Kassel conversations (german: Kasseler Gespräche) is the conventional name of an

early medieval The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

text preserved in a manuscript from c. 810. It is held today in the

university library An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution and serves two complementary purposes: to support the curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students. It is unknown how many academic librar ...

of Kassel,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

(Ms. 4° theol. 24). It contains several parts, among them an , an instructional theological text in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. The part that has been of most interest for modern scholarship is that of the so-called Kassel glosses, one of the earliest written documents of the

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

language. The Kassel glosses are a collection of words and short phrases translated from Latin to Old High German. They appear to have been meant as a practical tool to help speakers of

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...

to learn Old High German. Among them are everyday phrases such as orders given to servants ''("shave my beard"),'' questions and answers for basic communication ("do you understand? No, I don't"), and a few fragmentary grammar paradigms ("I understand, you understood, we understood"). The most famous entry, however, is a jocular jibe in Latin and Old High German: *Latin: *Old High German: *Translation: "Roman () people are stupid,

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

ns are smart; there is little smartness in the Romans; they have more stupidity than smartness." The manuscript is written on 60 sheets of parchment. Based on the scribal hands and the forms of the

Carolingian minuscule Carolingian minuscule or Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in the medieval European period so that the Latin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible could be easily recognized by the literate class from one reg ...

employed, it is believed that the text was written by two different scribes from the area of Regensburg c. 810. Parts of the text have a parallel in a second manuscript held in

St. Gallen , neighboring_municipalities = Eggersriet, Gaiserwald, Gossau, Herisau (AR), Mörschwil, Speicher (AR), Stein (AR), Teufen (AR), Untereggen, Wittenbach , twintowns = Liberec (Czech Republic) , website = ...

, Switzerland. The manuscript came to Kassel from Fulda in 1632. It was mentioned for the first time by

Johann Heinrich Hottinger Johann Heinrich Hottinger (10 March 1620 – 5 June 1667) was a Swiss philologist and theologian. Life and works Hottinger studied at Geneva, Groningen and Leiden. After visiting France and England he was appointed professor of church history ...

in his work {{lang, la, Historica ecclesiastica novi testamenti from 1637. The first scholarly study of the manuscript was done by

Wilhelm Grimm Wilhelm Carl Grimm (also Karl; 24 February 178616 December 1859) was a German author and anthropologist, and the younger brother of Jacob Grimm, of the literary duo the Brothers Grimm. Life and work Wilhelm was born in February 1786 in Hanau, ...

in 1846. Grimm made the mistake of re-drawing the text with a modern ink to make the writing more legible. This has caused some permanent damage to the fragile material.

References

* Wilhelm Braune und Ernst A. Ebbinghaus (eds.): ''Althochdeutsches Lesebuch'', Tübingen 1968 * Horst Brunner: ''Geschichte der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters im Überblick (= RUB 9485)'', Stuttgart 2003, S.51 * Wilhelm Grimm: ''Exhortatio ad plebem christianam. Glossae Cassellanae'', in: Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Phil.-hist. Klasse 1846, Seite 425-537, Berlin 1848 * E. Steinmeyer and E. Sievers (eds.):
Die althochdeutschen Glossen
', III, 9-13 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1879 ff.). Old High German literature Writers from the Carolingian Empire 9th-century manuscripts University of Kassel 9th-century Latin books Translation dictionaries Regensburg (district)

See also

References