a Christmas play was performed before the emperor in Constance. At one point in the play, you will see that when the Rhine is mentioned, it is clear that the plays really come from a more western region and were introduced in Hungary. In Hungary, the farmers kept the plays pure and true. As a result, I would say that the plays bear their origin on their foreheads, from centuries past to the present. Some things have changed a bit over time since the 16th century. For example, the three shepherds that you will see already exist in the oldest game, but the three innkeepers in the game, as it is no longer played in Oberufer, were not three innkeepers, but rather an innkeeper, his wife, the innkeeper's wife, and a maid. Now you will see two of our innkeepers here, who are quite cruel and reject Mary and Joseph; the third will then be kind. In the very first play, it was the innkeeper who did not accept Joseph and Mary but threw them out; the innkeeper's wife also did not accept them; only the maid showed Joseph and Mary the stable. For example, when things started in Oberufer, they didn't have the necessary material; of course, you always had to have very young boys to play the roles of Mary or the landlady. Often there weren't enough of them, and the roles had to be taken on by older boys. That's obviously where the innkeeper, landlady, and maid were transformed into one innkeeper and two more innkeepers. These plays have undergone many transformations over the centuries. The spectators, who were then to come to the plays – they were always performed on Wednesdays and Sundays between three and five o'clock in the afternoon – had to pay two kreutzers, or four rappen; children paid half. And the performances were, as I said, understood without sentimentality, but with a certain real moral seriousness. This can be seen from the fact – as Schröer himself once experienced, for example – that the actors once refused to play in a village – they then went around the neighborhood to perform the plays there – where they were met by a gang of musicians. They said: “Do you perhaps think that we are comedians? We won't put up with that!” – And they didn't perform the plays. They wanted the matter treated as a very serious one. And when the plays had made their impression on the people, then it can be said that in these areas the memory of what these plays had to say as a simple, unadorned retelling of the biblical stories really did endure for a very, very long time and was very beautiful. It was truly a celebration of Christmas for these villages, which had an extremely significant moral and social influence, deeply affecting the minds of the people. Karl Julius Schröer collected these plays; they have now been printed. But it is very significant that Schröer no longer found the manuscripts, which were rewritten, with the German people, but with a farmer named Malatitsch, that is, with a Slavic farmer. In more recent times, what the entire configuration of the Austrian state had actually brought about over the centuries had flooded in. The heads of state of Hungary and Austria themselves had always issued calls because they needed the influence of Western German culture. As a result, farmers moved there, and these colonies, these German colonies, emerged in the Spiš and Banat regions. These people also moved to other areas, to the Bohemian areas, to Transylvania. They formed a cultural impact everywhere, which is inside the other, but in more recent times it has been flooded by what has passed over it. Schröer is one of those people who studied German folklore in the Austro-Hungarian areas. Decades ago, I got to know in his company how he followed the traces of this old culture in the middle of Austria, and it is a very significant memory for me, what I was able to learn at his side about this culture and its development back then. Schröer not only collected these Christmas plays, but he also compiled grammars and dictionaries from the dialects and accents of the various regions of Austria, in western Hungary, in the Gottschee region, in Transylvania, and in the so-called Heanzen area. This man was one of the last people in the world to compile all of this material from living history. He did so with love, and it was love that preserved these pieces, which we are trying to reproduce here.So, dear attendees, we have come to these pieces and incorporated them into our work here at the Goetheanum, because we are striving to truly cultivate everything that emerges in the spiritual life of humanity. What is usually said about us is mostly nonsense. What we are really doing here is based on an interest in everything that lives spiritually in humanity. These plays have really emerged from a general human interest. When they were performed, Catholics and Protestants sat together in the audience, because that is who was in the area at the time. And among the actors there were both Catholics and Protestants. From this you can see that everything that was alive in these plays had a moral and religious thread, but nothing that was somehow denominational. This is what should be particularly emphasized. Now I will explain a few more expressions from the Paradeis play, that is, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, and from the Shepherds play, so that they are not incomprehensible. The star-scissors are the device with which one can push the star far away from oneself and then bring it close again. And these star-scissors are carried by the leader of the whole, with the star. Here we have arranged things so that, in addition to the bearer of the star, the angel also carries a star, but the star-scissors are what can be used to push the star back and forth. A scream, as you will hear it here in the play, is the same as a rumor. That which is told about someone. All sorts of things are told. A scream, a gossip has arisen. Then you hear the expression gespirrt = closed, locked. Then in the shepherd's play, when the innkeeper wants to boast:
does not mean, as one might easily believe, that he means that the innkeeper has a particularly beautiful stature and therefore has special power in his house. Rather, it means: an innkeeper of my reputation, of my standing, an innkeeper who is as well-positioned as I am, has power in his house, that is, to allow people to move into his house. Then one of the shepherds says to the other that he has lent his gloves to him again and again, that is, repeatedly. Then you will hear the word: Es hat sich etwas verkehrt. That means in those areas, something has happened, something has occurred, something has taken place. Then spiegelkartenhal. That means there was black ice, so you can easily fall over. The forest birds are singing. That means the birds are already chirping. The coachman cracks his whip. Then I would like to draw your attention to the beginning of the play, where God speaks to Adam, whom he made out of clay, out of earth, which apparently does not rhyme, but in the local dialect it is:
You don't have to imagine Rieben, as if it were badly pronounced, but that's what the farmer says instead of ribs. Rieben. So Eve is not made from a turnip, but from a rib = Rieben, and it rhymes correctly with love.
Råtzen is something you talk about. The devil has a råtzen, that is, he takes pleasure in something. Frozzelei, that is: to make a fool of, to lead around by the nose. This is also an expression that the devil will use. — Logament. The farmer usually says it when he speaks of his inn or his house; he pronounces it in a very educated way, at least he thinks he does: in my logament — so that one does not notice that he is using a foreign expression. Then:
Kletzen are dried pears and plums that people prepare, especially at Christmas. These are some things that I wanted to mention in advance so that the expressions are not left unintelligible. Otherwise, I would just like to say that, of course, the plays must speak for themselves by expressing in a simple and unadorned way what people could take from the stories of the Old and New Testaments, what should pass into their minds and hearts. I ask you to receive them as they are meant. The plays should be accepted without pretension. Of course, we cannot reproduce them exactly in the same form as the farmers performed them; but as far as we can, we should try. Our friend, Mr. Leopold van der Pals, has once again tried to renew the music. You will find it as an accompanying piece. There will be a short break between the plays. In between, we will play some Christmas music by Corelli and an Adagio from the first Bach sonata. I have taken the liberty of saying the most important thing about the Christmas plays at the beginning. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 19, 1920
19 Dec 1920, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Among other cultural possessions that they owned in their simplicity, they also brought these Christmas plays with them to their new homes. Karl Julius Schröer, with whom I talked a lot about these things in my youth, who was able to tell me from his personal experiences how, in turn, in his youth - in the forties and fifties of the last century - among these, I would say Slavic and Magyar populations, these Christmas games were always performed by the devious Germans living there, and they really had an extraordinarily serious effect on the minds of these people around Christmas time, with great zeal. In these Christmas games, we therefore have germs that have gradually developed from a longer cultural tradition that we can trace back to the 13th century. |
| Nevertheless, as Schröer found them, they came, as I said, to the Oberufer, to the Pressburg area – as they are also called Oberufer Christmas plays – for performance, east of Pressburg. So they were played there during the Christmas season, even though they originated quite elsewhere. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 19, 1920
19 Dec 1920, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation We will take the liberty of showing you Christmas games from ancient folklore today. The two games that we are presenting here were found by Karl Julius Schröer in the 1850s in the German-speaking enclaves in Hungary, in the area north of the Danube and west of Bratislava. Germans immigrated to these areas at the end of the Middle Ages and even a little later. Among other cultural possessions that they owned in their simplicity, they also brought these Christmas plays with them to their new homes. Karl Julius Schröer, with whom I talked a lot about these things in my youth, who was able to tell me from his personal experiences how, in turn, in his youth - in the forties and fifties of the last century - among these, I would say Slavic and Magyar populations, these Christmas games were always performed by the devious Germans living there, and they really had an extraordinarily serious effect on the minds of these people around Christmas time, with great zeal. In these Christmas games, we therefore have germs that have gradually developed from a longer cultural tradition that we can trace back to the 13th century. So that until the last decades of the 12th century, the need arose to present to the people, in a dramatic way, what refers to the biblical story, what refers to the Christian traditions, namely also to the Christian legend, throughout the widest areas of Central Europe – through Thuringia to the Rhine and across the Rhine to Alsace, then through all of southern Germany, through northern Switzerland. It can be said that much of modern drama is based on these mystery plays – that is what they are called, after all. Initially, these plays were linked to church services. When Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi and many other holy festivals approached, people gathered in the church. The church itself was decorated in the most diverse ways. And in the 12th and 13th centuries, the clergy themselves performed, initially in Latin, what was contained within the Christian tradition, within the Gospel story. So we can easily trace back how, for example, the scene at Christ's tomb was dramatically depicted. Three priests dressed as women: the three women who came to the tomb; an angel sitting on the tomb that had just been left. What the Gospels tell us, what tradition has preserved, was dramatically depicted. But people also gradually began to present the things that were initially presented in Latin in the vernacular. And in the 14th century we already see very elaborate dramatic presentations, for example of the story of the wise and foolish virgins. We know that in 1322 in Thuringia, at the foot of the Wartburg, in Eisenach, in the house “die Rolle”, a play about the wise and foolish virgins was performed that was so significant in the fate of a person that the landgrave Frederick, who was present, who has the remarkable epithet, “with the bitten cheek,” that the landgrave Frederick with the bitten cheek had a stroke from it and even died in 1323 as a result of this impression. But not everyone felt the same way; rather, it was precisely what was presented by such performances that was extraordinarily solemn in those times. For a long time, the dramatic representation that was given in Eisenach and made such a great impression was lost. The play was later rediscovered, curiously in Mulhouse in Alsace, at Tegernsee and in a monastery in Benediktbeuern, so that one can see, precisely from this appearance at Tegernsee, that these things actually moved from the south to the north. We then very soon find that it is no longer only clergy who present these things, but that these things have been taken up by the people and become very dear to the people. The people were extremely fond of them. We see what has been carried out. We can still see this in one piece of writing that has been preserved. We learn from this writing that in the 15th century the entire story of Christ Jesus on earth was performed: from the wedding at Cana in Galilee to the resurrection. And everywhere we see that the most effective moments, the moments that were most effective for the external view, were emphasized in an extraordinarily dramatic and spiritual way, always the things that the people themselves experienced in these performances. And we may assume that in the 15th century, at the end of the 16th century and for a large part of the German-speaking areas, these folk plays were performed at Christmas time, at Easter time, at Whitsun, on Corpus Christi and at other festivals. One of the Christmas plays is a “Paradeis” play, which was more closely associated with the Advent season; the other is a direct Christian shepherd play, which we are presenting here before you. As you will see from the introduction to the second play, it was performed throughout the Rhine region, and these plays were also performed on the road. Nevertheless, as Schröer found them, they came, as I said, to the Oberufer, to the Pressburg area – as they are also called Oberufer Christmas plays – for performance, east of Pressburg. So they were played there during the Christmas season, even though they originated quite elsewhere. Originally they were played where the Rhine flows through. They were taken along by a community that had migrated eastwards and settled east of the Danube in Banat and so on. There these games were continued until well into the 19th century. In recent times, many such treasures of the people were lost due to the events of the time, which became quite different. But those who still saw the plays were deeply moved, not only by the play itself, but especially by the way in which these plays were introduced. When the grape harvest was over, in the fall, the clergyman and a few others, the local teacher, gathered the young men they thought capable of staging such a Christmas play. For many weeks, the exercises, the preliminary exercises, were practiced. And from the way in which people had to prepare for the solemnity of these plays, one can see the spirit in which such things were undertaken. There lived, I might say, an inwardly cozy Christianity, an inwardly cozy Christianity. One sees it in the whole way of introducing such plays. There were definite rules according to which these games were prepared for many weeks. The clergyman or the teacher gathered the boys together. As a rule, the female roles were also played by boys; we cannot imitate that here. Our female members would protest too much against that, but in the Oberufer area, where Karl Julius Schröer discovered these things, it was definitely boys who also played the female roles. These youths were given strict rules. Rules were made that are now, as we have been trying to revive these plays within our circles for years, for those of our honored listeners who wish to attend. These rules no longer have the same significance for our performers, but they show us how seriously these things were taken. For example, one of the rules was that those who were to participate in the play had to lead honorable lives for the many weeks, especially evening after evening for all those weeks, while they were going through these rehearsals. Well, it goes without saying that our people always lead honorable lives! So this rule has no further significance for us. Furthermore, no mischief was allowed. That should not be the rule among anthroposophists. However, there was also a regulation, a kind of punishment, which we are not introducing here simply because there would be too much protest against it, and if it were necessary to demand it, it would not be adhered to. It was a strict rule that for every memory lapse that occurred during the dress rehearsal and especially during the performances themselves, strict penalties had to be paid by the fellow player! As I said, we cannot introduce that. Because these penalties would never be paid by us. But now there was one very strict regulation, ladies and gentlemen, that we cannot introduce at all. This strict regulation was that during the rehearsals, the rehearsers had to be strictly obedient to the clergyman or teacher, that is, to everyone who had to be a teacher. Well, you will understand that we can never introduce that among ourselves, of course. But you can see from these strict paragraphs how extraordinarily seriously this matter was taken. And it is this seriousness that strikes you when you delve into the whole way in which these games were played. Not sentimentally, often interspersed with a delightful sense of humor, these things were originally given by the clergy out of their sense of the people, but the people took hold of them and absorbed them completely in their spirit. So that, as they are presented here, they are thoroughly folksy and take us back to the feelings, the perceptions, the thoughts of a part of Christian society in the 16th century, perhaps still in the 15th century. All this comes to mind when we look at these games. We may imagine that over a large part of Central Europe, over the areas I mentioned earlier, from the 14th century into the following centuries – in some areas, as you can see, this only gradually disappeared in the 19th century – at all so-called holy times these plays, that is, the Christmas play, the Easter play, the Whitsun play, were performed. And the way in which these people have brought Christianity to life within them, how they present the Gospels to us in an extraordinarily vivid and popular way, shows that they have made a deep impact on the people. And we also consider it our task to draw attention to how the spiritual life has been preserved through the centuries, and how a part of the spiritual life of Central Europe has been preserved. Those who have seen how this spiritual life of Central Europe, insofar as it was folk life, gradually died out in the second half of the 19th century, will be able to feel a lot through this resurrection of old folk times. It is in this spirit, ladies and gentlemen, that we would like to present the Paradeis play to you today, followed by the Christ-Birth play. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 22, 1920
22 Dec 1920, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Automated Translation Show German The two Christmas plays to be performed today were performed in the same way as they have been played over the centuries until the mid-19th century in the German-speaking communities in Hungary, a little east of Pressburg and north of the Danube, in the area known as Oberufer. |
| It was always passed down from father to son. And when Christmas time approached, when the grape harvest was over in the fall, the person who had the manuscript would gather together with the clergy, the local pastor, those boys whom he considered suitable to perform the play that year. |
| From the moment they began rehearsals after the grape harvest, they practiced the whole week. From the grape harvest until Christmas, when the performance took place, strict rules were given by their teacher, pastor, teacher and by the master who had the piece. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 22, 1920
22 Dec 1920, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation The two Christmas plays to be performed today were performed in the same way as they have been played over the centuries until the mid-19th century in the German-speaking communities in Hungary, a little east of Pressburg and north of the Danube, in the area known as Oberufer. At that time, Hungary was thoroughly permeated by German colonists in these areas, both north of the Danube, past the Carpathians and south of it into Transylvania, thus across the Spiš region, then again towards Banat, the area of its west, who had been immigrating to Hungary from the west for several centuries, taking their cultural treasures with them. And these games are probably the most valuable of these cultural treasures. These games take us back to the 11th century. They originated from the impulse of that which takes place in the churches and has an effect on folklore, the content of the sacred legends, the content of the Bible, in a dramatic way. Originally, it was really like that, as it was in Greece, where all the drama emerged from the Dionysus plays. It was similar in the Middle Ages from the 10th and 11th centuries onwards. They decorated the altar and the rest of the church. At first, it was clergy who performed these plays. We find as far back as the 11th century three clergymen dressed as women performing the scene at Christ's tomb in the church itself, after the death had occurred. Two of the priests portrayed the women who had come to the tomb, the third the angel. This is basically one of the oldest motifs, and these things originated from such biblical motifs. We then find, for example, that a very frequently performed play was one that presented three consecutive scenes: the women's walk to the tomb of Christ, the Savior's conversation with Magdalene, and then a chorus of the women and disciples as the third part. These things were developed more and more. At the beginning of the 14th century, for example, we find that in most areas of Central Europe, quite large and significant plays were sometimes performed at Christian festivals. We are told, for example, how on April 24, 1322, in Thuringia, at the foot of the Wartburg, in the house “die Rolle”, a play was performed by the ten virgins, the wise and the foolish virgins , and the entire period that followed is recorded in reports that have been left over, which describe the extraordinarily impressive nature of this performance of Sunday Misericordiae, on April 24, 1322. Indeed, the impressive nature of the performance is described in a very real way. One of the participants in this play was Landgrave Frederick, who bore the curious epithet “with the bitten cheek”; this Frederick, who was apparently somewhat weak when he participated in this play of the wise and foolish virgins, was so moved that he was struck down by a stroke and lived for barely two more years, dying in 1323. This play was then found in Mulhouse, has now also been printed and is one of the most interesting monuments of dramatic art that has emerged from the church, that is, from the sacred action that has gradually been transformed into perception. We then have a very interesting play from a somewhat later period, which even has about 1340 verses and which has been preserved in a St. Gallen manuscript. It contains the entire Holy History from the Wedding at Cana in Galilee to the Resurrection, and in an extraordinarily impressive way, in that the scenes where Christ is active as a teacher are emphasized throughout. And the way in which the scenes were staged seems to reveal an extraordinarily skillful dramatic plot. The process was so well presented that at first only a few scenes were shown in a very dramatic way, interspersed with narration and pantomime. So when we go back to the 12th or 13th century, the presentation is such that something particularly gripping is presented, then pantomime follows and then there is narration again. But gradually this way of presenting things moved completely into the dramatic. You can also see how things from the church gradually grew into the profane. The oldest pieces that have been preserved were written in Latin. Then only the headings and individual sentences were in Latin, the text in the vernacular, and then gradually, as we move into the 15th and 16th centuries, the pieces are written entirely in the vernacular, and they also penetrate from the church outwards. The plays that are presented to you today were performed in the vicinity of Pressburg, especially in the vicinity of the Oberufer region, in the inns, so the matter gradually penetrated from the church into the people. We see how, with tremendous seriousness, what could be felt and sensed by the people through the Christ impulse lives in these plays. Later on, one sees how more and more traditions that are not in the Bible but that are present in tradition are incorporated into these pieces in the secular legend. The plays were performed not only at Christmas but also at Easter, at Pentecost, at Corpus Christi, in some areas at the feast of St. Rosalie and so on, but they always followed what the church calendar offered. It can be seen everywhere how the sentiments from the Holy History, which run according to the course of the year, are also contained in these pieces, so that we have received a wonderful piece of genuine folk culture through which we can see back into the centuries of spiritual life, as it was in Central Europe and then taken over to the East. We still have such a wonderful piece of folk culture in it. In the later pieces, we must particularly admire the fact that, on the one hand, a real seriousness, a great seriousness and a truly Christian attitude live in the pieces, but that they are not sentimental at all. To interpret such pieces sentimentally in the performance would be a completely erroneous note, because in the people, even in the most sacred, a healthy sense of humor always plays a role. And one can say: it is precisely in this that the true seriousness is expressed, that the people did not become sentimentally untrue, but brought their humor into it, and yet also expressed the full seriousness of the sacred story. These two pieces also come from this tradition. They must have originated in completely different areas than the one in which they were last found, because in the introduction to the second piece we will hear how reference is made to the sea and the Rhine; the sea, which could be Lake Constance, and the Rhine, which in any case does not flow in the Bratislava area. So these plays originally came from the west and were brought to Hungary by German colonists migrating east, where they then continued to be performed. And Karl Julius Schröer, who saw the plays performed and wrote them down in his book “Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungarn” (German Christmas Plays from Hungary), after listening to those who performed them and they remembered for the performance, listened to and wrote down, not copied from somewhere, but written down according to the wording, because the people held these pieces in extremely high esteem and kept them safe. There have always been a few respected families within the village, in most villages even only one, who kept the manuscript. It was always passed down from father to son. And when Christmas time approached, when the grape harvest was over in the fall, the person who had the manuscript would gather together with the clergy, the local pastor, those boys whom he considered suitable to perform the play that year. The female roles were also played by boys, something that we cannot imitate here, although we try very hard to stay in the style of the performance, because our women would remonstrate too much if we only had the plays performed by men. It would not be possible to do such a thing in our country. But otherwise we do indeed remain in the style that has been preserved into the 19th century. In my youth, I talked a lot about these things with my revered teacher, Karl Julius Schröer, who was completely immersed in these matters. We talked a lot about the way these plays were performed, and it is quite possible, even though we work under completely different conditions, not in a rural inn or the like and not with the direct participation of the entire population, as it was there, it is still possible to stay in the style approximately. The seriousness with which these people approached the matter could be seen from the fact that strict rules were in place regarding how the people who took part in the performance as actors should live. From the moment they began rehearsals after the grape harvest, they practiced the whole week. From the grape harvest until Christmas, when the performance took place, strict rules were given by their teacher, pastor, teacher and by the master who had the piece. Such rules, which extended to the whole life of these boys, show how seriously the matter was undertaken. We hear, for example, that the people who were to participate had to fulfill one condition. We do not need to prescribe this because it goes without saying that anthroposophists lead honorable lives, but this does not always seem to have been the case with the local boys. So the strict rule was given: the boys must lead honorable lives the whole time while the rehearsals are taking place. The second condition that had to be observed was this: they must not sing any roguish songs during the entire time. Now, I have never heard anthroposophists sing roguish songs, so this condition does not apply to our fellow players! However, we cannot fulfill the third condition, which was set by the teachers for the local boys. That is that they must obey their teachers in the strictest way while the rehearsals are taking place. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is not feasible for us! So such a regulation would not help us at all. Nor could a regulation be enforced that stipulates that penalties must be imposed for every memory error, because, firstly, our people claim that they do not make any memory mistakes, and, secondly, they would never pay a penalty! But you can see from these strict conditions that the matter was taken extremely seriously. It is truly a wonderful Christian life that has been preserved. Under modern conditions, these things are also being completely lost. For years, we have considered it one of our tasks to present such things, which lead more than any theoretical historical reflection into the life of the past, in turn vividly to the minds of the present, and we believe that it is really possible in this way to show how Christianity from the 11th to the 19th century lived in numerous minds in Central Europe, far to the south. We believe that it can be shown how Christian sentiment was present in the hearts of these people, and that what they achieved and showed in such games at all times of the year was an expression of their Christian sentiment. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 23, 1921
23 Dec 1921, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Schröer was able to establish that such Christmas plays were handed down from generation to generation like a sacred treasure, rehearsed each time the Christmas season approached, and then performed at Christmas time. These Christmas plays were in the possession of one particularly favored family. When the grape harvest was over in the fall and the country folk had some free time, the owner of the manuscript of such Christmas plays would gather the local boys he thought suitable and prepare them for performance at Christmas time by rehearsing them. |
| “Adam and Eve” is the festival that precedes December 25th in the calendar, the actual Christmas. And for the Christmas season, which was later the Christmas season, something like the Christ-Birth Play, which we will allow ourselves to do tomorrow, was usually planned for the Christmas season, followed by this Paradise Play. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 23, 1921
23 Dec 1921, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation We will take the liberty of presenting to you in the next few days some German Christmas plays that have been preserved from older folklore. Today we will begin by presenting a so-called Paradeis play. These Christmas plays are deeply rooted in Central European-German folklore and, when viewed today, are actually a living historical representation. The revival of these plays gives us a much more vivid picture of the development of the people than any other historical account. In Europe, drama originated from church performances. We can trace such church performances historically quite far back, to the 12th century; but they actually go back much further. From the 12th century, there are reports of a frequently performed ecclesiastical drama called “The Antichrist”; this “Antichrist” existed in the most diverse forms. And it is extraordinarily remarkable to see how magnificent struggles were depicted in this “Antichrist”, which took place between the European and Asian peoples. Later, the suffering and birth of Christ and other church memories were first presented by clergymen in the churches themselves. They then became secular events, with the clergymen first performing these sacred plays outside the church, and then the performances were also taken over by secular persons. One particularly noteworthy play, for example, was that of the “Ten Virgins”. A performance of the “Ten Virgins” that took place in Eisenach in 1322, at the foot of the Wartburg, was so moving that the present Landgrave Frederick “with the bitten cheek” was disconsolate that, as this play stated, it was not possible for even the Holy Virgin to redeem the exiles through her intercession. The powerful impression made on him by this play with this tendency struck him down. He wasted away and died as a result of the impression made on him by this play of the “Ten Virgins.” This story is told a great deal throughout the Middle Ages that followed. In short, we find traces of such sacred plays throughout Central Europe, These spiritual plays, which then became popular, appear to us in the following centuries in the most varied forms as festival plays, Christmas plays, Easter plays or carnival plays. It is particularly interesting to note how we can follow the migrating German tribes taking these plays with them on their wanderings. We must be clear about the fact that more German tribes living in the west of Central Europe, who then moved eastwards, to Austria, populated the Bohemian regions, but especially Hungary, took their games with them as a precious, sacred possession and performed these games in an extraordinarily remarkable way. These games lived on in the people without the educated classes taking much notice of them. It was only when German studies of antiquity gained a certain depth in the 19th century that individual scholars of antiquity began to perform these plays based on popular tradition. One of those who went to great lengths to track down such folk traditions in the most diverse German areas of Hungary was my old friend and former teacher Karl Julius Schröer. It is thanks to him that the German Christmas plays, especially from the Pressburg area, have been preserved, at least in writing. Karl Julius Schröer found these Christmas plays in northwestern Hungary, in the Pressburg area, in the so-called Oberufer area. These Christmas plays showed, through their content and language, that they had been brought from more western areas by German tribes migrating east. Schröer was able to establish that such Christmas plays were handed down from generation to generation like a sacred treasure, rehearsed each time the Christmas season approached, and then performed at Christmas time. These Christmas plays were in the possession of one particularly favored family. When the grape harvest was over in the fall and the country folk had some free time, the owner of the manuscript of such Christmas plays would gather the local boys he thought suitable and prepare them for performance at Christmas time by rehearsing them. There was something very special about such performances; they were treated as having a deeply religious side. This is evident from the strict rules that existed for those who had rehearsed these plays for many weeks under the direction of the master. Such rules were, for example, that those boys who were chosen to study and perform this Christmas play had to show unconditional obedience to their master in an extraordinary way during the time of rehearsals; that they had to lead a moral life during this time. The special rule was that during this time they were not allowed to go to the Dirndl, as the vernacular put it. When the Christmas plays were rehearsed, they were usually performed in an inn, and in a truly folksy way. As best as possible today, we want to capture this folksy quality in our performance, so that, in a sense, the way Christmas was celebrated within this tradition can come to life before our eyes. A special feature of these plays was their use of folksy humor. And it is quite wrong to perform these folk plays sentimentally. All sentimentality must be avoided. If you perform them sentimentally, you simply show that you have no understanding for an element that was particularly present in the religious life of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times. People could be deeply religious, but they were so in a humorous way, without false mysticism, without sentimentality. And they could tell genuinely folksy jokes and display genuinely folksy humor between descriptions of the most exalted scenes. People did not want to unlearn how to laugh by looking up to the most exalted things in prayer. This is characteristic of the special religiosity of earlier times, which was healthy in this respect. It was only in later times that religiosity became unhealthy. Today we will take the liberty of presenting the play that usually preceded the others: the Paradeis play, depicting how God leads Adam and Eve into paradise and how they are tempted by the devil. “Adam and Eve” is the festival that precedes December 25th in the calendar, the actual Christmas. And for the Christmas season, which was later the Christmas season, something like the Christ-Birth Play, which we will allow ourselves to do tomorrow, was usually planned for the Christmas season, followed by this Paradise Play. In this performance, the text of the introduction to the “Paradeis-Spiel” reconstructed by Rudolf Steiner was spoken for the first time. - No transcripts are available of the performances on December 25 and 26. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: January 8, 1922
08 Jan 1922, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| The oldest forms are performed in the churches, at Christmas, where the manger has been set up, and where the clergy themselves - initially in Latin - have performed this festival. |
| So the approach of these festivities was really looked forward to in a festive mood. And when the performances came around at Christmas and on Epiphany, the villagers would gather in the appropriate inns. The benches were placed against the wall and the play was performed in the middle of the hall. |
| And it was on the basis of this suggestion that we performed the Christmas Play and the Paradeis Play in the past few days, and today we would like to present the Epiphany Play or Herod Play to you, as it was performed in the 1950s by German colonists in the areas around Bratislava. |
| 274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: January 8, 1922
08 Jan 1922, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Automated Translation This Epiphany play 1 belongs to the series of Christian festivals that my old teacher and friend Karl Julius Schröer found in the Oberufer region, in western Hungary, near Pressburg, about seventy years ago. In this Oberufer region in Hungary, there are scattered German villages, especially in Slavic areas; villages that still had a rich use of the German language around the mid-19th century. The German tribes that settled there belonged to the Saxon tribes, the same tribes as those who live on the southern edge of the Carpathians, in the Spiš region, and who also live in Transylvania. Other German tribes are the Swabian tribes, who live more in the Banat. These are the German tribes that probably moved from western areas of Central Europe, even from areas on the Rhine, from the Siebengebirge, even further east during the 15th and 16th centuries, and settled as colonists in the Hungarian areas. However, in the second half of the 19th century, these areas were forcibly Magyarized, and most of the German element was lost, along with such folk traditions as these Christmas plays, the Epiphany play, and so on. These plays take us back to the times when Christian pageants spread throughout all of western and southern Germany, and also over a large part of Switzerland. We can trace these pageants back to the 11th, even the 10th, century. The oldest forms are performed in the churches, at Christmas, where the manger has been set up, and where the clergy themselves - initially in Latin - have performed this festival. For the concepts of the time, this performance in Latin was no more disturbing than the reading of the Latin mass is for Catholicism today. Later on, you come across such festivals, which have the Holy History, the birth of Christ, the appearance of the shepherds, the three wise men and so on as their subject, but then in the local language and in fact in the dialect, only interspersed with Latin expressions. Later, they were also performed by lay people, no longer by clergy, and migrated from the church to other public places, especially in inns, where they were then performed by lay people. Such festivals were taken by the tribes migrating from west to east, these colonists, and they really revered them like a shrine. When the grape harvest was over in the fall, the person who had the manuscripts of these plays – usually a member of a well-respected village family – gathered the young men of the village. Women were not allowed to participate, not even as actors. He gathered together the local youths he considered suitable and spent months rehearsing the pageant with them in the run-up to Christmas. The entire production was an extraordinarily solemn affair. The teacher had written strict rules and handed them out to the youths, and everyone had to comply with them. For example, they had to abstain from drinking during the entire period, as emphasized in these regulations; they had to lead a moral life; and they had to fulfill similar regulations that meant something extraordinary, especially within the village community. So the approach of these festivities was really looked forward to in a festive mood. And when the performances came around at Christmas and on Epiphany, the villagers would gather in the appropriate inns. The benches were placed against the wall and the play was performed in the middle of the hall. We have tried, as far as our circumstances allow, to imitate the way the performance took place within the folklore. Of course, not everything can be imitated, especially not the arrangement as it was in the inn; we choose the stage-like arrangement. But in everything else, we have tried to follow tradition as far as possible, in order to present the plays to today's audience in such a way that they can get an idea of how such festivals were performed. Another thing I would particularly like to emphasize is that in these plays we can see how a truly pious mood, a solemn mood devoted to the Holy Story, is everywhere combined with humor. The devil, for example, is everywhere the evil enemy of mankind, but at the same time he is a funny character. And in a similar way, healthy humor, a healthy folk humor, plays into the solemn, religious mood. This is what must be emphasized, because this is precisely what was present in the popular piety of these areas, and it was preserved in the German colonists of Hungary until the 19th century in such a way that there was no sentimentality in this religious popular sentiment, but rather a naive originality that allowed even the most sublime things to be mixed up with humor. During these festival performances, we have something that brings to life times that have now passed for centuries in a much more vivid and lively way than ever before. The 15th and 16th centuries are brought back to us. So we must try to preserve the dialect in an appropriate way, and, as well as we can, try to reproduce these plays in the dialect in which they were performed in the 19th century in the German-speaking areas of Hungary. Precisely because a piece of intellectual life from an earlier time can be brought back to the attention of those currently living, we make it our special task within the Anthroposophical Society to bring these plays to the public. Later, many such Christmas plays were also collected from other regions. They were then collected, for example, in Silesia, where Weinhold did an enormous amount of work in this regard; but they were also collected in the Palatinate region. And it was so remarkable that the basic character and content is essentially the same in all these games; they only differ in dialect, so that one can see that this is common spiritual property from the second half of the Middle Ages, which extends into our present time. And perhaps it is justified to present it to contemporary humanity in the way we do, because this folk heritage is disappearing. Within the village community, of course, the mood no longer exists to cultivate this folk heritage in the same way as before. But Karl Julius Schröer, who collected these things in the 1940s and 1950s, often told me what a profound impression this resurrection of ancient folk customs, performed by the farmers who owned these pieces, made on him. That is what prompted me to suggest years ago that these plays be performed within our society for a wider audience. And it was on the basis of this suggestion that we performed the Christmas Play and the Paradeis Play in the past few days, and today we would like to present the Epiphany Play or Herod Play to you, as it was performed in the 1950s by German colonists in the areas around Bratislava.
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