If popularity be taken as the measure of success in literary effort,
Sebastian Brandt's "Ship of Fools" must be considered one of the most
successful books recorded in the whole history of literature. Published in
edition after edition (the first dated 1494), at a time, but shortly after
the invention of printing, when books were expensive, and their circulation
limited; translated into the leading languages of Europe at a time when
translations of new works were only the result of the most signal merits,
its success was then quite unparalleled. It may be said, in modern phrase,
to have been the rage of the reading world at the end of the fifteenth and
throughout the sixteenth centuries. It was translated into Latin by one
Professor (Locher, 1497), and imitated in the same language and under the
same title, by another (Badius Ascensius, 1507); it appeared in Dutch and
Low German, and was twice translated into English, and three times into
French; imitations competed with the original in French and German, as well
as Latin, and greatest and most unprecedented distinction of all, it was
preached, but, we should opine, only certain parts of it, from the pulpit
by the best preachers of the time as a new gospel. The Germans proudly
award it the epithet, "epoch-making," and its long-continued popularity
affords good, if not quite sufficient, ground for the extravagant eulogies
they lavish upon it. Trithemius calls it "Divina Satira," and doubts
whether anything could have been written more suited to the spirit of the
age; Locher compares Brandt with Dante, and Hutten styles him the new
law-giver of German poetry.
A more recent and impartial critic (Müller, "Chips from a German Workshop,"
Vol. III.), thus suggestively sets forth the varied grounds of Brandt's
wonderful popularity:--"His satires, it is true, are not very powerful, nor
pungent, nor original. But his style is free and easy. Brant is not a
ponderous poet. He writes in short chapters, and mixes his fools in such a
manner that we always meet with a variety of new faces. It is true that all
this would hardly be sufficient to secure a decided success for a work like
his at the present day. But then we must remember the time in which he
wrote.... There was room at that time for a work like the 'Ship of Fools.'
It was the first printed book that treated of contemporaneous events and
living persons, instead of old German battles and French knights. People
are always fond of reading the history of their own times. If the good
qualities of their age are brought out, they think of themselves or their
friends; if the dark features of their contemporaries are exhibited, they
think of their neighbours and enemies. Now the 'Ship of Fools' is just such
a satire which ordinary people would read, and read with pleasure. They
might feel a slight twinge now and then, but they would put down the book
at the end, and thank God that they were not like other men. There is a
chapter on Misers--and who would not gladly give a penny to a beggar? There
is a chapter on Gluttony--and who was ever more than a little exhilarated
after dinner?
There is a chapter on Church-goers--and who ever went to church for
respectability's sake, or to show off a gaudy dress, or a fine dog, or a
new hawk? There is a chapter on Dancing--and who ever danced except for the
sake of exercise? There is a chapter on Adultery--and who ever did more
than flirt with his neighbour's wife? We sometimes wish that Brant's satire
had been a little more searching, and that, instead of his many allusions
to classical fools (for his book is full of scholarship), he had given us a
little more of the _chronique scandaleuse_ of his own time. But he was too
good a man to do this, and his contemporaries were no doubt grateful to him
for his forbearance."
Brandt's satire is a satire for all time. Embodied in the language of the
fifteenth century, coloured with the habits and fashions of the times,
executed after the manner of working of the period, and motived by the
eager questioning spirit and the discontent with "abusions" and "folyes"
which resulted in the Reformation, this satire in its morals or lessons is
almost as applicable to the year of grace 1873 as to the year of
gracelessness 1497. It never can grow old; in the mirror in which the men
of his time saw themselves reflected, the men of all times can recognise
themselves; a crew of "able-bodied" is never wanting to man this old,
weather-beaten, but ever seaworthy vessel. The thoughtful, penetrating,
conscious spirit of the Basle professor passing by, for the most part,
local, temporary or indifferent points, seized upon the never-dying follies
of _human nature_ and impaled them on the printed page for the amusement,
the edification, and the warning of contemporaries and posterity alike. No
petty writer of laborious _vers de societe_ to raise a laugh for a week, a
month, or a year, and to be buried in utter oblivion for ever after, was
he, but a divine seer who saw the weakness and wickedness of the hearts of
men, and warned them to amend their ways and flee from the wrath to come.
Though but a retired student, and teacher of the canon law, a humble-minded
man of letters, and a diffident imperial Counsellor, yet is he to be
numbered among the greatest Evangelists and Reformers of mediæval Europe
whose trumpet-toned tongue penetrated into regions where the names of
Luther or Erasmus were but an empty sound, if even that. And yet, though
helping much the cause of the Reformation by the freedom of his social and
clerical criticism, by his unsparing exposure of every form of corruption
and injustice, and, not least, by his use of the vernacular for political
and religious purposes, he can scarcely be classed in the great army of the
Protestant Reformers. He was a reformer from within, a biting, unsparing
exposer of every priestly abuse, but a loyal son of the Church, who rebuked
the faults of his brethren, but visited with the pains of Hell those of
"fals herytikes," and wept over the "ruyne, inclynacion, and decay of the
holy fayth Catholyke, and dymynucion of the Empyre."
So while he was yet a reformer in the true sense of the word, he was too
much of the scholar to be anything but a true conservative. To his
scholarly habit of working, as well as to the manner of the time which
hardly trusted in the value of its own ideas but loved to lean them upon
classical authority, is no doubt owing the classical mould in which his
satire is cast. The description of every folly is strengthened by notice of
its classical or biblical prototypes, and in the margin of the Latin
edition of Locher, Brandt himself supplied the citations of the books and
passages which formed the basis of his text, which greatly added to the
popularity of the work. Brandt, indeed, with the modesty of genius,
professes that it is really no more than a collection and translation of
quotations from biblical and classical authors, "Gesamlet durch Sebastianu
Brant." But even admitting the work to be a Mosaic, to adopt the reply of
its latest German editor to the assertion that it is but a compilation
testifying to the most painstaking industry and the consumption of midnight
oil, "even so one learns that a Mosaic is a work of art when executed with
artistic skill." That he caused the classical and biblical passages
flitting before his eyes to be cited in the margin proves chiefly only the
excellence of his memory. They are also before our eyes and yet we are not
always able to answer the question: where, _e.g._, does this occur? ...
Where, _e.g._, occur the following appropriate words of Goethe: "Who can
think anything foolish, who can think anything wise, that antiquity has not
already thought of."
Of the Greek authors, Plutarch only is used, and he evidently by means of a
Latin translation. But from the Latin large draughts of inspiration are
taken, direct from the fountainhead. Ovid, Juvenal, Persius, Catullus, and
Seneca, are largely drawn from, while, strangely enough, Cicero, Boethius,
and Virgil are quoted but seldom, the latter, indeed, only twice, though
his commentators, especially Servetus, are frequently employed. The Bible,
of course, is a never-failing source of illustration, and, as was to be
expected, the Old Testament much more frequently than the New, most use
being made of the Proverbs of Solomon, while Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus,
and the Sapientia follow at no great distance.
The quotations are made apparently direct from the Vulgate, in only a few
cases there being a qualification of the idea by the interpretation of the
Corpus Juris Canonici. But through this medium only, as was to be expected
of the professor of canon law, is the light of the fathers of the Church
allowed to shine upon us, and according to Zarncke (Introduction to his
edition of the Narrenschiff, 1854), use of it has certainly been made far
oftener than the commentary shows, the sources of information of which are
of the most unsatisfactory character. On such solid and tried foundations
did Brandt construct his great work, and the judgment of contemporaries and
posterity alike has declared the superstructure to be worthy of its
supports.
The following admirable notice from Ersch and Grüber (Encyclopädie) sums up
so skilfully the history, nature, and qualities of the book that we quote
at length:--"The Ship of Fools was received with almost unexampled applause
by high and low, learned and unlearned, in Germany, Switzerland, and
France, and was made the common property of the greatest part of literary
Europe, through Latin, French, English, and Dutch translations. For upwards
of a century it was in Germany a _book of the people_ in the noblest and
widest sense of the word, alike appreciated by an Erasmus and a Reuchlin,
and by the mechanics of Strassburg, Basel, and Augsburg; and it was assumed
to be so familiar to all classes, that even during Brandt's lifetime, the
German preacher Gailer von Kaiserberg went so far as to deliver public
lectures from the pulpit on his friend's poem as if it had been a
scriptural text. As to the poetical and humorous character of Brandt's
poem, its whole conception does not display any extraordinary power of
imagination, nor does it present in its details any very striking sallies
of wit and humour, even when compared with older German works of a similar
kind, such as that of Renner. The fundamental idea of the poem consists in
the shipping off of several shiploads of fools of all kinds for their
native country, which, however, is visible at a distance only; and one
would have expected the poet to have given poetical consistency to his work
by fully carrying out this idea of a ship's crew, and sailing to the 'Land
of Fools.' It is, however, at intervals only that Brandt reminds us of the
allegory; the fools who are carefully divided into classes and introduced
to us in succession, instead of being ridiculed or derided, are reproved in
a liberal spirit, with noble earnestness, true moral feeling, and practical
common sense. It was the straightforward, the bold and liberal spirit of
the poet which so powerfully addressed his contemporaries from the Ship of
the Fools; and to us it is valuable as a product of the piety and morality
of the century which paved the way for the Reformation. Brandt's fools are
represented as contemptible and loathsome rather than _foolish_, and what
he calls follies might be more correctly described as sins and vices.
"The 'Ship of Fools' is written in the dialect of Swabia, and consists of
vigorous, resonant, and rhyming iambic quadrameters. It is divided into 113
sections, each of which, with the exception of a short introduction and two
concluding pieces, treats independently of a certain class of fools or
vicious persons; and we are only occasionally reminded of the fundamental
idea by an allusion to the ship. No folly of the century is left
uncensured. The poet attacks with noble zeal the failings and extravagances
of his age, and applies his lash unsparingly even to the dreaded Hydra of
popery and monasticism, to combat which the Hercules of Wittenberg had not
yet kindled his firebrands. But the poet's object was not merely to reprove
and to animadvert; he instructs also, and shows the fools the way to the
land of wisdom; and so far is he from assuming the arrogant air of the
commonplace moralist, that he reckons himself among the number of fools.
The style of the poem is lively, bold, and simple, and often remarkably
terse, especially in his moral sayings, and renders it apparent that the
author was a classical scholar, without however losing anything of his
German character."
Brandt's humour, which either his earnestness or his manner banished from
the text, took refuge in the illustrations and there disported itself with
a wild zest and vigour. Indeed to their popularity several critics have
ascribed the success of the book, but for this there is no sufficient
authority or probability. Clever as they are, it is more probable that they
ran, in popularity, but an equal race with the text. The precise amount of
Brandt's workmanship in them has not been ascertained, but it is agreed
that "most of them, if not actually drawn, were at least suggested by him."
Zarncke remarks regarding their artistic worth, "not all of the cuts are of
equal value. One can easily distinguish five different workers, and more
practised eyes would probably be able to increase the number. In some one
can see how the outlines, heads, hands, and other principal parts are cut
with the fine stroke of the master, and the details and shading left to the
scholars. The woodcuts of the most superior master, which can be recognized
at once, and are about a third of the whole, belong to the finest, if they
are not, indeed, the finest, which were executed in the fifteenth century,
a worthy school of Holbein. According to the opinion of Herr Rudolph
Weigel, they might possibly be the work of Martin Schön of Colmar.... The
composition in the better ones is genuinely Hogarth-like, and the longer
one looks at these little pictures, the more is one astonished at the
fulness of the humour, the fineness of the characterisation and the almost
dramatic talent of the grouping." Green, in his recent work on emblems,
characterizes them as marking an epoch in that kind of literature. And
Dibdin, the Macaulay of bibliography, loses his head in admiration of the
"entertaining volume," extolling the figures without stint for "merit in
conception and execution," "bold and free pencilling," "spirit and point,"
"delicacy, truth, and force," "spirit of drollery," &c., &c.; summarising
thus, "few books are more pleasing to the eye, and more gratifying to the
fancy than the early editions of the 'Stultifera Navis.' It presents a
combination of entertainment to which the curious can never be
indifferent."
Whether it were the racy cleverness of the pictures or the unprecedented
boldness of the text, the book stirred Europe of the fifteenth century in a
way and with a rapidity it had never been stirred before. In the German
actual acquaintance with it could then be but limited, though it ran
through seventeen editions within a century; the Latin version brought it
to the knowledge of the educated class throughout Europe; but, expressing,
as it did mainly, the feelings of the common people, to have it in the
learned language was not enough. Translations into various vernaculars were
immediately called for, and the Latin edition having lightened the
translator's labours, they were speedily supplied. England, however, was
all but last in the field but when she did appear, it was in force, with a
version in each hand, the one in prose and the other in verse.
Fifteen years elapsed from the appearance of the first German edition,
before the English metrical version "translated out of Laten, French, and
Doche ... in the colege of Saynt Mary Otery, by me, Alexander Barclay," was
issued from the press of Pynson in 1509. A translation, however, it is not.
Properly speaking, it is an adaptation, an English ship, formed and
fashioned after the Ship of Fools of the World. "But concernynge the
translacion of this boke; I exhort ye reders to take no displesour for y^t,
it is nat translated word by worde acordinge to ye verses of my actour. For
I haue but only drawen into our moder tunge, in rude langage the sentences
of the verses as nere as the parcyte of my wyt wyl suffer me, some tyme
addynge, somtyme detractinge and takinge away suche thinges as semeth me
necessary and superflue. Wherfore I desyre of you reders pardon of my
presumptuous audacite, trustynge that ye shall holde me excused if ye
consyder ye scarsnes of my wyt and my vnexpert youthe. I haue in many
places ouerpassed dyuers poetical digressions and obscurenes of fables and
haue concluded my worke in rude langage as shal apere in my translacion."
"Wylling to redres the errours and vyces of this oure royalme of England
... I haue taken upon me ... the translacion of this present boke ... onely
for the holsome instruccion commodyte and doctryne of wysdome, and to
clense the vanyte and madness of folysshe people of whom ouer great nombre
is in the Royalme of Englonde."
Actuated by these patriotic motives, Barclay has, while preserving all the
valuable characteristics of his original, painted for posterity perhaps the
most graphic and comprehensive picture now preserved of the folly,
injustice, and iniquity which demoralized England, city and country alike,
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and rendered it ripe for any
change political or religious.
"Knowledge of trouth, prudence, and iust symplicite
Hath vs clene left; For we set of them no store.
Our Fayth is defyled loue, goodnes, and Pyte:
Honest maners nowe ar reputed of: no more.
Lawyers ar lordes; but Justice is rent and tore.
Or closed lyke a Monster within dores thre.
For without mede: or money no man can hyr se.
Al is disordered: Vertue hath no rewarde.
Alas, compassion; and mercy bothe ar slayne.
Alas, the stony hartys of pepyl ar so harde
That nought can constrayne theyr folyes to refrayne."
His ships are full laden but carry not all who should be on board.
"We are full lade and yet forsoth I thynke
A thousand are behynde, whom we may not receyue
For if we do, our nauy clene shall synke
He oft all lesys that coueytes all to haue
From London Rockes Almyghty God vs saue
For if we there anker, outher bote or barge
There be so many that they vs wyll ouercharge."
The national tone and aim of the English "Ship" are maintained throughout
with the greatest emphasis, exhibiting an independence of spirit which few
ecclesiastics of the time would have dared to own. Barclay seems to have
been first an Englishman, then an ecclesiastic. Everywhere throughout his
great work the voice of the people is heard to rise and ring through the
long exposure of abuse and injustice, and had the authorship been unknown
it would most certainly have been ascribed to a Langlande of the period.
Everywhere he takes what we would call the popular side, the side of the
people as against those in office. Everywhere he stands up boldly in behalf
of the oppressed, and spares not the oppressor, even if he be of his own
class. He applies the cudgel as vigorously to the priest's pate as to the
Lolardes back. But he disliked modern innovation as much as ancient abuse,
in this also faithfully reflecting the mind of the people, and he is as
emphatic in his censure of the one as in his condemnation of the other.
Barclay's "Ship of Fools," however, is not only important as a picture of
the English life and popular feeling of his time, it is, both in style and
vocabulary, a most valuable and remarkable monument of the English
language. Written midway between Chaucer and Spenser, it is infinitely more
easy to read than either. Page after page, even in the antique spelling of
Pynson's edition, may be read by the ordinary reader of to-day without
reference to a dictionary, and when reference is required it will be found
in nine cases out of ten that the archaism is Saxon, not Latin. This is all
the more remarkable, that it occurs in the case of a priest translating
mainly from the Latin and French, and can only be explained with reference
to his standpoint as a social reformer of the broadest type, and to his
evident intention that his book should be an appeal to all classes, but
especially to the mass of the people, for amendment of their follies. In
evidence of this it may be noticed that in the didactic passages, and
especially in the L'envois, which are additions of his own, wherever, in
fact, he appears in his own character of "preacher," his language is most
simple, and his vocabulary of the most Saxon description.
In his prologue "excusynge the rudenes of his translacion," he professes to
have purposely used the most "comon speche":--
"My speche is rude my termes comon and rural
And I for rude peple moche more conuenient
Than for estates, lerned men, or eloquent."