A German Popular Rural Calendar of the Early Nineteenth Century

In our information-saturated world, we take the ability to read for granted, and so, when we consider previous eras of history, many of us operate with simplistic assumptions about literacy and illiteracy, e.g. assuming that the world was largely illiterate until and because, well . . . .

I always tell students: reading is a skill that takes some effort on the part of the would-be reader, and in addition, the effort of someone willing to inculcate that skill. One may therefore apply the legal phrase , "cui bono": to whose benefit? In other words, people generally learn to read only when it is useful and/or when society as a whole considers it useful. It is not surprising that US plantation owners forbade their slaves to learn to read. It is likewise no coincidence that (1) already in the late fourteenth century, Florence--a center of commerce and politics--had basic public education (for both boys and girls) and an army of notaries, lawyers, and civil servants, whereas (2) in largely rural Central and East Central Europe, illiteracy is generally said to have remained at about 70 percent at the end of the eighteenth century. In fact, as late as 1881, in the backwaters of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, illiteracy apparently ranged from 57 to 83 percent (though not among my ancestors).

In 1776, the Prussian landowner and pedagogue Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow described the goal of education for the common people as: "to form good Christians, obedient subjects, and capable farmers." Scholars continue to debate the developments in this threshold era between the popular Enlightenment and the beginnings of a modern popular education movement--circa 1770-1830--precisely because it was so crucial but the evidence is so limited or laconic. Among the issues are both the motives of the reformers and the agency of the peasants. As far as we know, traditional rural reading consisted primarily of religious texts; works of a sentimental, escapist, or sensationalistic character; and above all, calendars or almanacs. Still, even if we have some idea of what the peasants read, or what others wanted them to read, it is much more difficult to know how they read.

The calendars ranged from minimalist types containing the days of the year and meteorological or other concise practical information to more expansive ones that also contained a wide range of other content, from anecdotes to superstition and fantastic tales. Collectively, they were the equivalents of the well-known US Old Farmer's Almanac and Farmer's Almanac (founded 1792 and 1818, respectively, and both still published today). Reformers sought to adapt the form as a vehicle for their ends, and during the French occupation, there were even revolutionary calendars.

One example of the minimalist variety of calendar in my personal library is:

Allgemeiner Kalender auf das Jahr Christi 1828, welches ein Schalt-Jahr von 366 Tagen ist. (Universal Calendar for A.D. 1828 [literally: the Year of Christ 1828], which is a leap year of 366 days.). Steyr, printed by Joesph Greis.

87 x 112 mm

The booklet contains the more or less obligatory array of features.

The woodcut cover illustration was a stock piece, reused year after year, part of the "branding" of the product. It can be tempting to overinterpret such images, about whose origins and intent we know far too little: temptation is often a thing best resisted. Against the backdrop of a rural landscape--castle- or church-like structure at left, and large, comfortable dwelling at right, a middle-class man, identifiable by his garb, observes the heavens with a telescope--emblem of science and erudition. Next to him, a peasant with a spade stands and extends a free hand: in greeting? explanation? We cannot tell.

Still, at the least, the image clearly serves to locate the calendar and its intended purpose in the social and intellectual world of the day, between learned and popular culture.  Taken together, the two figures encompass the standard content of the book: calendars for each month, along with meteorological information and folk wisdom.

As the location--Steyr is in Upper Austria--indicates, the calendar is aimed at a Catholic audience in the Habsburg Empire. Accordingly, the first pages of the calendar are devoted to crown and church.

At left: the birthdays of the members of the royal family of Austria.

At right:

top: the Numerus aureus, solar and lunar cycles, and the like, necessary for the calculation of religious holidays in the Gregorian calendar  (these would have required the use of additional tables or other information), as well as the time from Christmas to Ash Wednesday.

middle: moveable feast days, according to the Roman Missal.

bottom: the Ember Days.

Each monthly opening began with the names in both the modern and traditional Germanic form, and a woodcut emblem of the month including the zodiacal sign and characteristic activities of the season--here, for January: Virgo, a domestic meal, and warming oneself by the fire.

Additional information included length of the day, phases of the moon, sunrise, and general weather conditions. Reflecting the defining role of the Catholic Church, each day is marked by its saint's name, and the weeks, by a relevant Scriptural passage.

On the relevant days, as the previous opening explained, obligatory fast days were marked with a red cross.


The pages following the monthly calendars provided additional information on phases of the moon and length of daylight, as well as traditional folk wisdom.

E.g. for January:

When on S. Vincent's there's sunshine, one therefore hopes for good wine.

And for February:

When it rains after the new moon, then it will rain for a full month.

In this case, we even know something about the printer-publisher, Greis.





He occupied a historic Gothic house located at Grünmarkt 7. The original structure burned in 1552 and was rebuilt and then occupied by many generations of owners--from 1732 into the twentieth century, exclusively printers, who passed the property along to others in the trade through marriage (as was not infrequently the custom in that day) or sale. Joseph Greis (b. 1773) began as a compositor (typesetter) in the shop and acquired it from Franz Joseph Medter in 1804. 1827 was evidently a banner year for him: he married (for the second time) in January, and on 26 September, he also opened the town's first bookshop (Stadtplatz 23). In fact, it would have been just about this time that he issued the calendar that is our subject here: calendars and almanacs generally appeared at the start of the autumn season so that customers could purchase them conveniently in advance of the new year. (This was in particular important in the case of the more elegant literary or other Taschenbücher or almanacs--in the US, we would call them annual "gift books"--which sometimes had to go through several printings, depending on demand.)

In the mid-1790s, in the context of the French Revolution, Austria and Prussia restricted circulation of some foreign "calendars," so some publishers of almanacs or gift books simply deleted the calendar texts in editions destined for those regions.

This copy bears a revenue stamp, for 3 Kreutzer. Under the revised stamp tax regulation of 1819, Austrian calendars were taxed at either 2 or 3 kreutzer--whereas the more elegant almanacs that contained a calendar required a far higher tax of 12 kreutzer: as clear a sign as any of the economic and cultural hierarchy at work here.

Precisely because the more humble publications such as that of Greis were ephemeral--intended for practical use of limited duration--most have disappeared. They wore out and were thrown out. This hardy survivor shows his wounds.

A complete copy (here, the 1823 volume via GoogleBooks) ran to 20 leaves (40 pages), but my copy has only 30 complete pages and a fragment of 31-32. Still, it somehow survived.

In fact, the three large notches on the left, or binding, edge, indicate that it must have been part of a larger volume. (They are too large for what would be required to stitch together a work of this slim size, and if that had been the only purpose--that is, if it stood alone--they would not have been removed.) Owners sometimes bound together multiple issues of the same serial, and sometimes combined publications of different titles within the same volume. We may assume--but not be certain--that the former was the case.

But the question remains: why would one have kept a work designed to be ephemeral? We know a good deal about some of these publications as texts, material objects, and objects of commerce--but still far too little about how they were actually used.

Artifact of the Moment: Reflections on Nativity Scenes in Two Eighteenth-Century German Bibles

I am more behind than usual in sending traditional paper/print holiday greetings. For a variety of reasons, I didn't manage to get out any Christmas cards, as such, in time for the holiday. But I did at least manage to reflect briefly on some of the iconography associated with the occasion.

Here is an image that I've customarily used on one of the greeting cards that I send. It comes from my research into German book history.

The Nativity: Vignette from the Gospel according to Saint Matthew

(enlarge)

The unsigned copper engraving (approximately 10 x 19.5 cm) is from my battered but treasured copy of: Biblia, Das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft Alten und Neuen Testaments : nach der Übersetzung und mit den Vorreden und Randglossen D. Martin Luthers ... / ausgefertiget unter der Aufsicht und Direction Christoph Matthäi Pfaffen, der Heil. Schrifft Doctorn, Professorn, Cantzlern und Probsten zu Tübingen, auch Abbten des Closters Lorch. - Mit Censur des Hochfürstl. Würtemberg. Consistorii und Löbl. Theologischer Facultät zu Tübingen, auch Allergnädigsten Privilegiis (Tübingen: Verlegt und gedruckt von Johann Georg und Christian Gottfried Cotta. Im Jahr Christi 1729).

The massive folio volume, illustrated, and edited with commentary by Professor Christoph Matthäus Pfaff (1686-1760) of the University of Tübingen, was at once a bibliophile production, thus a representative declaration of Christian faith (simply owning such a large and expensive work was a statement of sorts), and a pragmatic attempt to bridge theological differences in an age in which Lutheran orthodoxy contended with pietist challenges in the Duchy of Württemberg, which remained a bastion of hard-core Evangelical Protestantism in the otherwise largely Catholic German south.

The iconic scene of the Holy Family in the stable stands at the beginning of the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, thus introducing the New Testament as a whole (the other Gospels are not similarly graced with vignettes).

The Gospel of Matthew, as such, of course, mentions none of this. Instead, after a long genealogy establishing Jesus' necessary descent from King David, and the story of the Annunciation, it leaps right to the birth of Jesus. But there is no mention of the details, or of a location more specific than the messianically mandated Bethlehem. Instead, we suddenly read of Herod's concern over the birth of the King of the Jews when the three Wise Men, having followed their star, arrive in Jerusalem. Only after Herod interrogates the "chief priests and scribes" do he and the Magi learn that the goal of the latter should be Bethlehem. And even then, the gospel refers only to "the house" in which they find "the young child with Mary his mother." That's all. They present their gifts. Then warned in dreams by God and an angel, respectively, the Wise Men and the Holy Family flee the wrath of Herod.

Our cozy and canonical image of the Nativity, as depicted in many a work of art, comes from the Gospel according to Saint Luke, (The Gospels of Mark and John do not even deal with the Nativity and instead leap right into the career of the mature Jesus.)

And even then, there are no details. Luke contains the familiar assertion that Mary "brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn" and that the shepherds, having heard the message of an angel and the heavenly host, "came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger." That's it. And a manger, contrary to popular opinion and my childhood impressions, is not a stable, and rather, as the etymology implies, something that one finds inside a stable: a trough or feeder for livestock, thus suitable to act as a sort of ersatz crib for the baby Jesus. (For that matter, the whole Nativity narrative is historically problematic; most recently, archaeologists have suggested that the actual birthplace was Bethlehem in Galilee rather than Judea.)

The rest, with its familiar regiment of barnyard fauna, is the accretion of tradition, though quite understandable as something that would appeal to the lifeworld and sensibilities of a largely agrarian Europe in the coming two millennia and to us now conveys a kind of nostalgic Gemütlichkeit.

The image in this Bible therefore embellishes the scene in that vein. Within the Baroque frame of sinuous and symmetrically curving curling acanthus leaves is a barn or stable, though a rather artificially neat and clean one. And, although there are hay racks for the livestock all around the perimeter of the structure, the little manger holding the baby Jesus stands at the center: unrealistic and out of place in a practical sense but theologically exactly where it needs to be. To the left are Mary and Joseph (the latter depicted, according  to tradition, as elderly—perhaps in order to downplay any suggestion of sexuality). To the right are the shepherds (identifiable by their staves) in their customary poses of obeisance, from kneeling to respectfully standing in contrapposto. In a sense, they pull our attention to the right, and in emphasizing the miracle and message that brought them hither, seem to violate the symmetry, but the presence of the larger livestock in the left foreground (those at the right are depicted as smaller and in the background) exercises a countervailing weigh so that visual balance seems to be maintained in the aggregate.

Embodying as it does the most popular conception of the Nativity, the scene from Luke thus serves as a visual introduction to the New Testament as a whole. Emphasizing this, the frame bears in its corners the traditional iconographic representations of each of the four Gospels, reflecting the chief attribute of each book: the bull (Luke), the lion (Mark), the angel (Matthew), and the eagle (John).

The sophistication of this image, from its complex composition to the refinement of the figures and the elegant cross-hatching, is all the more apparent when we compare it with a later and and more humble counterpart. The 1729 Cotta Bible, as noted, was a luxury work, for the theologian and scholar, or for the patrician elite. The ordinary folk purchased something a good deal simpler and cheaper.

Both the Cotta firm and its competitors also published budget Bibles in the more common octavo format. (Think of a book with covers whose dimensions are akin to those of a typical modern paperback, or somewhat smaller than those of a Kindle, but which in this case is, of course, a good deal thicker: some two to three inches/5 to 7.5 cm.) In 1793, the young Johann Friedrich Cotta (1764-1832), who would become the greatest scion of the family, earning it world renown as the publisher of the German Classicists and Europe's leading liberal newspaper, brought out out 5,000 copies of one such volume (by contrast, new titles in his catalogue at that time typically appeared in pressruns of only 500-1000 copies). It contained no illustrations, as such, only a few modest standard printers' ornaments or vignettes to mark the transitions between sections.

Meanwhile the Tübingen printer and notorious pirate publisher Wilhelm Heinrich Schramm (who also worked for Cotta on other projects ) had brought out a revised version of his own cheap edition of the Holy Scriptures:

BIBLIA, Das ist: Die ganze Heil. Schrift Alten und Neuen Testaments, nach der Teutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers ... (Tübingen, drukts und verlegts Wilhelm Heinrich Schramm, 1791

The common title page for both Testaments in my copy is dated 1791, but the separate title page for the New Testament bears the year 1794:

Das neue Testament unsers HErrn und Heylands JEsu Christi, verdeutschet durch D. Martin Luther... 

 (Tübingen, drukts und verlegts Wilhelm Heinrich Schramm, 1794)

The illustrations in this volume are fewer and simpler (and of course smaller) than in the Cotta folio Bible. To begin with, they are woodcuts rather than copper engravings, and thus allow for less detail. Even taking that into account, though, they are cruder in composition as well as line.

The elaborate Baroque frame of the engraving in the 1729 folio gave the scene an almost theatrical appearance, so that we had the sense of being privileged observers, looking in on a scene in which the holy actors go about their sacred business unaware of us.  (Not for nothing did nineteenth-century critics liken the proscenium stage, with its sharp separation of audience and players, to the Guckkasten—peep show, or peep box—of the village fair.) It was thus at once realistic and unrealistic.

Nativity Scene: c. 3.5 x 1.25 inches/ 9 x 3 cm

Here the frame has been reduced to a bare minimum, and the effect also differs in other ways from that of its more elegant counterpart. Indeed, the four Evangelists seem imprisoned rather than framed by the stark black border. (St. Matthew, at upper left, looks absolutely desperate to escape its confines, which in the meantime seem to be crushing poor St. Luke at lower right.) Within the frame, there is no attempt to produce a realistic perspectival architectural setting: instead, the background consists mainly of an undifferentiated series of vertical lines. There is a sort of flatness to the whole. The human forms are similarly simplified and flattened. It is tempting to call them cartoonish. Certainly, they are not particularly elegant or accomplished. From the standpoint of both composition and execution, then, the Schramm woodcut may seem clumsy. The frame is simple, the background is simple, the figures are crude.

That said, there is a kind of naive charm and rustic vitality to the whole.

Mary's devotion is apparent, even though the head of the baby Jesus looks like one of those schematic skulls on a Puritan gravestone. Although somewhat obscured by the forequarters of the horse or donkey in the background, the bull at left turns his head to the right, captivated by the array of figures paying homage to the infant. Further drawing our attention to the mother and child is the outstretched arm of Joseph (for we assume that the commanding gesture identifies him, even though the staff might otherwise suggest one of the shepherds) above, despite (or because of?) his lobster claw of a hand.

And even the compositional clumsiness may ironically work to the artist's and reader's advantage: although the figures awkwardly fill the space to the extent that we fear they will bump their heads on the solid black border, there is somehow a sense of immediacy lacking in the more polished engraving of the 1729 folio. As a result, we feel ourselves to be not voyeurs, but participant-observers in the miraculous scene.

Upon reflection, then, one might just conclude that this print brings us closer to that presumed stable and the lifeworld of Judean peasants some two thousand years ago than does its more elegant Baroque counterpart. In any case, it was by means of simple images such as these that the average Christian in Central Europe formed a picture of the Nativity some two centuries ago.

What G.I. Joe Read

As I recently noted, John Hench's excellent study of Books as Weapons, on the US harnessing of publishing for political purposes in the World War II era, just won a well-deserved prize for best book of the year from the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP).

Most of us were previously unaware of this colossal effort, particularly as it concerned the attempt to promote American books among the European population. More of us may have come across the cheap editions produced for US soldiers. Still, as even these latter are probably unfamiliar to the average reader, I thought it might be useful to present one of them here. The images are no substitute for the object itself, but they, along with John's excellent research, help to give some impression of what the books were actually like.

As the book explains, the first concerted attempt to provide US soldiers with reading material proved unsuccessful. The "Victory Book Campaigns," a joint effort of the USO, Red Cross, and American Library Association, failed because they "depended on the voluntary contribution of used books by civilians at home," an approach that "proved to be both inefficient and ineffective." (pp. 51, 84). As many a modern librarian or organizer could have told them: volunteer efforts can be unwieldy, the more so when it comes to book donations, which tend to attract precisely the sorts of things that neither donor nor recipient really wants. The weight and wide variations in the size and shape of the books also complicated the logistics of what was to have been a massive undertaking.

The Council on Books in Wartime (CBW), a collaboration among trade book publishers, librarians, and booksellers, therefore decided to make its own selections and produce its own editions, which could be sold to the military. The result was the spectacularly successful Armed Services Editions (ASE). The effort was as noteworthy for its approach and production methods as its results. It was prescient in that it took as its model the still-young paperback revolution and sought to take advantage of the distinctive characteristics of the wartime economy.

Standardization and a creative approach to design proved to be as important as the content:

In contrast to the widely differing sizes and formats of the Victory Campaign, the ASEs were lightweight, mostly oblong paperbacks, printed ‘four up’ and then thrice guillotined to create four books with the series’ characteristic, nonstandard orientation. They were printed on roll-fed rotary presses used in peacetime for magazines and catalogs, which had capacity in excess of the demands of civilian life. They appeared in two different trim sizes—6 ½ by 4 ½ inches (i.e. half the size of a magazine like Popular Mechanics) and 5 ½ x 3 ½ inches (i.e. half the size of a Reader’s Digest and similar periodicals)—which made packing and shipping comparatively easy. The text was printed in two columns on these oblong pages, a design, it was claimed, that did not exhibit the crowded effect that vertical two-column pages displayed. It also held the lines to legibly short lengths. These various design and technical innovations made the production and distribution of the ASEs feasible, even little short of miraculous. (p. 52)

ASE produced 122,951,031 copies of 1,322 titles from 1943 through 1947.

It so happens that I had one such edition in my own library, an item that I picked up for a few cents a good many years ago (I believe: at the League of Women Voters' book sale here in Amherst). It's by Ernie Pyle, the most famous US combat journalist of World War II. Killed by a sniper in 1945, Pyle, as the Indiana University School of Journalism puts it, was "An early "embedded journalist," who "worked alongside the troops, experiencing much of what they did, placing himself in danger as they did. His columns captured the scene and his reporting humanized the war for many of his readers." Pyle produced two bestselling collections of his writing, Here is Your War (1943) and Brave Men (1944-45), which were also issued together under the title, G.I. Joe.

The ASE edition of Here is Your War is in the larger of the two formats:

cover

inside cover

title page

first page, showing the unusual double-column horizontal orientation

back inside cover, with list of selected other titles in the series

back cover

The success of the program was measured not only in copies, but also in consequences. As John summarizes:

In setting up the ASEs, council members were confident that the series would contribute to the ‘mass reading of books in the world to come.’ They were right. Historians have generally credited the ASEs with introducing books to the GIs who had read little before the war, for helping fuel the paperback boom in the postwar years, and for creating a new pool of customers. (p. 53)

Not bad for an improvised response to a national emergency. One wonders what equivalent efforts could be undertaken today to enrich the lives of our soldiers and better equip them for the return to the United States and, eventually, civilian life in the age of the information economy.