Abstract
This research was undertaken during my fellowship at EXC 2020, within Research Area 4 ‘Literary Currencies’, between January and March 2024. My project investigated the role of German antiquarian booksellers in valuing medieval works in the first half of the twentieth century. This period is significant because it shows how members of the trade shaped the way European medieval book heritage was perceived as research objects and goods to sell. Dealers promoted the scholarship on rare books by compiling modern catalogues, hiring specialists in medieval and literary studies, publishing journals and monographs, and sharing their expertise with clients. The correspondence between Erwin Rosenthal (1889–1981) and Martin Bodmer (1899–1971) exemplifies these exchanges as they examined the scholarly and financial values of a manuscript of the Nibelungenlied.
In February 1932, Erwin Rosenthal, a Munich bookseller, revealed to the Zurich collector Martin Bodmer that a manuscript of the Nibelungenlied was available for sale.1 I am a research fellow at the Institute of English Studies (SAS, University of London) and I work in the history of the book, specialising in the study of the antiquarian book-trade and the formation of libraries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. My latest publication explores the participation of the Munich bookseller Jacques Rosenthal in the market in rare books in the 1920s: see my work on Jacques Rosenthal’s Marketing Strategies, Full reference in Zotero Library. This announcement came as an ideal opportunity, since Bodmer considered this work the cornerstone of his library alongside Homer, the Bible, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe. Thrilled by the news but living in difficult economic and political times, Bodmer pondered the purchase. In his letters, he discussed the amount he would spend on the manuscript with Rosenthal, providing insight into a buyer’s motives for acquiring a rare literary book.
A masterpiece of German medieval literature, the Nibelungenlied is a chivalric poem relating the journeys of Siegfried to marry Princess Kriemhild and her vengeance after his assassination. The manuscript that Bodmer contemplated buying, which can be viewed here, was especially valuable as it was the thirteenth-century complete version of the work, copied in Vorarlberg or South Tyrol, used to produce the first edition of the poem in 1757.2Now Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Full reference in Zotero Library. This item is known as the ‘Donaueschingen Handschrift C’. See https://www.handschriftencensus.de/1482 [accessed 14 August 2024]. This publication contributed to the identification of the Nibelungenlied as the German national epic Full reference in Zotero Library. Later, it also inspired Richard Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen, which further cemented its status as an important work of German culture. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the manuscript belonged to the princes of Fürstenberg, whose library was in Donaueschingen (Baden-Württemberg); whilst the owners’ reasons for selling the book remain unclear, they were probably experiencing hardship after the war, like other German aristocratic families.
Bodmer and Rosenthal were both important actors in the trade and scholarship of rare books. Adopting Goethe’s concept of ‘Weltliteratur’ (World Literature), Bodmer collected works that conveyed common human values regardless of where and when they had been produced. He also edited the journal Corona, which published pieces by German-speaking writers, and later served as vice-president of the Red Cross.3See Full reference in Zotero Library. In 1951, Bodmer transferred his library from Zurich to Cologny near Geneva; it is today a museum and a research centre. Born into a dynasty of booksellers, Rosenthal joined the bookshop of his father Jacques Rosenthal in 1912. He developed the firm’s activities, opened the branch L’Art Ancien in Switzerland, and launched the journal Beiträge zur Forschung, which featured essays on rare books. He also published on Dürer, Giotto, and Carolingian illumination Full reference in Zotero Library.
It is not known when Bodmer started buying books from Rosenthal, but their letters show that they had developed a friendly relationship by the time the Nibelungenlied manuscript appeared on the market. On 31 March 1932, Bodmer made an offer to Rosenthal from Arosa (Graubünden), where he was spending ski holidays, and used several reasons to justify his price.4For the letter, see Munich, Stadtarchiv, Full reference in Zotero Library. He explained that he could not pay an enormous sum for the Nibelungenlied, as he did for his Gutenberg Bible in 1928, because of the on-going financial crisis.5Now Cologny, Fondation Bodmer, Full reference in Zotero Library. For the purchase date, see Full reference in Zotero Library. He also argued that the price of costly items, like volumes of block-books (fifteenth-century woodcuts), had recently fallen by half, and consequently the manuscript’s owners could not expect as much as they would have a few years earlier Full reference in Zotero Library. Focusing on intrinsic features, Bodmer pointed out that the Nibelungenlied was ‘ein rein literarisches Dokument’ (a purely literary document) that only German readers would appreciate; its subject and language thus reduced the range of buyers. From an aesthetic perspective, the book’s decoration with simple initials could not compare with, for example, the precious Codex Manesse (accessible here), a unique volume of poetry, written in 1304, and illuminated with 137 miniatures representing German writers.6Now Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Full reference in Zotero Library. In addition, the Nibelungenlied was a well-known work that survived in several medieval manuscripts. Lastly, Bodmer observed that German connoisseurs may appreciate the fact that a Zurich purchaser should obtain the book, preventing its transfer to America, where rich collectors had acquired many European rare volumes.
Bodmer’s proposal did not convince the Fürstenberg family and the manuscript remained in their possession.7In 1934, Bodmer obtained from the Munich dealers Karl and Faber a fifteenth-century copy of the Nibelungenlied, which belonged to the princes of Oettingen-Wallerstein. It is now Cologny, Fondation Bodmer, Full reference in Zotero Library. See https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/fmb/cb-0117 [accessed 14 August 2024]. In 2001, it entered the Badische Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe and has been listed in the UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register since 2009. However, this exchange shows that the Nibelungenlied had acquired an economic status by the twentieth century, as well as belonging to the canon of German literature. Owing to his spending constraints, Bodmer evaluated this manuscript according to its contents, language, decoration, survival rate, the market fluctuations, and the price of other precious works. His appraisal therefore reflected the historical context of his time and personal interests. Other factors affected the value of medieval literary works, including their provenance, scholarship, edition, translation, and adaptation.8For the valuation of medieval manuscripts by a bookseller, see Full reference in Zotero Library. Since the eighteenth century, artists, researchers, dealers, and collectors have all accepted this assessment, confirming the cultural value of the Nibelungenlied.