WEAVER, THE

Weaver, The: translation

(Tkadleˇcek)

(ca. 1407)

One of the more important and unusual works of Czech narrative prose from the early 15th century is the text calledTkadleˇcek(The Weaver). Like the DEBATE POEMS popular in western Europe,The Weavertakes the form of a dispute between a lover named Ludvík and the allegorical figure of Misfortune, who has deprived the Lover of his lady, Adliˇcka. Ludvík refers to himself as the “weaver,” suggesting his ability to weave words of love. Essentially the dispute concerns the value of COURTLY LOVE, which Misfortune, speaking like a cleric trained in scholastic argument, condemns.Like most medieval literary debates, the winner of the debate is predetermined, so that in this case it is Misfortune who wins the debate and apparently holds the view sanctioned by the author. Scholarly consensus holds that the anonymous author ofThe Weaverwas himself a cleric, most likely graduated from Prague University—his education is demonstrated by some 90 references to Aristotle in his text. He was also most likely a member of the royal court. He would therefore have been a representative of a new breed of scholar-courtier becoming prevalent in the court of the Bohemian king and sometime Holy Roman Emperor Wenceslas IV (1378–1419). He may have writtenThe Weaverfor Wenceslas’s Queen Sophia of Bavaria, perhaps at her own regional court of Hradec Králové.

Czech society of the early 15th century was characterized by a growing conflict between scholars and preachers on the one hand and the established church and court, whom the preachers condemned for their excesses, on the other. It was the same spirit of reform that gave rise to Jan HUS and the Hussite movement. The author ofThe Weaver, it has been suggested, represents in his debate the conflict between his own clerical training and the fashions of the court, represented by the lover. The text examines the arguments for and against courtly love, with the clear purpose of undermining the courtly love conventions in favor at the royal court. It also concerns the relative merits of courtly and scholastic writing:Where Misfortune sees the love allegories characteristic of the written text of courtly poetry as hindrances to truth, the Lover sees truth as veiled alluringly by the ALLEGORY, like a female body. Ultimately Misfortune has the final word, a long and rhetorically effusive rejection of courtly traditions.The Weaveris notable for its elaborate rhetoric, its sexual puns, and its clerical misogyny that marks it as the product of a late medieval clerical male.

■ Thomas, Alfred.Anne’s Bohemia: Czech Literature and Society, 1310–1420. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.