The Wheel of
Fortune from
Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana (
/ˈkɑrmɨnə bʊˈrɑːnə/),
Latin for "Songs from Beuern" (short for:
Benediktbeuern), is the name given to a
manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written principally in
Medieval Latin; a few in
Middle High German, and some with traces of
Old French or
Provençal. Some are
macaronic, a mixture of Latin and German or French vernacular.
They were written by students and
clergy when the Latin idiom was the
lingua franca across Italy and western Europe for travelling scholars, universities and theologians. Most of the poems and songs appear to be the work of
Goliards, clergy (mostly students) who set up and satirized the
Catholic Church. The collection preserves the works of a number of poets, including
Peter of Blois,
Walter of Châtillon and an
anonymous poet, referred to as the
Archpoet.
The collection was found in 1803 in the
Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuern,
Bavaria, and is now housed in the
Bavarian State Library in Munich. Along with the
Carmina Cantabrigiensia, the
Carmina Burana is the most important collection of Goliard and vagabond songs.
The manuscripts reflect an "international" European movement, with songs originating from
Occitania,
France,
England,
Scotland,
Aragon,
Castile and the
Holy Roman Empire.
Twenty-four poems in
Carmina Burana were set to music by
Carl Orff in 1936; Orff's composition quickly became a staple piece of the
classical music repertoire. The opening and closing movement, "
O Fortuna", has been used in countless films and has become a symbol of the "epic" song in popular culture.
Carmina Burana remains one of the most popular pieces of music ever written.
Manuscript
The
Carmina Burana (abbreviated CB) is a manuscript written in 1230 by two different scribes in an early gothic
minuscule (small letters; what we would today call lower-case, as opposed to majuscule – large, capital, upper-case, used in Roman manuscripts) on 119 sheets of
parchment. In the 14th century, a number of free pages, cut of a slightly different size, was attached at the end of the text.
[3] The handwritten pages were bound into a small folder, called the
Codex Buranus, in the
Late Middle Ages.
However, in the process of binding, the text was placed partially out of order, and some pages were most likely lost as well. The manuscript contains eight
miniatures: the wheel of fortune (which actually is an illustration from the songs CB 14–18, but was placed by the book binder as the cover), an imaginative forest, a pair of lovers, scenes from the story of
Dido and
Aeneas, a scene of drinking beer, and three scenes of playing games – dice,
ludus duodecim scriptorum, and chess.
The Forest, from the
Carmina Burana
History
Older research took it to be the case that the manuscript was written where it was found in Benediktbeuern. Today, however, there is disagreement in the community of
Carmina Burana scholars over the birthplace of the manuscript. What is agreed upon is that, because of the dialect of the Middle High German phrases in the text, the manuscript must be from the region of central Europe that speaks the
Bavarian dialect of German, which includes parts of southern Germany, western Austria, and northern Italy, and, because of the Italian peculiarities of the text, it must be from the southern region thereof. The two possible locations of its origin are either the
bishop's seat of Seckau in
Styria, or
Kloster Neustift near
Brixen in
South Tyrol.
In support of the first theory: a bishop Heinrich, who was provost there from 1232 to 1243, was mentioned as provost of Maria Saal in Kärnten in CB 6* of the added folio (* denotes the song is in the added folio) and it is possible that he funded the creation of the
Carmina Burana; the
marchiones (people from Steiermark) were mentioned in CB 219,3 before the
Bavarians,
Saxons or
Austrians, presumably indicating that Steiermark was the closest location to the writers; also most of the hymns were dedicated to Saint Katharina von Alexandrien (CB 12* and 19* – 22*), who was venerated in Seckau.
[7]
The other hypothesis claims that Kloster Neustift near Brixen in South Tirol is the birthplace of the
Carmina Burana. In support of this argument, the text's open mindedness is characteristic of the reform-minded Augustine
Canons Regular of the time, as is the spoken quality of the writing. Also, Brixen is mentioned in CB 95, and the beginning to a story unique to Tirol called the
Eckenlied about the mythic hero
Dietrich von Bern appears in CB 203a.
[8][9][10]
Less clear is how the
Carmina Burana traveled to Benediktbeuern.
[11] The Germanist Fritz Peter Knapp suggested that, if the manuscript were written in Neustift, it could have traveled in 1350 by way of the
Wittelsbacher family, who were
Vögte of both Tirol and Bavaria.
[10]
A famous poet and composer of songs, active in the early Middle Ages, was the philosopher
Peter Abelard (1079–1142). Abelard's son Astrolabe
[12] had a
prebend in the monastery of Benediktbeuern,
[citation needed] so it is likely that the
Carmina Burana began as the personal collection of his father's works.
Themes
Generally, the works contained in the
Carmina Burana can be arranged into four groups according to theme:
- 55 songs of morals and mockery (CB 1–55),
- 131 love songs (CB 56–186),
- 40 drinking and gaming songs (CB 187–226), and
- two longer spiritual theater pieces (CB 227 and 228).
This outline, however, has many exceptions. CB 122–134, which are categorized as love songs, actually are not: they contain a song for mourning the dead, a satire, and two educational stories about the names of animals. There also likely was another group of spiritual poems included in the
Carmina Burana, but they have since been lost. The attached folio contains a mix of 21 generally spiritual songs: a prose-prayer to
Saint Erasmus and four more spiritual plays, some of which have only survived as fragments. These larger thematic groups can also be further subdivided, for example, the end of the world (CB 24–31), songs about the
crusades (CB 46–52) or reworkings of writings from
antiquity (CB 97–102).
Other frequently recurring themes include: critiques of
simony and greed in the church, that, with the advent of the
monetary economy in the 12th century, rapidly became an important issue (CB 1–11, 39, 41–45); lamentations in the form of the
planctus, for example about the ebb and flow of human fate (CB 14–18) or about death (CB 122–131); the hymnic celebration of the return of spring (CB 132, 135, 137, 138, 161 and others);
pastourelles about the rape/seduction of shepherdesses by knights, students/clergymen (CB 79, 90, 157–158); and the description of love as military service (CB 60, 62, and 166), a
topos known from
Ovid's
elegiac love poems. Ovid and especially his
erotic elegies were reproduced, imitated and exaggerated in the
Carmina Burana.[14] In other words, for those unfamiliar with Ovid's work, depictions of
sexual intercourse in the manuscript are frank and even sometimes aggressive. CB 76, for example, makes use of the
first-person narrative to describe a ten hour love act with the goddess of love herself,
Venus (
ternens eam lectulo / fere decem horis).
[15]
The
Carmina Burana contains numerous poetic descriptions of a raucous medieval paradise (CB 195–207, 211, 217, 219), for which the ancient Greek philosopher
Epicurus, known for his advocation of the blissful life, is even taken as an authority on the subject (CB 211). CB 219 describes, for example, an
ordo vagorum (vagrant order) to which people from every land and clerics of all rankings were invited—even
presbyter cum sua matrona, or "a priest with his lady wife" (humorous because
Catholic priests must swear an oath of
celibacy). In this parody world, the rules of priesthood include sleeping in, eating heavy food and drinking rich wine, and regularly playing dice games. These rules were described in such detail that older research on the
Carmina Burana took these descriptions literally and assumed there actually existed such a lazy order of priests.In fact, though, this outspoken revery of living delights and freedom from moral obligations shows "an attitude towards life and the world that stands in stark contrast to the firmly established expectations of life in the Middle Ages."
[17] The literary researcher Christine Kasper considers this description of a bawdy paradise as part of the early history of the European story of the land of
Cockaigne: in CB 222 the
abbas Cucaniensis, or
Abbot of Cockaigne, is said to have presided over a group of dice players.
[18]
Musical settings
Between 1935 and 1936, German composer
Carl Orff set 24 of the poems to new music, also called
Carmina Burana. The most notable movement is "Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi (
O Fortuna)" (
Fortuna meaning Fortune in Latin, as well as a Roman goddess). Orff's composition has been performed by countless ensembles (see
Carl Orff's O Fortuna in popular culture).
Other musical settings include:
- Pieces by German/Norwegian doom/gothic metal band Theatre of Tragedy, such as "Amor volat undique" and "Circa mea pectora" in the song "Venus" on their 1998 album Aégis
- Synth/Medieval, French band Era recorded a mix called "The Mass" featuring pieces of "O Fortuna" from the original Carmina Burana.
- Composer John Paul used a portion of the lyrics of "Fas et nefas ambulant" in the musical score of the video game Gauntlet Legends.[19]
- Philip Pickett and the New London Consort issued a 4-volume set of Carmina Burana settings using medieval instrumentation and performance techniques.
- Pieces by the Norwegian gothic metal musical group Tristania ("Wormwood" from their 2001 album World of Glass)
- German band Qntal set several hymns of Carmina Burana to electro-medieval music.
- German band Corvus Corax recorded Cantus Buranus, a full-length opera set to the original Carmina Burana manuscript in 2005, and released Cantus Buranus Werk II in 2008.
- Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu used portions of "O Fortuna", "Estuans interius", and "Veni, veni, venias" for the final boss theme "One-Winged Angel" in Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII.
- The Trans-Siberian Orchestra included the song "Carmina Burana" on their 2009 album Night Castle.
- German electronic band Enigma used samples from Carmina Burana in their 2000 album The Screen Behind the Mirror.
