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WINKELRIED, ARNOLD VON

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 731 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WINKELRIED, See also:ARNOLD VON . The incident with which this name is connected is, after the feat of See also:William Tell, the best known and most popular in the See also:early See also:history of the Swiss See also:Con-federation. We are told how, at a See also:critical moment in the See also:great See also:battle of See also:Sempach, when the Swiss had failed to break the serried ranks of the See also:Austrian knights, a See also:man of See also:Unterwalden, Arnold von Winkelried by name, came to the See also:rescue. Commending his wife and See also:children to the care of his comrades, he rushed towards the Austrians, gathered a number of their spears together against his See also:breast, and See also:fell pierced through and through, having opened a way into the hostile ranks for his See also:fellow-countrymen, though at the See also:price of his own See also:life. But the Tell and Winkelried stories stand in a very different position when looked at in the dry See also:light of history, for, while in the former See also:case imaginary and impossible men (bearing now and then a real See also:historical name) do imaginary and impossible deeds at a very uncertain See also:period, in the latter we have some solid ground to See also:rest on, and Winkelried's See also:act might very well have been performed, though, as yet, the amount of genuine and early See also:evidence in support of it is very far from being sufficient. The history of the Winkelrieds of See also:Stans from 1248 to 1534 has been minutely worked out from the See also:original documents by See also:Hermann von Liebenau, in a See also:paper published in 1854, and reprinted at Aarau in 1862, with much other See also:matter, in his See also:book, Arnold von Winkelried, See also:seine Zeit and seine That. They were a knightly See also:family when we first hear of them about 1250, though towards the end of the 14th See also:century they seem to have been but See also:simple men without the honours of See also:knighthood, and not always using their prefix " von." Among its members we find an Erni Winkelried acting as a See also:witness to a See also:contract of See also:sale on the 1st of May 1367, while the same man, or perhaps another member of the family, Erni von Winkelried, is See also:plaintiff in a suit at Stans on the 29th of See also:September 1389, and in 1417 is the landamman (or See also:head man) of Unterwalden, being then called Arnold Winkelriet. We have, therefore, a real man named Arnold Winkelried living at Stans about the See also:time of the battle of Sempach. The question is thus narrowed to the points, Was he See also:present at the battle, and did he then perform the See also:deed commonly attributed to him ? This involves a See also:minute investigation of the history of that battle, to ascertain if there are any See also:authentic traces of this incident, or any opportunity for it to have taken See also:place. 1. Evidence of See also:Chronicles.—The earliest known mention of the incident is found in a See also:Zurich See also:chronicle (discovered in 1862 by G. von Wyss), which is a copy, made in 1476, of a chronicle written in or at any See also:rate not earlier than 1438, though it is wanting in the 16th-century transcript of another chronicle written in 1466, which up to 1389 closely agrees with the former.

It appears in the well-known See also:

form, but the See also:hero is stated to be ein getruwer man under den Eidgenozen, no name being given, and it seems clear that his See also:death did not take place at that time. No other mention has been found in any of the numerous Swiss or Austrian chronicles till we come to the book De Helvetiae origine, written in 1538 by See also:Rudolph Gwalther (See also:Zwingli's son-in-See also:law), when the hero is still nameless, being compared to See also:Decius or See also:Codrus, but is said to have been killed by his brave act. Finally, we read the full See also:story in the original draft of See also:Giles See also:Tschudi's chronicle, where the hero is described as " a man of Unterwalden, of the Winkelried family," this being See also:expanded in the final recension of the chronicle (1564) into " a man of Unterwalden, Arnold von Winckelried by name, a brave See also:knight," while he is entered (in the same book, on the authority of the " Anniversary Book " of Stans, now lost) on the See also:list of those who fell at Sempach at the head of the Nidwalden (or Stans) men as " Herr Arnold von Winckelriet, See also:Ritter," this being in the first draft " Arnold Winckelriet." 2. See also:Ballads.—T here are several See also:war songs on the battle of Sempach which have come down to us, but in one only is there mention of Winkelried and his deed. This is a See also:long ballad of 67 four-See also:line stanzas, See also:part of which (including the Winkelried See also:section) is found in the additions made between 1531 and 1545 to Etterlin's chronicle by H. Berlinger of See also:Basel, and the whole in See also:Werner See also:Steiner's chronicle (written 1532). It is agreed on all sides that the last See also:stanza, attributing the authorship to Halbsuter of See also:Lucerne, " as he came back from the battle," is a very See also:late addition. Many authorities regard it as made up of three distinct songs (one of which refers to the battle and Winkelried), possibly put together by the younger Halbsuter (See also:citizen of Lucerne in 1435, died between 1470 and 1480), though others contend that the Sempach-Winkelried section bears clear traces of having been composed after the See also:Reformation began, that is, about 1520 or 1530. Some See also:recent discoveries have proved that certain statements in the See also:song usually regarded as anachronisms are quite accurate; but no nearer approach has been made towards fixing its exact date, or that of any of the three bits into which it has been cut up. In this song the story appears in its full-blown shape, the name of Winckelriet being given. 3. Lists of those who fell at Sempach.—We find in the " Anniversary Book " of Emmetten in Unterwalden (See also:drawn up in 1560) the name of " der Winkelriedt " at the head of the Nidwalden men; and in a book by Horolanus, a pastor at Lucerne (about 1563), that of " Erni Winckelried " occurs some way down the list of Unterwalden men.

4. Pictures and Drawings.—In the MS. of the chronicle of See also:

Die-bold Schilling of See also:Bern (c. 148o) there is in the picture of the battle of Sempach a See also:warrior pierced with spears falling to the ground, which may possibly be meant for Winkelried; while in that of Diebold Schilling of Lucerne (1511), though in the See also:text no allusion is made to any such incident, there is a similar picture of a man who has accomplished Winkelried's feat, but he is dressed in the See also:colours of Lucerne. Then there is an See also:engraving in See also:Stumpf's chronicle (1548), and, finally, the celebrated one by Hans See also:Rudolf See also:Manuel (1551), which follows the chronicle of 1476 rather than the ballad. The story' seems to have been first questioned about 185o by See also:Moritz von Stiirler of Bern, but the public discussion of the subject originated with a lecture by O. Lorenz on See also:Leopold III. and die Schweizer Bunde, which he delivered in See also:Vienna on See also:March 21, 1860. This began the lively paper war humorously called " the second war of Sempach," in which the Swiss (with but rare exceptions) maintained the historical See also:character of the feat against various foreigners —Austrians and others. Most of the arguments against the genuineness of the story have been already more or less directly Indicated. (1) There is the See also:total silence of all the old Swiss and Austrian chroniclers until 1538, with the solitary exception of the Zurich chronicle of 1476 (and this while they nearly all describe the battle in more or less detail). The See also:tale, as told in the 1476 chronicle, is clearly an See also:interpolation, for it comes immediately after a distinct statement that " See also:God had helped the Confederates, and that with great labour they had defeated the knights and See also:Duke Leopold," while the passage immediately following joins on to the former quite naturally if we strike out the See also:episode of the " true man," who is not even called Winkelried. (2) The date of the ballad is extremely uncertain, but cannot be placed earlier than at least 6o or 70 years after the battle, possibly 130 or 140, so that its claims to he regarded as embodying an oral contemporary tradition are of the slightest. (3) Similar feats have been frequently rec .rded, but in each case they are supported by authentic evidence v'nich is lacking in this case.

Five cases at least are known: a follower of the See also:

count of Hapsburg, in a skirmish with the Bernese in 1271; Stulinger of Ratisbon (See also:Regensburg) in 1332, in the war of the count of Kyburg against the men of Bern and Solothurn; See also:Conrad Royt of Lucerne, at See also:Nancy in 1477; See also:Henri Wolleben, at Frastanz in 1499, in the course of the Swabian War; and a man at the battle of Kappel in 1531. (4) It is argued that the course of the battle was such that there was little or no See also:chance of such an act being performed, or, if performed, of having turned the See also:day. This See also:argument rests on the careful critical narrative of the fight constructed by Herr Kleissner and Herr See also:Hartmann from the contemporary accounts which have come down to us, in which the See also:pride of the knights, their heavy See also:armour, the See also:heat of the See also:July See also:sun, the panic which befell a sudden part of the Austrian See also:army, added to the valour of the Swiss, fully explain the See also:complete rout. Herr Hartmann, too, points out that, even if the knights (on See also:foot) had been ranged in serried ranks, there must have been sufficient space See also:left between them to allow them to move their arms, and therefore that no man, however gigantic he might have been, could have seized hold of more than See also:half a dozen spears at once. Herr K. Burkli (Der wahre Winkelried,—die Taktik der See also:alten Urschweizer, Zurich, 1886) has put forth a theory of the battle which is, he allows, ,opposed to all See also:modern accounts, but entirely agrees, he strongly maintains, with the contemporary authorities. According to this the fight was not a pitched battle but a surprise, the Austrians not having had time to form up into ranks. Assuming this, and rejecting the evidence of the 1476 chronicle as an interpolation and full of mistakes, and that of the song as not proved to have been in existence before 1531, Herr Burkli comes to the startling conclusion that the See also:phalanx formation of the Austrians, as well as the name and act of Winkelried, have been transferred to Sempach from the fight of Bicocca, near See also:Milan (See also:April 27, 1522), where a real See also:leader of the Swiss mercenaries in the pay of See also:France, Arnold Winkelried,really met his death in very much the way that his namesake perished according to the story. Herr Bfirkli confines his See also:criticism to the first struggle, in which alone mention is made of the See also:driving back of the Swiss, pointing out also that the chronicle of 1476 and other later accounts attribute to the Austrians the manner of attack and the long spears which were the See also:special characteristics of Swiss warriors, and that if Winkelried were a knight (as is asserted by Tschudi) he would have been clad in a coat of See also:mail, or at least had a breastplate, neither of which could have been pierced by hostile lances. Whatever may be thought of this daring theory, it seems clear that, while there is some doubt as to whether such an act as Winkelried's was possible at Sempach, taking into See also:account the known details of the. battle, there can be none as to the utter lack of any early and trustworthy evidence in support of his having performed that act in that battle. It is quite conceivable that such evidence may later come to light; for the present it is wanting. (W.

A. B.

End of Article: WINKELRIED, ARNOLD VON

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