Freydal

Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I by Albrecht Dürer, 1519.

Maximilian I and his father Frederick III were part of what was to become a long line of Holy Roman Emperors from the House of Habsburg. Maximilian was elected King of the Romans in 1486; upon his father's death in 1493 he succeeded to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire.[2]

During his reign, Maximilian commissioned a number of humanist scholars and artists to assist him in completing a series of projects, in different art forms, intended to immortalize his life and deeds and those of his Habsburg ancestors.[3] He referred to these projects as Gedechtnus ("memorial"),[4] and included a series of stylised autobiographical works: Freydal, the prose romance Weisskunig, and the poem Theuerdank.[3]

Freydal and Theuerdank are closely linked and together give an allegorical account of the events leading to Maximilian's marriage to Mary of Burgundy in 1477.[5] Mary died five years later, in 1482.[6] In Freydal, which is partly a tribute to Mary,[7] the eponymous hero pursues his fair lady by jousting in tournaments.[8] Theuerdank is effectively a sequel in which the hero overcomes dangers on the journey to his wedding.[5] Freydal has a comedic tone which contrasts with Theuerdank, which has more of the character of a tragedy.[9]

The theme of Freydal reflects Maximilian's lifelong enthusiasm for jousting. He attended his first tournament at the age of 14 and was captivated by its traditions and spectacle.[8] He staged many tournaments, including those to celebrate his wedding to Mary of Burgundy in 1477, his coronation as King of the Romans in 1486 and on the occasion of the First Congress of Vienna in 1515.[8] Maximilian was himself a participant in tournaments from 1485 until 1511, when he was in his 50s.[10] His affinity for jousting contributed to his soubriquet the “last knight”.[8]

Post-tournament festivities: grotesque-style dancers or mummers dance a moresca while Freydal, in a mask and holding torches, looks on (Freydal ms. fol.164, KMW)[11]

Maximilian took a leading part in the creation of Freydal,[12] a name derived from Freyd-alb, meaning "white joyful young man".[13] He appears to have begun planning the work in 1502 when he instructed his court taylor, Martin Trummer, "to have drawn in a book all those costumes as yet seen in mummeries organised by his majesty".[14] A “mummery” was a late medieval courtly masquerade or costumed dance.[15]

The next development was the commissioning of planning sketches for the entire work, created over the following ten years.[14] They were drawn in pen on laid paper, using brown and black ink with watercolour over black chalk and leadpoint.[14] A collection of 203 of these are housed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.[16] A small number of additional drawings are held at the British Museum and the Vatican Library.[14] Maximilian's instructions on the subjects to be illustrated as well as corrections, in his own hand, of some of the proofs have survived.

In 1511, Maximilian dictated some of the text to his secretary, Max Trytssaurwein,[12] (or Marx Treitzsauerwein[17]) and the following year wrote "Freydal is half conceived, the largest part of which we have made in Cologne".[14] The work was never completed,[18] however, and the text exists only in draft form.[19] The manuscript text dictated to Treitzsauerwein, and corrected in Maximilian's hand, is held by the Austrian National Library in Vienna.[20]

Planning sketch for Freydal, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Although the text was never finalised, 256 high quality miniatures,[19] based on the planning sketches, were created between 1512 and 1515 to illustrate the text.[5] These were painted on paper in gouache with gold and silver highlights over pen, pencil and leadpoint[5] by two dozen anonymous[9] court artists under the direction of the imperial master-taylor.[18] All but one of the paintings are preserved in an illuminated manuscript ‘tournament book’ held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.[5] The remaining painting has been missing since at least 1600.[19]

It was intended to print and publish the work with woodcut illustrations derived from the miniatures.[18] Although Maximilian never succeeded in doing this,[18] and the text remained only a draft, five of the illustrations were trial printed.[19] These were from woodcuts made in about 1516 by Albrecht Dürer, albeit the cutting was somewhat rough. A sixth woodcut has been attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder.[21] One of the woodcut blocks has survived, and is held by the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin.[22]

In modern times, the Kunsthistorisches Museum illuminated manuscript tournament book has been published twice. A multi-volume edition, edited by Quirin von Leitner (de), was published in Vienna in stages between 1880 and 1882.[12][23] In 2019, the German publisher, Taschen, published the entire tournament book in a single volume, edited by Stefan Krause.[9][24]

Tournament books were a feature of late medieval and renaissance courtly culture and provide a graphic record of jousting and its associated rituals. Notable examples include King René's Tournament Book and the tournament books of the Electors of Saxony.[34] The Freydal illuminated manuscript is considered one of the most important[34] and precious[12] of this genre. Not only is it the largest surviving tournament book, it is also an unparalleled pictorial source of jousting from the late medieval period.[35] It is the only one to depict spectacular falls.[8] In addition to illustrating the jousts themselves, it represents a remarkable catalogue of the weaponry used during tournaments[8] and is the most extensive record of mummery, the early court masquerade, that exists.[15] The manuscript has been recognised in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme.[36]

However, Freydal was intended to be not only an artistic work but also political propaganda.[37] As part of what he called his ‘memorial projects’ or Gedechtnus, Maximilian I used literary and visual works such as Freydal to model and enhance his public image. His aim was to make up for his actual powerlessness and lack of centralised control over his own realms by presenting himself and his exploits as superior to any others.[38] As the historian Jan-Dirk Müller (de) has said, the extent to which Maximilian employed this strategy meant that his court “literally existed on paper: to a large extent it was a virtual quantity”.[38]