HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

WORLD HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES 171Andreas mentions in his foreword the alveus of papal-imperial history,through which the rivuli run, the “tempora sanctorum et virorumillustrium ac cetera quedam digna memoria”. 46 It appears as ifhe were searching for a new form of historical description. Yet inthe end this disappears in the annalistic scheme with regional historicalemphasis.Comparable to that is the world chronicle of Johannes Rothe, inwhich, however, Thuringian history carries even more weight thanBavarian history did for Andreas. Johannes Rothe proceeded, in contrastto Andreas, from Landesgeschichte to world history and works hispreviously edited Thuringian history into a world history, with whichhe goes back to the history of creation. To that end, he uses Ekkehardof Aura with continuations and Martin of Troppau, among others. 47In the rhymed preface to the world history, he announces that hewishes to write about heathens, Jews, and Christians, partly alsoabout the ruling class of Thuringia, and about “was bebiste, keiserhaben gethan von wunderlichen dyngen” [what kinds of wonderfulthings popes and emperors have done]. The Franks drove the Romansout of this land. Following that, the landgraves of Meißen came. 48The chronicler’s main motivation was probably to place his owncountry in a prized position by placing it within a world-historicalframe.The world chronicle of Gobelinus Person carries the author-giventitle Cosmidromius [The Way of the World] and demonstrates therebythe claim to worldliness. Over and above that, the conception of thework is not completely recognizable today, since the edition of MaxJansen—nearly one hundred years old—is reliable only with respectto the sections on contemporary history. 49 From the previous sections,only spot samplings have been printed, and the record ofsources in the introduction raises questions as well. It seems doubtfulthat—as Jansen believes—authors such as Eusebius, Jerome, FlaviusJosephus, Prosper, and so on were used directly and not via themedium of another large world chronicle. It seems possible that theCosmidromius is indeed a continuation of Martin of Troppau. However,46Andreas von Regensburg, Chronica, ed. Leidinger, 4.47Patze (1968), 95–168, in particular 121 seq.48Johannes Rothe, Thüringische Weltchronik, ed. von Liliencron, 8, 9–10.49Gobelinus Person, Cosmidromius, bis 1418, ed. M. Jansen (Münster, 1900), 1–243.