Help for readers unfamiliar with early modern texts

When reading a medieval text or – such as in the case of Spalatin's Chronicle of the Saxons and Thuringians – an early modern text for the first time, one encounters a language that is partly quite familiar and yet in many respects markedly different from present-day German. At once the variety of spellings for one and the same word catches the eye, as does the unusual use of punctuation, which also includes slashes, the so called virgules, and the strikingly frequent doubling of consonants. In order not to efface these and other features of the chronicle’s language, no attempt has been made to regularise the transcription in accordance with contemporary norms. The following remarks are intended instead to facilitate the reading of this sixteenth century text, especially for those with little prior experience of such material.

Many spellings for a single word

Up to the modern period there was no supra regional, binding regulation of spelling comparable to the rules familiar today from the Duden. Sequences of letters, the use of upper and lower case, and the separation or joining of words were certainly guided by convention and habit, particularly in the case of professional scribes such as those responsible for Spalatin’s chronicle, yet these conventions are themselves historical and differ in many respects from current standards. Moreover, medieval and early modern spellings were to a far greater extent than today oriented towards the representation of sounds, that is, towards conveying the originally spoken word through written characters. As a result, a single word may appear with different spellings even within the same text, and dialect features of scribes, exemplar texts, and intended audiences may leave their traces in the written form. Readers must therefore be prepared to encounter numerous variants.

Unfamiliar graphic forms

These variants also affect the sound values associated with individual letters. Whereas in modern German u is always used as a vowel and j always as a consonant, in the chronicle both letters appear interchangeably and may function either as vowels or consonants depending on their position. Other sound values occur in the text for the following letters and letter combinations:

a	can be used for o, e.g. ader instead of oder
ai/ay/aÿ	are frequently used for ei, e.g. in the endings -kait and -hait or in Erbtail and Kaÿserlich
b/p	often alternate, so that Abt stands alongside Apt and parschafft for Barschaft
c/k	likewise alternate, e.g. clar for klar (in the sense of deutlich or offenkundig) or closter for Kloster
d/t	vergolden stands for vergolten, woldenn for wollten, behaldenn for behalten; similarly prant for Brand, gegent for Gegend
e	frequently represents the umlaut of a, e.g. Stetlen for Städtlein, der Almechtige for der Allmächtige, enlich for ähnlich; occasionally it is also used to represent the umlaut of o, e.g. zwelf for zwölf
f	often appears where modern German has v, e.g. Folck (here in the sense of Kriegsvolk, Heerhaufen) for Volk
g/k/ck	alternate in many cases, so that bůrg stands alongside bůrck
i	occasionally appears in unstressed syllables in place of e (obingemelt for oben erwähnt)
-len	corresponds to the diminutive ending -lein
o	is occasionally used conversely for a, e.g. noch for nach
sl-/sw-	at the beginning of a word can be read as schl or schw , e.g. slacht or swester
v/u	are used interchangeably: v may be read as u (vnd for und), and u or ů as v (vnůerborgen for unverborgen)
v/w	likewise alternate, e.g. Wandeslewben alongside Vandeslewbenn
w	may also be read as u, e.g. lewth for Leute, fewer for Feuer, rweth for ruhet, or Pegaw (Pegau)
y/ÿ	are usually used for i, e.g. ÿm for ihm, Eysennach for Eisenach

In addition, double consonants – especially at the end of words – are a frequent feature of Early New High German, as in mangell for Mangel, Romischenn for römischen, Lewtolff for Leutolf or Liudolf, or verlornn for verloren.

Diacritics are also used, that is, small auxiliary signs written above certain letters such as u, y, or o. In some cases they serve to distinguish one letter from another (for instance when u is written with a small ring above it as ů in order to distinguish it more clearly from n), in others they represent early forms of umlaut marks and similar signs. Since in the present transcription these diacritics are not analysed or interpreted but merely recorded, readers are advised as a rule to focus primarily on the base letters themselves.

Frequently used, unfamiliar, or hard-to-recognise words

Even with these guidelines for relating early modern spellings to contemporary forms and thus approaching the possible meaning of a word, some expressions will remain unfamiliar, ambiguous, or difficult to decipher – particularly where their New High German equivalents have a different meaning or where they are inherently polysemous. The following list therefore presents a small selection of such words that occur especially often in the chronicle, together with brief explanations of their meanings. This list is meant solely as an initial aid and is not intended to replace consultation of a dictionary.

an	preposition an, but also ohne ("without")
bleÿde	stone throwing device, sling
důrstikait	boldness, courage (Middle High German türstic-heit; see also turren below)
er	personal pronoun er ("he"), but also comparative eher ("rather, sooner")
flogen, flog	preterite forms of fliehen ("to flee": "fled")
fraÿd	Freude ("joy")
gein	gegen ("towards")
ichts	etwas ("something")
in mitler zeit	inzwischen ("in the meantime")
nach	preposition nach ("after, to"), but also noch ("still, yet")
turren, torsten, důrsten	wagen ("to dare")
vmb	um ("around, about")
vnnd	und ("and")
wider... nach	weder ... noch (“neither ... nor”)

Punctuation

Modern punctuation marks such as the full stop, comma, semicolon, question mark, and colon structure our texts according to fixed rules. In the early modern period no such binding and consistent system of syntactic structuring by means of punctuation existed. Points and virgules (small slanting strokes) were used for this purpose, and more rarely question marks, colons, and brackets. Line breaks, additional spaces within or at the end of a line, and the decorative use of enlarged or calligraphically emphasised initials could likewise signal divisions within the text and between sentences. Punctuation was thus handled differently and, in any case, with greater flexibility, and its use could vary – even within the Chronicle of the Saxons and Thuringians – from one volume to another. For instance, in LBC, Ms. Cas. 9 and 10 together only about sixty virgules occur, whereas LBC, Ms. Cas. 11 contains nearly six hundred, even though this volume offers considerably less text than LBC, Ms. Cas. 10. Since the present transcription cannot undertake a detailed analysis of the functions of the punctuation marks used in the chronicle but merely records them, inexperienced readers are advised to pay close attention to the punctuation as it stands, to experiment with replacing virgules by full stops or commas, and, where appropriate, to supply additional punctuation marks mentally in accordance with sense and syntax.

To conclude, one simple piece of advice may be offered which will in fact help to resolve many difficulties: Read aloud!

Christina Meckelnborg, Anne-Beate Riecke, November 2011
Editorial revision: December 2025