Sumberg, Samuel L.: The Nuremberg Schembart carnival (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941)

14

CHARACTER OF SCHEMBART MSS

members had been leaders in the festival; their names and crests
would then be given due prominence in the chronicle accompany-
ing the drawings.27 A further possibility suggests itself when we
consider the typical arrangement of the MSS: a sequence of texts
with illustrative miniatures. It was a common practice in the Six-
teenth Century to publish pamphlets consisting of a few leaves of
text with an illustrative woodcut. Not only the Flugblatt but even
the works of the poets appeared in this form, for example, the
writings of Hans Sachs and the Psalms of Luther.28 Perhaps this
form was imitated in the first representations of the Schembart-
lauf.
The question of the authorship and dating of the Schembart
MSS is a difficult one. No contemporary pictorial presentation
of the Schembartlauj seems to have been preserved, nor any
notices regarding the scribes and illuminators of the books, which
might shed some light on their origin. This is, however, not
surprising in view of the attitude of the authorities toward masking
in the carnival as a dangerous pastime. As we shall see, certain
drawings of the Schembartlauf made even long after it had ceased,
were destroyed by order of the Nuremberg Council. The scenes of
the Fastnachtspiele have also been preserved in very few illustra-
tions and the authorship of many of the plays is by no means a
settled question.29 The Schembart MSS are particularly reticent
on the subject of their authors, in most cases giving no clue at all.
Some MSS show a patchwork-construction by several hands, the
leaves having been pasted or bound together.30 Initials occur in
some MSS but nothing is revealed by these meagre symbols.31 In
27 In some MSS portraits of representatives of these families have been pasted in;
cf. MSS No. 44: a miniature of a member of the Kress family; No. 45: a triptych
of the Pfinzing family; No. 58: an engraving of Conrad Waldstromer, dated 1666.
28 Cf. K. Schottenloher, Flugblatt und Zeitung (Berlin, 1922), p. 135.
29 Cf. Th. Hampe, Die Entwicklung des Theaterwesens in Nurnberg von der zweiten
Hdlfte des 15. Jahrhunderts bis 1806 (Niirnberg: J. L. Schrag, 1900), pp. goff.;
cited below as "Hampe (Theaterwesen)."
3° Cf. MSS Nos. 2 and 18; MS No. 11 is a MS that has been pasted into MSS
Nos. 8 and 10; some pasting occurs also in MSS Nos. 5, 16, 17, 38, 44, and 56, while
MS No. 59 is entirely the work of a collector or librarian, with the text showing
through openings cut in the new leaves on to which it has been pasted.
31 Cf. MS No. 3, f. 137: 'H WH A" and "Leonh:R”; MS No. 6, f. i8v: "WGW,
f. 45v: "GMS"; MS No. 38, "W/T" on cover; MS No. 51, "MST" on back;
MS No. 60, "WCW" on Ldufer for 1469.