Communication, Community, Compromise, and Compassion: Fundamental Lessons from Late Medieval German Literature

Abstract For many people, the Middle Ages were a ‘dark age’ we have fortunately left behind. Of course, today, we live under much better material conditions, at least in the Western world, but this does not mean at all that the insights and perspectives by medieval authors might be irrelevant for us today. Contrary to foolish mythical thinking about the past, we can often realize how much pre-modern thinkers had developed deep insights into the human psyche, social conditions, individual shortcomings and failures, and had also outlined significant strategies for coping in a complex society where many groups and individuals struggled against each other. In fact, as this article will indicate, by way of drawing from a list of seven key C-words (communication, community, compromise, etc.), we can explore medieval literature more deeply and extract from it timeless messages of great relevance for us today. This will be illustrated by way of examining some of the verse narratives by the late medieval German poet Heinrich Kaufringer in which we can discover powerful insights into fundamental conflicts people have always suffered from and how to come to terms with them.