SOURCE: "Fallen Man and Hartmann's Gregorius," in The Germanic Review, Vol. L, No. 2, March, 1975, pp. 85-98.

[In the following excerpt, Tobin explores Gregorius with regard to the Augustinian view of original sin that formed the "mainstream of religious thought" during Hartmann's life.]

Among the numerous attempts to interpret Hartmann's Gregorius, it has generally been recognized that seeing the story against a background of the religious thought of the age, whether this be the refined speculation of the theologians or the simpler, pastorally directed sermons, enriches and gives added precision to our understanding of the hero's fate. Sometimes this relationship of theology to literature has been conceived in a rather wooden fashion, as though Hartmann were using refined theological concepts and illustrating them in the structure of the story. This approach has rightfully drawn the wrath of others who object to putting Gregorius into a theological strait jacket. Still, most critics assume that exploring the relationships of theology to the story increases the yield of an interpretation far beyond what is possible by applying a strict werkimmanent approach. One religious teaching which has been frequently mentioned by critics in regard to Gregorius is the doctrine of original sin. Although many are convinced that seeing the story against the background of this doctrine renders it more intelligible, no study of Gregorius has really explored just what precisely the teaching concerning original sin was at this time, what it implied concerning man's nature, and how it is this more specific doctrine of original sin with all its ramifications that produces a rich yield for the interpreter.

If we intend to relate Gregorius to theological thought contemporary to it, we first ask what the sources were for Hartmann's knowledge of theology. Perhaps [in his Über Hartmann von Aue. Drei Bücher Untersuchungen (1971)] Schönbach was a bit overzealous in tracing parallels between Hartmann and a vast array of theologians. Certainly one may not conclude from this that Hartmann actually knew the works of all these theologians, but a solid familiarity with the mainstream of religious thought cannot be denied.… On the other hand, it seems improbable that Hartmann was aware of current questions that were providing impulses for new thought among professional theologians, especially in France. His lack of precision in religious terms and his apparent lack of concern in the question of what brings about the reconciliatio in the sacrament of penance—a central issue in the theology of the time—leads one to believe that Hartmann, though steeped in theological tradition, was ignorant of or unconcerned with strict contemporary theology. In view of all this, a reasonable approach would seem to be to present the essentials of the doctrine of original sin as it existed at the time in the conservative mainstream of tradition-oriented theology without belaboring refined differences between individual theologians. This is what one sees reflected in vernacular sermons. Augustine had been largely responsible for the development of this doctrine and it was taken over with little change by most of the theologians and compilers of the twelfth century. The presentation of the Augustinian view as found with only minor modifications in the Sentences of Peter Lombard is typical.…

Since Augustine's discussion of original sin and its effects provided the basis for early medieval anthropology, and since the influence of his views was increased through the writings of the early scholastics, it should not be surprising if we were to find them reflected in Gregorius, which is basically the story of a man's fall and redemption, whatever one might think about nuances of interpretation. Already in the prologue, … certain lines gain significance when viewed in the light of original sin. Thus in urging himself the necessity of penance, Hartmann says that even a man who keeps himself as pure as Abel, the medieval prototype of man needing redemption only because of the stain of original sin, does not do too much in doing penance to gain eternal life (26-32). Only the assumption that a man free of actual sin still has guilt, can take these lines out of the realm of exaggeration and rhetoric and give them serious meaning. Also, the emphasis on the guilt of the hero (52-53) becomes more intelligible if it is taken as at least including guilt arising from his situation and not just conscious guilt for personal actions. The last twenty years of scholarship concerning Gregorius have made it clear enough that such personal guilt is not that obvious. Finally the whole tone of the prologue with its emphasis on man's sinfulness, his need for penance and God's grace, and the power of evil is full of Augustinian pessimism regarding man.

Even a cursory inspection of the body of the narrative reveals striking parallels between Gregorius and man afflicted with original sin. The nature of the hero's birth puts him at a great disadvantage. Through the sin of his parents and no fault of his own he contracts a stain which must influence his life in essential ways. The incestuous relation of brother and sister caused by carnal lust demonstrates by an extreme example that it is concupiscence inseparably connected with conception which stains one from birth. When the abbot shows Gregorius the tablet which tells him of his origin, he replies:

"ouwê, lieber herre,
ich bin vervallen verre
âne alle mîne schulde.
wie sol ich gotes hulde
gewinnen nâch der missetât
diu hie vor mir geschriben stât?"
[1779-1784]

The obvious contradictions between vervallen verre and âne alle mîne schulde and between the almost despairing question of how God's friendship can be gained and the hero's personal innocence regarding the missetât can only be resolved in this cultural context by seeing Gregorius as fallen man laden with guilt through no act of his own.…

A closer look at the story reveals the repeated occurrence of passages which reflect twelfth-century concern with original sin, fallen nature, guilt, and responsibility. Is Gregorius bound up in the guilt which his parents incur in conceiving him? The sister seems to answer the question clearly in the negative:

ouch ist uns ofte vor geseit
daz ein kint niene treit
sînes vater schulde,
ja ensol ez gotes hulde
nicht dâ mite hân verlorn,
ob wir zer helle sîn geborn,
wandez an unser missetât
deheiner slahte schulde hât.
[475-483]

In the light of these lines … it is certainly wrong to assume … that Christian dogma maintained that the guilt of the fathers was incontrovertibly visited upon their children. However, the context of these lines compromises their being taken as the final word in the matter. They are preceded by the sister's asking her brother to find help so that even if the two of them lose God's favor their child might not be lost with them (469-74). If the offspring clearly has no share in the sin, why is help or counsel needed? Thus the ouch ist uns ofte vor geseit which introduces the idea that their child does not share their guilt can best be taken as representing the second of two views on the matter, and thus the whole question is left up in the air. Since whatever advice they receive and the measures they adopt for the birth of their child concern only his welfare in the forum of public opinion, these lines remain a blindes Motif for the story. Their whole function can be seen as being to raise the question of the theological effects of the parents' sin on Gregorius without providing any answer. Thus it is clear that our attention is being purposely drawn to this question. So, too, after Gregorius is born, when the mother, the vassal and his wife must decide what to do with the child, the whole question is put in terms again reflecting concern for its eternal salvation which has been put in danger by the sins of its parents and the circumstances of its birth. The beautiful child "'… waere schedelich verlorn: / nû waere aber ez geborn / mit alsô grôzen Sünden, …'" (686-89). Again they act only to save the public reputation of mother and child, but the terms in which his fate is discussed, though perhaps ambiguous, force the attention of the audience to this same area of the child's involvement in supernatural guilt. Both these passages call to mind not only the question of the guilt of children for their parents' sins but also on a symbolic level, Adam's sin and the fate of fallen man. Also, since Gregorius falls into the same sin of incest as his parents, it may well be that the story supposes a wide-spread knowledge of the dictum that God punishes those who imitate the sins of their fathers.

Concerning evidence of the vitiating consequences of Adam's sin in the hero, it must be admitted that in contrast to the case of his parents concupiscence is not greatly emphasized. Nevertheless, it can be seen to be a contributing factor on both sides in bringing about the incestuous union of mother and son. All the more striking are the manifestations of ignorance which brings ruin to the hero and his mother. Gregorius' ignorance, like that of his Greek prototype, is of a very essential kind. It is ignorance of his own identity. Although the plot requires that the hero be ignorant about his individual identity, Hartmann's story, like that of Sophocles, is also making a statement about his protagonist's ignorance of his own nature as man. And since the story goes to great lengths to point out the outstanding personal qualities of the hero (1235-1272) and dwells especially on his unusual capacity for acquiring knowledge (1173-1200), his ignorance can best be taken as a characteristic inherent in his nature rather than as a shortcoming of a particular individual.

Gregorius' path from ignorance to knowledge progresses through different stages. In the first stage he passes from false knowledge to not knowing when he overhears the words of his foster mother and discovers "ich enbin niht der ich wânde sîn" (1403). The shame of learning that he is a foundling fills him with an overpowering desire to flee to a land where no one knows "wie ich her komen bin" (1419). Even at this early stage in his conversation with the abbot the pattern of his life as a knight and ruler are clear. By hiding his shameful origin and relying on his own ability he will succeed because he has the necessary kunst and sin (1420-21). The abbot urges him not to act rashly and to remain there, but the young man refuses to consider this and admits that it is a certain impetuous blindness (tumpheit) that will not let him do so. Then we learn that Gregorius intends to act on the most optimistic implication that can possibly be inferred from his ignorance. He may well be noble and thus eligible for knighthood.

The abbot dubs the young man a knight before revealing to him that he is of noble birth. Perhaps this is a flaw in Hartmann's tale. Certainly the abbot puts off this revelation of his nobility and fortune in order to keep him near the monastery. Another result of this delay, however, is that Gregorius, when confronted with the fact of his supposed poverty, twice confidently states that he can make it on his own and men will praise him all the more for it. Full of optimism and self-confidence because of his talents, he is unaware of the irony of his words when he says "ich trage si alle samet hie, / die huobe die mir mîn vater lie." (1695-1969) His inheritance is quite different from what he thinks.

The next step in his passing from ignorance to knowledge comes when the abbot presents him with the tablet and his fortune. In view of the devastating revelation concerning his origin it strikes one a bit odd that Gregorius can react so joyfully to the news of his noble birth, though he does show equal sorrow for the shameful aspects of his origin. Typical of his basic attitude, however, is that the main effect of the tablet is to reaffirm his desires of a knightly life. The shameful side of his origin can be attended to in private. It need not affect his whole life. However, he does feel the necessity of removing the last bit of ignorance concerning his identity and vows to be iemer varnde "'… mir entuo noch gotes gnâde schîn / von wanne ich sî oder wer'" (1804-1805). He claims to want to know the truth about himself. Yet the search is conveniently forgotten once he has achieved his knightly aspirations. Thus, this final ignorance has to be overcome by gotes gnâde working through chance and the curiosity of the servant girl. Gregorius has given up striving to overcome it by his own efforts.

Gregorius shares with all men the duty of finding out the truth about himself, of seeing his nature as it really is. He willingly accepts the discovery of his nobility, but this is only half the truth. Up to and during the confrontation with his wife-mother after she has discovered the tablet, he is still fiercely asserting his noble birth and bids that one not delve any deeper (2587-2588), as he himself has not done. He will neither admit to the world nor draw the consequences from the fact that he was conceived in sin. His blindness to the full truth of his nature and especially his neglecting to overcome the ignorance concerning who he really is are incriminating facts. While the hero's condition cannot be termed a clear case of willful ignorance, neither does it exculpate him. Rather it seems dosest to that gray area of ignorance … as not mitigating the guilt in a substantial way. This explanation is the only one possible if one is to take the narrator seriously when he says of the happily married knight that he " … erkande niht der schulde / diu ûf sîn selbes rücke 1ac, / die er naht unde tac / mit sîner muoter uopte, / dâ mite er got betruopte" (2290-94).

Since the abbot introduces the concept of free will (vrîe wal) into his long debate with Gregorius (1439), we are justified examining how it functions in the story and whether it shows the effects of original sin. Werner Schwarz has devoted a whole article to free will in Gregorius [i.e., "Free Will in Hartmann's Gregorius", Reiträge, 89 (1967-68)]. However, he does not take full advantage of the concept by explaining it in its total theological context. Quoting Augustine, Schwarz sees man's free will committing a sin through an aversio a Deo which is a conversio to a worldly life. This is what Gregorius does in leaving the monastery against the advice of the abbot that whoever leaves the monastic life will lose his soul (1517-25). Gregorius, who is apparently without vows and thus under no clear obligation to stay, counters this argument well saying that it is better to be a gotes ritter than a betrogen klôsterman (1534-35). Certainly the abbot's views must be given considerable weight when one considers who he is and how much space Hartmann reserves for them out of all proportion to the French source. But the question which Schwarz does not clearly answer is why Gregorius in becoming a knight by this very action turns away from God. What in the decision makes it evil? The decision to become a knight in itself does not imply a turning away from God. If the concept of free will is reduced to mean man's ability to choose between two or more possibilities, it does not take us very far in an interpretation unless one can explain why the choice made is an aversio a Deo. Gregorius is not conscious of sinning. How can man freely sin without knowledge that he is doing so? Schwarz answers that the power of the devil is great. But does not such power as a cause for man's sinning cancel free will?

Only if one sees the doctrine of free will in its larger theological context, i.e., imbedded in the Augustinian teachings on original sin, can one answer these objections. If we assume for the moment that Gregorius' decision to become a knight is, for reasons to be subsequently specified, morally wrong and involves him in guilt, then in the view of free will prevalent at the time, grace was not aiding the act of the will and hence the will was not free ad bonum but in its unaided condition is in the state of non posse non peccare and only free ad malum. And if Gregorius is from this point on separated from grace, then any future action he performs, no matter what his intention or how good it may seem, is evil and increases his separation from God. This is exactly the position taken by the abbot:

gestâstû bî der ritterschaft,
sich, sô mêret sich diu kraft
dîner tägelîchen missetât
und enwirt dîn niemer rât.
[1787-1790]

Later this prophecy is fulfilled as Gregorius goes about his knightly tasks and even prays daily that his parents may find God's favor and is quite oblivious of his own ever increasing guilt (2288-94). Thus Gregorius exemplifies well the helpless position of non posse non peccare in which fallen man finds himself.

The underlying assumption of the assertion that Gregorius' will was in the state of non posse non peccare is, of course, that God withheld his grace from his actions even though the hero himself indicates that he acts with God in mind (durch got und durch êre, 2070) in his knightly activities. If, as Schwarz maintains, Gregorius' leaving the monastery was an aversio a Deo, it must be shown why this is so, since Gregorius was under no obligation to remain. And if no action of the hero is wrong in itself, then we must look for an attitude in the hero which would hinder God in bestowing his grace.

To discover this false attitude we can best return to the theme of ignorance which permeates the material Hartmann chose, since the hero's basic disorientation clearly is that he does not know who he is. His mistaken notion of himself and what he can accomplish are spelled out in the long discourse with the abbot. There he shows a strong sense of self-reliance and confidence in his ability to overcome all difficulties through his own inborn qualities and efforts.

'sîtz mir nû sô geziuhet
daz mich diu Saelde vliuhet
und ich niuwan ir gruoz
mit vrümigkeit gedienen muoz,
dêswâr ich kan si wol erjagen,
si enwelle sich mir mê versagen
dan si sich noch versagete
der si ze rehte jagete.
sus sol man si erloufen,
mit kumber saelde koufen.
dâ enzwîvel ich niht an,
wirde ich ein rehte vrumer man
an lîbe und an sinne,
ich engediene wol ir minne.'
[1697-1710]

This, then, is the hero's fundamental mistake concerning who he is. Like the original denier of the fallen nature of man, Pelagius, Gregorius is convinced that saelde can be achieved by human efforts alone. Although he undertakes his chivalric actions durch got as well as durch êre, he is oblivious to the utter necessity of divine help and man's complete dependence on it. He does not recognize that human activity left to itself cannot work for good. Since he is blinded by the ignorance of his fallen nature to the limitations of this same nature, and since this attitude makes cooperation with grace impossible, the only avenue open to divine action is that Gregorius' earlier wish be ironically fulfilled: that gotes gnâde reveal to him who he really is.

Hence it becomes clear why the decision to leave the monastery and become a knight, though not immoral in itself, can in the case of Gregorius be termed an aversio a Deo. Based as it is on a culpable blindness concerning his real nature, it betrays in him an attitude of pride and arrogance. He embarks upon a knightly career with the idea that God will be at best a help as he endeavors to attain saelde through personal talent and effort. Not until he is overwhelmed by the horrible truth about where his own efforts have taken him does he acknowledge what the terrible revelation of his true identity makes unequivocably clear. Man is utterly dependent on God's grace. Any other attitude is pride.

One does not have to search far to discover why such a theme was appropriate to Hartmann's literary surroundings. The hero's idealization of the knightly existence which bursts forth in the dispute with the abbot, his extolling the hero who by great personal prowess overcomes great obstacles to attain saelde is, of course, the universal subject matter of the knightly romance. The hero left to his own resources succeeds in the quest and brings about his own happiness. The basic assumptions of this view of man are what we find being questioned here. Gregorius' life from the time he leaves the monastery until he becomes the ruler in his mother's land is a classic example of the knightly success story. After clearly enunciating the ethical principles governing knightly conduct to be followed in attaining the knightly goal, Gregorius proceeds to put them into practice. After overcoming the oppressor, he marries the lady in distress and becomes ruler of the land. In his own mind and according to the ethos of the courtly romance he has thereby attained saelde. What becomes evident in the discovery of his incestuous marriage is the ambivalence of this term. What is saelde within one frame of reference reveals itself as shame and misery when the total situation becomes clear. Within the framework of the knightly ambit, Gregorius has through his own efforts attained happiness. But the knightly order does not exist in a vacuum. It is dependent on the all-embracing divine order of which it is a mere part. Its system of ethics must not conflict with the universal moral order. In other words, since the knight is a man, the knightly ideal will only prove firm if it is constructed according to the true nature of man. Hartmann here shows that this has not been the case. Man cannot achieve happiness by relying on his own abilities and therefore neither can the knight. Such happiness is only apparent and based on ignorance. The discovery of the true state of affairs shows the true nature of man and what he accomplishes when left to himself. The knight, like all men, must rely totally on God's help in order to attain saelde.

This theme of man's utter dependence on God is stressed in other ways in the story. As in the case of Moses, putting the infant Gregorius out to sea is a gesture of complete trust in God and of admission that his aid is necessary if the child is to be saved. It is an admission of the insufficiency of human effort to handle the situation. God responds to this gesture of submission by taking the infant into his protective care, becoming its amme until it reaches the land which God had chosen (929-38). When Gregorius leaves the monastery as a young knight, he imitates this gesture by leaving the direction of his ship's path to the winds, bidding God to choose the way (1825-36). This time the results of the gesture are ambivalent because the motivation behind it is ambivalent. Because of his concept of knighthood, Gregorius is letting God choose merely the battle ground where he, Gregorius, will prove himself. God does choose where Gregorius' knighthood will bear fruit, but it is only by the unexpected bitterness of the fruit that the young knight is really helped. Finally, by placing himself ûf den stein and by having himself chained so that he is powerless to help himself Gregorius shows that he has comprehended to a heroic degree the necessity of complete submission to and dependence on God. Here, as in the first instance, God responds clearly and confirms the correctness of his attitude unequivocally.

Seeing the hero as fallen man also brings more clearly into focus the function of the tablet as the symbol of his true identity, of who he really is. The basic information it contains is the circumstances of his birth, that he is both noble and stained as the product of sin, and that he should lead his life accordingly. When the abbot first confronts him with the tablet, he reacts by building his knightly future on the news of his nobility and thinks that the shameful side of his background can be dealt with in private as something affecting his life only accidentally. However, when his wife-mother shows him the tablet and thus a second time informs him who he is, the knowledge allows for only one course of action: penance and submission. While the hero is purifying himself ûf dem stein, the tablet was left in the shack where he had spent the night at the fisherman's. Although the shack had shortly thereafter been burned to the ground and the area allowed to grow wild, Gregorius insists that it be found before he leave for Rome. Gregorius' wild and weakened body gives little evidence of the high favor in which he now stands with God. But the tablet proclaiming who he is, when found, shines miraculously resplendent as it was when first fashioned. This moves all who are present to proclaim that Gregorius is truly saelic, a judgment which the narrator shares (3740).

More than one critic has censured the excessive amount of attention given to the question of the hero's guilt in secondary literature, stating that the story intends to focus on the supreme power of God's grace. This is certainly true. And yet the implications of this statement are also important for understanding the story. If Augustine's many writings on God's readiness to help man have earned him the title Doctor Gratiae, it must also be admitted that this emphasis on God's grace in bringing about man's salvation was necessary because of the low estimation in which he held man's ineffectual efforts to work for good. Only in a similar context can the story of Gregorius be considered the story of the all-conquering power of divine grace. It is so because it is also the story of fallen man.