The Reformation of Riding: Protestant Identity and Horsemanship at North German Courts

Abstract

Three early seventeenth-century texts written by German horsemen differ significantly in their attitudes towards horses from the highly influential Italian treatise on horsemanship, Gli ordini di cavalcare, by Federico Grisone (Naples, 1550). All three Germans were active as horse-trainers at Protestant courts. This article argues that their unusual attitudes, founded upon values such as love, empathy, piety, patience and knowledge, may well have been influenced by specific aspects of Martin Luther’s thought as expressed in the reformer’s Commentary on Genesis and other writings. In making this argument, the article explores the imbrication of the Protestant Reformation and early modern horsemanship.

Notes

1 Johann Cramer, Jäger Spies / Welcher zur Gottseligkeit aller Menschen Vermahnet / In einer Christlichen Leichen Predigt … Bey dem Begräbnis Des … Ehrnvhestedn Juncker Philips Christophs vom Pretis … weyland Fürstlicher Sächsischer Altenburgisher Jungen Herrschafft Stallmeisters … Beschrieben und betrachtet Durch Johannem Cramerum … Fürstl. Sächß. Hoffpredigern zu Altenburg (Altenburg, 1624).

2 Cramer, Jäger Spies, fols Aiii v^o-Aiv v^o.

3 Franz Eduard Pasch, ‘Johann Wilhelm (Herzog von Sachsen-Altenburg)’, in Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (eds),Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. 14 (1881), p. 368 (online: https://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=ADB:Johann_Wilhelm_(Herzog_von_Sachsen-Altenburg)&oldid=2492592 [accessed 4 September 2019]).

4 Cramer, Jäger Spies, fols Biv r^o-C r^o. All translations from the German, unless otherwise noted, are mine.

5 The critical exploration of early modern human attitudes towards and practices involving animals animating this article and others would be unthinkable without Keith Thomas and Erica Fudge, whose pioneering works served to create a legitimate and enduring space for such issues within the scholarly remit. What I hope to add here is a look beyond England to the German territories and a consideration of the training of horses in particular while asking if theological discourse had role to play therein.

6 The differences in viewpoint between ordinary citizens on the one hand and courtly horse-trainers on the other would seem to indicate that attitudes relating to horses may well have been shaped in part by social group and status. Differences in social status of course also defined the exact nature of a person’s experience and contact with horses.

7 As Donna Landry has pointed out to me, another group known for the kindness and gentleness with which they treated their horses were the Ottoman Turks. Landry highlights the role of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522–92), the Habsburg ambassador to the Ottoman court of Suleiman the Magnificent between 1555 and 1562, in describing and praising Ottoman practices which he pointedly contrasts with those of Europeans: Donna Landry, Noble Brutes: How Eastern Horses Transformed English Culture (Baltimore, 2009), pp. 133-5.Busbecq’s account of his experiences at the Ottoman court was first published in 1581 as Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum and so may have been potentially available to the German horsemen under discussion here.

8 Elizabeth Tobey (ed.), Federico Grisone: The Rules of Riding, translation by Elizabeth Tobey and Federica Deigan (Tempe, AZ, 2014).

9 Grisone/Tobey, Rules of Riding, p. 343.

10 Ibid., pp. 327-9.

11 Ibid., p. 343.

12 Ibid., p. 329.

13 Ibid., p. 105.

14 The first printed German translation was undertaken by Veit Tufft and Hans Fröhlich of Augsburg, both Stable-Masters to Marx Fugger (1529–1597). Their translation was published in 1566 in Augsburg. A new translation of Grisone into German was undertaken by the humanist scholar Johan Fayser with a first edition published in Augsburg in 1570. For the connection between early modern scholars and hippological literature, see Pia F. Cuneo, ‘(Un)Stable Identities: Hippology and the Professionalization of Scholarship and Horsemanship in Early Modern Germany’, in Karl A. E. Enenkel and Paul J. Smith (eds), Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts, vol. 2 (Brill, 2007), pp. 339-59. Further editions of Fayser’s translation appeared in 1573, 1580, and 1599 (all in Augsburg). Uncited redactions of Grisone’s work appeared in German horsemanship manuals written by Marx Fugger (1578/1584), Hans Friderich Hörwart von Hohenburg (1577/1581), and ‘LVC’ (1584). Of these, only Fugger treats some of Grisone’s information with healthy scepticism. For Fugger’s hippological and humanist pursuits, see Pia F. Cuneo, ‘Marx Fugger’s Von der Gestüterey: Horses, Humanism and Posthumanism in Early Modern Augsburg’, in Reingard Spannring, Reinhard Heuberger et al (eds), Tiere-Texte-Transformationen: Kritische Perspektiven der Human-Animal Studies (Bielefeld, 2015), pp. 69-84.

15 Georg Engelhard von Löhneysen, Della Cavalleria, vol. I (Remlingen, 1609), pp. 165-240.

16 For information on Löhneysen and his book, see Mara Wade, ‘Publication, Pageantry, Patronage: Georg Engelhard von Loehneyss’ Della Cavalleria (1609; 1624) and his Hamburg Tournament Pageant for King Christian IV of Denmark (1603)’, Daphnis 32 (2003), pp. 165-97; and Koert van der Horst (ed.), Great Books on Horsemanship: Bibliotheca Hippologica Johan Dejager (Leiden, 2014), pp. 112-17.

17 Löhneysen, Della Cavalleria, p. 142: ‘Er sol Trew/Erbar/Fromb und auffrichtig sein … er soll auch eine sonderliche grosse Lust und schier angeborne Liebe zu den Pferden … haben … denn es fuer war ein muehsam Ampt ist.’

18 Löhneysen, Della Cavalleria, p. 144: ‘Es ist auch hoch von Noehten/ das ein Bereiter gedueldig sey/ sich den Zorn im Reiten nicht ubergehen lass/ wie dan der gemeine brauch/ und wird kaum unter zehen einer gefunden/ der diese Tugendt der Gedult an ihm hat/ was ein Pferdt Heut nicht lernet/ das kan es Morgen lernen/ darzu gehoeret patientia, dan zeit bringt Rosen.’

19 Löhneysen, Della Cavalleria, p. 147: ‘Zum siebenden: Sollen die Bereiter mit ihren untergebenen Pferden sitsam und gemach umbgehen/ dieselbem mit fleiss und gutter bescheidenheit Reiten/ und an solchen keine gewalt uben/ oder ungewoenliche Reuterey zu derselben verderben fuernehmen.’

20 For the roles of Luther’s house postil and catechistical writings in the processes of popular indoctrination, see Susan Karant-Nunn, ‘Preaching the Word in Early Modern Germany’, in Larissa Taylor (ed.), Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period (Leiden, 2001), pp. 193-220; and Gerhard Bode, ‘Instruction of the Christian Faith by Lutherans after Luther’, in Robert Kolb (ed.), Lutheran Ecclesiastical Culture 1550–1675 (Leiden, 2008), pp. 156-204.

21 Löhneysen, Della Cavalleria, p. 146: ‘Zum dritten: Sol keiner ohne vorwissen des Marstaellers aus dem Stall gehen/ ausserhalb des Sontages und Wochen Predigen/ sollen sich nach beschickung ihrer Pferde zur Kirchen gehen/ und die Predigt nicht muthwillig verseumen. … Wen aber Unsere Knechte Unser dienstshalben an gewoehnlichen Predigtage zur Kirchen zugehen verhindert wuerden/ so haben Wir die verordnung gethan/ das Unser Stallmeister eine Biblia und Hausspostil/ den Catechismum und Gesanckbuechlein in Unsere Stallstuben verschaffen sol/ das sie Gottes Wort lessen und anhoeren/ auch die Stalljungen im Beten geuebt und unterwiesen werden/ und alle Tage Morgens und Abends nach verrichter Arbeit/ auff eine gewisse namhaffte Stunde die Knechte und Jungen keinen aussgeschloseen zusamenkommen/ und durch die Stalljunen die es koennen und gelernet haben/ […] ein oder mehr Capittel nach gelegenheit auss der Bibel oder Hausspostil lessen/.’

22 As a sixteenth-century Italian, it is safe to assume that Grisone was not a Protestant. Many of the Germans who quoted and used Grisone’s texts were themselves men who had remained faithful to the Roman Church and/or who were in service to the Catholic Habsburgs: Marx Fugger, Hans Friedrich Hörwart von Hohenburg, and ‘LVC’.

23 Esther Münzberg, ‘Repräsentationsräume und Sammlungstypologien. Die kurfürstlichen Gemächer im Stallbau’, in Barbara Marx (ed.), Kunst und Repräsentation am Dresdner Hof (Munich, 2005), p. 151, footnote 24.

24 Christoph Jakob Lieb, Practica et Arte di Cavalleria. Übung und Kunst des Reitens …  (Dresden, 1616), p. 52.

25 Grisone/Tobey, Rules of Riding, pp. 81-3.

26 Lieb, Practica, pp. 1-2.

27 Pia F. Cuneo, ‘Equine Empathies: Giving Voice to Horses in Early Modern Germany’, in Sarah Cockram and Andrew Wells (eds), Interspecies Interactions: Animals and Humans between the Middle Ages and Modernity (New York, 2018), pp. 66-86.

28 Raised as a Lutheran, Georg Wilhelm’s father, Johann Sigismund (1572–1619) had converted to Calvinism in 1613, only six years before his death. Because there was such opposition amongst his subjects to adopting Calvinism, Johann Sigismund allowed bi-confessionalism in Brandenburg, which continued under his son and successor, who had also converted. Thomas Klein, ‘Georg Wilhelm’, in Neue Deutsche Biographie 6 (1964), pp. 203-04. (Online: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd102116156.html#ndbcontent [accessed 4 September 2019]). For von Danup, see Van der Horst (ed.), Great Books on Horsemanship, pp. 264-5; and for Pirro Antonio, ibid, pp. 418-21.

29 Gabriel von Danup, Ein sonderliches newes und lesewürdiges Gesprech … wegen Übergebung einer kläglichen Supplication der Pferde …  (no place of publication, 1623).

30 Von Danup, Supplication, p. 11.

31 Gerd Heuschmann, Finger in der Wunde: Was Reiter wissen müssen, damit Ihr Pferd gesund bleibt (Stuttgart, 2006).

32 Von Danup, Supplication, p. 12.

33 Ibid., p. 7.

34 Ibid., pp. 2-5. Busbecq’s assessment of European training methods is equally disparaging: ‘According to our method, grooms think it essential to use the roughest words and loudest tones in talking to their horses, and to be forever thrashing them. The consequence is that the horses quiver all over with terror on their entering the stable, and regard them with equal hatred and fear.’ C. T. Forster and F. H. B. Daniell (eds), The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, vol. I (Geneva, 1971), p. 216.

35 Von Danup, Supplication, pp. 4-5.

36 The court artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, who also became a close friend of Luther’s, commemorated several of these tournaments in woodcut prints: see Dieter Koepplin and Tilman Falk, Lukas Cranach: Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, vol. I (Basel, 1974), pp. 227-31.

37 Georgius Agricola, De re metallica libri XII (Basel, 1556), for example Book VI, pp. 138-40, 181: (http://www.digitalis.uni-koeln.de/Agricola/agricola_index.html [accessed 4 September 2019]).

38 Hermann Größler, ‘Mansfeld, Albrecht III, Graf von’, in Allgemeine Deutsch Biographie (1884) (http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd102478929.html [accessed 4 September 2019]).

39 Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (London, 2017), p. 184.

40 D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel, vol. 11 (Weimar, 1948), nr. 4115, pp. 104-05. The letter is from Torgau, dated 22 May 1545.

41 See for example, R. W. Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), pp. 3 and 33.

42 Briony Aitchison, ‘Holy Cow!: The Miraculous Cures of Animals in Late Medieval England’, European Review of History, 16/6 (2009), pp. 875-92.

43 D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel, vol. 4 (Weimar, 1933), nr. 862, p. 488. The letter is from Luther to Spalatin, [Wittenberg], 7 May 1525.

44 Cramer, Jäger Spies, fol. Aiv v^o: ‘Es wundert mich/ was diese Lesterer sagen würden … wenn sie sehen/ wie/ in und bey grosser Herren Begräbnüssen die Pferde in die Kirchen geführet werden/ und unter der Predigt dorinnenstehen?’.

45 See John A. Maxfield, Luther’s Lecture on Genesis and the Formation of Evangelical Identity (Kirksville, MO, 2008), pp. 1-9.

46 Martin Luther, The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther: Luther on the Creation. A Critical and Devotional Commentary on Genesis, transl. by Henry Cole, ed. John N. Lenker (http://www.martinluthersermons.com/luthergenesis_chap_1.pdf), p. 38.

47 See also David Clough, ‘The Anxiety of the Human Animal: Martin Luther on Non-human Animals and Human Animality’, in Delia Deane-Drummond and David Clough (eds), Creaturely Theology: On God, Humans and Other Animals (London, 2009), pp. 41-60.

48 Luther / Lenker, Precious and Sacred Writings, p. 93

49 For a discussion of dominant attitudes both before and after Luther, see Gary Steiner, Anthropocentrism and its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy (Pittsburgh, 2005).

50 Luther, Luther’s Works: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 1-5, trans. George Schick, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis, 1958), pp. 50-51.

51 Clough discusses Luther’s lack of clarity regarding the exact nature and character of Adam’s dominion over the animals, both before and after the fall: ‘Anxiety of the Human Animal’, pp. 45-7.

52 Luther / Lenker, Precious and Sacred Writings, p. 84.

53 Ibid., p. 128.

54 Ibid., p. 121.

55 Ibid., p. 118.

56 Ibid..

57 Indeed John A. Maxfield argues in his book with its suggestive title — Luther’s Lecture on Genesis and the Formation of Evangelical Identity — that Luther’s commentaries on Genesis were regarded by him as foundational to Reformed identity.

58 Luther / Lenker, Precious and Sacred Writings, p. 85.

59 Martin Luther, ‘Am Sechsten Sontag nach der Trifeltigkeyt’, in Haußpostil (Nuremberg, 1544), in D. Martin LuthersWerke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe) vol. 52 (Weimar, 1915), pp. 406-08 (https://archive.org/stream/werkekritischege52luthuoft#page/406 and /408).

60 In order to add more substance to this argument, further texts by Luther must be examined as well as a more thorough study of the dissemination of his ideas both in print and from the pulpit. In addition, it would be interesting to compare these attitudes towards animals and training practices with Lutheran attitudes towards children and pedagogical practices. My thanks to the anonymous reader for these suggestions.

61 See for example Clough, ‘Anxiety of the Human Animal’, pp. 57-60; Peter Huff, ‘Calvin and the Beasts: Animals in John Calvin’s Theological Discourse’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 42/1 (1999), pp. 67-75; Joshua Moritz, ‘Martin Luther and the Medieval Saints among the Animals’, Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 51/1 (2012), pp. 7-12.

62 For example, Gary Steiner’s Anthropocentrism and its Discontents provides an extremely useful overview of the dominant strands of thought about animals from antiquity to post-modernity, as my earlier citation of his work demonstrates. Enterprises such as this definitely have important functions to fulfil. However, the necessary generalisations involved can prove misleading. Steiner moves directly from a chapter on ‘The Status of Animal in Medieval Christianity’ to the next which discusses Descartes. Martin Luther appears in a terse sentence at the end of the former chapter: ‘This legacy [of Scripture and its interpretation by Thomas Aquinas] persists virtually unmodified throughout the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance thought of Martin Luther’ (p. 131).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pia F. Cuneo

Pia F. Cuneo

Pia F. Cuneo is Professor of Art History at the University of Arizona. Recent publications include: ‘Horses as Love Objects: Shaping Social and Moral Identities in Hans Baldung Grien’s Bewitched Groom (circa 1544) and in Sixteenth-Century Hippology’, in Pia F. Cuneo (ed.), Animals and Early Modern Identity (London, 2014), pp. 151-68; ‘Intra-Active Performativity: Rethinking the Early Modern Equestrian Portrait’, in Karen Raber and Monica Mattfeld (eds), Performing Animals (University Park, 2017), pp. 28-47; and ‘Equine Empathies: Giving Voice to Horses in Early Modern Germany’, in Sarah Cockram and Andrew Wells (eds), Interspecies Interactions (London, 2018), pp. 66-86. She competes locally in dressage.